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The Barbell Guide to Mentorship — A Game-Changing Strategy for Creative Leaders & Innovators #351
28 Mar 2025
00:05:34
The Barbell Guide to Mentorship — A Game-Changing Strategy for Creative Leaders & Innovators #351
In this episode of the SuperCreativity Podcast, global keynote speaker and creativity expert James Taylor shares a powerful new framework for mentoring in the modern workplace.
Titled “The Barbell Guide to Creative Mentoring,” James explores how true innovation doesn’t just come from learning from those ahead of us—but also from those just starting out. Drawing inspiration from a recent keynote he delivered in Dubai to tech leaders at duTech, he unpacks how combining traditional mentors with reverse mentors can unlock fresh thinking, challenge assumptions, and supercharge creative problem-solving.
Whether you’re a leader, innovator, or someone passionate about personal growth, this episode offers a game-changing approach to building mentorship relationships that spark real transformation.
Tune in now and ask yourself: Are you balancing your barbell?
🎙️ Top 5 Soundbites:
1. “Most people look for mentors ahead of them—but the real creative breakthroughs often come from those just starting out.”
2. “To find balance in mentoring, you need weight on both sides of the barbell: one from experience, and one from fresh perspective.”
3. “Reverse mentoring isn’t about giving—it’s about receiving insights that challenge your assumptions and spark innovation.”
4. “Their questions may seem naïve—but sometimes it’s the simplest question that unlocks the biggest shift in your thinking.”
5. “If you want to future-proof your creativity, listen to someone who hasn’t been conditioned by how things have always been done.”
Mentorship is a two-way street. True creative growth comes from having both a traditional mentor and a reverse mentor—someone younger or less experienced who brings a fresh lens to your thinking.
Reverse mentoring sparks innovation. Younger voices challenge your assumptions, expose blind spots, and help you stay ahead of change by offering unfiltered, unconventional ideas.
Creative insights can come from anywhere. Some of the most valuable lessons don’t come from the top, but from those just entering the game—people who see possibilities without limitations.
Leadership is about balance. Great leaders develop talent below them while staying open to being challenged by those same individuals. That’s where growth happens.
Action fuels transformation. James challenges listeners to set up a 30-minute reverse mentoring session—and to capture one insight that shifts their perspective. That small step can lead to big creative leaps.
In his upcoming book, James Taylor delves into the transformative concept of SuperCreativity™—the art of amplifying your creative potential through collaboration with both humans and machines. Drawing from his experiences speaking in over 30 countries, James combines compelling stories, case studies, and practical strategies to help readers unlock innovation and harness the power of AI-driven tools. This book is a must-read for anyone looking to elevate their creativity and thrive in the modern age of human-machine collaboration.
James Taylor is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, often booked months or even years in advance due to his exceptional expertise. Given his limited availability, it’s crucial to contact him early if you’re interested in securing a date or learning how he can enhance your event. Reach out to James Taylor now for an opportunity to bring his unique insights to your conference or team.
Free 3-Part Video Training Series On How To Unlock Your Creative Potential, Break Down Creative Blocks, and Unleash Your Creative Genius FREE training video shows you how to unlock your creative potential in 5 simple steps. The world’s top creative individuals and organizations use these exact strategies.
Hi, it’s James Taylor here, and welcome to another episode of the SuperCreativity Podcast. Now, last month, I had the incredible opportunity to deliver a keynote in Dubai for duTech, a company at the forefront of Hyperscale Data Centers, Cybersecurity, IoT, and Cloud services. As I spoke to their leaders about the future of innovation, one concept that really resonated with them was the power of mentorship—not just as a way to develop talent but as a driver of creative thinking and problem-solving in organizations.
And today, I want to share that idea with you. It’s something I call ‘The Barbell Guide to Creative Mentoring.’ And it could just change the way you think about mentorship forever.
If you’ve ever lifted a barbell in the gym, you’ll know that to create balance, you need weight on both sides. And that’s exactly how I think about mentorship. Most leaders understand the value of having a mentor—someone older, more experienced, someone who’s been where they are now and can offer guidance when they face those career-defining decisions. This mentor acts like a sounding board, helping you navigate challenges with the wisdom that only experience can provide. They’ve been in the trenches, they’ve made the mistakes, and they can help you avoid the pitfalls.
But here’s where many people stop. They focus only on having that one mentor who’s ahead of them, but they forget the other side of the barbell. And that’s where things get interesting.
Why You Need a ‘Reverse Mentor’ Confucius once said, “Respect those younger than yourself.” And I think he was onto something. If you really want to supercharge your creativity and stay ahead of the curve, you also need to have a mentee—but not just any mentee. You need someone younger or less experienced than you, someone who sees the world through fresh eyes and isn’t tied down by ‘how things have always been done.’
At first, it might feel like you’re mentoring them, passing on your knowledge, guiding them in their career. But here’s the secret: in the process, they start mentoring you. Their questions—sometimes naïve, sometimes surprising—can challenge your assumptions, expose your blind spots, and help you see opportunities you might have otherwise missed. They bring fresh perspectives, energy, and ideas that can shake up your thinking in the best possible way.
I’ve personally experienced this time and again. Some of the best insights I’ve gained in my career have come not from the seasoned experts but from those just starting out. Their curiosity and willingness to question ‘the way things are’ help me stay sharp and innovative.
The Reverse Mentor Challenge So, here’s my challenge for you:
Identify someone younger or less experienced in your industry or organization. This could be a junior colleague, a recent graduate, or even someone outside your usual network.
Set up a 30-minute conversation, but instead of you giving advice, flip it around. Ask them about their thoughts on your industry, how they see the future, what they think could be done differently.
Capture at least one insight from that conversation that shifts your perspective. And I promise you, there will be one.
Closing Thoughts So, the question I leave you with today is this: Are you balancing your barbell? Do you have a mentor who can offer guidance from experience? And do you have a mentee who challenges your thinking and helps you see the world in a new way?
Great leaders—and great creative thinkers—do both. Because when you have weight on both sides of the barbell, that’s when you find balance. And that’s when the real innovation happens.
If you take on this challenge, I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a message on LinkedIn or tag me on social media with your biggest insight. Let’s build more creative pairs and drive innovation together.
Until next time, keep learning, keep creating, and keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
Is AI Headed for a Catastrophic “Chernobyl Moment”?
In this video, we explore one of the most urgent questions of our time: Will AI have its own catastrophic failure—an event so disruptive that it reshapes society overnight?
Drawing parallels between the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, this video breaks down the warning signs of unchecked AI development, the potential for large-scale failures, and the critical steps needed to prevent disaster.
From autonomous warfare and financial meltdowns to deepfake-driven misinformation, we’ll dive into the risks—and more importantly, the solutions—that can help us build AI responsibly.
🚀 Will AI lead to disaster, or can we harness its power for good? Watch now, engage in the conversation, and let’s shape the future of AI together.
🎙️ Top 5 Soundbites:
1️⃣ “Will AI have its own Chernobyl moment? A single flaw, an unchecked system—one mistake that changes everything.”
2️⃣ “History has shown us: when technology evolves faster than our ability to control it, disaster isn’t just possible… it’s inevitable.”
3️⃣ “AI doesn’t ask ‘should we?’ It only asks ‘can we?’ And that’s where the real danger lies.”
AI’s “Chernobyl Moment” is a Real Risk – Just like Chernobyl was a failure of human oversight, AI’s rapid advancement without proper regulation could lead to catastrophic consequences.
AI is Already Showing Warning Signs – From job displacement and misinformation to financial crashes and autonomous weapons, AI is proving that unchecked growth comes with serious risks.
AI Lacks Ethics—Humans Must Provide Them – AI doesn’t distinguish between right and wrong; it only follows its programming. Ethical guidelines and human oversight are crucial to ensuring it benefits society.
The Future of AI is Not Just About Risk, But Opportunity – AI is already transforming healthcare, sustainability, and creativity. If we guide its development responsibly, it can be one of the greatest tools for progress.
Regulation, Transparency, and Human Control Are Non-Negotiable – To prevent AI’s “Chernobyl moment,” we need clear regulations, ethical guardrails, and human decision-making at critical points. The time to act is now.
In his upcoming book, James Taylor delves into the transformative concept of SuperCreativity™—the art of amplifying your creative potential through collaboration with both humans and machines. Drawing from his experiences speaking in over 30 countries, James combines compelling stories, case studies, and practical strategies to help readers unlock innovation and harness the power of AI-driven tools. This book is a must-read for anyone looking to elevate their creativity and thrive in the modern age of human-machine collaboration.
James Taylor is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, often booked months or even years in advance due to his exceptional expertise. Given his limited availability, it’s crucial to contact him early if you’re interested in securing a date or learning how he can enhance your event. Reach out to James Taylor now for an opportunity to bring his unique insights to your conference or team.
Free 3-Part Video Training Series On How To Unlock Your Creative Potential, Break Down Creative Blocks, and Unleash Your Creative Genius FREE training video shows you how to unlock your creative potential in 5 simple steps. The world’s top creative individuals and organizations use these exact strategies.
A single mistake at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant triggered an explosion that changed the world.
Today, we’re on the brink of another technological revolution—Artificial Intelligence. AI is already transforming industries, solving complex problems, and unlocking human potential like never before.
But here’s the question no one wants to ask:
🚨 Will AI have its own Chernobyl moment? 🚨
Will a single error, an unforeseen flaw, or an unchecked system cause a disaster so big that it reshapes society overnight?
Because history has shown us—when technology evolves faster than our ability to control it, disaster isn’t just possible… it’s inevitable.
In December 2021 I stood in the ghost town of Pripyat, Ukraine. Just the day before, I had delivered a keynote in Kyiv on AI and innovation. But there, walking through abandoned hospitals and empty apartments, I was reminded of a simple truth:
Chernobyl wasn’t just a failure of technology—it was a failure of human oversight, flawed design, and blind optimism.
And right now, we’re making the same mistakes with AI.
AI is advancing at an insane speed. Here’s what’s already happening:
⚠️ AI could replace 300 million jobs – Goldman Sachs. ⚠️ AI misinformation spreads 10X faster than real news – MIT. ⚠️ AI-driven trading has already caused billion-dollar crashes – One faulty algorithm wiped out $440 million in 45 minutes.
And these are just the warning shots.
Let’s talk worst-case scenarios. What does an AI catastrophe actually look like?
💥 Autonomous Warfare – AI drones making their own kill decisions. No human oversight. No off switch. 💥 Financial Meltdown – AI-powered trading triggers a stock market crash within minutes, outpacing human intervention. 💥 Total Information Collapse – Deepfake videos and AI-generated propaganda make it impossible to tell fact from fiction.
And the scariest part? AI doesn’t have ethics. It doesn’t ask “should we?” It only asks “can we?”
And yet… I am more excited about AI than ever before.
Because AI isn’t just about risk—it’s about opportunity.
🚀 AI is already accelerating medical breakthroughs, diagnosing diseases faster than human doctors. 🚀 AI is transforming sustainability, helping us tackle climate change with smarter energy solutions. 🚀 AI is enhancing human creativity, composing music, writing scripts, and unlocking new ways of thinking.
AI has the potential to make the world a better, brighter place—but only if we build it responsibly.
So, what do we do to keep AI from going off the rails?
✅ We need transparency. No more black-box AI making decisions we don’t understand. ✅ We need ethical guardrails. Just like nuclear treaties, we need AI regulations that prevent dangerous developments. ✅ We need human oversight. AI should never be in full control of life-and-death decisions.
Standing in Chernobyl, I saw firsthand what happens when we ignore the risks of powerful technology.
But AI doesn’t have to have its Chernobyl moment.
If we act now—if we stay curious, creative, and critical—AI can become the greatest tool for human progress we’ve ever created.
🚀 What do you think? Will AI lead to disaster, or will we use it to build a better future? Drop a comment below, let’s talk. And if this video made you think, hit like and subscribe—because the AI conversation is just getting started.
Sam Dixon of Womble Bond Dickinson, The Evolving Role of Lawyers in the AI Era #341
25 Jun 2024
00:33:01
Sam Dixon of Womble Bond Dickinson, The Evolving Role of Lawyers in the AI Era #341
Summary
Sam Dixon, Chief Innovation Officer of law firm Womble Bond Dickinson, discusses the role of AI in the legal profession and the challenges of driving innovation in a traditional industry. He shares his journey from online retail to law and how he became involved in innovation. Dixon explains the different applications of AI in the legal sector, such as document automation and machine learning for document review. He also discusses the buy vs. build argument and the potential impact of AI on pricing and billing in law firms. Dixon emphasizes the importance of developing social intelligence and complex problem-solving skills to remain relevant in the evolving legal landscape.
Sound Bites
“Generative AI is able to do a lot of that work without the need for lots and lots of examples.”
“The key for me is creating that culture of innovation where it is part of the conversation and where people are enabled to suggest ideas and implement ideas.”
“I don’t think lawyers need to be coders. I mean, query in the modern world of low and no code, how much coders need to be coders?”
Generative AI is a major focus in the legal profession, with applications in document automation and machine learning for document review.
Law firms need to strike a balance between buying and building AI tools, leveraging existing software and integrating different systems.
The role of lawyers is evolving, and skills such as social intelligence and complex problem-solving are becoming increasingly important.
The pricing and billing models in law firms may need to adapt to incorporate the use of AI tools and technologies.
Creating a culture of innovation is crucial in law firms, where traditional mindsets and billable hours can hinder progress.
Sam is the Chief Innovation Officer of law firm Womble Bond Dickinson in the UK. He is also a practising lawyer in the firm’s restructuring team. His innovation journey started in online retail in the early 2000s and led him to law via a brief detour through the world of DJing.
Sam specializes in advising various stakeholders in relation to distressed businesses, charities and providers of public services; especially in scenarios with a continuity of supply requirement or which involve complex stakeholder management.
He is a qualified insolvency practitioner (non-practising) and has 18 months’ experience in a non-legal banking role within the business support team of a major clearing bank.
He has particular experience in the education, healthcare and charity sectors.
James Taylor is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, often booked months or even years in advance due to his exceptional expertise. Given his limited availability, it’s crucial to contact him early if you’re interested in securing a date or learning how he can enhance your event. Reach out to James Taylor now for an opportunity to bring his unique insights to your conference or team.
Free 3-Part Video Training Series On How To Unlock Your Creative Potential, Break Down Creative Blocks, and Unleash Your Creative Genius FREE training video shows you how to unlock your creative potential in 5 simple steps. The world’s top creative individuals and organizations use these exact strategies.
sam-dixon-the-supercreativity-podcast-with-james-taylor_scp341-sam-dixon-full-video.txt James Taylor (00:08) Sam Dixon is the chief innovation officer of law firm Womble Bond Dickinson in the United Kingdom. He is also a practicing lawyer in the firm’s restructuring team. His innovation journey started in online retail in the early 2000s and has led him to law via a brief detour through the world of DJing. And if you don’t know Womble Bond Dickinson, I’m gonna put my hand up here. They are a client of mine. I’ve spoken to them for a number of times before. I think they have about a thousand.
lawyers in the US and the UK and they cover lots of different areas of business as well. And we’re going to be taking a deep dive into the work that Sam and his team do around innovation, specifically in the legal profession. So Sam, welcome to the SuperCreativity Podcast.
Sam Dixon (00:50) Good afternoon, James. Thank you for having me.
James Taylor (00:52) So share with us just now what’s going on in your world, what currently has your focus at the moment?
Sam Dixon (00:57) Well, I think it would be very difficult to give an answer other than generative AI, to be honest with you. It’s stormed onto the scene. We’re working our way through the hype cycle, of course. And it’s keeping us all very, very busy, both in terms of what we can do right now with it, but also what the future trajectory is going to be and where we might end up.
James Taylor (01:18) And take, how did you get into this role? I mentioned that you’re obviously a practicing partner, you’re a solicitor, you do DJing as well. Tell us how this journey into the current role happened.
Sam Dixon (01:29) Well, I’ve always had a bit of an interest in doing things differently and innovation and in the use of tech. Going back to, you mentioned the online retail at the start of my journey. And essentially for me, that was working in an outdoor equipment retailer in a shop and then ended up taking over their mail order business, turning that into an online retail business in the relatively early days of online retail and doing things like using AdWords and a computer.
a different way to how anyone has used them before. So we were targeting essentially a product comparison approach that no one else was using at the time. And fast forward in, sorry, go on James.
James Taylor (02:07) I think, yeah, I was gonna say the move into the law. So you didn’t come initially from the legal profession then. You kind of, you were starting in e -commerce and retail first, and then you kind of, how did you find your way into the law?
Sam Dixon (02:22) Well, in some respects, in a relatively conventional route, in the bit of online retail, and then I was doing a law degree. Now, being honest with you, whilst I was doing a law degree, I was doing quite a lot of DJing and event promotion, and I didn’t apply for a training contract two years ahead of time in the way that people normally do, because frankly, I thought I was going to be traveling the world DJing. And as I went into my final year, I had a number of offers to work in various parts of the world as a DJ.
But in my final year, we did real legal work. And I ended up dealing with a multiple conspiracy to murder case, so some gangland stuff. And it was fascinating. And at the same time, the firm I’m currently with, which at the time was called Dickinson Dees, prior to a number of mergers, they approached the university I was at and said, do you have anyone who might be interested in starting a training contract in a few months’ time? So I went in and had a chat. And one of the icebreaker questions was, do you know?
tell us something interesting about your week last week. So I explained that I’d DJed for an artist called Chesney Hawkes. It turned out the head of graduate recruitment was a massive Chesney Hawkes fan, and the rest, as they say, is history.
James Taylor (03:37) So you went into, obviously, you started initially in the kind of legal side around criminal law. But my understanding is that one Bond Dickinson is known really for commercial law, and it’s that kind of world. And then you specifically, you focused on the restructuring side of things. So how did you get into that particular part of commercial law?
Sam Dixon (03:58) Absolutely, well as you say it’s a commercial law firm so the criminal side of things was just part of my university experience. As soon as I joined what’s now Umubon Dickinson it was commercial law from the start and I started off as a trainee like all lawyers do and I rotated around a few different seats and being honest I didn’t know an awful lot about restructuring. I didn’t know what to expect but as I was going into my final seat it was in the height of the recession.
And there weren’t necessarily the opportunities in other areas that I would have perhaps liked to have done. And so someone gave me the chance to go and work in the restructuring team. And it turns out it was a really good fit for me. So I qualified into restructuring and insolvency and spent a number of years learning the ropes and really enjoying the restructuring sector, helping to try and save businesses and that kind of thing. But over time, I saw there were a number of things that we were doing in restructuring, which
I think it’s probably fair to describe as a bit boring at times. James form -filling, doing the same precedence again and again that he didn’t necessarily feel was the best way of doing it. There must have been a better way. And that got me to start looking at document automation. Originally using things which with hindsight look like quite archaic technology now and borderline kind of coding. Whereas,
things have evolved and it’s got easier and easier to do. But that first time that I saw a suite of documents that are automated, where in the past it would have taken hours to produce it, to then be able to just go out to answer a few questions and it’s going to tell me what documents I need. And it’s going to produce them all for me with all the associated paperwork. This is just amazing. And it was that that really was the trigger point for me gradually over time becoming more and more involved in our innovation.
efforts across the firm.
James Taylor (05:53) I know with a lot of law firms I’ve worked with in the past, they initially got very excited about RPA, robotic process automation, taking some of those agreements, automating things to a certain extent. We’ve now moved from just doing that into obviously artificial intelligence and machine learning as well. When you’ve seen these technologies start to be applied in the work of law firms, where do you typically see it? Is it in document?
Is it being document management side? Is it looking at risk in relation to contracts? Is it helping lawyers draft agreements or something else?
Sam Dixon (06:31) So I think it depends on the particular technology. But if you’re talking about that document automation side of things, that’s the production of documents very clearly. When you look at machine learning though, that’s usually around something like a document review. So that might be a due diligence exercise. It might be someone wanting to understand their range of contracts, whether it complies with their policies in a particular area. They might be trying to understand the lease portfolio and wanting to extract various bits of information across that portfolio because,
they’ve inherited it from someone else, it perhaps doesn’t have the level of detail and structure that they need. And that original transition machine learning tools worked to a degree to deliver that task. And there has been some success on that front. I think where it gets really interesting is that generative AI is able to do a lot of that work without the need for lots and lots of examples.
and the proactive work to train the particular machine learning tool to look for particular points of interest.
James Taylor (07:41) Now your work obviously around innovation, a lot of law firms struggle around innovation because it’s traditionally the legal industry is one that’s focused on billable hours, your six minute increments or however long it is. And so everyone obviously partners associates very focused on those billable hours and to be able to take a step back and think actually, is there a better way of doing this or a smarter way, a more productive way of doing it? It’s often very difficult when people just focus on those billable hours. How did you…
to change the mindset within a firm, especially with those colleagues of yours who maybe said, we’ve been doing this for years, why do we have to change it?
Sam Dixon (08:20) I think you chose a great word at the start of that, James, which is traditional. And law is a very traditional sector. People have a very traditional mindset. What we’ve tried to do to get people to think a bit more differently and to try out some of this new stuff is, first of all, just to get it on their radar. Because if they don’t know about it, then they haven’t even got the option of trying to do things differently.
So we do things like our International Innovation Week, where we work with our colleagues in the US and where you’ve spoken before, to just tell people stories about innovation, give them that inspiration. It’s about making them want to get involved. And are you going to get absolutely everyone to take a more innovative approach? No, you’re not. With the best will in the world, that’s never going to happen. But you don’t know exactly who is receptive to it and who isn’t.
So the key for me is creating that culture of innovation where it is part of the conversation and where people are enabled to suggest ideas and implement ideas. So, sorry James.
James Taylor (09:30) No, I was just going to say, so take us through like an example of that. Let’s say you’re a partner in the restructuring part of the business and you’ve been doing something for a while and it works, it’s fine. But you’re thinking, listen, maybe I want to try using some of these AI tools and thinking about things in a more innovative way. What does that process look like? Is it lead often led by the partner? Is it led from the innovation lab within it? Is it led by an associate? Is it project managers?
How does it start to come together?
Sam Dixon (10:03) So we take a two tier approach to innovation, James. And what I’m talking about there is our starting point and the first tier of that two tier approach is what we call our self -service toolkit. So we’ve been focusing on trying to sort of leverage that experience across the whole business. So rather than having a team of people centrally who are the ones who innovate, the others.
We try to stay away from that and empower everyone to do differently what they know best, what they’re dealing with day in, day out. So the self -service toolkit is a series of pieces of software with training materials made available in a way which minimizes the need for central approval, be that cost approval or whatever else so that people can pick things up.
take ideas forward with the appropriate approvals from within their own teams so that ideas aren’t being duplicated and so that time isn’t being wasted when it should be applied on something else. But really empowering everyone to be able to take that forward. We do recognize though that some of what people want to do might be a bit more ambitious. And it might require a little bit of coding skill. It might require some admin.
access rights from an IT perspective, which with the best rule in the world, we’re not going to expect our lawyers to have. In my view, I don’t think lawyers need to be coders. I mean, query in the modern world of low and no code, how much coders need to be coders? But lawyers for me certainly don’t need to be. And therefore, we have the second tier, which is the complex automations. And that’s where you’re looking at potentially an end -to -end process.
with a lot of heavy automation in there and probably integrations between multiple different systems.
James Taylor (12:01) So let’s say on that then, let’s say you’re having all folks from different parts of the business say, we’ve got this problem, we think we could use, we would like to use AI to help us on this problem. Someone else sees an opportunity. How do you then kind of sort and sift all that, decide actually this is where we’re going to focus on? Is there strategic kind of pillars that you’re focused around? Will you only do projects where you think it could benefit across the whole firm rather than a particular department in the firm? How do you decide?
Sam Dixon (12:30) Well, I think it depends on what support is needed, James. I mean, the idea of the self -service toolkit is we don’t need to decide. The individual teams, for example, restructuring can say, right, well, we’ve got a sale agreement here, which we think will benefit from being automated. There’s a self -service tool available to let us do that. And we, as a restructuring team, can assess whether or not we want to use our own team resource in order to progress that.
So that’s one side of it, obviously on the complex automation side. There is a need for prioritization. And that’s done on a business case basis, as you probably expect. And so we listen to what teams want. And sometimes teams don’t necessarily know what they want. This is as much about a conversation as it is about anything else. And I’m currently touring all of our UK offices just talking to people.
floorwalking, having conversations around, right, well, what are your pain points? What are you trying to achieve? What is the most boring thing you’re doing, the most frustrating thing you’re doing? And where have you got to work around? Because that’s always a great example of an innovation opportunity is where someone’s currently trying to work around existing systems and processes. So we have those conversations. We then review the business cases and we work out where the best ROI is, frankly. And sometimes,
That’s where there is really well structured workflows that are high volume and it makes a lot of sense to put a lot of structure around that. But other times there might be things which could benefit a very broad part of the firm. And actually someone in one particular team has come up with an idea which is of much, much broader application. And then it’s not around that really well structured work necessarily. It might be.
around a particular aspect of a task or just something that everyone’s doing. Like for example, reviewing agreements in Word. There are aspects of that. One of the tools that we’ve put in the self -service toolkit recently, which has been really, really popular, is, it sounds like the simplest thing in the world, but essentially it’s a sidebar in Word that scans your Word document and it allows you, rather than…
jumping around the document back to definition tables and clause 12 .5 that’s referenced down here, it allows you to just double click on the work, the defined term, or double click on the relevant clause, and it pops up alongside you. So you don’t have that constant context switching and loss of focus. And it turns out that is something that is applicable to a really large part of the work that we do. And it’s saved an awful lot of time and to be frank, has probably improved consistency as well because…
even the best lawyers in the world get tired and sometimes miss things.
James Taylor (15:27) So how do you decide, and this is the thing I’m starting to see with some firms where they’re saying they’ve been using a lot of off the shelf products from different providers. Some that focus very much on the legal industry, others that are just more broad like the chat, GPTs of this world, for example. And then there’s those firms that say, actually, we are going to employ our own data scientists. We’re going to build our own models. We’re going to do that work as well, which is obviously more expensive and sometimes is not in the…
the usual field that a law firms would do. Have you made that, have you started coming up against that? Have you started thinking about that decision about, okay, when are we going to have to maybe think about starting to build our own things that will have basically be WombleBone Dickinson creative products?
Sam Dixon (16:12) The buy v build argument is something that’s been going on in the legal sector for a long, long time. And I’m largely still of the mindset that firms that specialize in developing software, be that for legal tech or otherwise, are probably going to win and probably going to produce something better than we can. It’s the old adage of keeping the main thing the main thing, isn’t it? What we do is provide legal services. We don’t develop software.
Where we really have the advantage is in using that software, in integrating different pieces of software together using APIs where that might not have been done previously. And that’s where the edge is. However, I do think there’s a bit of a blurring of the line now between buy and build, because how you’re using some of these tools increasingly starts to look like building rather than buying. So.
I mean, you reference people building their own models. Personally, I think the idea of someone building their own large language model as a law firm is bonkers. The scale that is required and the broad capability that existing models have, it just doesn’t make sense to me for someone to build their own model. But you can go and use Microsoft Azure Studio, OpenAI Studio, to develop your own.
GenAI powered chatbots. And that’s something that we have done. Now is that buy, is that build? We’ve created the system messages, we’ve played around with the p -values, the k -values, the temperature, we’ve put the data set into it. I don’t know whether it’s buy or build in that situation where we bought in a tool and then we’ve used it to build a GenAI chatbot. And frankly, I guess it doesn’t really matter which side of the line that falls in.
And we’ve started relatively simple and there’s an ambition to build out from there. So what we’ve built so far, we’re calling iWomble. And iWomble currently looks over our 70 something policies and procedures and answers plain English questions about them. In line with our AI policy, people still need to verify the answers. They can’t completely rely on what’s provided, but we’ve found, passed over a relatively small data set, what we’ve
built, bought, is really quite accurate. And people are finding it far, far easier to get to the right answers, especially when some questions are answered across multiple policies. And it brings them all together, gives them an answer like if I asked you the question and you knew all of our policies, the kind of answer that you would give together with citations so that people can go and check them. And then that saved a lot of time. And due course, we’ll build that out on a modular basis to look at all sorts of other areas of the business as well.
James Taylor (19:12) If I was a client, one question is going to be coming up in my head just now. Okay, when I get my bill and I have partner X, 20 hours, a junior associate X amount of hours, paralegal X amount of hours, where does the AI, where does AI Womble AI, AI Womble live in that? Are you going to bill that as a separate kind of product service within it, or are you just seeing this as something that just helps augment the…
the folks that actually already work in your firm.
Sam Dixon (19:45) I think it’s still quite fluid at the moment, to be honest with you, James. I think the whole sector is trying to work out how generative AI is going to impact pricing. For me, currently, it’s a question of looking at things on a case -by -case basis. We are still, I believe, at a relatively early stage in gen AI being applied to law. So there are a number of major vendors who are building gen AI solutions onto existing products. And the roadmap for those is sort of
during the course of this year. So a lot of the legal specific benefit is still to be realized. When you look at something like iWamble, for example, those questions around policies and procedures, clients are benefiting there because some of those policy questions will be around how a particular process works. And we’re making sure that people get to the right answer quickly. Now, some of that probably wasn’t time that was.
was ever charged to clients in the first place because it’s our own internal policies. Some of it, depending on the nature, might well be. So there’s some savings and efficiencies there which would just be passed on. The more general potential for this around document review and things like that will be discussed on a case -by -case basis. So it might be that clients are given the option, for example. It might be, look, we’ve got this new tool.
We can do it this way, and we can agree a fixed price of x. Or if you prefer, we can do it a different way. And it’ll be charged based on time, but those rates might reflect, for example, the overhead cost of the AI. So there’s different ways of looking at it. Whether we’ll get to a place where there’s a technology charge.
that sits on files alongside time, for example. That might be one route that the industry goes. But I know that when other industries have tried that, there’s been some pushback there. So I think that could be challenging. One thing that could well happen, James, and as I say, this is all really fluid at the moment, it might well be that as with other overheads, essentially, chargeout rates are adjusted.
to reflect the fact that work is being done more efficiently, but there’s a big investment cost in these tools in the first place. So it could be that it’s offset that way, but time will tell.
James Taylor (22:08) Yeah, I was I was thinking we had one of our other guests we’ve had on the the season is Sir David, Professor Sir David Allman, who was the formerly head of GCHQ. And so what with all the intelligence services, one stat he shared was of the public of publicly indexed information is out there, I when you’re on Google or Yahoo, wherever, that is only 0 .3 % of information exists, because most information exists on intranets or
dark web or places that the general public do not have access to as well. And one thing I was wondering there was, were some of these larger clients that you might have where you say, listen, we can maybe do a, almost a quick pro -crop because AI, we need data to train it on. And if there’s some way that we can obviously, it needs to data security and all the things and anonymize and all the things you would normally have, but there’s almost a bit of a competitive advantage there because some of your clients who have large data sets,
large amounts of information going back many, many years, that’s amazing information to train an AI on.
Sam Dixon (23:14) It is, and I’m sure over time we will see more and more licensing style deals to get access to content that isn’t indexed, like the Financial Times announced last week or the week before. I think for a law firm, it’s really, really challenging because you’ve got that duty of confidentiality, you’ve got all the information security requirements, you’ve got all the data protection requirements, and…
Again, I guess it goes back to keeping the main thing, the main thing. To what extent do we want to be distracting from what we do best by having conversations with clients around potentially acquiring their data for a different purpose to how we normally use it, which is essentially what we will be talking about. And I don’t know.
Call me traditional James, call me someone who’s been trained as a lawyer, but it just makes me inherently nervous and I wonder if actually the way that that will progress is for the really big players to approach some of the big multinationals and do licensing deals with them in the same way as they have done with the FT rather than trying to partner with law firms who leverage it.
James Taylor (24:28) Yeah, it’s almost a little bit like the within the UK with the NHS data that’s been anonymized. So and just different companies that have access to that so that they can run models and do, you know, use AI assay models and things to kind of test but individuals information is not necessarily known by that AI. I’m interested, you know, with your your other side of view, which is the DJ, which we’ve come to just now. I mean, the world of music is being
changed so fast just now because of AI, especially generative AI. I was playing with something for an event I’m doing in London later this week, a tool called Suno AI. I don’t know whether you’ve been playing with it at all where you can just write in some ideas for some lyrics, give it the kind of theme that you, the kind of style of music you want to do, and it will do you a track. And it sends this real sounding audio, real sounding vocals, real sounding everything. And it’s great. It’s good for getting a first idea. And some of them are quite funny as well.
Are there any things that you’ve seen within the music space and your background as a DJ where you’re kind of thinking, actually, I’m starting to see this now within the legal profession, perhaps in terms of how the job is changing or how we’re going to have to take a certain approach or a certain position in terms of how we work with AI?
Sam Dixon (25:47) Well, I think there are going to be parallels across lots and lots of different sectors. And I think if you look at how DJing has evolved over time, I started in the CDJ era. So just after vinyl, the early days of CDs being the medium of choice, simply because you could carry more of them. But you were still actually mixing. You were still exercising a degree of skill over time.
And I suspect there’s lots of modern DJs who would be screaming the, their radios right now, but over time, technology and earlier forms of AI have increasingly been able to say, right, well, this is this many beats per minute. That’s that many beats per minute. and what we can do is marry that up and we can line up. So when you, when you drop the one track over the other, actually you’re slightly off in your timing and therefore I’m going to adjust it for you and make it play. So what that’s done over time is level the playing field a bit.
and allow people to, more people to access that particular profession and to perform at a standard that they weren’t previously able to perform. And I suspect that generative AI might have a similar levelling approach for certain bits of legal work going forwards. And the key will then be, well, what skills are the ones that really add the value?
when you get to that place. And for me, when you look at what’s going to be left as AI advances, and who knows when we’ll get to the end game on that. But it’s going to be things like the social intelligence and that complex problem solving in a complicated set of circumstances. And that’s where I think lawyers need to be really focused on developing those skills and making sure they remain relevant. And the other thing is you’ve got to accept
that the world will change and you can’t fight against that. It’s better to be part of that change and to embrace it and to accept that the skills that you needed before are different to the skills that are needed now. I mean, handwriting is a lot less relevant in the role of the modern lawyer than it used to be, James. I think many lawyers would argue with that. So it’s just another step in the evolution.
James Taylor (28:13) guess also, you got a front row seat of this in terms of all those young trainees are coming in young and older trainees, you know, people are going to university later in life. But some of the younger trainees who have come up being that first generation who have been using chat GPT for in their exams, for example, in different ways, they’re now coming into your firm saying, Hey, I was able to use this when I was at university studying for my law degree, why can I not have access to these same tools in a firm? So you’re kind of you’re coming.
You’re going to be coming up against that as well. Quickfire questions as we start to finish up here as well. Is there a quote or a line or statement that you kind of live by that you often kind of is kind of your, is your kind of compass in life in some way?
Sam Dixon (29:06) I’m not sure that there’s any one statement to be honest with you James.
I mean, I was once mocked roundly and I suspect I’m about to be again, but I will do it because it’s the answer to the question, I guess. I was once stopped and interviewed by someone from Radio Lancashire and asked exactly the same question, essentially. And as a 16 -year -old, I said, keep it smooth. That was my response. And I guess as cringe -worthy as that was and as much abuse as I received from…
James Taylor (29:34) Keep it smooth. Keep it smooth.
Sam Dixon (29:43) friends at the time for saying that. I think there is a certain truth in just staying calm and objectively assessing problems in order to properly work out what an innovative solution to that problem is, which is my attempt at a neat segue into your next question.
James Taylor (30:04) And then, so on that, we’ve been talking about just having a sense of perspective on things and assessing in that way as well. Are there any tools that you use or apps that you use you find are very useful in the kind of work that you do? We’ve mentioned obviously the Chat GPT and different Microsoft tools and things. Are there any that you particularly think, I don’t think I can live without this now?
Sam Dixon (30:31) Well, I think it’s probably more use case for one of the tools we’ve touched on rather than anything else. And that is generative AI for me has become a really useful sounding board. It’s essentially a coach for me. So I might draft a new idea, a new element of our strategy, and then say to it, right, act as our managing partner and ask.
what questions would you ask about this documentation? Critique this for me. And I use that on an iterative basis to try and anticipate some of the things that people might ask and some of the challenge that might be put back against a particular idea.
James Taylor (31:12) I use a very similar thing I call virtual masterminds where I’ll put in an idea for a project or a business plan that we have, and then I’ll give it six people that I respect who have very different perspectives on business and things. And I’ll say, okay, find all the flaws on this. And it’s fascinating because you get to see from different perspectives and then we kind of do the human bit, which we kind of triangulate all of that and say, okay, that’s fine. Now that I know how Elon would approach it or how Warren Buffett would approach it.
now I need to think like, okay, how would Sam Dixon approach it? What would we do? What about books? Are there any books that you can recommend to our listeners, maybe around AI or the future in some way?
Sam Dixon (31:56) Well, Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom, I’m sure you’re familiar with it, James, is a fascinating read about AI and about, well, I would guess the potential doomsday scenarios that we might all face. But in approaching those doomsday scenarios, you do get a reasonably good feel for the progression of AI over time and a good grounding in what AI is.
James Taylor (32:24) And if people want to connect with you to learn more about Womble Bond Dickinson, more about the firm, what’s the best place for them to go and do that?
Sam Dixon (32:31) Well, you can find me on LinkedIn or on X, I am at Innovation in Law.
James Taylor (32:38) Sam Dixon, Chief Innovation Officer of Law firm 1 with Womble Bond Dickinson Thank you so much for being a guest on the SuperCreativity Podcast.
Annalisa Parent helps experts and business owners to write, publish and SELL client magnet books to MASSIVELY scale their brands and businesses. She is the founder of Date with the Muse and co-founder of Laurel Elite Books, the later offering full-service publishing. Annalisa writes for many local, national, and international publications and been featured on Huffington Post Live as well CBS, Associated Press and Korean Broadcast Systems. She believes in taking the writing craft seriously without taking herself too seriously, and attempts to heed the wisdom of the ancient Roman poet Horace who said: “Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It’s good to be silly at the right moment.”
James Taylor Interviews Annalisa Parent and they talked about Taking Your Book From Idea To Sold
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey there, it's James Taylor, and I'm delighted to welcome on to the summit today. Annalisa Parent. Annalisa parent helps experts and business owners to write publish and sell client magnet books to massively scale their brands and businesses. She is the founder of date with Muse and co founder of laurel elite books, the latter offering full service publishing. And Lisa writes for many local national and international publications and has been featured on Huffington Post live as well as CBS Associated Press and Korean broadcast systems. She believes in taking the writing craft seriously without taking herself too seriously. And attempts to heat the wisdom of the ancient Roman poet Horace who said mix a little foolishness with your prudence, it's good to be silly at the right moment. What a great thing to live by. So thank you so much for coming on and joining us today. Annalisa.
Annalisa Parent Thank you so much for having me, James. It's a pleasure to be here with you.
James Taylor So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now.
Annalisa Parent Yes, so a lot going on over at Laurel elite books. In addition to helping experts to publish their client magnet books I've been speaking with organizations about clarity in their written communications, so newsletters, internal emails, working a lot around those factors of clarity, and audience, which are really important in writing.
James Taylor So you mentioned that what client magnet books described to be what is it was a client magnet books, how would they differ from any other type of book that someone might be writing.
Annalisa Parent So in my mind, a client magnet book is a book that will start a conversation with your ideal client, so that by the time they're finished with chapter one, they're certainly going to know who you are, what you stand for, and how you can help them to solve their unique problem, what your unique solution is. And certainly by the end of that book, if they're the right fit for what you offer, and how you offer it, that conversation has moved forward exponentially. By the last page, they're ready to get on a call with you talk with you about how you can help them to solve their problem.
James Taylor And you work with lots of different types of writers obviously, a lot of nonfiction writers people are using the books as you say, to bring in potential custom to their business build their brands, I'm wondering is any particular type of book that you find works better for those those client magnet books and we something see the the kind of more storytelling, I'm thinking like the almost like the E myth revisited, where they use kind of like fictional almost like narrative that's kind of going on there. And then you have the more like, here's what to do the ABC of something. And then you have like lots of things in between. What books do you find tend to work best when it comes to writing these very specific more kind of client magnet books,
Annalisa Parent you know, you're talking about different styles and the degree to which story is used. And one of my favorite business gurus out there, although he balks at the term guru, Bob Berg says story sells, and it does, in fact, sell and for those of you who have read any of the books in the go giver series, which he co authors, you know, he's using a parable to get his business message across. And so that's on the far extreme of how we can use story to sell. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we have a really straightforward, informative, sort of our classic non fiction book. I would say that the ideal expert book is going to fall smack dab in the middle of those two things. certainly want to be giving some information, some helpful information. And there will be a story included. And so some people want to because they're good at or they like to fictionalize or create a parable that that is woven throughout, we might see an ideal client make progress through the book, for example. Or, more simply put, we can include anecdotes of people who have gone through our programs, people we've helped who have been successful, to really show what it can look like to start in one place, and, and in another after working with us. So to summarize, it's really a perfect blend of both story and telling to really get that reader engaged. But we're programmed for story that's from a neuroscientific standpoint. So certainly, getting those stories in there is engaging. And it's also helpful for the illustration for the client to see what it is that you do, and how you can do it. And what that can look like,
James Taylor after I mean, I think I just read two books recently, and one with one customer topic, really the one kind of marketing, one book was heavy research driven was written by a very good academic, but the end of it, I felt, I felt, okay, I know this information, but like, what do I do with it, there was no like, no, there's no kind of how to nothing in terms of actionable and, and I felt the book was moved for that. And then the other book I read, use a parable of a guy who was it was almost a little bit of that kind of E myth type of format, where it was a story of a guy who had a bike shop, and he was looking to improve his bike shop. And then there was a cyclist used to come in who was a very successful businessman who always helps it, these are the seven things in your business that you need to focus on. And as I and it was a very good base, and much more simple book, but very well ordered, well structured, well thought out. And, and I think now of the books that I've won, I've suggested more often is that second one is the one that weaves a story in, but there's very strong kind of actionable goals. And and it's easy for me to say to someone, or I've just read this book, and it's about such and such, and it covers such as it was much easier for me to do that one rather than the top of the academic, which I guess goes to your point of having that that blend.
Annalisa Parent Yeah, you know, in the one case, you read a book that was too heavy on theory, you know, putting on my professor hat, I certainly have lived in academia, and I enjoy a good theoretical discussion as much as any other professor. But there's a time and a place for that. And so if we're looking to do something, to implement something, we do need those actionable steps. And showing those to your potential client shows that you know, your stuff, you know how to do this, you know how to solve this problem.
James Taylor Now you work with lots of experts, people who, wherever their field is they've quite all this knowledge, expertise, they may be well known in their particular field, but not known more generally. What was some of the challenges or mistakes that you see them make early on when they then look to take that, all that knowledge or that years of experience from their head, and put it into book forms in order to bring in clients and help build their brand?
Annalisa Parent Yeah, so I would say the top two mistakes that I see are the wrong kind of book, or expecting a book to do too much. So the wrong kind of book, people want a shortcut. And so they create sort of like these quote, collections, or even worse, they throw together all of their blog entries, and none of them really go together. And I've heard that there are people coaching that out there, don't listen to them. It doesn't work. You know, because what you want is a conversation. And, you know, if I hung out with you at the cocktail party, James, and I was like an Abe Lincoln said, and then Ben Franklin said, you would just think that I was weird, and we would not be having a GM season. So that doesn't work to start a conversation. That's really our goal is how do we get them into a conversation. And then the second point is, you know, there may be many, many, many books in you. And people, when they come to their first book, they say, Oh, I know a lot about a and then sometimes I help people be and then there's one time I help person was See, and they think they need to include every single thing that they know, in that one book. And if that feels or sounds overwhelming it is. And so you know, streamlining that information, so that we can connect on one conversation. That makes sense. So if we go back to that cocktail party analogy, if I'm standing next to you with my pinky up in my hand on the stem, and I say, you know, I like basketball, and I like baseball, and sometimes I ski and I like I've given you way too much information. If I just say you know, I went skiing last weekend, well then we can have a conversation about you know, do you ski Do you like skiing, where do you ski all of those things, versus too much information. So finding that perfect topic, and What the chronology will be of what's book one? What's your most important message to be the four rudder? And then how do you follow that up with Book Two, Book Three, and so on. So that you can continue that conversation with potential clients. Because those people who really love you and love book one, are going to be eager for book two.
James Taylor So when you're working with authors, you actually sit down with them, and they have all these ideas, and you actually almost can plan out what their book one, Book Two, Book Three, even if even if you're not completely sure, you know, full details of book two and Book Three, but you've got the big, you know, buckets. So this is what it goes into. I'm wondering, when you've kind of mapped out a little bit of a roadmap for them of a couple of books, so that helps them feel a bit more relaxed. I don't have to put everything in this book one. Coming back to book one, though, how do you start to outline it, you're even on if you just take one of those three things you might be doing? See, okay, this is the thing we're gonna This is the kind of book we're gonna write. How do you start to kind of get your hands around a book, you know how to do to decide what the book is going to do? Who's going to who's going to serve?
Annalisa Parent Absolutely. So I would say that 90% of the people who come to us would say, I'm not a writer, but I want to write a book. So they're not coming from, you know, MFA programs, learning how to write, they might have even hated writing when they were in school. And so our programs are specifically targeted to help those kind of people to answer those kinds of questions. Right? Where do I even start? With all of this? What stories do I include? Because those are really important questions to be asking. So these people are asking all of the right questions. And we're helping them to find the right answers. And one of the ways that we do that James, is to back it up, because some people sort of put the cart before the horse, and they think that they just need a book. But it's not a book. It's a scaling tool. And it can't be a scaling tool, unless we've got a strategy. So I, there are two people who come to me, they either say I've got a book, and I don't know where to start, or I already wrote a book, and it's not selling, what do I do now? So when we start with people at the idea stage, we're taking people not just through how do I write a book? How do I organize my ideas? Those are all important things, of course, but they're more directly tied to the marketing strategy that we're going to implement, so that that message gets into the hands of the people who need it. So we're answering all of those questions at once. Because really, it's the same question, who's the audience for my book is who's the audience for my business? Same avatar? So how are we going to target that person, not only with the book, but how are we going to get that book into that person's hands? What about this book is going to be appealing? So we're backing it up way, even before we're putting words on a page? Because what we're really creating is a strategy, the strategy that is book specific and the strategy that is business specific. And on the Venn diagram, there's a lot of overlap there. But we need a lot of clarity around what we want this book to do for the author. And that's an important question to be asking, as well, when we consider what goes in Book One, what goes in Book Two, what goes in Book Three, we're thinking about the purpose of those books, they might be a slightly different arm of the strategy, in the sense that, you know, you might put out Facebook ads, and you might put out Twitter ads, those are both social media ads, but your targeting might be a little different. And your strategy might be a little different. We need to get into the intricacies of all of those details so that we can put together a solid scaling tool that we call a book.
James Taylor And in that conversation as you start going in identifying the avatar, what the overall strategy is, I'm guessing the conversation comes up relatively early from the author saying, should I be finding a traditional publisher and getting a book deal? Should I be independently publishing with a with an independent publisher or a hybrid model? What, you know, where should I be going? How do you approach that conversation?
Annalisa Parent Absolutely. So that's a question that a lot of people have. And the good news for entrepreneurs, coaches consultants out there is that self publishing or hybrid publishing work really well, in this particular genre? If you told me you wanted to write a mystery novel, that would be a very different conversation, but sales are really good in those two venues. Now, I'm a little biased in this question, because I own and operate a publishing company that takes you from idea to sold so we're publishing that book for our clients. And that's really great that we take them from I have an idea what do I do all the way through, I have a book in my hands and I know how to sell it, because we get the consistency of branding and the consistency of the marketing strategy and the consistency of having a team behind you. So I'm a little biased and thinking that that's the very best way to do it, because that's how I do it. And because a lot of those people that I said those 50% of the people who come to me and say, I wrote a book, but it's not selling are people who just slapped it up on Amazon and expected the world to flock to them, if you build it, they'll come without any strategy to make that happen. So,
James Taylor so it's almost like, it's almost like a continuum there. Like with traditional publishers, at one end, absolutely self published, we just say, Listen, I just write it, I'm just gonna throw it up onto Amazon. And then you've got this, this hybrid somewhere in the middle, which is hopefully taking the best part of traditional publishing, giving, you know, giving you access, and also helping you through that process, almost like in music, and that can ANR process the, the the editing process, but at the same time, it gives you enough speed and flexibility which you might be lacking with a traditional publisher.
Annalisa Parent Absolutely. I think that you hit the nail on the head right there, James. And if I can just send a word of caution out there. I mean, obviously, I think I'm the best solution for that out there. But I recognize that I am not the only publisher out there offering this. So people say well, how do I choose like, what's the best way to choose and my one word of caution is, is this, look for the results that you want for your book. So I work really well with people who want to put a quality message about a quality solution into the hands of their ideal client, and sell actual books for money. So there are a lot of publishers out there. And this like you're going to hear my ire raise, because this infuriates my sensibilities, who promise you an Amazon bestseller. And the way that they do this is they create an arbitrary category, you know, books with orange covers, and suddenly, you've sold two books, and you're the best seller in the books with orange covers category, hooray, but you only sold two books, but you get to call yourself a quote unquote best seller, you only sold two books. So that's not a goal that I think is important. For me, that's like the perfect attendance award that you got in the third grade, it's not getting you anything, what I want from my authors, that is that they actually sell books, not that they sell two books, so they can call themselves a best seller. So that's just a word of caution. Now, there may be some listeners out there who saying no, I really want to have that sticker to put on the front of my book. And that's important to me. And that's, that's fine, but it's not actually selling you any books.
James Taylor So like there's hybrid publishers, then there, then all of the same flavor that they get labeled with hybrid publisher, but that can range from quite hands off styles of publishers to something much more. I mean, the I know, the type of publishing you work with, you're also working a lot on that, that almost like coaching process, there's kind of going on there as well. And obviously, then the editing and, and all the publishing and then helping you think about marketing as well. But at the very first on the on the coaching side of things, I think this actually quite an undervalued piece of it. I think something that you know, you've met you put a lot of energy and a lot of effort with you're ready. So I'd be interested to know, what does it look like to work with a hybrid publisher, like you that does have that coaching piece as part of it?
Annalisa Parent Yeah, so we really walk alongside the author. And so when they're in the writing phase, they're getting weekly support from our writing coaching team. So sometimes that's me, sometimes it's somebody else on the team, especially if they're not writers, they're really going to want that feedback of like, Where do I even start? Or does this make sense? How do I make that work? And let's not overlook the emotional component of that, right? And, you know, we're supposed to be so professional, you know what? Writing makes people cry for lots of different reasons. There's a vulnerability there, there could be a frustration there, there can be a lot of fear in expressing yourself, Will people like it? What if they hate it? What if they love it? Those are all realities of that situation, to say nothing of the fear of putting your message out there in the world for strangers to read. That's kind of a strange phenomenon that a book does. So we're working, not only with entrepreneurs to scale a business, not only with authors to get their message out into the world, but with people to work through what the reality of getting your message out into the world is. And I would say that's a differentiating factor for us. We're not a mill, who's just going to take anybody and turn out a book that doesn't matter what the content is. That's not what we're about at all. We're about quality connections, quality messages and quality books.
James Taylor It's interesting. I was talking to an author recently who she was working on our first book and nonfiction book business as usual. You successful in business. And she said, I'm going to write this book. And I'm not going to put it's not going to be my stories I don't want to be I don't put any meat into, it's just going to be about business and things. And as she was writing it, she was really struggling with it. And then I think the person she was working with or the editor said, you need to be adding yourself in here. You I can't see you in this, but I can't hear you. I can see you in this book. And she started adding those things very reluctantly, first. And then as she was getting feedback, both from the person she was working with it, and also just some support network that she had around her. They were saying, that's the bit that we love. Keep that keep that. And now she's on going doing the book tours, she's doing speaking and everything. And she said, whenever people want to book we said, I love that story that you told when you were 12. And that thing happened. And actually she's talking about a book, which is all about big business. But that's what as you said, going back to your very first point at the beginning of this interview, that's what people remember. They remember stories, parables.
Annalisa Parent Yeah, absolutely. And I completely understand where she started, right? Because it's really scary to share of ourselves. And it feels like we can shortcut it and tell other people's stories. And, you know, I can say from personal experience, James, my most recent book is a business book. It's my expert entrepreneur book. And in your intro, you gave that quote from Horace about being silly at the right times, this book is extraordinary, extraordinarily intellectually geeky, I geek out on writing big time. And I'm pretty dang silly in the book as well. So if you read my Amazon reviews, there are people who love that mix. And there are people that hate that mix. And my opinion on that is, that's okay. There are people out there who aren't going to jive with my vibe. And that's okay, they should work with someone else who's going to really get them and be able to take them where they need to go. But it's doing something magical in that the people who are ideal to work with me are the people who are going to love that book. And that's the part of the conversation that's so important is that authenticity, if I go into the cocktail party pretending to be someone that I'm not, I might have some good conversations, but I'm probably not going to come out with any friends.
James Taylor Now, when you absolutely mean, rings, not just rings true, not just in a book when you read it, and you just, it just it's kind of like flies off the pages things off the page. And I think when you hear it, when a speaker you talk about, you know, going in speaking events as well, I mean, you instantly know, when that speaker is telling something and it's coming from a deeper part is coming from an intro or even like it's a silly story, a funny story. But there's just there's changes, the energy in the room is different. I can't really explain any better than that, really, but you feel it rather than this. This is stuff I've learned from books, I'm maybe regurgitating something here as well, you so you move from then into the I'm interested as you start moving into this kind of editing stage. So you're getting creating all this content. When it comes to the editing, I hear all these different phrases all time at different types of editors. So we hear content editors, developmental editors, structural editors, copy editors. So like, so break it down. For me, when we hear these dividends, what are the different types of editors that you will often deal with as an author.
Annalisa Parent So at the end of the day, regardless of title, you need someone who's going to help you with the content. So content editors, developmental editors, structural editors, all of those fall under that they are slightly different, but they're all dealing with content. And then when you're finished finished, when you're ready to publish, when you're ready to submit, then you need a copy editor. And this is the brilliant person who comes in and make sure that all of your commas are in the right place, and you didn't misspell things, and that your manuscript is just cleaned up. Now let's go back to the content because there are a bunch of different types of editors. So a structural editor is exactly what it sounds like. They're going to help you to work on the structure, a developmental editor and a Content Editor. Those are sometimes used interchangeably and sometimes not. Typically, those editors are helping you to put together the content. So I was meeting with one of our authors this morning, and we were moving around paragraphs from chapter three and putting them into the introduction, because it made more sense there. And then we had to fix some of the transitions to make it work. That's the kind of work that a good content editor should be helping you with. And, you know, just as you know, for making a checklist of good attributes of an editor, I always read the entire draft of a manuscript before I start working with the author because I want to have a full comprehensive view of the entire message before we get started. And that's not true for all editors. So you need to decide if that's an important attribute for you in your editor. And that would be a question to ask if you're looking to hire someone.
James Taylor And I'm thinking, I'm gonna say, No, this is a nonfiction bar, but we see it now a lot more, I love called opens on, especially on speeches, maybe not on books, but there's like TV series I've been watching, like Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad. And they've they've really taken a piece that you would normally see maybe a quarter of the way through the TV show. And they put it right at the start. And your your curiosity is instantly. And I've seen in writers when they use that. And they'll put that story and it's in curiosity. It's and I can imagine from if you're getting a book on Kindle, for example, and you only have that first one, and it comes up to the end said, Would you like to buy this book? Or would you still like to stay on the sample? That's got me hooked, I need to buy a book now. So that's like how the importance of structure and moving things around and and finding it if you've got if you're if the theme that you're you're you're trying to put ahead is going the whole way through. I wonder something you mentioned there was this idea of, of magnet customer magnets or client magnets. In terms of those calls to action, if you let's say if you're a consultant, and one of your books as you want people to come and use your consulting services, would you be looking to put those kind of calls to action vague towards the start of the book, or peppered throughout the book? Or is it something you would leave right until till the end,
Annalisa Parent we pepper them throughout the book. And the reason for that is that fewer than 50% of people read the full book that they've purchased. So my goal in this book is that if I pick up your book, I'm your potential client and I pick it up, I can open to any page of that book, and engage in a conversation with you. That means that every word needs to count. And those calls to action need to come frequently enough that I can engage a reader who opens to page 51, I can engage a reader who takes a look at the index first, right? I want to be optimizing that book because again, technically, it's a book, but it's really a scaling tool. And we want to optimize that, to the extent the fullest extent that we can
James Taylor go to and in terms of tools when you're working with authors, especially first time authors, what tools are you recommending they use in terms of writing and drafting how you communicate with them.
Annalisa Parent So we always work in Google Docs. And I like Google Docs, because there's only ever one draft. So we don't have to worry about version one, version two, that just gets confusing. The other thing that's really nice about Google Docs is that it does have a speech feature. So you can talk to it, and it will type for you. Now, it's not perfect, but it's a good approximation. And then a lot of my authors find and this is really solid neuroscience, they find that they think best when they're moving. So there'll be on the treadmill, and they'll have some kind of recording device, a lot of them use apps on their phones, that record for them. And they might send that to somebody to transcribe or they might get an app that transcribes that for them. But, you know, it may not be the final draft, but it's at least a good approximation of the main ideas that they wanted to say, which is a good starting place for us to fill in the gaps.
James Taylor That's so that's so important. I think that's is undervalued when you have those ideas, and you say there's a lot of science now in terms of movement, and its effect on creativity, coming up with ideas and also colors, you know, certain colors will increase levels of, you know, numbers of creative ideas. But there's having that something with you all times you can capture whether it's Evernote, or whether it's just the voice recorder on your phone, or if you carry a journal, because we have these ideas all the time and it must remember to write that down and it never gets written. suddenly goes comes along. What about a book if you were to recommend one book and not not one of your own books were bought by another author? It could be on the craft of writing or maybe on the marketing or the selling of of your books. What would that book be?
Annalisa Parent Absolutely hands down on writing well by Williams enter
James Taylor on writing Well, that is I've never heard of that one. So I'm deaf. I'm gonna go in.
Annalisa Parent Oh, my goodness, this I use excerpts from this book in all of my workshops. He's, he's brilliant. And one of the things that I really respect about him and unfortunately we lost him about two years ago, but one of the things I really respect about him I think he was up to the sixth or seventh edition of this book because over the decades, he perpetually improved it to increase the clarity to eliminate the jargon, all of the things that he coaches in that book he lived and preached. And he also added chapters to it as we moved into, you know, a more digital world to be applicable to today's world. So I absolutely respect his work. And I love that book.
James Taylor Fantastic. We'll have a link here for that as well. And final kind of question, I'd love to know, cuz we don't really get so much time to talk about your own writing as well. But we'll have some links for that. But I'd be interested, if if you were that person who's starting, I'm gonna imagine it's yourself, you're going to be having to start again. So you've you do have your skills, you have your writing skills, which you didn't have before, you've got the knowledge you've acquired, but you have no platform, no one knows who you are, you know, no one, you're gonna have to restart with your writing, what would you do? How would you restart?
Annalisa Parent I think if I had to restart, I would start with the book first. So one of the stories that I've heard from millionaire entrepreneurs, billionaire entrepreneurs, who I interview on a regular basis to talk about, you know, what's the secret to your success? How did you do it? That book for all of them was a moment where they transitioned into the next level of their business, both from a confidence standpoint, and from a revenue standpoint, there was a huge jump, because the book gives you those opportunities, you're suddenly the expert, you're on the radio, you're invited to speak. And you can say, oh, if you read my book, oh, I talk about that in my book, right. So you're, you're the expert. And I think that, as tools go is one of if not the most powerful tools you can have available for you.
James Taylor That's fascinating. And so I love the idea in terms of just taking a step up. I mean, it is the book's incredible thing. You think how much information and knowledge and legacy you can put into this tiny little thing is, yeah, we're we're very fortunate to, to be in this in this world and be doing this at this time in history as well. If, and we're gonna have a link here to, to a really cool thing you have, which is a consultation that you do with prospective authors, aspiring authors, or new professional authors who are just you said, they've written a book, but it's not really working for them not really scaling form is called a free scaling consultation. And we're going to have a link here to be one, click on that link, go through to that and, and schedule that. Would you tend to when you focus on that converse of that consultation call? What are what are the things that you look to try and do with with the person on that call.
Annalisa Parent So we're looking to get 100% clarity on where these entrepreneurs, coaches and consultants are, where they want to go, and how they can get there? quite simple.
James Taylor And if people want to just reach out to you more generally check out about your your books and things that you have happening at the moment, where's the best place for them to go and do that?
Annalisa Parent Absolutely. So I'm gonna give myself a little shout out here. My most recent book storytelling for pantsers, which is my entrepreneur, expert book just won an award as the best business book of the year from the Colorado independent Publishers Association of solutions, thank you. And also in the humor categories, so it's fun and entertaining. So you can find that on Amazon simply by searching storytelling for Panzers and have it shipped straight to your home or buy it in ebook form. And the audio book is on its way, we'll come out to
James Taylor one four, I'm going to have a link for that as well. And this thank you so much for coming on today. And and helping demystify a lot the parts about the writing process and working with a writing coach and different types of editors. I wish you all the best with the businesses. It goes from strength to strength, and also your next book that you're working on.
Annalisa Parent Thank you so much. James has been a real pleasure to be here today with you and your audience.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
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Ever feel overwhelmed by life? Are you overloaded with all the tasks on your to-do list? Do the waves of new projects and ideas sometimes engulf you? Let’s talk about how to avoid overwhelm.
The writer Paulo Coelho once said that “Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.”
Enjoy access to my free Creativity Blueprint training course where I help you unlock your creative potential, break down creative blocks and unleash your creative genius. Click here to gain access.
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Quick Braindump
Ever feel overwhelmed by life? Are you overloaded with all the tasks on your to-do list? Do the waves of new projects and ideas sometimes engulf you? Let’s talk about how to avoid overwhelm.
The writer Paulo Coelho once said that “Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.”
When it feels like everything is happening at once it is easy to become overwhelmed. A good first step is to do a quick braindump and get everything out of your head onto the page. This helps us see the edges.
However, once you have all your random thoughts, tasks, and projects out of your head and into some physical form you need to decide what they mean to you. For example, let’s imagine some of these random thoughts and tasks related to a project you want to complete.
Some people like to map out all of the steps first in order to be able to see a clear picture of the major milestones, the timeline, and what the finished project must look like. This works very well for non-creative tasks as chances are there is already a template, a roadmap or an established way of doing things.
If that is the case you simply need to ask the question ‘what will success look like at the end’. Then ask yourself, ‘in order for the final project or goal to be achieved, what would be a task I would need to complete just before that?’ And what would be the task before that? Gradually you work your way backward and arrive and the very first step or task you should complete. In a sense, you are creating mental breadcrumbs for yourself.
Paralysis By Analysis
However, not all projects are like this. When it comes to more creative projects or longer-term goals or if you are a more experimental creative then trying to go into this level of granular detail at the start is the worst thing you can do. You’ll often experience paralysis by analysis. You’ll quickly feel overwhelmed.
For example, the experimental artist Mark Rothko once said that “Ideas and plans that existed in the mind at the start were simply the doorways through which one left the world in which they occur”.
For many, a project is not so much about the goal but the journey, to discover something about yourself and the world through the process of a series of small experiments, tasks, and tests. You may have a vague sense of where you want to go but are willing to see where your creativity takes you or what your audience or customers react best to.
If this sounds like the kind of way that you go about projects then highly detailed plans won’t serve you. Instead, I suggest you follow the advice of writer Anne Lamott who said this on how to avoid overwhelm in the process of completing a big creative project like a novel. She said:
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
‘Man’s Search For Meaning’
You don't always have to see where you're going, you don't even have to see your final destination or every little milestone you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet in front of you.
For experimental creatives like Mark Rothko or Anne Lamott or many of my Silicon Valley tech friends they just need to focus on the very next step, brushstroke, paragraph, or sprint.
Sometimes our creative life, and the projects within it, only make any kind of sense at the end. In Viktor Frankl’s wonderful book ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’ he said:
“Consider a movie: it consists of thousands upon thousands of individual pictures, and each of them makes sense and carries a meaning, yet the meaning of the whole film cannot be seen before its last sequence is shown. However, we cannot understand the whole film without having first understood each of its components, each of the individual pictures. Isn’t it the same with life? Doesn’t the final meaning of life, too, reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of death? And doesn’t this final meaning, too, depending on whether or not the potential meaning of every single situation has been actualized to the best of the respective individual’s knowledge and belief?”
You see, to not become overwhelmed requires that we get comfortable with not knowing exactly how the movie or project ends. What is important is that the scene you are in makes sense and you act it well. What is important is that you just need to focus on those next few steps.
Vestigia nulla retrorsum!
So look at the big braindump list that I asked you to do at the start. For each project what must you do today, tomorrow, and this week? And then commit to taking action because there is boldness in action. Everything else on that list you can ignore for now.
And remember, Vestigia nulla retrorsum! (no backward steps).
Creativity Calls For Courage. It requires that we commit to taking that next step forward.
Mark Coker is the CEO of Smashwords, a free ebook publishing and distribution platform and the world's largest distributor of indie ebooks. Smashwords makes it fast, free and easy for authors and publishers to distribute ebooks to the world's largest ebook retailers and library ebook platforms. The Wall Street Journal named Mark as one of the “Eight Stars of Self-Publishing” and it’s my pleasure to welcome him onto the summit today.
James Taylor Interviews Mark Coker and they talked about Self-Publishing Ebooks With Smashwords
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there's James Taylor, and I'm delighted today to welcome Mark Coker. Mark is a CEO of Smashwords, a free ebook publishing and distribution platform and the world's largest distributor of indie ebooks. Smashwords makes it Fast, Free and Easy for authors and publishers to distribute ebooks to the world's largest ebook retailers and library ebook platforms. The Wall Street Journal named Mark is one of the eight stars of self publishing. And it's my great pleasure to welcome him on to the summit today. So welcome, Mark.
Mark Coker Hi, James. Great to be here.
James Taylor So share with everyone what's happening in your world just now what are you working on at the moment,
Mark Coker always too many things at once. Right, right now, as we speak, we're working on a redesign of the Smashwords homepage. So we'll be launching that in the next couple of weeks. Going to make the homepage more reader friendly. So this is
James Taylor I was reading you have a catalogue of near nearly half a million book titles now, as I did with the latest numbers last time I saw it, but take us right back to the very start. How did how did Smashwords begin? Wait, tell us about those first first books that were you could have put out through Smashwords platform?
Mark Coker Well, in some ways, it was an accident. My wife and I wrote a novel together. Title boob tube about 15 years ago now, my wife is a former reporter for a soap opera magazine here in the States. So we wrote a book about the dark underbelly of Hollywood soap operas and the dark underbelly of celebrity and we shopped it to agents were represented by one of the top agencies in New York City. And for two years, they tried to sell the book and couldn't sell it. And it was that experience trying to get a traditional publishing deal that really opened my eyes to what I saw what as some really structural fundamental problems in the publishing industry. And I, with my background in Silicon Valley, I thought, you know, this is a problem that could be solved. With technology. There's an opportunity here to democratize publishing, so that every writer in the world has the freedom to publish a book and have that book judged directly by readers, as opposed to having that book judged by gatekeepers. And so that's what we did in 2008. We launched Smashwords. And our book, boob tube was the third book at Smashwords. We had a couple other books that beat us to the punch. Yeah, and, you know, today, the rest is history. The business grew very rapidly. In 2009, we began distributing our books to major retailers, we were the first to open up Barnes and Noble and at the time, Sony to self published ebooks. And then later, we struck deals with Apple and other retailers. And then in more recent years, over the last five, six years, we've worked really hard to open up major library platforms to self published ebooks. So that's been really exciting.
James Taylor You've really been at that whole that curve as it was going up in terms of the world of the ebooks. I mean, there's no, because you have this blend of coming from the writing side, being an author, and then also but the Silicon Valley side, who were your mentors, as you were building this, this business because you're you're in this interesting intersection of publishing and, and technology?
Mark Coker Well, you know, that's a big question. I've got, you know, over the over the last couple decades that I've been involved in the tech industry, I can name multiple mentors that were inspiring to me, prior to falling into this business. I ran a high technology PR firm. So I was privileged to work with the CEOs and VPS of marketing of some of the most interesting innovative Silicon Valley companies. And many of the technologies that we helped promote and Pioneer during those years. Believe it or not, we're applicable to the E book world. So I was very active. On the PR side, I was the first PR person representing McAfee the big antivirus software company, McAfee was one of the first they were the first shareware company to go public. They gave their software away for free and let people pay for on the honor system. they relied on electronic software distribution to distribute their product to customers rather than putting their product in boxes. And so a lot of those principles from those early McAfee years in the late 90s, were directly applicable to some of the principles that were at the time very revolutionary that I brought to ebook self publishing, because ebooks are software, just like software software, they're just digital bits and bytes. So too many, too many VPS of marketing and CEOs to name as mentors. When I got started with the business when I first launched Smashwords, the very close mentor of mine was Dan Poynter. Dan, I consider the father of self publishing. He's the author of the pointers, self publishing manual, that's been published continuously now for almost 30 years, over 30 years. Unfortunately, Dan passed away a couple of years ago, but he was a real early supporter of us, a mentor of mine, he pulled me aside and was just very supportive opening doors for us, introducing us to conference managers giving us advice. So he was really a dear friend, and mentor
James Taylor of people that don't know about the Smashwords platform. They hadn't used it before describing basically, how does it work? And what are the tools that are in there, that they can help authors and publishers to, to kind of get their books out into the world and to market and sell their books. Sure.
Mark Coker So as you mentioned in the intro, we make it Fast, Free and Easy for any writer anywhere in the world to publish an E book. So you have two options when you come to Smashwords to publish your book. The first is that you can upload your manuscript as a Microsoft Word document, and then we'll take that document in our technology will automatically be automatically converted into multiple ebook formats. So it'll be available for reading on any reading device. And then your second option is to come to us with professionally designed and formatted EPUB file. So e pub is the open industry standard for ebooks that every major retailer except for Amazon uses,
James Taylor so that you mentioned the the dreaded Amazon word. And I know you've been very vocal in terms of their approach, in terms of within, especially with Indies, authors, and indie publishers as well. Which probably explained to you there's a number of things that can coming up in Amazon that started things like KDP Select, whether we've heard of so is, is the world of indies strong? And do you think things are looking good for the Indies when you have obviously space strong, dominant powers in the publishing world, like like, like Amazon,
Mark Coker it's a complicated story, right now. I believe that there's never been a time better but never been a better time to be an author. There's never been a better time to be a self published author. If you compare your opportunities today as a writer to your opportunities 10 years ago, it's night and day difference. Today, you can start writing a book and with 100% assurance, you can know that your book is going to see the light of day and is going to be published and read by customers. Whether you self publish, or traditionally published 10 years ago, there was really only one option, and that was to traditionally publish that method, over 90% of authors books would never see the light of day. So Amazon launched in late 2007, just a couple months before Smashwords launched. Amazon deserves mad kudos for the innovation that they brought to self publishing the support that they've shown self published authors, their ability to grow the E book market as the world's largest online seller of books. So huge kudos to Amazon for that. But there's a dark side to what's been happening. Amazon's business model is entirely dependent upon commoditizing everything that it sells. And it's dependent upon controlling the price to the consumer. And the only way to control the price to the consumer is to control what you pay to the provider of the product to the supplier and in This case the supplier is the author. So Amazon's putting a lot of pressure on authors to lower their prices, and to basically drop their drawers and sell their books for lower costs. That works out great for customers. But it doesn't work out. Always so great for authors because authors unlike manufacturers of mousetraps can't outsource their production to China or to India, you are the producer of your product. And so whenever I see any anyone trying to take pricing control away from the author, I push back against that, because I think you as the author as the the producer of this intellectual property, you have a right to determine how where and when your book is sold, and you have a right to set a price for your product. And what we've seen with Amazon and with especially with KDP, select you mentioned KDP Select and for for listeners who aren't familiar with it. Amazon has two ebook self publishing options. The first is the regular KDP. And I recommend that every author is on KDP because it's the world's largest marketplace for ebooks. But the second option This is an optional option is called KDP. Select which you mentioned. And with KDP Select Amazon requires you to make your book exclusive to them for at least three months. That means you can't sell your book on any other website. You can't even put it on your own personal website. And KDP Select as I warned back in 2011, when it first launched, is toxic to the future of publishing. And it's toxic to the future of author independence. So now we have a situation where over over 1 million ebooks are exclusive to Amazon, these books cannot be purchased at any other retailer. So readers, millions of readers now have over a million read reasons not to shop at any other retailer. And so what we're seeing is that the customer base of other competing retailers, like apple, Barnes and Noble Kobo are slowly being pulled away and shifting into the Amazon ecosystem. That means that Amazon's competitors are getting weaker, they're they're more challenged at achieving profitability, which means their very future is in jeopardy. Now, Apple's never going to go out of business because they have more money than God. But Barnes and Noble, Kobo, two other great ebook retailers that that support the indie author community, both of those retailers are in jeopardy if the current trends continue. And I don't see anything reversing those trends, because most writers are born desperate to reach readers and Amazon has provides access to the world's largest collection of readers. And that would be a great thing, if not for the fact that that Amazon's business model is dependent upon commoditizing your work making your work, undifferentiated and undone differentiate a bowl from another author's work. Now I know a lot of authors think that, you know, my book is my unique creative product. It can't be commoditized because there's no other book like my book. But the fact of the matter is that reading pleasure is commoditized can be commoditized. Because if you look at it in terms of how many hours of reading pleasure, can you get per dollar, or per euro, or per pound, you're going to get a lot more reading pleasure per unit of currency at Amazon with KDP Select, then you're going to get it any other retailer because the other retailers don't have a subscription option. The other retailers pay based on the list price of your book, whereas in KDP Select and Kindle unlimited which is their subscription service which is powered by KDP Select authors are paid out of a pool, they're paid about one half penny per page that's read
James Taylor there's lots of echoes here from myself, I come from the music industry originally. There's lots of echoes here of the things like Spotify, which is what well for some some creatives but probably not great for most creatives and I noticed when I saw that the Kindle unlimited thing I didn't didn't personally go with that I don't know subscriber to kindle because I had these horrible feelings of we're gonna go down the the Spotify route Tiana is is you say it's becoming very commoditized. In that way.
Mark Coker It's a slippery slope. Now there are other subscription models that I'm quite supportive of. For example, script script is probably the second largest provider of subscription ebook services. Script pays authors And publishers based off of the list price. So after a certain percentage of the book is read, it triggers a credit to the author or publisher as a full sale. And I think that's a much more author publisher friendly model. Because if script gives away too many hours of reading pleasure per dollar, then then they go out of business, because the authors and publishers aren't paid well enough. So they're challenged to find that that common intersection between what works for the author publisher what works for the reader, and what works for the subscription service provider, and I think script has found that balance.
James Taylor And one of the things that I know that the KDP Select, you also mentioned is that you can't put it up on your own website, let's say, you know, during that that period of however many months there, I'm guessing, you know, for a lot of our audience here who are nonfiction in business, they're reading business books, or nonfiction books of some sort, then that can sometimes be a little bit of a chat challenge. Because you're one we're also looking to try and build up pre orders as well. So I know you've done a lot of research into the world of pre orders and how pre orders can lead to ongoing success. What have you found when you've been doing research into the world of pre orders?
Mark Coker Sure. So any book pre order is an advanced listing of your book at the major retailers up to 12 months before the book is ready for purchase and reading. So pre orders are one of the most powerful one of the most effective marketing tools and they're also one of the most underutilized tools in the indie community. We've been tracking preorder adoption rates for a few years now, in 2018, this is based on the new Smashwords survey 2018 data, which I haven't released yet on the blog, but I'll release probably in the next couple months, we found that about 17% of new books published by indie authors and publishers originated as any book pre order, yet that small percentage of books that originated as pre orders accounted for the vast majority of sales. But we also dug deeper into the preorder adoption rates across different genres and categories. For example, we found that in romance, which is one of the top indie categories, 29% of the books originated as a pre order yet that 29% of books accounted for fully 75% of all book sales for the for that year, for new books released in that category. On the nonfiction side, for example, if we look at nonfiction, biographies, only 15% of new indie titles in that category originated as pre orders yet that 15% of books accounted for 79% of the sales in that category for the year. So what we're seeing is that ebook, pre orders, books that are released as pre orders are vacuuming up all the sales. And what it means if you step back for indie authors is that if you don't release your book as an E book pre order, you're leaving readers and money on the table.
James Taylor That's fascinating. Did they have that kind of data that supported data to be able to show that is everyone now is in the back of the house thinking okay, I need to get my preorders strategy stopped by MK Dave, I'm much bigger as well. And I also heard, so I
Mark Coker know but basically, what I would say on that count is look at your publishing calendar for the next 12 months. Any book that you plan to release in the next 12 months, get it up on pre order. Now, you don't need a book cover yet, you don't even need the manuscript yet. It's Smashwords, we have a feature called asset list pre orders, these are metadata only pre orders. So you can establish the pre order with as little as just the title of the book, a book description category in a price center release date,
James Taylor and what what and why is it that that those pre orders you mentioned that is such a small number is driving so much the sales? What is going on? Is it the algorithm or what's happening,
Mark Coker there's a number of factors that are driving it, I think the most important factor is that pre orders enable more effective advance book marketing. So most authors are on their blogs, on Facebook, on Instagram, wherever they communicate with their readers, talking about what works in progress. They've got going, what's coming out in the future. And the authors might not even consider what they're doing marketing, but that's marketing. And if you have a pre order link, the pre order hyperlink that you can share with your followers, then you're able to capture that readers interest that you're able to capture that readers order at the moment you have the greatest interest and attention. So that's probably the biggest reason. Another big factor is that the merchandising at the major retailers is Very future focused, what's coming out what's new. And this is especially true at Apple iBooks, which is the world's second largest global seller of books. Apple does the very best job of promoting pre orders. And they have a special algorithm at Apple that you won't find it the other retailers, that Apple, all of those pre orders that you accumulate during the pre order period, credit toward your first days sales rank when your book finally goes on sale. So we've had a number of authors on the day of their release, hit number one at the Apple Store, worldwide, we've had authors go live with thousands of accumulated pre orders. And when you get that kind of boost to your sales rank that makes your book more visible and more desirable to other readers. Because readers use bestseller lists to identify their next read, readers see bestseller lists as the amalgamation of the the wisdom of the masses, because they're related to what other readers are buying.
James Taylor It is a bit of an advantage. And the indie authors have over pup of a traditional published authors and because they they can have they can they they they have more control over their timelines, let's say
Mark Coker yes and no. You know, the, I think the first thing to understand is that the preorder adoption rate among indie authors is abysmally low. I mean, it's just horrible that more than 80% of indie authors aren't releasing their books as pre orders. Yet, if you look at traditional publishers, pre orders have been a recognized best practice for years. So almost every major publisher, major traditional publisher is releasing their books as as a book pre orders. So this is this is an example where the indie authors are a little bit behind the curve. But indie authors with pre orders do have some advantages that the traditional publishers don't have. The best many of the bestsellers that we see at Smashwords are series. And one of the one of the tricks that that indie authors use is to price their first their first book in the series at free.
James Taylor And then use that to hook the reader get the reader invested in the series. And then the reader goes on to purchase all the other books. So if you can combine a free series starter on a series with a series that has a pre order out at the very end, either as Book Two, Book Three, book four, book five, or whatever, then you can drive a lot more readers into your series. And I have been one of those buyers, I have been got hooked on that that first one to free. And it's totally brought me and then bought the second third in the book. So I think that's a and this is kind of goes back to this idea of I guess, being quite strategic in your in your planning and your thinking as an indie as an indie author. I know, we had Joanna pen was interviewed as part of the summit and Joanna said we you know, we need to move from thinking of ourselves as self published authors to independently published authors and have a bit of that, you know, just because you're an indie doesn't mean you have, you can have, you know, really well thought out plans. And really well, you know, well executed plans as well. So that's great. So I love that you're providing all this data available so they can start to you and one of the you have a great podcast, one of the the episodes you did that was the 16 secrets of best selling authors. And, and it was a whole bunch of I liked number one process, which is basically write a good book, which is, is obviously the main one, but actually one of the other ones was the build a platform that you control. And I think that's incredibly important.
Mark Coker Yes, you know, I we've, a lot of authors have learned this lesson the hard way. So just look at Facebook, for example, authors spent thousands of dollars millions of dollars collectively, building up their platforms at Facebook, only to have Facebook, pull the rug out from underneath their feet and start charging authors for access to people who are following them. So a lot of authors saw that as a bait and switch. And so the the people who are following you on Facebook, or who are following you on Twitter or Instagram, you don't actually control access to those people. Those people who want to see every single one of your tweets and posts, they're not going to see your tweets and posts unless you pay money to access them. So I'm a big believer in authors building a platform they control. That means building your own private mailing list, doing everything you can to drive readers into your private mailing list because you control that and then you can control your communications With your readers very important. Great advice there.
James Taylor What about if, when you're working with, with authors, is there any tools that you would recommend any online tools or apps you find particularly useful for writers, especially nonfiction writers,
Mark Coker I don't have any recommendations for apps or tools on the writing side. Most of the most of the books that we see written are written in in a word processor or Microsoft Word. I would say use what works best for you. There are a lot of different writing tools. And you know, they're fine too, if they work for you. But it really depends on your writing style. Are you a plotter or a pantser? And if you're, if you are a meticulous plotter, then I think a lot of these software programs have a lot more value to you.
James Taylor And what about if you were to recommend one book, actually, we spoke, you know that those 16 secrets of best selling authors, and the first one was really about the craft, it'd be of really writing a good book, if there's one book you would recommend, specifically on the craft of writing and being a good author being a great author, hopefully, what would that book be?
Mark Coker You know, I'm a big fan of Stephen King's book on writing. I think that's a great introductory book for anyone who's just getting started considering writing a book, fantastic,
James Taylor wonderful book. And, and I'd like you to kind of put your mind to it, I'm going to put a straight, it's like an unusual question to you, I want you to imagine that tomorrow morning, you have to start from scratch, I'm gonna have you put your author hat on at this stage. So you have no one knows you, you know, no one. But you do have the skills you've acquired as an author of the year. So you're gonna have to completely restart your career as an author, what would you do? How would you restart things,
Mark Coker tapping into my experience in publishing, I would know that good books aren't good enough anymore. And so I would focus relentlessly. You know, after that first draft is written, multiple revisions, more revisions, beta readers, professional editing, there's just no substitute for that. If you're an indie author, and you're preparing to release your first book, and you've got a couple thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket, and you're wondering if you should spend that on editing or marketing, spend it on editing, because your book, the quality of your book, is the best marketing that you'll ever receive. Because books sell based on the the wings of reader word of mouth, it's all about word of mouth. So I would start with a super fabulous book, I would, I would orient my publishing strategy primarily around ebooks. With one exception, if I'm writing nonfiction, I'm a professional speaker. And I have the ability to sell books in the back of the room, that I definitely want to have print books as part of my marketing mix, because I want to sell print books in the back of the room. The next thing on the book side, if I'm just getting started, my author platform hasn't been established, I'm going to price my first books at free. I'll probably look to write series. So I'm going to play I'm going to price the first book in the series at free. And I'm going to get the second book up on pre order. And if there's a third book coming in the next 12 months, I'm gonna get that up on pre order as well. So you use the free book to drive as many readers as possible into the series. And then you start building your platform with with books one, two, and three, as you drive people into the series. Another really important tip, and you saw this on you probably heard this on the smart author podcast on that 16 bestseller secrets episode. A lot of authors make the mistake of ending their book with a period and then nothing after that. When the reader finishes your book, put your put yourself in the readers shoes, they just discovered their new favorite author, they just discovered you they've never read you before they loved your book. They want to read more from you. They want to know more about you they want to connect with you. So add these three sections to the back matter of your book at a section titled connect with the author, put all your social media coordinates there with live hyperlinks, so they can with a click directly start following you directly start subscribing to your private mailing list. The second section about the author. So a short bio to humanize the author doesn't need to be a long CV, just something short, tell the reader something about the author. And then the third section and these sections can appear in any order in the back matter would be other books by this author. So that's a great opportunity to make it really easy for readers to start reading and discovering your other books. If you write series and the reader just finished book one, let them know what Book Two in this series is give them a free sample right directly within the book so you can get them hooked and directly involved into the new series. The next big tip next to the quality of your book, Nothing's more important than the cover. Readers do judge books by the cover. Now, images are a form of communication, but they're a much denser form of communication, you can communicate much more information with images, then you can communicate with words. So again, put yourself in your target readers shoes, understand who your target reader is, who's that target reader who will enjoy your book more than any other reader in the world, that's your target reader. So if you're writing nonfiction about real estate, you're not targeting all real estate investors, you might be targeting a certain subset of real estate investors. So target that subset, and then develop a cover that promises through imagery that your book will satisfy the readers aspirations now that you understand who that reader is, and what they aspire to, from there, what they aspire for in their next reading experience. So those are a few tips to get you started. Fantastic,
James Taylor great list of tips there. So Mark, thank you so much for sharing those. And we're going to have a link here to the smart author podcast because it's a great series of, of podcast these, I think I just started on, there was one you were doing all that pre orders, you've got one just about talking about pre orders as well. So we'll have that link to the smart author podcast. We're also going to have a link here to Smashwords itself so people can go in there, get your account set up and start with start working on that as well. And if people want to reach out directly to you mark up or to follow you and learn more about the other things that you're involved in, where's the best place to go and do that?
Mark Coker Well, you can follow me on Twitter, at Mark Coker, Ma, rk c Okay, er, you can follow me on Facebook, also mark Coker, or you can send me an email. My email is mc@smashwords.com. I look forward to hearing from people.
James Taylor Well, Mark, thank you so much for your time today and sharing some absolute brilliant bits of knowledge and insights all backed backed up by data and surveys. I know you've been doing as well. And I wish you all the best when we as as Smashwords goes from strength to strength. So thanks so much for coming on today.
Mark Coker Thank you, James. My pleasure.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
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What’s the difference between creative thinking vs critical thinking?
You can think of them as complementary skills which you use as different stages when trying to solve a problem or forming a judgment about something.
Critical thinking is the ability to clearly and logically consider information that is presented to us.
Creative thinking is about generating new, novel, or useful ideas.
The great innovators combine critical thinking and creative thinking. Old world perspectives with new world ideas.
Let’s look at how these different ways of thinking can connect with each other.
Enjoy access to my free Creativity Blueprint training course where I help you unlock your creative potential, break down creative blocks and unleash your creative genius. Click here to gain access.
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Critical Thinking
Socratic method
Let’s imagine I want to create a new kind of book. We can begin by using our critical thinking skills to consider what a book actually is, it’s purpose, as well as a series of other questions. One simple yet effective critical thinking technique is the Socratic method named after the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. It is based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions or truths.
So for example let’s think about a book. What is a book? This is my friend Fredrik Haren’s book. At first viewing, we might see it as something that provides me with information. We can focus on the words on the page and their meanings. But this is just one perspective. What if we look at the book like a painter would. They might look at the book with a view to painting it or painting a portrait of the writer or the ideas within it. The artist may view the book not so much as a collection of words but will instead see how the shadow falls on the spine, or how the pages curve, or the texture of the cover. Then we can view the book from the perspective of the copy editor, or the translator, or the bookbinder or the book marketer. The point is that we can view the book from different perspectives.
Now ask yourself a whose view of the book is true? Is it the writer or the painter or the book-binder? In each case, we are seeing different versions of the truth. This allows a plurality of versions of reality to co-exist without being in tension with each other.
“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.
By constantly using our critical thinking abilities to ask questions from different perspectives (or taking part in debates with those of other viewpoints) we gradually begin to arrive at a clearer and more logical understanding of the truth. This is why there is value in a plurality of ideas or perspectives and surrounding yourself with those who see the world differently.
There is a danger to viewing a problem or a challenge or an idea from one paradigm. As the writer, Abraham Maslow was believed to have said, “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.
There is a wonderful story from Indian culture which epitomizes this miopic view. One day a group of blind men heard that a strange animal had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. So, they sought it out, and when they found it they touched the animal with their hands. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This animal is like a thick snake". One of the other blind men reached its ear and said ‘it seemed like a kind of fan’. As for another person, whose hand was on its leg, they said, this thing is a pillar-like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the animal, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail described it as a rope. The last felt the front of its head, stating the animal is like a spear. All of them only knew one part of the truth. By discussing and debating with each other hopefully they would have figured out it was in fact an elephant.
Your critical thinking will only take you so far. It enables you to view the problem from different perspectives but it doesn’t come up with new solutions. That’s where creative thinking comes in.
Creative Thinking
Creative thinking is about reflecting on different perspectives or truths and then bringing new ideas to the mind. Innovation is then about bringing these new ideas to the world.
In the case of our book if we return to our original question of ‘what is the purpose of a book’ then we might decide that a book is simply one mind setting down their thoughts and insights on a subject. We can then ask a different set of questions like ‘does this one mind have to be human’. Could artificial intelligence write a better book? Could I co-write a book with an AI? Is the written word even the best method for getting across an idea today or am I better to share this story or my insights in a more experiential or visual form like a hologram storyteller?
The next time you are looking to solve a problem experiment with how you can combine your critical thinking and your creative thinking. Perhaps you have a member of your team who is supercreative while you are more critical or analytical. Great, by collaborating you are able to view problems and solutions from different perspectives.
Lloyd Luna is a productivity humorist and one of Asia’s most popular motivational speakers as well as being the author of ten books covering business and personal development. He is also a serial entrepreneur in the Philippines has started and built businesses including a speakers bureau and a book publisher.
James Taylor Interviews Lloyd Luna and they talked about How To Find Time To Write Your Book
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there is James Taylor here. And I'm delighted to have with us today Lloyd Luna. Lloyd Luna is a productivity humorist and one of Asia's most popular motivational speakers, as well as being the author of 10 books covering business and personal development. He is also a serial entrepreneur in the Philippines, having started and built businesses, including a speaker Bureau and a book publisher. And it's my great pleasure to have loads with us today. So welcome, Lloyd,
Lloyd Luna thank you so much the James Taylor
James Taylor So we've we've hung out before we were in Singapore, and I'm gonna be over with you as soon as the Philippines as well. But for people that don't know a little bit more about you, I would love to in First of all, what are you working on just now what has your focus at the moment? And when it comes to your writing? How did you get to publishing all these books in the first place?
Lloyd Luna Um, interestingly, I saw I outgrew myself, I am now focusing on a very specific topic I call step up leadership. Since I started 13 years ago, I have been speaking a lot of about motivation and general inspiration. So otherwise, like I was accepting invitations from everywhere, to speaking to to anyone on the topic of career development, being a great student, being a great manager. Being a great entrepreneur is like a book that I have written since 2004 talked about many things about motivation, they are generic, they are nonspecific. But at the moment, I'm focusing solely on doing a leadership expedition to the fogo rice, they're assessing the Philippines, the eighth wonder of the ancient world, based on mainly this book stepback leadership. So
James Taylor you've got you've gone on this journey from being a kind of general motivational speaker, author to being one who is starting to focus very much on leadership. I think I saw the other day you were I think it was a leaders leader, you know, you've got you, you have a you're really starting to kind of niche down and kind of finding your lane that you want to go with. I'm interested in, you know, in choosing that and trying to focus on that was that because you're looking to move more internationally, in your, in your audiences and your and your speaking was that one of the reasons for doing that or that is that just the topic you find it strongly kind of aligns with you
Lloyd Luna win them. First and foremost, I think contrary to some popular belief. In the Philippines, we have a unique leadership concept 2000 years ago, and it's about the people being the leader. And it was never documented until I came up to the mountains and interview the tribe who survive in 2000 years. And I thought that for the longest time a lot of leadership concepts from the west, they were tried to transfer to the east and they they made the Philippines starting they started the Spaniards conquered the Philippines 300 years for 300 years, Japanese for a couple of years, Americans for a couple of years. So all of this leadership from the Western and one from from Japan they they took away the sort of the leadership unique the unique leadership style the rigorous Thai original style of Filipino leadership. So I thought when I when I went back to the the mountains, the rice terraces I discovered the the the unique Regional leadership style that we have, that we have been that we must be must be having. So it was sort of a, a junction between realizing that I had to narrow down my my my content, because I don't want to be popular. I want to be known. I want to go out to be the go to guy in terms of a specific topic, whether I'm writing a book or I'm speaking, so that it resonated. Now, it's I'm advocating for the eastern Asian leadership style, which is primarily built on trust, collaboration, humanity. Facebook nowadays has been popping about No, we are a collaborative company, hey, 2000 years ago, we are doing that, we were doing that. So I thought that when when to sing the things that I right now, I am really focusing sharply about step back leadership. So leadership is really generic when you write about leadership. But But I guess one of the things that an aspiring author should consider really, is to make sure that he has a sort of an original content research, whatever that that may be, that he can really or he or she can really call his or her own. It's not a it's not a derivative from from someone else's, it's a very unique to him or her. And then from there, we can expand the business.
James Taylor And sometimes it is, as you say, I mean, you'll you'll find something very kind of local to you, which you think that the world can can learn from. Funny enough, I was, I was just somewhere a few weeks ago locally to me. And it was something I found like an old historical thing, I thought, actually, I want to be able to use that because it's a really good, it links into my my bigger things I speak on. So you can have use that use those kind of unique stories, which probably only you or a small note people would go go to look for. But it's something the other guests we've had, they've said, some of the guests we've had, they've said I'm a an author who speaks. And other guests, we've had said I'm a speaker, who writes, I'm a writer who speaks on my speaker who writes, do you have a sense of which which one of those you are? Or are you something in between,
Lloyd Luna I am some something in between. I started as an author, and ended up as a speaker, and the speaker, I am now ending up as an authorof a sherco.Trying to go the cycle. So yeah, I mean, between basically in between
James Taylor you in that middle part. And when you first started going on your journey to becoming an author, who were those role models for you, whether were the people that you had around you that you could ask advice from in terms of how to write and to publish? Or did you have to kind of look from afar, maybe authors that you admired and kind of learn from them?
Lloyd Luna Well, the first book, The first book I have ever read, is the alchemist by Paulo Coelho. So Paulo Coelho has been very instrumental in in my journey, I started as a par laquelle guy. And then the second book that I was able to read, minus the politics, if Donald Trump's book how to get rich, with a co author, of course, so those those two personalities really inspired me to, to to write. So at first they were influential in my, my writing journey. So but but yeah, as far as I can remember, after that, I just navigated things on my own right from from writing to publishing, because for those of for, for those audience, who, who don't know, the story, I in 2004, I wrote the manuscript, that all publishing houses in the entire Philippines turned down. So it's very painful, but the really bothered me at all, because I thought one day it will come out. And the only the only way that I could do that is when I put up my own publishing business, which I didn't know, the business, I had just had to register the business. Without the business plan without planning itself. It was me, myself and I. So it was a corporation about about myself, just to make sure that I'm able to publish the book, and from there never do that. So I thought, for those who are aspiring to be to be an author, number one that they need to do is eliminate all the possible excuses that can they can ever think. Because excuses does not make a book.
James Taylor So when you say that, eliminate the excuses, and we're going to talk about this in May, I know you do workshops in terms of book book writing book making, when those students come to you as people come to you and they, they have no idea maybe I want to write a book or something. Maybe writing is something I want to have in my life. What are the what are the main excuses that they can they'll say to you, they say
Lloyd Luna that they don't have the time, time who will who else will give you time. Elsewhere, can you buy additional time? The thing is, they don't have time, they don't have the expertise, they are conscious about their grammar, they are afraid of not being accepted, they are afraid of being criticized for your writing, they are afraid of not being able to sell afterwards, they are just, they just afraid they are just afraid of so many things. And these are these are excuses that really keep them from from producing, writing a book. And number two, I guess very important is that they have to identify whether they are the content provider or the writer. Because in this time of history, I thought that you don't have to write to be an author. If you are a content provider, you can easily just get the recorder and record yourself based on the structure of the conference you want to discuss, have somebody transcribe it, have somebody edit it, have somebody design the graphics, and have somebody to print the book, and then publish it. Well done, then of the story. So I thought, you have to decide first, whether you're a content provider, because not all speakers can easily become an author overnight. But one of the things that make it difficult for them to publish a book, or write the book or producible is that they tried to be someone else, if you're not a writer, just get the record, record yourself and then do the process. And that's what we do during the making workshop, really make sure that you identify what you can and what you can do. And make sure that you are able to collaborate with other players because an editor is making a living out of editing job. So let's not kill the editors by giving them the job.
James Taylor Lesson edit our own, if we cannot net the graphics editor, do the cover, don't don't design, things like this. So you really acting as the intellectual property creating the center, then, and then you're just finding those other roles that's going to support you. I mean, it's funny when we think if we go way, way back, you know, 1500 2000 years, then a lot of these famous books that we think today of whether it's you know, the Bible, or whether it's dhammapada, or whatever the book is, they weren't actually written by those authors, there were scribes there that would write out the book, there was someone there who'd had the the content creators, you say, would be speaking it. And then there would be writers, scribes, that we'd be writing it or memorizing it, and then writing it down at a later date. So we're kind of coming back, we're kind of coming back circle. Again,
Lloyd Luna it is interesting, because I think Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ was the provider of the content. And the apostles just wrote this book for him. Interesting, the richest author of all probably, right. It's also interesting to note that we have to somehow be able to adjust. By the color of the times, you know, this is the time in history, when we don't have so much luxury of time, that we can sit and concentrate about creating, again, identifying whether you are a content provider, and or a writer is very crucial before producing publishing.
James Taylor Now in your events, I've checked them that the workshops that you run, they look really fun, because they're, they're quite sure, I think two or three day events, they're in beautiful locations in the Philippines is when you get everyone together. And and the thing that you work with the writers on or the content creators on is how to get what's in their head, potentially in their head and their expertise out onto a page and into into into a book or into a form. So can you talk through just you know, the top the top level, you know that what that process looks like, for someone that hasn't experienced, you know, maybe a dip, maybe they they've traditionally kind of come at it from the specter of just sitting down there and writing every day and doing it that way. But can you talk about the process that you work with writers on?
Lloyd Luna Well, number 1am I, I thought that my first i thought that my story that the first thing I did was to eliminate all five possible excuses that they had. So I tell them the story how I started. And number two, I realize the power of peer pressure, when you come together as a group, and push yourself to the limits so that two months later, all of you will have to launch a book. So the process starts from me telling the story and assisting them on how they can structure their chapters. And then once they do that, the team will kind of sort of evaluate each one's title and subtitle and possible structure the contents. So it's a it's a It becomes a community, a very small community for a batch of aspiring authors, that they give inputs to each one, and then after that they they come come together, and then make sure that they have the schedule with me to work finally on the content, and this happens, after the bookmaking workshop, I sit with them over coffee, and have a two hour interview about their content based on the structure that we created during the workshop. And then after that transcription, editing, layout, design, publishing, and then printing. So in less than 60 days, the book is out. And they have this group launch this very important, they have a group launch. So it's something that they don't have to
James Taylor and the benefit of also having working in that group way, first of all, then you've essentially got a small focus group of other people giving you feedback on your ideas as you're creating it. So you're getting almost like you're kind of market testing it, I guess, before the big round is that the manga testing and mastermind, the mastermind, exactly. And then so and then also, when you go and launch, you've got a group of other people, it's not just you, they're trying to promote to your own list or your own audience. But you've got a group of other people maybe connected in the same world, maybe not. But they're all promoting or talking about your book, together.
Lloyd Luna Yes, perfectly. It's exactly what what the what is happening here in the Philippines. And that's exactly what I intend to do. In the next couple of years, maybe in my lifetime.
James Taylor That's my thought. So how many people do tend to have on these workshops that you do at the moment,
Lloyd Luna so it should be from eight to 10 people. More than that, I think it will be really ineffective. I want to focus one on one. Plus, of course, there should be some scheduled problems eventually, when you when you try to launch it in 60 days, and you have more than
James Taylor 10. Now, you mentioned also being that content provider in the middle there and having these other roles. You mentioned the role of the editor. You mentioned the role of the designer, what other roles does someone need to have a random if they're going to use that type of model?
Lloyd Luna Well, basically, that's about it. I mean, you provide the content, somebody transcribed it verbatim. And then someone edits it goes back to you and say, Oh, I need to add some more idea and then go about the editor. And then final days there will give the copy back to you and say, Okay, let's go and then the publisher will say, Okay, let's go that get the ESPN and then go to the printer, say print the book, 100 copies, one 504,000 copies. And basically that's it. So well in between you're trying to design the the book, cover front back and then the layout of the content. So nothing much. Nothing much to do I always emphasize the it's very important. I always emphasize, to focus on your role in bookmaking, what is your role really, because if you are unable to identify the role, it will get messy along the way, you are not the editor or you are not the graphics designer, you need to leave this thing to them.
James Taylor And then what but that transcribing role so your imagine you you're speaking out your ideas, you're getting your outline, your chapter headings, and you're kind of talking your ideas, or using something like a rev.com, you know, transcribe transcription service like that, or you just try and find someone who can specialize in transcribing these types of books. They can also do a little bit of finessing when they're transcribing your words.
Lloyd Luna Yeah, the general idea of transcription is very, very interesting transcription. So that transcriber or transcription is cannot, cannot do something about it, except that to transcribe it, word by word. And secondly, if it is a direct English to ours, and then we send to like, wrap it around. Yeah, software, sort of a sorry, service provider that does that. So yes, basically, by all means, I am not yet using that one. But in the future, it is fully unleash. And then I will go for $1. Was it $1 per word?
James Taylor Yeah, well, yeah, there's this. There's a couple of other I think it's $1 per minute, but actually, there's there's a, there's a number of other services, I can't recall the names of them now that are even cheaper than that. But you just you have to deal with the fact that some of them the quality, the accuracy is not as high. I've used rev.com. And I like them. And I like the the accuracy, but some of the ones you can, you can do and then maybe 97% accurate instead of 99% accurate. Yeah. So you
Lloyd Luna decide or maybe it's your fault, but now it's appearing the way James Taylor used the service.
James Taylor Yeah. So as you've been progressing on this journey as an author, was there any big lightbulb moment or insight the time when you went Ah, okay, this is the direction I want to go with my writing. Oh, this is the this is what I want. This is the kind of audience I want to serve. With my writing
Lloyd Luna Oh, well, first it was Andrew Bryan from past president of the Asia professional speaker, Singapore that asked me, What is your topic? What is it that you talk about? What is the subject that you speak on? And they said, a lot. And he said, not a good idea. So and I asked him, What are you talking about the said self leadership? And I thought, Wow, how sharp was that? how narrow was that, that the conversation was just contained in the self leadership, it's, it's about directly promoting the, the his topic, original topic, so to speak. So ideas really realize that until I attended the global speaker summit in Auckland, New Zealand in February, and the same thing, the same thing was given to me, like you have to narrow down you have to be an expert in specific field is it should be a two inch, two inch wide and one two miles deep. So if I said probably Yeah, it's very difficult for us to leave our comfort zone. When you're in that level that you have been, I have written 1414 books, and I'm comfortable with my subject is very easy. I did not do a cop a lot of research, writing the 10 1112 books, 13 books. But on my fourth book, I had the travel 357 kilometers from the from Manila, and immerse, immerse myself in the imago culture, local tribe. Just to make sure that I get it right research I, I lived in the mountains for a couple of days. And really asked the tribe leaders and the elders, and the people in the community how they built the the rice terraces in 2000 years ago. And now I became an archeological research. And I didn't even realize that I am now on the geologists, cultural archaeologists. So it's a it's a it's an interesting journey. I it's not, it was not really an intention, though, at that point. But the light bulb again started when that under Brian guy came to the Philippines asked me and then it was really reaffirmed in Auckland, when when the same topic was was presented.
James Taylor So this book is coming out is going to be coming out all about this, this discovery that you've made there and how it applies how other business leaders and business owners can apply this. And executives can apply this to their own businesses. I you already can going out on the road now with the the keynote to go alongside the book, or that's something that you're working up working up now as well.
Lloyd Luna Well, basically, I have a couple of, well, I have two, I have three business models that that are derivative from the book. So if you are an author, and I suggest you become an author, if you're if you're watching, or listening, is because writing a book does not only make an authority, it gives you the opportunity to expand your business by using different business models, for example, my Starbuck leadership, the initial idea is to do a keynote speech about the book. And if you aren't able to finish that they buy the books. So you have two income streams, the books and the keynote. But also and more importantly, I now created my own global leadership expedition going to the mountains, bringing at least 10 to 12, cxos CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, whatever See, x O's that they have, bring them to the mountains for exclusive four day expedition and retreat. And then hopefully, once they they enjoyed it, and they learn from it, hopefully, they invite me to their organization and cascade the entire program to the organization. And number three, maybe they like really the the idea, then I can upsell it to being coach, a step back leadership coach that to the organization to the CEO, whoever can can benefit from the from the from the idea so writing a book is something that they don't just see us as some you have a book and they are an authority because you can do a lot. A lot of businesses out of that particular content, especially if it is original and it is well researched. And it is it is interesting, it is unique.
James Taylor And I think I think it'll be interesting as well to track over time with like a CRM, for example, where you can see someone coming in, they attend that conference. Then you see them buying that book, and then you see them coming on the expedition and you see them going for the coaching and and that book which would maybe cost you know a few dollars to print and Give it is now resulting in thousands of dollars of sales. So you can actually see the return on that as well.
Lloyd Luna Exactly. I mean, I don't I don't see my biggest I am not commercially published author, I don't have a an international publisher that that carries any of my titles. so easily I have all the control on how how many copies I'm going to print, when I will print out so it's kinda I can easily give away a copy of the book and then it is to see that the, the see that I plant and then reap a lot of rewards from from that simple giving away of a copy,
James Taylor tell us about some of the tools that you use, what apps and tools you use as a writer that helps you do the work that you do.
Lloyd Luna Well, basically, I just I just use pages on Mac. And Ops, I also have this is a zoom h1, h1 h1 n recorder, very useful, very handy. USB event record for 40 hours. So zoom h1 n handy recorder. Pretty much about that I mean, a piece of a piece of paper or notebook and a pen?
James Taylor And what and what about in terms of if you would recommend a book to someone on on the craft of writing on how to write on the business of writing and maybe self publishing? What would that book be?
Lloyd Luna Um, I don't have the title yet. And writing if
James Taylor you're writing it
Lloyd Luna send me an update. Okay, so I don't I, the thing is the things that I know right now I didn't, I didn't even I didn't even get or buy a book. From from bookstores about self publishing or, or writing. It's a, I don't know, it's just natural tendency for me to want to write and then I navigated my own path. So I cannot really recommend which book to get. And that's why neither of us was big. I really thinking seriously considering writing about those two topics, how to write and the business as an author,
James Taylor they could they could there could be a book and it comes to buy time, watch this check, go and check out Lloyd's website who knows it might be a book in the offing as well. And so a final question for you, Lloyd, I want you to imagine that you woke up tomorrow morning. And you have to start from scratch as a writer. So no one knows you haven't got any books published? You have to start again. What would you do? How would you restart your writing career,
Lloyd Luna I am going to go back to my roots, I am going to go back and review my story. And I'm going to start with my stories. Because I think nowadays people are really interested about real story inspirational at that. And I cannot I cannot start immediately. If I were to do a research here and there. The closest thing I have in me is my story. And since I have the story to tell, I think it's the it's the first thing that I would want to write if I were to restart my writing journey.
James Taylor So we mentioned a couple of times here about your bookmaking workshop if you want to learn more about that and also more about you as well, where's the best place for them to go and do that?
James Taylor You got the.com bookmaking, workshop.com. And we'll put a link here below, so people can check that and if you want to just kind of connect with you personally learn about some of your other books and things. Where should they go to learn about that?
Lloyd Luna Well, all social media networks @Lloyd Luna
James Taylor at Lloyd learning find it we'll put all those links here as well. Lloyd, thank you so much for coming on today. It's always a pleasure speaking to wishing you all the best with the the bookmaking workshops you're doing, I've been seeing some of them online, they look like they're in beautiful locations. I'm very, I'm very envious. I'll have to come out to one of them at some point soon as well. But thanks so much, and all the best for the next book.
Lloyd Luna Come on here, James. Big Oliver, thank you so much. I'm honored, really privileged to be to be here and to be able to share just to contribute whatever inspiration and tactics and strategies they can use so that they can finally become a published author. really an honor for me to be here. Thank you so much for your time as well.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity. If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
The 4 Skills Shaping The Future Of Work (And How To Develop Them)
25 Sep 2020
00:05:22
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
The 4 Skills Shaping The Future Of Work (And How To Develop Them)
Communication
Critical Thinking
Collaboration
Creativity
What skills should we be developing in order to survive and thrive this age of technological disruption? Which of our human abilities do we need to strengthen to best adapt to all the changes we are seeing in our work and personal lives?
Enjoy access to my free Creativity Blueprint training course where I help you unlock your creative potential, break down creative blocks and unleash your creative genius. Click here to gain access.
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
The 4 Skills Shaping The Future Of Work And How To Develop Them
Hi, it’s James Taylor here, innovation keynote speaker and creativity expert. Technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics and automation are replacing many jobs and transforming how we live and work. So what are those essential soft skills to develop in order to stay relevant and agile as we fast-forward into this new future?
You see the pace of change we are all experiencing just now is only going to accelerate. Regardless if you’re a corporate CEO or an artist or a parent or all three, these times call for upskilling. It can feel both exciting and scary. You may be asking what skills do I need now and which will be even more important in the years ahead.
There are four essential soft skills shaping the future of work. The good news is you already possess these skills. It’s just a matter of developing them so you are in the best position to take advantage of the transformation your company and country is going through.
Communication
The first of these skills is communication, the imparting or exchanging of ideas or information. For thousands of years the elites in society would be trained in oratory, the skill of public speaking. Being able to persuade or convince someone of your point of view verbally. Today you can access this kind of training by joining an organisation like Toastmasters or finding free public speaking training online.
However today you need to be able to communicate well not just verbally on a stage or in a boardroom but also on video, in email, or in short form messages. In the past the great communicators had to get their idea across through a speech or a TEDTalk. Today they need to be able to powerfully and succinctly communicate in a 60 second video or 140 characters. This requires clarity of communication.
Critical Thinking
The next skill we need to develop is our critical thinking. The philosopher Aristotle said, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”. Critical thinking is about clearly reflecting and considering an idea, argument or piece of information from different perspectives.
One of the most common techniques for critical thinking is the Socratic Questioning method. Critical thinking is not the same as creative thinking but they are complementary as we’ll discover in a moment.
Collaboration
As we see the rise of remote working and the hybrid office model our third skill has had to evolve. That is the skill of collaboration, the act of working with others to produce or create something.
In the past, this collaboration may have taken the form of an in-person brainstorming meeting with your team or a chat over coffee with a collaborator. Some of the biggest breakthroughs in science, business or the arts have come about through inspired collaborations. Creativity is collaborative. Creativity is a team sport.
Today this collaboration more often takes the form of virtual meetings, brainwriting sessions or even augmented collaboration where humans and artificial intelligence collaborate to produce or create. Regardless of whether it is offline or online, or your collaborator is a human or a machine, as the African proverb says, “If you want to go far, go together”.
Creativity
But perhaps the most important soft skill for the 21st century is creativity, our ability to generate and develop new ideas. Because now more than ever we need fresh thinking. New ideas to solve our biggest problems whether that is climate change or poverty or any other that you’d care to mention. The world needs more creators.
Thankfully many governments and companies have woken up to the need to provide creativity training for their citizens and employees. Countries like Singapore added creativity training into their school system and companies like Visa, EY, Accenture, McDonalds and Red Hat have invited me as a creativity keynote speaker at their conferences or to provide creativity workshops and training to their people.
So think about your own work and life. If you did a quick back of the napkin assessment of your skill level for each of these skills; critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity, what would they be? If you scored each out of 10 which of these have the low scores and you need to get training on?
If you want to learn more about creativity training head over to JamesTaylor.me or if communication skills training is what you need then check out SpeakersU.com.
Jane Anderson is an author and expert on Leadership and Communications. With over 20 years’ experience in Personal Branding, she has worked with over 50,000 people on building more trust and influence in their businesses and brands. Her clients include Virgin Australia, Lego, Ikea, Rio Tinto, and Origin Energy and she is on the faculty in Thought Leaders Business School, mentoring some of Australia’s leading experts in their field. Jane's blog was recently voted in the top 10 branding blogs in Australia and in the top 30 branding gurus globally. Jane is the author of five books including her latest “EXPERT to INFLUENCER: 12 Key Skills to Attract New Clients, Increase Sales and Leverage your Personal Brand to Become an Industry Leader.
James Taylor Interviews Jane Anderson and they talked about top marketing tips for book launches
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there is James Taylor and I'm delighted to be joined by Jane Anderson. Jean Anderson is an author and expert on leadership and communications with over 20 years experience in personal branding. She has worked with over 50,000 people on building more trust and influence in their businesses and brands. Her clients include Virgin Australia, Lego IKEA, Rio, Tinto and origin energy, and she is on faculty in thought leaders Business School mentoring some of Australia's leading experts in their field. Jane's blog was recently voted in the top 10 branding blogs in Australia and the top 30 branding gurus globally. Jane is the author of five books, including her latest expert to influencer 12 key skills to attract new clients, increase sales, and leverage your personal brand to become an industry leader. It's my great pleasure to have Jean with us today. So welcome, Jane,
Jane Anderson I thank you. It's so exciting to work with you again. I feel like you're like my long was buddy and I thought we could play again. I'm getting this. I thank you for having
James Taylor we're on the opposite ends of the world. You're in your winter. I'm in my summer here just now. But I always love catching up because you have so I love the energy that you put into everything that you do as well. So I have to ask, first of all, what's going on in your world? What are you currently working on?
Jane Anderson Yeah, thank you so. So I've just come off a quarter, it's kind of interesting. I have a program that I run this quarter, I do a lot of work on influence and persuasion and help people in this quarter I've just been working with doctors to get onto specialist training programs. So if they're wanting to get on to, you know, become a dermatologist or a surgeon, a vascular surgeon. You do like obstetrics and gynecology. So we have really extremely difficult processes to go through in that. So I've come off a quarter of seven days a week coaching doctors pretty much. So normally this time I'm hidden in a hotel and just in the fetal position going. Okay, so But, but few times I know it's all right. So I normally am recovering in a hotel at the beach for a few days. But no, I said no. That the James James wants to catch up with you out there, of course. Absolutely.
James Taylor Well, that's so that's okay. I was just reading your book last week. And as you recommended someone last week did the one that you wrote on LinkedIn using LinkedIn? I think that's such an underused platform. I mean, it gets none of the glamour of Facebook and Instagram. Yet when I look at it, so you know, our business, where does the social networks really bring in the business of bringing sales is like number one of the networks? So why why is it the Why is it the ugly? Baby, the ugly sister of the of the social networks
Jane Anderson buy meat and potatoes, isn't it? And so yeah, it's it's a funny kind of way I think it is more common in some ways was that thing? I suppose basic. It is also a little bit more complex than some of the other sides. It's a very closed network. Whereas if you look like look at something like say Instagram, Instagram is a very open network as in, if I was trying to find something, or someone like you, like if I was typing in, you know, book writing coach in Instagram, I'll just get millions of people turn up in that search. Whereas in LinkedIn, if I was looking for someone like that the only people who are going to turn up are people I'm connected to. So it's a different kind of approach. And I think my experience has been I think, I love LinkedIn. I think Everyone's probably got a bit of a love hate relationship with it. You know, they love it because they think they can see all this opportunity in there. But then they go to try and work it out and I get ours, it's hard. I can't work, how to make this work. So I think in some ways, I had the good fortune of going visiting LinkedIn, Ted office in San Francisco a few weeks ago. And you know, they really are incredible now that Microsoft have taken over, I think they've become more commercial. But I think there's still a lot of opportunity to simplify it even more to help people understand, well, you know, your profile needs to be a marketing document, not an obituary. Some of those things, I think there's still still a little way to go in helping people to put their best foot forward and realize that it's actually a marketing document that is available 24 seven that can stand out and help you. As opposed to most people will say to me, oh, well, I've set up my profile, and I haven't got anything from it. I will. Have you actually initiated a conversation? Have you started anything? Oh, no, I'm just waiting for everyone to turn up and want my help.
James Taylor But it's such a great one. I was thinking, looking at your book last week, actually, I was thinking for an author who isn't that process of trying to find in an agent or literary agent or something about who might be the right publisher for the for what they were doing, or when they're actually kind of getting ready to actually go out and market and put and promote the book as well. Is is a really untapped? I think, by you know, by that group. Because it's, you don't hear so many older you hear more maybe business nonfiction authors, but authors more generally, you don't hear them talking about LinkedIn so much as a platform?
Jane Anderson No, no, there's some and, you know, there's so much opportunity with it. And it's not it, people think it's noisy, but it's actually not very noisy. So, you know, turn my business around, my story was I lost about 80% of my business overnight, here in Queensland, the state that I mean, in, in Australia, we have a volatile government in the state that I'm in and that they changed, change premiers, like they change their underwear, and that has an impact on businesses. And I lost about 80% of my my business. And so LinkedIn was the tool that helped me to shift from being so susceptible to local market challenges to becoming more global. So you know, without it, you know, it, there's, there's no way I would have been able to get where I got today. And I did it as a result of Actually, I lost about $30,000 in AdWords and SEO and because I just really didn't know what I was doing. But LinkedIn, I was writing profiles for job seekers and, and get helping them get jobs. And at the time, I thought, well, surely I can help people, maybe if I'm helping all these people, they're getting their jobs, they're getting in front of all these people maybe or use it for sales and see how that works. And and it worked. So it wasn't that I consciously did it was actually just by pure need to get my business back on track.
James Taylor Now. That's one of your books. And if you haven't, you have a number of books and including this, this leads to an expert influencer, who, as you were kind of moving into believing you can speak and you want to move into the kind of author getting your books, your writing out there. Who were those mentors, or maybe the people, either you personally, you had a relationship with personally, or people you looked at from afar and said, that's the kind of author that I want to become that's that's maybe something about their style, or how the, you know, or how they they can have formats of their book. Who were those people?
Jane Anderson Yes. Yeah, I think it's probably been a few things I Well, when a big turning point in my life was joining thought leaders business school, and I know you've had spoken with Peter Cook in the past. And so Peter Cook is the CEO of thought leaders Business School. And, you know, what I learned from working with them was that my, my ability that I did have some good ideas and good like, hey, it was just a matter of really being taught how to do it. So that was probably the first first part was I remember, actually, I remember one day that I was working with Matt and, and Pedro and, and Matt said, Well, hold on, why don't you go and have a look, you've written all these blogs, go and have a look at your blogs and come back and tell me what your word count is if you put all those into a document. So off I went, and that night, I pulled it together. And I remember going and seeing him the next day, we're on a training course. And I said, Matt, I've got 8000 words. I can't believe that simile guy actually done a lot of the work. It's a you know, you've actually now just got to stop look at how you package this up. And it had never even occurred to me. I thought you had to write blogs and Okay, now you got to write a book. And so I was already doing the work. I just hadn't seen it through the lens of using it for a book. So I think that was the first part then. But there's always been writers that I've always really admired and but one of the books that I really like is is Ryan Holiday holidays. perennial seller.
James Taylor Yeah, that's a great.
Jane Anderson It's such a great book. And I go back and read it so many times, you know, particularly the work, you know, it's working with people like Robert Greene and creating power. And, you know, they're just iconic books. And you just go well. So I think my experience has been working, creating a book that's commercially smart, that will help me to work with the programs and what I'm trying to deliver to help people. And then you look, I'm always inspired, though, by those iconic books, like, the ones that, you know, they, they've worked with authors to create, and I've got that, you know, think once, but just use it forever.
James Taylor Yeah. And I think that that's actually quite a hard thing to do to get, you know, to get that, right. That classic, you know, create that classic book, but also because you're you're using as a party as a vehicle to get on stages and speak and, and that where were those audiences often want real? They want real relevance? What's happening now? How is this being played now? So have you found a way to, to kind of have those things coexist? Or do you really write the book saying, okay, the examples, I'm going to use the, I wouldn't need them to be around forever? Or I'd use it. Okay. I'm just going to do this. every couple of years. I know, in the back of my head, I'm gonna have to update.
Jane Anderson Yeah, it's funny you say that, because the LinkedIn book that I wrote Connect, which is, um, I don't know if it's helpful for that this one. So this one, it was out of date, pretty much the day I wrote, it went to the publisher. I, oh, they don't do that anymore. I go, I've written a chapter on that. And so I, the bulk of it is, you know, 99.9% of it is still relevant. But But yes, so I know that that needs to be updated. But then there's others that I give an expert to implement to this, it might it probably will need some tweaks. Like you said, I might have to do some updating in a couple of years. But I deliberately, you know, learnt that lesson a little bit with Kinect Kinect is still really good, still super relevant. But there's, you know, just the screen grabs look a little bit different, but the principles is still the same. But the next bit to influencer? Yeah, I was far more mindful, after reading the perennial seller to say, actually, if I'm running a course, or a coaching program, that's when I can tweak what I'm saying. But the content that goes in that book, I need to make sure that that's relevant for a long time.
James Taylor Now you work with this idea of experts to influence taking people with all this knowledge, whatever their field is, whether it's the doctors, or whether they're their marketing specialists, whatever the topic is, and helping them become influenced. And so when it comes to the writing, helping them become authors and kind of get their message out that way. I'm imagining a difficult one for them as they have so much information in their head. It's like, what is the first book? What is the topic of the first book? How do I decide because they could write probably 10 different books? You know, any any ideas in terms of how you can identify what is that lead Domino? What is the first one you're going to write?
Jane Anderson It's a great question. So what I do is I look at, I look at them with their, with their practice, or their business of what do they actually selling at the moment? What do they know that is working? So because it's risky to write a book, based on something new that you don't have any evidence of it, you know, that of the market wanting something like that. So, so one of the things I look at, typically look at two types of books, a book that is relevant for their business or their practice overall. So for example, let's say they're a resilience expert, then we'll say, okay, there's a book called, let's say, you as the, you know, rock your resilience or whatever it might be. And that that's a book that can take you to any stage any audience, but it but it's not narrow on market. So it might be the 10 things to help you to become more resilient in life. Now that can go to sales teams, you can speak at a change management conference, you can speak on leadership, you can apply that to so many things. And that's a it's a book for your entire business. But sometimes, there's something in their business that's really unique. So, for example, like with the we were talking a bit about doctors, so I have a doctor's program, which is where I coach doctors to get on a specialist program. So I've written a much thinner book. So this is a thin book, it's called confidence, how to sell yourself in medical interviews, get on to your chosen specialty program, have your preparation time and double your impact. So now something like that is I haven't had to go. It's that's not what my entire business is about. But that was a commercially smart book to write because that particular program I was I'd been delivering for 10 years. And I just hadn't actually written a book on it. And that book then essentially doubled the revenue that came in with that program, just simply and it's only 25,000 Words, were something like that is 45,000 words,
James Taylor that's a really smart one, because then that means it let's say, as a speaker or as a trainer, you can then go to that this in the medical industry and say, you know, I wrote the book on me how you know that it's we've had another guest, we're just talking about how often you get into dominance in an area because you're you're good at something one area and good at another. And it's the crossover of those two, those two things, and where no one else is going for and gives you a USP. So that's an really interesting USP, because you obviously know, from the marketing positioning side, but then you also understand what the challenges are for those people that can have going for those types of roles.
Jane Anderson Absolutely. And there's only 150 people in that market every year. So I know that out of those 150 people, it's likely that I get about 90, who I talked to, and then ultimately ended up working with about 20. So, so it's a really small market, but a highly commercial one, as well as they they're in a lot of pain, I need a lot of help, but they are not a doctor. I trust doctors, I don't trust a lot of people. So I had to put something to show, you know, I can help you. I know I'm not a doctor, I haven't got a PhD or anything. But I recognize I can help you get on to your program. So it was really a positioning tool to say, you know, here's what, here's what she talks about. I had an orthopedic surgeon contact me last year, actually a very, very large shoe because he'd spent three years trying to apply and he just wasn't getting on highly stressed and very anxious because he couldn't get on to orthopedics. This year, I worked with him. So these people that booked in for this program, I work with them they book in a year in advance for me to work with him. And because it's so competitive, and I have there's only one of me. And in his case, I have him in, I had probably five coaching sessions with him to help him hit by the end of every session, he was so emotional, and in tears. This is an orthopedic surgeon. They're not exactly the most emotional people usually. But in his case, he just said I cannot thank you enough. If you didn't write this book, I would have no idea that this is what I was meant to be doing. No one tells you this. So he you know, he always says to me, you're on like he says, When you come to my city, can you can you please ring me Can you please like you have to come meet my family. And you know, it's a it's life changing. If you can create something like that, where there's no education out there on it, there's no one who can translate what the problems are and what they might be experiencing. It don't don't have to have a massive market.
James Taylor Yeah, but I'm guessing as well, that model works really well when it comes to independent publishing and also self publishing, because a publisher would if you went to a publisher and say, you know, the total market for this book is 150 people, unless it's an academic book where that's maybe considered okay. Most publishers are going to say I'm sorry, but you can do that you can write those those relatively thin volumes, I really targeted that audience. And it works. Because you know, that is the tip of the spear, you're going to bring in so much other business on the back end.
Jane Anderson That's exactly right. Even a friend of mine, Colin Ellis wrote a book on how to recruit a project manager. But that's, you know, but there's not that many people in that in mind. There's a lot of project managers or people who recruit project managers. That's a real, it's a really commercially smart book to write. It's actually I think it's about half the size of that. So it's not a very big book, but it's a way to be able to put a stake in the ground and say, Well, I understand I can help you. And it's commercially smart. We're not looking to put it on a shelf in bookstores or anything like that. It's not going to be a New York Times bestseller, that's for sure. But it is something that's commercially smart for him to do. And I
James Taylor think I've heard I can't remember the name of the author now. But there is another author I've heard of who he wrote his, his main book is Kiss me, which is 220 page version, let's say on his main topic, he speaks on relatively broad, you know, pretty broad and examples he gave. And then he essentially said, he, every year he kind of took the he wrote the same book for a particular industry. So I can what his topic was now, but let's see if it was innovation. You know, it was innovation for marketers innovation, and that was that you just go off to all the conferences and be able to comment and say, Hey, I wrote the book on innovation for marketing. Would you like me to come speak at your marketing conference? And he said, It was such a powerful way, because the you've obviously taken the time to really understand what the challenges were in that in that industry, you've gone to writing the book for it. And he said, Actually, it's not that much harder work, because it's, it's kind of this a lot of the key strategies were the same. It was just in terms of the application. We had to talk about what was going to be different.
Jane Anderson Yes. Yeah, exactly. There's so much leverage one have written a book, you know, it's in those specific markets. And, you know, for self publishing, you can even tailor that for, you know, there's so much quick turnaround on things. And to tailor something, you know, you can do it just for an organization, but they brand on it do the foreword from the CEO, you know, like, there's so many options now, if you've just got if you've got a great book like that it's you're spot on is how can we just tweak it maybe for that particular market? And, you know, it's got the same content, it's just highly leveraged, but change some of the examples, it's still super relevant. So you really put a good stake in the ground, then for sure. So can you talk us through with some strategies for confer writing and completing a commercially smart book in in less than 90 days, because, because the thing I always amazes me about you, is lots of people that can talk, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, but you execute and you make stuff happen, and relatively quickly. So can you talk about like the strategies that you go through to kind of writing those books again, there's books out there. Yeah. So I have a confession to make James. So you know, the first book, The first book I wrote was this one, which was called impact, which was around how to build your personal brand. And I've never written a book before. And so I decided to get a writing coach. Now the problem was, was that my writing coach really liked writing? And I don't. So I reckon one of the first things that that you want to do, is you want to know, are you a speaker? Who writes or are you a writer who speaks? And so in my case, I'm a I'm a speaker, who writes, I'm not a fast writer, I can speak much faster than I can write. Some people have got so so beautiful, eloquent, eloquent writing, and that's just not me, I have to speak and then I forget it out. So I, so impact took me nine months to write. Because I was like, Oh, my God, this is so every other book I've written since took 90 days, because I went through the pain of that I was like, This is never happening again, in with this code. And go does it make you got some hacks or something like I'm a bit of a productivity guru, like, I've just spent five years as a productivity expert in, and consultants. So I've got a bit of obsession around that. I was like, this is really painful. So there were a couple of things that, that I, I've found that I've been really useful to, to do that number one, or probably three things, number one, was that little bit of planning, like, you know, deciding what is the book actually designed to sell and writing around that purpose. And the next thing was I created an app, I might have told, mentioned it in the in the speaker somebody did, but an app called memo mailer. So memo mailer is an app I've created, and it's on Google Play, and it's on iTunes. And it, the idea behind it, because I don't know about you, but you find when you're writing, you think of good ideas or things that could go in chapters in the lead up to building and planning the book. And I've found with experts and people who are, you know, writing books is they have great ideas, but they just come along at really bad times. And so yeah, so idea with memo mailer, if you go on, you'll see the tapes of reviews from speakers, but you just hold down a button on it and say, Oh, I need to do a chapter on blah, or if you think of a story or whatever. And it just sends yourself all the information in the content of what you're thinking it goes straight to your inbox. So I do a lot of memo mail type work. So it's, it's capturing the recording of me saying it. So if you've got stories, you're finding research, the idea is to make sure you've got homes and start to capture all those things on the run. And so send them to yourself and then file them. So that's the first thing so that when it comes to writing,
James Taylor and that's that's important, especially if you send them screen, being a speaker who writes or a writer who speaks, if you're a speaker, you're an adjunct I'm going to is more generally into performer because I think also applies to performance as well as I know, performance is they're much more comfortable in doing something like that hitting that record, just speaking into their phone or singing it into the phone as a song. And doing it that way rather than sitting down and writing out. And, you know, and because our brains work that way, if you're if you're more of a performer, Speaker type of person.
Jane Anderson Yes, absolutely. So if you can, the first thing I do is make sure I've got home set up for like I'm thinking about writing this book and have a home in my inbox. So in my inbox in my emails, is I'll have the folder set up for that book. And so as I think of things will come across things that I'm capturing in memo mailer, or emailing them to myself is to set up a file so that all those things are going in there. Without a home for things everything kind of goes a bit messy. So the one is capturing ideas Then what from that was was planning the book and starting to capture? Okay, well, what are what are the stories? What are the points? What's the research that goes with each of these pieces. And then what I do is I go and hide in a hotel room for four days. And it's usually winter at the beach. Yeah, so enough, it's too cold for me to go out for a swim. So I have to sit and look at the beach. I can't get distracted, I can watch the waves. And it's a beautiful view. But I'm not tempted to go out and go and swim, which is what I want to do, but I can't, it's too cold. So it forces me to sit down and, and, but what I do is in the hotel room, I take off all the artwork off the walls. And I think the cleaners come in, what is this woman done this room. And what I do is I then start to map the books, I take blue tack, and and you know, so each of those pieces of IP, or each of the chapters, and then sub chapters based on whatever that research and study and story that goes with each of those. I've mapped them and put them across the entire walls of the hotel. And then I go back and grab my phone, and I grab rev.com I'm sure lots of people, you're in red for any of those apps. So I just stand there with my phone and read out every single one of those those documents. And so if I've done all the planning, right, I can get it, I can get the book back in, you know, four days, like I'll have Sorry, I can have all the content out, then that comes back through rave and then I'll just send it to the copy editor. And then I cleaned it all up so I actually don't even touch it.
James Taylor Wow, that's a really injured like speaker isn't you can speak to right. Yeah, I love and actually what you said about the going to the hotel, and people would think I have some man idea. But actually, my wife and I met also JK Rowling recently and event of Harry Potter digital, the Harry Potter movies, books. And she does the same thing. And she she goes and books into hotels called the Balmoral hotel, which is in Edinburgh and the main fee. And she will, she doesn't do the that particular stage in terms of mapping. But there's a period of time, which is very, very important for just to get stuff done. Otherwise other things can crowd out. And she just goes to, you know, probably doesn't pick up the phone, nothing distraction and go shopping website. She just like, spends that week there getting that stuff done. And it's just like everything else is secondary.
Jane Anderson Yeah, that's an old phones are off. Everything's off no distractions, no phone calls, like, you know, I might have one call into maybe my partner mark at home. But that'll be bad. So yeah, it's the way to go. That's for sure. But it takes a little bit of planning to make the most of it so that you're not leaving the hotel room. Six months later, I've been going home.
James Taylor So you see, you've got that you've done the copy editing that's come back, you've obviously you're working with your you know, designers and when you kind of go to that next stage, are you putting out directly through Amazon? You're working directly with Amazon to kind of put it out or do you go through a third party in terms of distribution?
Jane Anderson So yeah, I go to so it'll come back from the copy editor, proofreader, like if it's all done, types it everything, then I have a great support person who I've connected with, she's actually a do self publishing. And I don't touch any of the Amazon or you know, the CreateSpace or Ingram spark or whatever, she's the guru of all that I gave up trying to work out all the all the formatting and I feel like it's surely there's somebody who understands this better than me. So, so yeah, she's been wonderful. So she's in Melbourne. And so I just send the files to her and she just load everything up sorts out Amazon sorts out everything. And so I don't I don't actually even touch very much of the book at all.
James Taylor Is that is that so is that when it comes out until they see an Amazon? Is it come out under under their publishing company? Or does it come out into something you've you've named
Jane Anderson it it comes under self publishing so it'll say that they've done the publishing but I but yeah, so it's so essentially self published but it's got her her branding to say that they've done the printing but that's about it.
James Taylor She's also got like a hybrid like a hybrid of of this the self publishing and the more traditional publishing where you'll have someone that is taking care of doing doing the whole thing.
Jane Anderson Yeah, that's right. So I do everything she just really hits print and loads it into Amazon. And that's it. And then
James Taylor so you've you've got your book, you're ready to rock and roll get it out to the world start talking to people about it. What is what is the what is it marketing campaign for when you're releasing a book, like and after Having done a number of books now, what is that that one thing that you have found just works is just like the it's just you, you must have this as part of your marketing campaign.
Jane Anderson Okay, this is my biggest secret you can't tell anyone, James, okay.
James Taylor It's just me, you and a couple of 10s of thousand people, that's all.
Jane Anderson This is by far, the number one thing that changed my my world changed, you know, just the way they work with books and what I do with all my clients. So the first thing I say is get your book cover. Not so I work off a 90 day project. Like I'll say a book is a 90 day project. And I'll say that we do the cover first. And so even if you have to change it at the last minute is fine. But do the cover first. And then put that cover everywhere. So put on the website, say that it's coming. You know, it's put it in your newsletters, have it in all your social media have it in your presentations, it scares the hell out of you For starters, so it makes you write it. The second thing is, is that it generates positioning and it generates the conversation. So particularly if your book now everybody's a bit different, like you say like some people actually, my intention is not necessarily to sell books, my intention is to sell my programs, my books are the way that show people that I can help them and understand their challenges. So if you're coming from that space, is that the book cover suddenly creates the positioning and a visual artifact that even though the book isn't written, it opens up a conversation with people that Oh, wow. And then suddenly you're known for that. So with Connect, when I wrote Connect, I put the cover up 90 days before the impact. I didn't do it until very last minute and then it like suddenly you've got this book and I Oh, wow. Now I have to go out and have these conversations. With Connect. When I wrote connect the budget that I had planned on income for the year, I put the cover out and I'd sold that entire budget within three months. And I didn't even have the book back yet.
James Taylor That's that's an that's a really interesting, this idea of doing the book cover First, we actually had another guest Ron Kaufman who's speaking from based in Singapore. And Ron, he does exactly the same thing. He said, He's a very visual person, he said that I need to have that book to see what it feels like, you know, mentally and, and then one of our other guests, David Allen wrote getting things done, he actually rates the reviews, like almost like he doesn't erase the reviews first, including who the review is what the publication is, he says I need to have that visual thing going ahead and kind of set the setting it up in that way. So So I love this idea. I love this idea of kind of getting, you're kind of using from a marketing standpoint, because you say your book is not if you sell that copies, great of a book, but actually it's not your primary revenue stream that comes in it's like it's a positioning statement is showing that you're you are the expert in the market as well. And when you come to like doing book design, because that's a huge area in its own, do you go with like a 19 designs? Or do you have someone that you tend to you like working with,
Jane Anderson so I have the copy editor I work with is also a graphic designer. So sometimes just depending on if I might get her to do a design, and I'll see what it looks like. And then maybe I might go back over to 99 designs and maybe see what comes through there. And so I don't get a blank to not get too hung up or too prescriptive on what I think the covers gonna look like I'm very open to other people's creativity and ideas because people think of stuff I would never think of. So, so I like I really like 99 designs, I think they they're fantastic. And the ideas people have are just great. So they're a good investment, I do tend to even for clients I'm working with, I encourage them to get the more expensive option in 99 designs, I think it's worth 1300 dollars Australian or something like that, particularly if they've got a book that's, you know, these say, Well, this is the return on this cover is going to be possibly, you know, million dollar plus. So 1300 dollars is not that much different than $900. It's like compared to the second option. So I go invest as much as you can to get as many options as you can and you want it to be an absolutely cracking cover. Because it's not about a piece of paper on top of a book. Yeah, it's actually about what you're doing with the book and what it's designed to position you for. So we're going to cover is the best investment if you can spend the money on that it's worth it.
James Taylor No, no, because you went back to the thought leaders Business School. You talk about this idea of clusters and doing 90 day projects is very much a part of that as well. So when you're when you're doing your book is are you trying to like kind of Ida write publish the book all within 90 days, or do you like say 90 days for the writing part. And then you have another 90 days period for the for the marketing and the promotion?
Jane Anderson Yeah, book in hand, by the end of 90 days, marketing will. So if you said, Okay, we've got three quarters here on the side, I'll go left to right from your side, I'll be on the stage. So I'm a new speaker, we picked me up on that. But I'm on stage left. And so if you said sequentially, so if you're working like you've got a quarter, there's one quarter here, one quarter here one quarter. So this quarter would be get the cover out and just get it moving. Like just just get it visible everywhere. So that's that quarter. And then, in this quarter, start writing. So you I mean, you'll be percolating ideas, and you'll be okay, I think I'm on the Trekkie, but in this quarter is getting write it all down. And by the stage of cover should be out floating around anyway. But 90 days to get in and get it done. And then the following 90 days is okay, who does that book now need to go out to, to work to do the programs? Because if it's being used for training programs, work, all that good stuff, then then marketing campaign, that marketing campaign for the programs you're selling, not necessarily to sell books? Yeah,
James Taylor if that makes sense. It's kind of getting out into into the hands of prospective clients, you know, and and using it for the pillars purposes and media opportunities, podcasts, those kind of things. That's it. Yep. Spot on. Very cool. Very cool. And as you've been writing all these books, has it been a key aha moment, a lightbulb moment? A time when you go? Okay, this is, this is maybe the direction I want to go with my writing, or this is what writing I want writing to do for me and publishing to do for me?
Jane Anderson That's a really good question. It's been an interest. I think, it's really been interesting, because it's, it's one of those things, I don't know if you found this, but when you when you're writing is that each book leads to sort of the next activity. So when I say that you talked a little bit before about categories of people. So you put people in if there's a category of a speaker or writer, and then you bring in this other category in the intersection of those two things, create a dominant, and in that sort of positioning, so what I learned that's been a surprise is sorry, right, impact first, and then sort of people kind of got what I was doing, like they said, Yeah, okay, so you do personal branding, and I kind of get this impact thing. And already Oh, then when I work Connect, then they went on now we get what you do. So they really started to connect it with our so you work at the intersection of positioning marketing as well as digital. Yeah, yeah. I. So that was probably if there was a surprise, and something I didn't expect, but was was interesting and, and worked well, was now the intersection of all my books, but particularly those two was when I went, oh, wow, people now really get me. So that was kind of interesting.
James Taylor You talked about that process of going going to hotel for days, and how you you're capturing ideas all the time as well. But you're also publishing blog posts, you're publishing things on LinkedIn as well. So what is your general ritual when it comes to to writing?
Jane Anderson Yeah, number one is capturing ideas like without that. So that was why I made that up. Then the second thing is time allocated as a habit and routine in the calendar as per David Allen. And so I typically have a Friday morning, where I'll have, you know, maybe a couple of hours where I will go back to those ideas, and then start to catalogue them, and then decide which one that I'm going to work with. So create that piece of IP. So for example, the one that I did recently was how to increase the open rates in your newsletters. So that was an idea that as a result of working with a client, and so I captured the idea but I knew I had time allocated next Friday or the you know, the following Friday to sit down and, and capture that and write it out and get the idea out from that, then having that then that piece of content, then also then moves over into my book folder. So then, okay, where does that belong? So and I might not know just yet but I make sure I get that piece of contents going out in a newsletter, but then we go essentially copy paste. Okay, that now goes into the book folder as well to make sure that that's gone into a book. I may not know what the next book is going to be just yet, but at least I've got a folder. And I know what I also have a spreadsheet of all the pieces of IP that I've got, they're all catalogued and numbered. And so on the spreadsheet, we have a columns that run across. So has it gone on a blog? Has it gone in a newsletter? Has it gone on a podcast? Has it gone on LinkedIn? You know, all those and then one of the columns is book, and has that piece of IP gone in a book. And so in which case, we'll label it will say what book it has gone in? And then, then I know then I can go back and anything that hasn't gone in a book, is there anything I can use here in this new book I'm planning to write
James Taylor I think one of the other really, on that note on this, but I love the idea of the spreadsheets, we have something similar that we do as well, because we quickly figured out we would, we would create some piece of intellectual property, and we'd only use it in one thing like a blog post, like why are we not repurposing this because this is going to be seen by such a small number of people, if you have this idea, and you do like a tweet type thing about it, like a minuscule number of people gonna be able to see it. So no, it totally does. Business School, you you're talking about this idea, and Matt and Pete to this idea of Pink Sheets. And but we're just kind of finding ways to kind of get all those ideas out of your head into into intellectual, some kind of intellectual property that you can have sitting in front of you, once you get into say, Okay, how do I want to get this out into the world and that actually, I think that's a, it's a, it's something I've told loads of people about this idea. And I've recommended thought leaders business school to a whole bunch of different people. And I think if the if the if the only thing you get from growing somebody is, you talked about Pink Sheets is also the green sheet. So you to talk about as well, that's all the because it's just it's such a powerful, but simple, simple concept in terms of getting these ideas out in your head. And then they can use them for a book, you know, podcast episodes, blog posts, whatever they use as our unit one.
Jane Anderson Oh, and absolutely. So when I was talking about the hotel before, you know, the pieces of paper that I put on the wall are all Pink Sheets. So I just end there and read out my Pink Sheets. And the other thing is also for those, you know, if you've got some support team members, is to teaching support staff. So I coach a lot of experts in their business managers or their support staff, their API's, on how to fill out that IP, or how to chase up parts of that IP, so that they can just keep going and creating it. So though they might have, I don't know what the story is, can you find me a story that's related to how to do blah,
James Taylor yeah, or so part of it is, when you're at a point, if you're at a point where you've got support team is, then the next step is to how do I start to build the capability of my support team to help them so that if I'm capturing the ideas as we're going, then that speeds the process up even faster is so when I when I train the support teams, that's when we really start to see some traction, that's pretty incredible. And I think I've seen that with CO writers writing on books together where they didn't have, they wouldn't call it Pink Sheets, but they'll they'll do something where one person is going out, walkers is very good at coming up with the kind of original ideas around something, they're probably very good at coming up with the metaphors that relate to that idea and how to relate that just to common usage. But maybe they're not so good at the researching, finding the stories to support the idea of finding the research underneath it to support the idea. So the other person is tasked with doing that, because that's the key skill so you can divide and conquer. When can I come up with this? And I love the idea of using your support team to go out and find those stories or fill in the blanks there.
Jane Anderson Yes. Yeah. You know, there's often you don't have to always carry so much of the load yourself. If you have got those people around you. But you know, there's so many things like air Tasker and Upwork. Like there's so many people around now that can help you with some of these things. So, you know, you don't have to battle alone. There's people out there are really good at it and who can make and help and make it all come together. Now, you
James Taylor mentioned the memo Mila, are there any tool, other tools that you use to help you in your your writing,
Jane Anderson I have these Scrivener and things like that before and I'm sure you probably had a few people talk to that I didn't start on Scrivener. And but since I've been using rev and because they come back in Word documents, I've since moved over to that distance. I found I haven't had to use Scrivener as such, but it is a good place to start. And it's it's motivating because you see the numbers go up. Like oh, good, you know, five words. So I think between between those two things, particularly those I think, yeah, definitely memo mail or rev.com. And you know, getting the like pink sheets for sure if you can learn how to do Pink Sheets and if you look at the thought leaders book, there's some information in in how we get IP out and how we get it out fast. I think also having a good copy editor, proofreader who you work well with like Lauren, who helps me She just understands how I work so i'm i'm super hands off on voice on but hands off. So So I can read through, I can update I've got great proofreaders and people around me who have those skills and are much faster at it than me. So yeah, if you can get someone like that is really good. And if you could recommend one
James Taylor book to someone that's watching listening to this just now it could be on the craft of writing or it could be on the business of writing or how did you know generally how all this stuff fits together some some of the ideas we'll be speaking about today, not one of your own books, but someone else's. But what what would that book be?
Jane Anderson So latest business skills? how to how to the latest practice? Definitely, it what there's life before Pink Sheets and life after Pink Sheets. That's a loss changing Nyah if there was anything to say, you know, you there's so many other great books around for sure. Like Julie Cameron's work on
James Taylor the car yet?
Jane Anderson Yeah, this way. And, you know, there's all those other fantastic creativity books in the in the, what is it, the War of Art, and all those, they're all all fantastic. But if you had to say what's been the things life changing, it's Yeah, the the work that Matt's done on the latest practice, for sure
James Taylor is great, because it's a great book. So I want you to final question for you, I want you to imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, and you had to start from scratch as an author. So I'm gonna scrub all your LinkedIn profiles, no one knows who you are, you have no connections, you your your contacts list is disappeared. But you know, you want to get that first book out there or get a book out there. What would you do? How would you restart things as an author?
Jane Anderson How would I restart? That's a great question. I would restart, I would always start with water. What is the purpose of what what do you use? What are you selling? But what if what if you want to sell something? What do you want to deliver? What do you want to work with? What do you want to sell to? Or? Like? Is it a coaching program? is a mentoring program? Is it a keynote? And then deciding from there? What is it that you do best? What do you love doing that's commercially smart that people will pay for? And write that book? And I would, I would definitely start, start there. I think I got that some clients, sometimes it's, you know, you can write a book, but it's not necessarily. It's a book based on your past, not your future. So it's knowing that your book is going to create your future. So you might know a lot about spreadsheets, but maybe they don't float your boat, maybe what floats your boat is that is actually about, you know, inspiring people using new sushi cooking techniques. I don't know.
James Taylor That's good. I like that.
Jane Anderson So, you know, just be mindful that whatever you're going to write about is that's going to create your future. So if you don't particularly enjoy something, then you know, or it's not commercially smart. That's what you're going to be doing for the next period of time. So it's just taking the time to really think about what do I want my future to look like? Because the book will create the future.
James Taylor And if people want to learn about you more generally reach out to you maybe directly, what's the best way for them to do that?
Jane Anderson Yeah. Welcome to I'm always on my platform. So I'm on LinkedIn, and Instagram and Facebook. And so wherever you look around on on social media, you'll find me. So I'm more than happy to connect and answer any questions if people want to reach out. That's fine.
James Taylor Well, Jane is, as always, as always a pleasure speaking to you learning about what you're up to. And thank you so much for sharing your insights in terms of writing and being an author. And I look forward to hopefully we'll be sharing the stage at some point together in the future.
Jane Anderson Yeah, I hope so. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
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How and why does the quality of someone's creative work vary with their age?
Peak Creativity and Age
Different Approaches to Creativity
'There are two fundamentally different approaches to creativity and innovation as it relates to your age.'
'If you are an experimenter then don’t overthink it, dive in, get your hands dirty, experiment, test, treat your work like a journey of discovery.'
Watch the video to get the full training.
What is the relationship between your creativity and your age? Do we hit our peak creativity when we are younger and then it gradually declines? Or are we like a fine wine that improves with age?
Enjoy access to my free Creativity Blueprint training course where I help you unlock your creative potential, break down creative blocks and unleash your creative genius. Click here to gain access.
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Creativity and Age
Young creative genius
The media loves the idea of the young creative genius. The 20-year-old musician or artist who creates a whole new style or a 30-year-old Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur who disrupts an industry. Yet we also sometimes hear stories of those innovators who flower a little later in life. The writer who writes their first book in their 40’s which goes on to become an international bestseller or a scientist who makes a groundbreaking discovery in their 50’s or 60’s. So what is going on? How, and why, does the quality of someone’s creative work vary with age?
Peak Creativity and Age
Economist and academic David W. Gelenson recently looked at when in their lives, great artists produce their best work. At first it was difficult to see any real patterns. Some achieve overnight success early in their careers while others strive for creative perfection over decades of pain and frustration. But gradually in examining the careers of great painters, sculptors, novelists and movie directors he found there is a link between peak creativity and age.
Two Fundamentally Different Approaches to Creativity and Innovation
You see there are two fundamentally different approaches to creativity and innovation as it relates to your age. But before we go into that let’s first define what we mean by someone being a creative genius or an innovator. Galenson defines the greatest innovators as that work changes the practices of their peers or successors. As a result of this, great art is those works that embody these innovations. Fundamentally the importance of someone’s creative work is the extent that it influences other creatives. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple and their products and ethos went on to influence future generations of innovators.
Two Different Approaches to Creativity
Now let’s explore the idea of their being two different approaches to creativity. Galenson calls these the Experimental Innovators and Conceptual Innovators. Experiential innovators work by trial and error and their best work happens later in their life. Meanwhile, Conceptual Innovators make sudden breakthroughs by formulating totally new ideas and ways of looking at the world, usually at an early age. If we think of different artists working in different creative life cycles then Michaelangelo, Jackson Pollock, and Alfred Hitchcock were experimental old masters while Picasso, Raphael and Orson Welles were conceptual young geniuses.
Experimental Innovators Work by Trial and Error
Now how can you discover whether you are an experimental or a conceptual creative? Experimental innovators rarely make detailed plans, preferring instead to let the creative work develop over lots of small iterations. It is common with experimental creatives that they will continually return to past motifs or themes. They find the ideas and ‘aha’ moments during the process of working itself and not in the planning or preparation stage.
"Forms Take Reality for me, As I work"
One such experimenter was the artist Joan Miro who said, “Forms take reality for me as I work. In other words, rather than setting out to paint something, I begin painting, and as I paint the picture begins to assert itself, or suggest itself under my brush.”
Experimental Innovators
In the world of business, an experimental innovator would be the marketer or entrepreneur who is running lots of tests, building minimum viable products, and being agile in their approach. Classic lean startups. Innovations in this world are won by hard-earned skill that takes a lot of time.
If we think of literature then the classic experimental creatives would be Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf while in movie making they would be John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock.
Conceptual Innovators
This contrasts sharply with the Conceptual Innovator who sees planning as the most important stage. They want to have a clear vision of the finished work or product or know in detail the process they will use to produce it. As a result, execution or implementation is more systematic. The Conceptual Innovator is primarily motivated by the desire to communicate specific ideas or emotions. Once that idea is realized or the problem is solved then they move on.
So whereas an experimental innovator typically produces many innovations that are related to each other, the conceptual innovator can jump between very distinct fields of study, mediums, or even themes. To an outsider, it may be impossible to find a red thread in their work or a recurring motif because they are always moving onto the next big thing.
When it comes to literature the classic conceptual creatives would be F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, or James Joyce while in movie making they would be Federico Fellini or Orson Welles.
Experimental Creative or Conceptual Creative
Once we begin to think of ourselves as either an experimental creative or a conceptual creative we can use this to produce more innovative work. If you are an experimenter then don’t overthink it, dive in, get your hands dirty, experiment, test, treat your work like a journey of discovery. Your best work is yet to come.
Be Ambitious
Meanwhile, if you are a conceptual innovator then your genius lies in your ability to plan in detail, to create a picture in your mind for what you want to create, and to execute systematically and at speed. Be ambitious for your creative work.
Experimental innovators seek new ideas. Conceptual innovators find new ideas.
Innovation expert and questionologist WARREN BERGER have studied hundreds of the world’s foremost innovators, entrepreneurs, and creative thinkers to learn how they ask questions, generate original ideas, and solve problems. He is the author of eleven books, including THE BOOK OF BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS, the bestseller A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION, and the internationally acclaimed GLIMMER, named one of Businessweek’s Best Innovation and Design Books of the Year. His writing appears regularly in Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, and The New York Times. He lives in New York.
Resource:
James Taylor interviews Warren Berger and they talk about Marketing For Self-Published Authors
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there is James Taylor and I'm delighted today to be interviewing Warren Berger, innovation expert and question ologists Warren Berger has studied hundreds of the world's most foremost innovators, entrepreneurs and creative thinkers to learn how they ask questions, generate original ideas and solve problems. He is the author of 11 books including the book of beautiful questions a bestseller. A more beautiful question and the internationally acclaimed glimmer named one of business week's best innovation and design books of the year. His writings appear regularly and fine company, Harvard Business Review and New York Times. And he lives in the lovely city of New York. And it's my great pleasure to have him with us today. So welcome, Warren. Thank you, James. It's great to be here with you. So what's happening with you? What's going on your world just now?
Warren Berger Oh, well, I'm just finishing a book, my new book, which is called the book of beautiful questions. So I'm in the stage now of, you know, finalizing it going through final proofs and jacket, copy. And so I'm in that stage of just signing off on lots of things. And that's, that's a nice stage to be in. I'm happy about that. Everything looks good. And then the book will actually come out on shelves, October 30. So it's pretty exciting.
James Taylor So 11 This will be your 11th book.
Warren Berger I know. I've lost track.
James Taylor doesn't get any easier. You know, going from that very first book to this latest one is that things get easier as time goes on.
Warren Berger I would like to say yes, but I'm not sure it's true. I think that every book seems to bring its own technologists and, you know, I always go into. It's funny, I've got into several books, thinking, and even saying to my wife, and you know, this one's going to be a lot easier because of XYZ because I already have this information or whatever. And I always think it's going to be easier. And it never is. So I don't know, I think I think what happens is if, if you really care about your work and your books, you know, they're complex problems. And those problems are going to emerge as you're doing the book and the challenges and it's always going to be a puzzle that has to be solved. And you know, it's never easy. So
James Taylor So let's take us back to the beginning your book number one, how did you get into becoming an author? Where did it begin for you?
Warren Berger Um, it began for me as a journalist, you know, I was I was really through much of my career, I was writing, newspaper and magazine articles and back around 2000 I was specializing in a couple of different areas, but one of the areas I was writing about was advertising. I became kind of a little, you know, follower of advertising. And I would I didn't write so much about the business side of it as the creative side, you know, I would look at the best ads, most ads are not very good. But if you look at the best ones, you know, the top 10%, or whatever, in terms of quality and creativity, those are really good. And so I would look at who's making those, how are they making them? Where do the ideas come from? How did they develop them? how effective are they? That kind of thing. So I was writing a lot about that for in articles. And I just decided, you know, I have all this information on this subject, I should put it together into one thing and that became my first book. So my first book was it was called advertising today, and a big coffee table book. And, and I just sort of poured all my knowledge into one into one place. And that was that was the start for me of doing books.
James Taylor So in that process, what would you find was the more difficult because you were obviously writing the book editing the book. And then you're also kind of getting into then the publishing and the deal with the distribution and the publicity and all that side. Would I be writing saying the the writing bit was the bit that kind of came easiest to you? And the and the other side was more challenging? Or do you have a pretty good sense because you came from a really understanding, publishing, that you maybe a little bit advanced, and maybe other first time writers,
Warren Berger I think the hardest thing was, um, was staying with one project for a long time. You know, because I was so used to as a journalist, working on something for a while, and then you're done with it. And you know, you might be working on an article for a month or two months, but then you're done with it, and you get to move on to something else. And a book is much more of a commitment. You know, you really have to stay with it for a long period of time. There's usually periods when you're sick of it, you know, when you really kind of wish, you kind of wish that you could move on to something else, but you can't you have to stay with it. So that was probably the biggest adjustment. And just getting it done getting it out the door, you know, is is a challenge. And then, and then the actual publishing and marketing parts. Um, I would say what happened early on. I was didn't know anything about book publishing. So I would I just kind of sat back and said, okay, I've done my job. I've written a book, now you the publisher, it's your job to take care of this. Well, that was a big mistake. You know, because what you learn as an author over time, or you know, from experience is that the book publishers don't do that much other than actually physically publish your book. Um, it's really up to you as an author to Make it work, you know, and, and so you're gonna have to hustle a bit, you're gonna have to do some of your own marketing. And that means just whatever you can do to get the word out about your book, you know, if you have to write blog posts or make appearances or do podcasts, or whatever it is, you have to be willing to do it, because that's where the word of mouth will get built around your book. And if you, if you sit back and wait for the publisher to do it, chances are it's not going to happen. It may you know, if you're a superstar, okay, you know, if you're a really top writer, then the publisher is going to buy ads for your book, and they'll still invest in your book. But for 99% of the authors, the publisher really just kind of puts you out there. They give you a little bit of help, but not that
James Taylor much. So it sounds like going from, from being a journalist article writing to doing becoming an author of large and larger nonfiction. It was was like, going from being a sprinter to like a marathon runner. You, you have to change your basic
Warren Berger yeah and doing and doing the marketing because Don't forget, as a journalist, I never had to market myself. I was if I wrote for Wired Magazine, Wired magazine was marketing at all, you know, they were the ones that made sure everybody saw my article. But in the book world, it's more of the responsibility comes on you to make sure this thing doesn't just die out there in the world. So
James Taylor yeah, I think if you were never like, I think like someone asked, asked good questions and makes me think about asking better questions. That is kind of what I think of you and I, as you know, you know, we give a lot of keynotes and give a lot of speeches and almost every second keynote, I give, I think I probably reference you, because I think it's so rare that people think about the question. So one thing I have for you, like so many people that are watching listening to this just now are in that position of being their first Time writer. Instead of like, What? What ideas would you give to that? You know, first time writer like that version of you at the start? What questions would you ask of that author, that first time author to help them think through? What writing is? And what writing what the role of writing is for them in their life?
Warren Berger Well, I think the questions that, as an author you need to be asking yourself, are, you know, what am I really trying to achieve with this piece of writing? You know, who is the audience, very important to always be aware of that and keep asking yourself that question. What are they? What is this going to offer them? Or what are they looking to get out of this book, you know, so you should always have an awareness of that as you're, as you're creating the book. And then of course, once the book is out, then you have a whole other set of questions. You know, how might I, you know, draw attention to this book. And that's it. question you can be thinking about all the time because ideas will come to you. You know, you may not think of them right away. But if you if you've got that question in the back of your head, you know, you know, how might I make this book part of the conversation? Or what's going on in the conversation now that I can tap into and I can connect with,
James Taylor I can use Jacqueline almost like just insert your booking setting you into the story,
Warren Berger and that's an awareness thing that I feel like one of the great things with questioning is that a question doesn't have to be answered right away. And so if you can train yourself to live with a question, to keep it on your mind, then what will happen is, you'll always be thinking about that question. Even when you're not sitting at your desk, pounding, pounding your head against the desk because you know, you're dead. Really trying to come up with ideas? A lot of times that's when you don't come up with ideas, right? But if you've got a question in the back of your mind, and you're taking walks and you're going about your, your, your daily life, you will think about that question. Even in your subconscious, you'll think about it. And, you know, you will get ideas about Gee, you know, I could do that, you know, the ideas will kind of pop into your head or you'll see something that will, you'll see something in the newspaper, then you'll say, Oh, yeah, I'm thinking about, can I do with my book? Well, this, this triggers an idea. So I think it's important to live with these couple of questions about first while you're working on the book, you know, what are you really trying to say, What's, who is your audience? What are their needs? What's going on in the world right now that I can address in this book? And then after the book is done, you know, you kind of shift the questions to or now it's done. How can I connect what I've already created? What's going on out there? How can I make it relevant?
James Taylor And I guess by having those questions, something else you probably triggered in your brain I come up with the name is it reticular activating system? I think it is, you know that when you if you go out and buy a certain make of car, something you notice that make a car everywhere. If I see blue elephant to you, you suddenly think of blue elephant everywhere. And by having that question in your back of your head, your mind is constantly scanning the environment all the time looking for things that can help you and pattern recognition as well. So that's great. So as you know, as you're kind of working through it on a book, there come those times where you maybe get stuck somewhere on a chapter you're not quite sure what to do. Are there any questions that you've found quite useful? To help kind of break through some of those times we, maybe you just feel you're getting a little bit lost or you're unsure where to go next, or how to shape a particular chapter on the book.
Warren Berger Well, yeah, there's a couple things. Um, one of the questions that I talked about in my, in my new book is it's about playing the butterfly. And I adapted this question from something that an author and patchett said, which is, she wrote about how when we are in the early stages of developing an idea, we have a vision in our head. That's a beautiful idea of what the idea should be, you know, we sort of night have a vision for a story. And it's a beautiful story somehow, in our heads. And what happens to a lot of people is when they try to take that, that idea from the beautiful vision in their heads to something solid, something on paper, it suddenly gets very ugly. The whole process starts to get ugly, because it's not perfect anymore. It was only perfect in your imagination. And the reality is that never perfect. So once you try to write it down, you try to write it out. Or I imagine the same thing is true with all types of artists, as you try to give form to this vision, you suddenly there are all these imperfections and things that don't make sense things that don't work a holes in your story, you know, there's all kinds of things. So one of the things that I one of the questions I put in my book was for all artists is they need to be asking themselves, am I willing to kill the butterfly? Because as Ann patchett said, you know, you have to kill that perfect vision in your head that that's not a real thing. And you have to be willing to live with whatever the real thing is, whatever the thing you're capable of creating, and it may not match that butterfly in your head, but that's okay. Because the real thing is what counts not that you know, the butterfly in your head is not real. So, um, so, um, I think that's a really important question because it gives you permission to lower, lower the bar a little bit. And that's another question. By the way, another question you can use is, what if I lower the bar? You know, so a lot of times when we're trying to write a beginning of a chapter, or we're trying to create anything, we want to create something so great right out of the box, you know, we want it to be like, excellent, as soon as we put it down on paper, and one of the things that artists successful artists sometimes do is give themselves permission to create something lousy. Because what will happen is, let's say you write something out, it's not very good. But at least you've written something, right? And then you'll go to work on that. Now you have now you have something to work on, and you will make it better. I mean, you won't settle for that, that bad thing, but that bad thing is a start, you know? So it's like giving yourself permission and Asking yourself, you know, what if I begin anywhere, you know, what if I lower the bar, all of those things are designed to give yourself permission to just create without constantly judge without constantly feeling like it has to be so good. Otherwise, I'm just going to get up and leave, I'm going to just stop. And that's the real enemy of creativity is that, that impulse, you have to just get up, leave the room and just quit. Yeah, and we all have it, you know, everybody has that impulse. So the idea is, how do you overcome? How do you fight against that impulse? How do you work through it? And, you know, and you need to find your own ways of doing that. Another thing could be, it could be about putting yourself in. I have a question about a couple of questions that have to do with how might I put myself in creative jail, you know, in effect, you might figure out that in order for you to create anything You need a couple of hours of being more or less locked up. And you need to be able to put yourself in a position where it's not easy for you to walk away from that. Now how you do that, I don't know that's up to you whether you want to actually lock a door somewhere, whether you want to find a place that once you go there, it's not so convenient to get up and leave. Or whether you want to have your significant other in your life stand guard and force back into whatever it is or some people use a timer, you know, where they say this, I'm setting this timer for an hour and a half. I can't leave this room until that timer goes off. But whatever method you use, there, you know, you may need to find a way to force yourself to just stay with it.
James Taylor And then Roald Dahl the great job is writer. He always bought the same pencils, the same type of pencils, and he always every morning he would go into his writing and he was sharpen seven pencils, and then by the end of the seven but Find the seventh pencil was blunt, which is usually about midday. That's when he would stop. So he said he always do they need to get to seven pencils. That was like a very simple way of doing it. And it was just that would be his version of creative jail. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which I think is great. I think he's great. Because you know, that one of the things you hear a lot is people saying, you know, I've kind of written these things, but they're all in the bottom drawer, and I'll put out is absolutely 100% perfect, you know, this perfectionism thing that that we have and I think what you just said there about, you know, killing the butterfly, and you can learn that bar there. It's again, it gives you It gives you permission to be able to Okay, it's never gonna be hundred percent perfect. You know, you just let's get get out.
Warren Berger And you know, the I I definitely have that that thing that she had and Patrick talked about, which is the ideas when they're in my head. They seem so perfect. I mean, I just, it's like at all I have this vision for an entire movie or whatever in my head. And it all is wonderful and all Makes perfect sense. And you know, the thing is, that's just not true. It's your it's almost a trick your imagination plays on you. I think the idea that telling you that this thing is beautiful and perfect, it's really not. And that's why if you start to dissect it and it's into something, you realize, Oh, it was just kind of a half, half baked idea, you know, but that's okay. Because that's your starting point, that half baked idea is your starting point. But you just have to not be discouraged. When you realize it's half baked, you know, it's okay, that it's half baked. You know, it would be amazing. If an idea came out of your head fully baked. It could happen, but I don't think it happens very often. And so you have to realize that it's probably half baked, if it's in while it's in your head, and the only way it's going to get fully baked, is to take it out of your imagination. Start really working on it,
James Taylor and it's fine. I mean, we hear this is not just in writing, but a lot of any kind of creative work. You know, this, this theme of comparing your back shop to someone else's front shop, you know, comparing, you know, you see the artists on stage during this great thing and, and then you're looking at yourself just kind of working on like not able to get a song out and you're looking at some author of the, you know, front cover of something and you're struggling to get that first that first chapter in so it's just going to give yourself permission to realize it's not killing the butterfly,
Warren Berger you don't know what that artists went through to get to that finish stage. I mean, they might have started with something that wasn't very good, you know, and, and just work their way to that point. So it's, it's a very interesting kind of way that we have to battle against our own. Our own imagination
James Taylor was the as you were kind of this, this latest book the previous day, which is they're kind of they kind of go together really they kind of come to a complementary that these books were there was a stage in the writing of either of those books where you kind of got stuck yourself and you had to kind of use They can have questioning on yourself and really, maybe ask yourself a number of questions to kind of get yourself unstuck.
Warren Berger Yeah, I did. I definitely did. Because what happened was, um, you know, the first book was was very much a more general take on questioning. And it was about, you know, why is questioning so powerful? You know, why does it Why does it allow us to do all these great things? And and why don't we ask more questions? What is it in our culture or our education, that tends to maybe keep us from asking a lot of questions? So that book, I felt like was a very general kind of look at the phenomenon of questioning. And then with the second book, when I wanted to do was dig deeper on certain areas that I thought were really important where we could use questioning. So I went from the very general to the more targeted approach. So in the second book I'm looking at, okay, we know questioning is a great tool. How can we use that tool To help us make better decisions, how can we use that tool to fire our own creativity? How can we use that tool to be better leaders? And how can we use that tool to connect with other people on a on a personal level? So those four areas, connection, leadership, creativity, and decision making? So there were a lot of challenges. Once I went to that format, I thought it'd be easy. Yeah, you know, it's that idea. Oh, well, I've already done a questioning book. So this is just going a little deeper, it'll be easy. Well, actually, in some ways, it was harder, because I was, as I because I was getting more specific. In each of these areas. I had to it was almost like I was writing four books. I was writing one book about decision making another book about creativity, another book about leadership, and another book about human relationships. And so you know, it was it became a real real challenge on that level. As far as the questions I asked myself, I, you know, I always kept asking, you know, what is the what is the essential information and what is essential to be in this book, because the big challenge you have with it with any book and with this book in particular is there's so much you could talk about. So once you decide you're going to talk about creativity, you know, there's so much you can talk about so I always had to be focusing Okay, what what do I really want to focus on with creativity? You know, I there's a lot of directions I could go on, what do I really want to focus on and, and what questions are going to be most important? And so I really focused in on the ones you just talked about, you know, how do you get by how do you get past the blocks, how do you get how do you overcome the things that stop you? And and that that was the focus there, but I had to do that throughout the book, always be asking myself, you know, what's really important, what really matters here? What do I want to What do I want to leave out? You know, that's an important question that a lot of times authors don't ask is, you know, what am I willing to abandon? You know, because what happens when you are doing a lot of research for a book? And And sure, you know, this is it, you come up with so much interesting material from every different direction and, and you want to use it all, you know, because it's all, because it's all interesting. On some level, almost everything you find out is going to be interesting on some level. So you feel like, gosh, this should really be in the book. And so I think one of the things you have to ask yourself as an author is what am I willing to abandon? Just because it's not as critical as the other stuff doesn't mean it's not interesting, but it's not as central to the to the topic and the subject and the needs of the reader.
James Taylor Yeah, it's not as important but that's something you could also as your Asking yourself the whole time in the back of your head, like how do I get this book out how to market this book, tell people about this book, that might be a story that you could use, actually, oh, that would be a great Fast Company piece. You know, I could use that as a good example to use for that. Or I could use it as part of a keynote. So these things might never go away, go away. It's just the that one thing that you're creating that book, it needs to be, you know, kind of solid and it needs to kind of make sense. And it remains below the kind of what you're doing with that book is there was a book The Omnivore's Dilemma. I'm to remember the name of the author now. He, he wrote a book and he actually wrote through three books, like the book one that was the big like, heavy book all about, about food and how we eat and food and diet. And then that was like, power. That's it. Yeah. And that was a classic. That was a great book. But then he also he found a lot of people said, Oh, I got a book. I would love to use like the like a slightly smaller version of it. So his second book, he did like a Like a more compressed version of it, and then people came up to me. That was that was great book. I would you know, I'd love if you just told us what the rules were. So I think his latest book is just like, do this don't do that. So it is but it's all but I think he spoke about this idea. It's like Japanese poetry, you know, actually, right doing less is so hard is do so is is that I can't do the famous I think was Winston Churchill maybe said I'm sorry, I'm sorry, this is a long letter. I didn't have time to write you a shorter short one. So it was
Warren Berger something like that. It's true and and the other the other good lesson from from what the story you just told me with Michael Pollan is he listened to his he listened to his audience, he listened to his readers. They were telling him something there, and and he followed up on it. And that was true with this book that I just did, too. I mean, it was definitely came out of something I was hearing from readers, when I would go around and talk about the first book or more Beautiful question. I did a lot of talks, a lot of readings. And then I always talk to people afterwards, you know, have Q and A's and stuff. And I was always getting the same question, which is, you know, people would say, I love the idea of questioning more. And I think of myself as a great question or, but I want to know, you know, I'm in the field of data, what questions would help me when I have to deal with someone or when I have to deal with? So they always wanted questions that were specific to their situation, as opposed to just having this general idea that you should ask more questions. So, so I decided that that's what I would focus on in the next book is like, instead of just generally talking about questioning, if I could say, Hey, here's some specifics. If you're in this situation, why don't you think about asking these kinds of questions, or you know, these are some questions that people have found are very effective. When you're trying to decide, you know, should I take that job. So that ended up being you know, the the main gist of the book. And it really came out of listening to readers and what they had to say
James Taylor because you could almost one of our other guests is very well known in terms of creating book series. Like Miracle Morning working on a record a work with Hal Elrod, and it's now you had the Miracle Morning for parents, the Miracle Morning for teachers, the Miracle Morning for executives. So you could actually with your book, you could do, you know, asking better questions for executive as many questions for you know, parents as well. So you've got like, a whole the next 30 years of your life could be
Warren Berger wonderful. Yeah. You know, that's, that's, that's both good and bad. Because, um, I don't know, you know, I found when going to a second book, um, it was the first time I'd ever done that. It was the first time I'd ever done a second second book on the same subject. And that is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, you're bringing a lot of expertise Now to the second book, because you've already earned it, you've already developed it. And that's wonderful. And you're going deeper on a subject that you care about. And that's really good too. But the downside is, if you're used to being someone who wants variety and wants to move on to something new, you can start to feel like oh gee, why am I still in this? on this subject? Isn't it time for me to to be doing something new by now? And you know, this is again, another great creative question that people need to ask themselves from time to time, which is, this is adapted from something. Do you know the writer Elizabeth Gilbert
James Taylor did great, big, big magic and Mary love.
Warren Berger So so she talked about in one of her talks, she talked about the difference between a a jackhammer, a jackhammer and a hummingbird. So, so jackhammer being a jack Cameron digs really deep on something, a hummingbird kind of flies around and lands briefly somewhere and then moves on to the next thing. And where I think this is interesting for creative people is and a question they should ask themselves is at a particular stage in your creative work, you can ask yourself, Is it time now, for me to be back hammer or a hummingbird? To be a jackhammer is to go deeper on something to just you know, you're you're into a subject or you're into an idea you really love. You kind of keep going as deep as you can. But there may come a point when you want to move on, and that's when it's time to be a hummingbird. One of the things I talked about in the book is people like Bob Dylan, or the band you too or lots of creative people have reached a point in their career or various points in their career. Where it's just not, it's just starting to feel stale. And they need to move in a different direction. And that's when it's time to be a hummingbird. You know, they can't just keep digging in that same area where they've had success, they at some point, they need to fly away. And it's very scary to do that. But the really successful artists do that they they evolve and so I find that it's an interesting idea of whether you keep going deep in one area and one is a time to just say okay, I'm moving on now. And I don't know when that will come with questioning for me I mean, it may be at after I've done a second book I may say time to be a hummingbird, you know, time to fly away. But um, but you know, that's that's a question that I think every creative person has to deal with. At some point.
James Taylor A friend of mine worked with Bob Dylan. He said one of the interesting things about working Bob Dylan said, he never looks back. He's not interested in the slightest of previous things he's done he's always looking at the next thing or and that's that's his. That's his mindset. And I know some author friends of mine who's had that same thing about the first books been very successful. And the publisher would like a series of books around it. And they feel that they don't necessarily want that they want to move on to the next thing that they're that kind of Hummingbird. So the the model that they've found is okay, I'll co author the books in the book series. And so they've actually brought in a different co author for lacing the parents want or whatever the different ones are. And so really, they have that kind of executive control over it, but they're not having to do the heavy lifting, and that releases them took the time to work on the new thing, but I think it's a really, that's it. Yeah, it's a really fascinating question. And it's a good problem to have. Because it means that the first book has been successful enough to
Warren Berger say, Oh, it's one it's a wonderful app. But But you know, it is true that um, artists really get locked into something or creative people get locked into one area and it can be great for a lot for a while. But they may find at some point that they can, it may be that they can even still make a lot of money. Yeah, doing what they what they're doing, or they can still be successful at it. But if their passion isn't there, if their interest isn't there, they're not going to be happy doing the work. And and I think, you know, if you're there, you're, if you're a creative person, you're there for a reason. And it's that you want to be creative. You want to feel that passion. So as soon as you stop feeling that if access for making money, I think it's gonna, you're not gonna be happy, because you want that feeling of creativity, you want that you want to be energized. You want to feel like you're exploring, and you want to feel like you're trying new things. So
James Taylor yeah, and I think, you know, we're seeing creatives, and we're and some people think, well, that's just authors and artists, musicians. But actually, Richard Fineman, the great physicist was a perfect example of that. It changed every pretty much 10 years, because he wanted that beginner's mind going into something fresh. And there's the Dr. kh camp. Who writes a lot about creativity and Nobel Prize winners? And she said, one of the things you often see is that they're boundary crosses, they will go and one thing and then they'll go, they'll have maybe their main domain, let's say writing. But then they will go in different domains. And they're able to pull all that from a completely separate thing and into this new thing. And see connections that no one has ever seen before. Because we're able to jump these different boundaries,
Warren Berger connect ideas from different realms. That's one of the best ways to get new ideas.
James Taylor Yeah. So let's as we start to kind of finish up here, I'd love to know other what tools do you use you find really useful for yourself in your writing? Is there particular apps that you can have used to help you in your writing? I'm
Warren Berger on notepad and pen. So I'm very, very old school. I'm one of the things I do is I mean, I will I have a radical I'm sort of radically anti technology, particularly in terms of I feel like we've got it Creativity is under siege by technology right now. And there are tools that also help technology, ai tools that help with creativity. I understand there are tools that can, you know, Evernote or something can help you organize your notes. And that's a great thing. But in general, I worry that technology a lot of times is working against our creativity, I think that it's in the most extreme case is, you know, social media. I mean, that's just, that's just a creativity killer. And I, you know, I battle against it all the time. And it's that distraction, that constant distraction that's there with it, that easy access to easy access to information. So that it's it's just always there at your fingertips and you can always just, you know, be a hummingbird Yeah, but but but not in a good way. I mean, you know, the the idea of being a hummingbird and and following your curiosity. It sounds good. And it is good on a certain level. But there's a point at which following your curiosity is not good. And that's the point where you're just kind of bouncing from one website to another for no particular reason. And getting lost in interesting little tidbits all day long. Now that is the enemy of creativity, because that doesn't help you really doesn't help you with making something with producing.
James Taylor I know Malcolm Gladwell, I was watching thing he speaks about law about this, he said is it's Google is not your friend. Because obviously, Google is based upon what is most popular, and it will raise those things to the top and when you're researching and right. That's like the last thing you want to do. So he said, I actually like going to, if I'm in that state of reason, going to a library and looking through the the references in a book and then going like two or three steps back where did they find that? Where did they find it? And he said, often you that's when you'll uncover Stories, but you're not going to get them through through Google,
Warren Berger you'll find something and you'll find fresh ground there. The problem with Google or using stuff that everybody else is using is that, you know, you're not going to find anything that everybody doesn't know already. You know, so it kind of works against originality. It works against coming up with something unusual, or novel. So I think Yeah, on that level, on the research level, it's definitely an issue. But more importantly, to me, it's just the distraction issue. I think that's anyone who's creative now has to recognize this is probably one of the greatest enemies to their, of their creativity is the, the ease with which we can distract ourselves now. I mean, it was always a problem. I mean, you could get distracted by just looking out the window, right? So it's not like it's an entirely new problem. But um, It is a, we get distracted in different ways. Now, you know, I have, we might have got gotten up from our desk and gone for a walk, because we couldn't because we couldn't get any work done. We didn't feel right, we couldn't get nothing was coming out. So we might take a walk. Well, that's not necessarily a bad thing, taking a walk, because you might come up with ideas. But instead, what we're more likely to do now is go on social media.
James Taylor And we're consuming as opposed to creating stuff coming soon.
Warren Berger And that doesn't allow your brain to do the things it needs to do because it's just in the absorption mode. It's just absorbing. And there was a line from a designer that I knew who said it is, it is easier to react than to create. So that's very important to keep in mind that you will always if you give yourself the choice of reacting versus creating most of the time, you'll choose reacting. And by reacting I mean answering another email taking another phone call doing another meeting. Those things are easier to do, they really are. And, and so we tend to be lazy at heart. And and we want it we look for those easy outs, we look for those things when we can say, Oh, well, I have to do this, I have to do that. Therefore, I got to push aside the work. So I think you know, we need to be very hyper aware of that, that there are things that are constantly undercutting us in our attempts to be creative.
James Taylor And what about a book if you do recommend not one of your own books, that is another book by by another author that will could help people either with the craft of writing or just just maybe think more creatively? What would that book be?
Warren Berger Um, well, I'm on writing the craft of writing. I love some of the some of what Stephen King has written about writing is great. He wrote a nonfiction book I believe it was it was something along the lines on writing. That's great. Yeah. I love the classic book by a Bird by Bird by Annie Dillard, which if people haven't read that, I hope I'm getting that. The her last name, right. Yeah, I think I'm Eddie Diller. But the title is Bird by Bird. fantastic book. It is just a great. It's so beautifully written, but it talks about the the what makes writing such a special thing. And it's very inspirational. So if you need that kind of inspirational if you're if you're asking why am I right? Or why am I doing this, and you need some inspiration, you know, I look to those kind of books that remind you why this is a great way to spend your time and a great, great thing to put your efforts into. And then just as far as other books I've on creativity that I've enjoyed, you know, I love the the the workplace The writer, the professor who, whose name I can never pronounce who wrote the book flow.
James Taylor Haley is from university. Yeah, yeah.
Warren Berger The book flow is a great book too. If it's not in your library already, I get it because it's very important. The whole idea of getting in the flow is very, very important. And he's analyzed it in a way that nobody else has. And I love I love the work of Adam Grant, the writer Adam Grant, who's written he wrote the book originals, as well as give and take but I think he really Adam Grant has some great ideas about what makes people a creative and what what allows them to think the way they do
James Taylor wonderful. We'll put all these links here so people can check out all those as well. I've got a final question for you Warren. Let's I want you to imagine you woke up tomorrow morning and you're gonna have to start from scratch start writing from scratch. No one knows you, you know no one you don't have a publisher relationship. Nothing, no platform. What would you do? How would you restart things?
Warren Berger I would ask myself the question, what can I own? And what do I want to own? So that could be an issue, or a problem, or a subject area? Um, you know, I think I mentioned earlier that, you know, when I, my first book came out of my being, writing a lot about advertising, so I felt like I owned that turf of advertising at that time when I wrote that. I knew as much about Creative Advertising is anybody I mean, I was really, I was really steeped in it. So I think one good thing to ask yourself as a writer starting out, is, you know, where would I be able to create a niche for myself, you know, where would I be able to where might I be able to bring something to to the table that I care about? Maybe I have some stuff talent in that area, and also that maybe there's not that many people talking about it, um, you know, the more you can find an area that's a little bit fresh. It's not being done by everybody, you know, but it's a little more distinctive. That's what I would do. That's, that's one of the questions I would ask my so I really focus on how can I make myself distinctive? And how can I find a place for me to make a statement
James Taylor while you're selling done that with this whole area of questioning and ask asking better questions, and then great job on that. And I recommend your book to many, many people. And I highly encourage anyone that's watching this just that go and get go and get either the latest one that's just coming out or the other, the previous one as well. If people want to connect with you, Warren, just reach out maybe to find out more about your work, where's the best place for them to go and do that
Warren Berger I just I have a site that sort of brings everything together and it's amorebeautifulquestion.com. So you just put those four words together a more beautiful question. All one word a.com. And, and what that is, is kind of a clearinghouse of best questioning. It's got both of the books on there so you can see the difference between them and what they're covering. And just even fun stuff, like there's a place on there, which has all songs that have questions for a title. And I always invite I invite people if you know it, if I if there's a song, you know, that has a question for a title, like who wrote the book on love, you know, something like, so if you know of a song that has a question for title, send it into me because we're trying to build a definitive list of questions, songs, but you know, there's all kinds of fun stuff about their quizzes you can take about what kind of question are you and that kind of thing. So, that's kind of the place to go. If you're for all things about me and mainly all things about questioning.
James Taylor Wonderful. We're gonna put those links here below, or and it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you again, thanks so much for coming. On this and sharing your your brilliance and about your life and writing. Thanks so much for today.
Warren Berger Thank you, James goodbye.
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Dave Chesson is an author, Kindlepreneur and online marketing ninja. A Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy it was during his downtime there that he first got interested in online marketing and search engine optimization. But it wasn’t until he started publishing his own books that everything started to come together for him. By linking his online marketing skills with self-publishing he was able to become a #1 best-selling author across multiple topic areas. Today Kindlepreneur.com is his flagship, a place where he does everything possible to show self-publishers how to harness the power of the internet to sell more books and build their platforms.
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James Taylor Interviews Dave Chesson and they talk about How To Become A Kindlepreneur
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James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there is James Taylor and I'm delighted to be joined by Dave Chesson. Dave is an author kindlepreneur, an online marketing ninja Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy, it was during his damn time there, he first got interested in online marketing and search engine optimization. But it wasn't until he started publishing his own books that everything started to come together for him. By linking his online marketing skills for self publishing, he was able to become a number one best selling author across multiple topic areas. Today Kindle printers dot com is his flagship, a place where he does everything possible to show Self Publishers have to harness the power of the internet to sell more books and build their platforms. It's my great pleasure to have Dave with us today. So welcome, Dave.
Dave Chesson Hey, thanks so much for having me.
James Taylor So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now.
Dave Chesson Well, uh, you know, the coolest thing is, is that I used to be in the Navy and today now I am actually at home, my kids are upstairs. I don't have to go to work anymore. And all I do is write and it's it's kind of that dream come true. So been loving every second that especially rekindling a lot of time with my kids since I was deployed so often. So, really great to be here.
James Taylor I see. Your specialism was like nuclear, like engineering, as well. So so that's so how did you know that took us through that journey moving from specializing nuclear engineering, US Navy to being a best selling author. Talk us through that journey that you had?
Dave Chesson Yeah, well, I actually started as a nuclear engineer, and I was on submarines and I'm not gonna lie. I really did. Like that child a lot. It was not exactly, shall we say a wonderful conducive environment. But anyways, I went through it. And at the time the military was like, Hey, we want you to stay on. We want you to do a department head tour on a submarine. I was like, No, thank you. I actually moved over to being a military diplomat. They call them foreign area officers. And so I got my master's degree in East Asia. I'm fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and they sent me to Korea, not China. And so my first assignment was to work with the Korean Navy. And the bummer part about it all though is is that I was sent without my family. So I had two years without my wife and kids. And one day, my wife and I were having a conversation over Skype, because that was our way. And she asked me, so what is your goal in life with this career? What are you trying to do? And I was like, I don't know. She was like, Are you trying to be an admiral? I said, definitely, no. She was like, so you're just doing this career? I said, Yeah. And she's like a career that's constantly taking you away. For us, I was like, Huh, that's a really good point. So we had one of these moments where we decided to define what success was for our family. And success was not being deployed. You know, it was being at home, it was being able to take the kids to the pool on a Monday, like I just did, it was being able to be there for my kids when, you know, they do their dance recital. That was the goal. So my wife and I really started to look at what could I start doing now, that would allow me to build up enough income on the side to be able to get out of the military, and not jump from one nine to five job that deployed me to another nine to five job that deployed me but something that I could do that would bring me home. And considering the fact that I'm on the other side of the world in Korea, and most of the time I was going out to sea on Korean warships. There were there wasn't much I could do. I was really limited, right? I couldn't do a brick and mortar. I couldn't do some big business or whatever. I couldn't do anything that required me to have to respond all the time, because I was trying to build this business on the side, I was trying to work on whatever it was I was doing. You know, who knows, the Navy could send me out to sea for a month. And if somebody was expecting me, I wouldn't be able to deliver because I can't communicate. So in the end, we started to look at it. And I started to build out websites and do this thing called search engine optimization, like you said, and that is the art of basically figuring out what people are typing in the internet, what they're looking for, what they want, what questions they have, answering those questions, and then working with the search algorithm, whether it's Google or Amazon, which we'll get to in a second, but convincing it that what you wrote is the best thing to show to people. So I started ranking on my websites. Number one in Google, I got all this traffic, all these people were learning and growing and, you know, just benefiting from that work. And at the time, I was only making a couple of cents here and there for like You know, add Google AdSense, where somebody clicked on an ad, yay, 25 cents, you know, a couple of clicks and I might be able to pay for coffee. But one day, I realized that while I'm writing all these websites and all these articles to help people, there's something that actually much greater. And that was Amazon. And Amazon is the search engine. It's where people go, they go to that top bar at the top, they type in something because they're looking for something they're searching for an answer, or they're wanting a certain type of book to be entertained by, and then Amazon chooses which book to show them. Now, statistically speaking, if your book ranks at the top of a Amazon search result, you can expect 28% of all people that typed in that term will click on your book. But if you ranked number two, it quickly drops down to 1311 97666, and so forth. So if I were to tell you that 1000 people per month, type in this particular phrase, right, and your business shows up number one in Amazon results. Okay, that's 20 280 people per month will be finding your book just from that one phrase that's every month. And so when I took this principle and I applied it, Amazon, I was all of a sudden unable to find a great source where I knew that I was writing a book that people were actively searching for and wanting on Amazon. And more importantly, I was able to use that same principle to be able to then check and say to myself, you know, okay, yeah, the number one book is Stephen King, I'm not gonna beat that guy, you know, or the number one, you know, insert super famous, awesome person on this subject matter. Okay, yeah, that's not the thing to write. But I would find opportunities where people were typing something in and the book they were being presented wasn't what they were wanting. There was a hungry market that wanted something and they couldn't find it. Or they were suffering over some terribly put together book that you could tell the person didn't Didn't know what they're writing about. And so I was able to say, I can do better, I can serve this market, and I can do better and I can deserve that spot at the top. And then Amazon rewards you by sending people continuously to your book making sales. And when I did that, all of a sudden my income stream jumped. And my books were not only making money, more money than I was in the military, but they were consistently making money. And so I then realize that this is something that nobody's really talking about, how does Amazon work? And so I created Kindle printer calm, and website that's completely focused on helping teach authors sort of the business side of book write writing, right? And no, I'm not discrediting art. I'm all about the art. But if you've got great art, let's get it to the right people. Because people are searching for what you have to say. And if you believe that nobody is searching, or nobody could benefit from what you're writing to while you're writing it, right. So let's find out, let's use Amazon to find Find out what's going on and get your book in front of them. And so Kindle printers, it's been crazy. There's over 200,000 visitors per month to the website. And the the best part was, is that it's been crazy kind of working about how does Amazon work because a lot of people will say, you know, nobody knows what really is going on on Amazon. But I was really happy a couple of months ago, Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing Facebook page posted one of my articles and said learn from this guy. He knows how to optimize books for sales. And I was like, oh, my goodness, that was some validation, right? Yeah. And I think the best thing is there are a lot of people will say like you're teaching people how to hack Amazon. And I think the best part was Amazon looked at is like now this helps us get better books in front of our market, which means more sales for them, so it's good for them too. So you know, take that and apply it.
James Taylor So I'm sure the question of view is, listeners mind just now is so you find these these phrases that people are looking for these problems people have And where there isn't an adequate solution for them just now. And then the next stage is obviously you go to solve that problem in the case of a book. So when it's let's say, if it's if it's a topic area that you have, do all the topic areas that you write about, are they all things that you feel absolutely passionate about writing about? Or the things we just see there's a, there's a big opportunity there. And also, are you writing all these books? Or are you now starting to get to a stage where you're, you're finding where the opportunities are, and then kind of finding sub writers to write for you?
Dave Chesson Well, I'm sort of perfectionist, so I've never been able to let go the reins to somebody else to write I have worked, where I've got somebody who helps me to research and I sort of have my own formula, especially a nonfiction. I love to use what I call the Jhansi Maxwell tactic. And that's where every chapter is, is the lesson for more importantly, every chapter is centered around a story to highlight the lesson. So most of the time, like my virtual assistant will go find a great route. True story that personifies what we're trying to teach in this, this lesson. And through that, not only am I teaching somebody something, I'm entertaining them, I found that my reviews are much higher because of that, because people are like getting a history lesson. They feel like they're getting even more instead of just learning how to do it. So storytelling is the greatest nonfiction tactic, whether you know, no matter what you are talking about, put in stories put a realness into what you're teaching, and you will see the readers not only expand on what you do, but they will glorify it, you know, with great reviews and tell their friends about it. So that is one one tactic I'll throw in there. But when it comes to, you know, am I passionate about it? Well, that plays into my research. See, here's a great example of a book I didn't do. And it was only because I dragged my feet too long. And then I saw that things changed in the market. So the first one was, you know, back in the day, Evernote was something that a lot of people were writing about. Okay. Evernote was a phenomenal way to be able to kind of collect your notes and use them and I was using it all the time to do my research for whatever books I was working on. So I figured that writing a book on Evernote would be great. But when I did my research, I saw that there was like hundreds of books on Evernote. Apparently people had done some research and they saw that it was a hot market that lots of people were trying to buy books on how to how to use Evernote. However, though, most people would have stopped either a that well, a they would have written a book found out the competition was too hard and made no money. Be they would have written the book spend a lot of money to do a lot of hardcore marketing and then got it up there and benefit from it. Or see they did what I did, which is I found out what else in the market was there in the Evernote realm. When I did my research, I found out that there were certain demographics that were specifically looking to apply Evernote to what they were doing. For example, at the time it was Evernote for writers, which was awesome. I was like done. Another one was Evernote. For lawyers, that was a smaller market, but there were people typing into Amazon, Evernote for lawyers. Evernote for project managers was actually a big one. Apparently people who were doing project management were truck heard Evernote might be a good thing. And they were just seeing if somebody had written a book for their pain point, which is using it for project management. And finally, I even found that just breaking up. We talked about writers, but guess what Evernote for students, that was another one. So I could have easily have written basically the same book, right, but applied it to the needs and the language of those demographics. And then I assure you if you are a student, lawyer, project manager or writer, if you wrote in Evernote for your demographic right here, you probably 100% buy my book right on the spot because it was the only book that addressed your needs. It spoke to you the most. And you know was Isler. No I was thinking about that one was like that would be the hardest because I really don't know how to speak like a lawyer. However, though, I had a math background in project management. Matter of fact, I have a master's degree in Engineering and Management. So I thought, done, let's talk about Gantt charts, you know, and let's, let's break that out. How do you put that into Evernote? I could do that student I was a student, you know, writer. That was the first idea was using this for writing your next book. So there were all these great ways that I could write a book truly for that market that I knew without a doubt existed. And although I wouldn't make as much money as the person who ranks number one for the word, Evernote, I assure you, I would make money every single month until either a I got more competition and somebody wrote a better book than me, or B until the market died. And in this case, the market did die because Evernote changed the way they work and then it became a paid service instead of free. They kind of mucked it up and then all of a sudden everybody's like move into these other free things. So That was why the book never got written.
James Taylor So you mentioned they like the research, researching potential, either competent researching the problem or the issue that the challenge someone has been researching the kind of competition. Let me break that down for a second. So you mentioned this idea of finding those search phrases that people are searching for, is that something that's publicly available to any author? publisher can kind of go in and look for that and find out but then how did they can get a sense of well, that that particular term there is trending or that particular trend is that phrase getting more than this other phrase?
Dave Chesson Well, back in the day when I was doing this, the only way you could get an understanding of what was being typed and what was not, was doing Amazon suggestions. So when you go to Amazon, I highly recommend being an incognito mode when you do this. And incognito mode is a chrome thing. So go to Chrome right clicks like incognito mode. And what that does is it stops Amazon from using your previous search as well as your own account to present to you ideas. I will then start typing in a Certain term, and then Amazon tries to guess what I'm going to finish that term with. So it adds suggestions. Those suggestions are not magical things that come up with that is a list of what people have typed in beyond what you've typed. So if you type in something like Space Marines, it's going to try to fill in the blank, right. And a tactic I used to do back in the day was I'd be like Space Marines, and then I would put an A, then I'd erase the A, then I put a B, then a C, and a D, and I would write down everything that it showed me. And the problem about this tactic back in the day was that I had no idea if it was like 10 people or 100,000, you know, and so I kind of had to, like do this round about hardcore nuclear engineering calculation that I had, I was like an Excel wizard, to be able to figure out the popularity that existed of the terms um, based off some crazy parameters. And so that was like my own way and I tried it back in On kindlepreneur, like, Alright, here you go guys. And Surprise, surprise, but most authors are not, you know, mathematical whizzes. So in that case, we actually program we created a program called KDP Rocket that does all that for you. So you just plug in, it pulls all the keywords that everybody's typed in Amazon, and it will actually tell you the estimated Amazon searches per month. So now without a doubt, you can look and say, hey, look at this, a lot of people are typing in this keyword phrase compared to this one where nobody's typing it in. And so that that just kind of gives authors the understanding of what's really going on in Amazon. And they can make sure from day one that the book they're either potentially going to write, the book they're writing, or the book they just wrote, has an existing market on Amazon that they can market to.
James Taylor So once they've the fan Oh, this is a this is a great phrase. There's something around this this phrase, this is what people are looking for. Then you can also see this maybe other books have kind of been written about the area maybe not specifically, how do you get a sense of well How many copies is this, these competitors selling what's hot in this area,
Dave Chesson that's another thing we do on on KDP Rocket is it will tell you the average amount of money that books are making that show up for that keyword. And you can even look at the individual books and know how much money they're making. So you can actually see the number but you can also do this for free. You don't have to have KDP Rocket be able to do this. And we have a calculator on kindlepreneur.com it just go to like Google and type in KDP calculator, it'll show up number one. Gotta love that SEO. But you take the Amazon bestseller rank of the book and you put it in that calculator and you choose whether it's Kindle or whether it's book and then you click Go get them and it will tell you how many books that day that author sold. So now takes the guesswork out. You can actually look and see hey, look at that. nobody's buying these books or man. A lot of people are buying these books and it is crap. You can just see for the ratings everybody's given poor reviews. The book cover looks like it was put together by five year old That's the sweet spot. Man, people want this answer so much they're willing to pay for something that doesn't look good, doesn't present itself well. And even with the bad reviews, they're still buying it. Golden,
James Taylor and I'm guessing also, you mentioned using your an assistant to help find stories to support things you're saying. But you can also use an assistant on the other end, in terms of go and find me some gold go and dig me gold opportunities. So I can then review these opportunities every week or every month in terms of thinking about future projects.
Dave Chesson Yeah, that's definitely one thing I know. I know, there are a lot of people, a lot of authors out there who have their virtual assistant and they literally send them KTP rocket and like, go, here's my parameters I want, you know, find me every keyword that has this amount of searches that's making about this amount of money. And by the way, we have a competitor score that helps you understand what the competition level is like for that keyword. And it's a score from zero to 100. So zero meaning if you write it, you're there 100 meaning may the force be with you Their virtual assistant can literally come back with a giant list with all the numbers. And authors can kind of scan through it and see if there is a topic that they want to write about. And, or, you know, for me, I'm kind of like, I like to do it myself, but that's just kind of my own thing. But what the tactic I love to use is that I don't like sit myself down and be like, Alright, Dave, for the next 48 hours, you're gonna work your butt off until you find the perfect book. Instead, what I do is like, I'll be looking or like I was talking to somebody, and I heard them mention how they're struggling with something. And it was like a certain situation. I was like, Huh, I wonder what that's like. It's all bust, open KDP Rocket type in a couple of phrases, see what's going on and be like, okay, nope, not a good idea. Or, at one particular case, they were talking about this. This situ, what funny situation that they're in, shall we say, and I actually didn't know The answer that and so I started doing research and I found that there were unique terms that people were using to describe that situation. And when I typed it in to KTP rocket, it turned out it was hot. And I was like, Wow, that's pretty cool. So you know, that's one of our next
James Taylor projects. And then as you start to your writing your book, you're working on your book, imagining choosing your title, your descriptions, and then there's this kind of thing, which is more specific to Amazon in terms of your, your keywords and your categories. What should authors be thinking about when they're at that stage with the stage of kind of really setting titles and descriptions?
Dave Chesson Well, I call the book cover title and book description and keywords, a symbiotic relationship, okay, all four of those should work together. Otherwise, you confuse your readers and if you confuse you lose, okay? So when you've done your research, and you find that, oh my goodness, these are the exact phrases that people use when looking for your kind of book. I make sure to send those words to my cover designer so that my cover design knows that they're designing a book for these people, okay? Because when somebody types in this phrase, that's the cover they're gonna see it better fit what they're thinking. Next I moved to the title and if I if I'm trying to be creative okay if I'm trying to have that super cool witty, you know, title or whatever, cool, but I better explain it enough in the subtitles so that there's they, they typed in the phrase into Amazon they saw the book cover that looks like it fits they see the title and the title reaffirms This is the place they go. They click the link, they land on my books landing page, right? You know the sales page on Amazon. And then guess what, it's up to my book description to convince them to buy and that book description. The best kind of sales copy you can ever write is using the market's own words. If they describe their lower back pain as like sharp needles digging in under their skin, okay, and you say, are sharp needles digging under the skin in your lower back Question mark, I think you just want them. All right, you use the exact word that they were thinking. And you have reaffirmed that this is the book because you as the author are thinking like that. Another thing too, is that in bullet points, I love to list the benefits. And guess what? People love to list the benefits. They're either listing the the pain points, or what they what it is they want to accomplish. Are they trying to make money? Or are they trying to live a lifestyle that's free? You know, well, they need the money to live that lifestyle. See, there's a lot of parts to it. So here's a great example that kind of personifies everything we just talked about. I had an author who had written a book about going back to school, okay, they had done the research and they found out that there were a lot of people who type in how to go back to school. And he created a book cover that showed a young girl holding books and smiling and his title just said going back to school, to get the degree you know, or or going back to the school to live the life you want or something like that. And the book description kind of talks about, you know, this is how you go back to school, this is how you get into the lifestyle, etc, etc. Here's the thing, his book was not selling at all. And when we done when we did a little bit of research, we found out that there were so many demographics, to the type of people that would type this in. And each demographic had their own pain point. They had their own reason for going back to school, they had their own purpose, and they had their own benefit they wanted to gain. So you know, for example, some people are just going back to get their GED. Some people are currently in the corporate world looking to step up in the ladder and get your masters or their doctorate or some kind of certification. And then no kidding, the biggest demographic was older people who have retired but want to go back to school to get that college degree they never got so they can have something to tell you know, their friends at bridge club. When we did the research, what we found was that it would have been probably more profitable. To write a book centered towards going back to school in a retirement age. And the fact of the matter is, if I was the old person typing and go, you know how to go back to school, and I saw a picture of a young girl smiling. And I read the book description, and it doesn't speak to me or my pain points or why I'm doing this. Might as well turn away. Yeah. And so in his case, he was trying to shotgun and reach everybody. And by trying to reach everybody, he was reaching nobody. So granted, does he cut down his market size by choosing one? Yes, but guess what, because he would have been the only one re reading or writing to the older generation looking to go back, he would have nailed those cells and had a lot more success than what he had by trying to go after everybody.
James Taylor So he could have actually gone off to the elder demographic first, and almost written that you said like write this similar kind of book again, but write it for let's say one of those other groups. The business executive is looking to rescale or The person is younger. So you can almost write three different books there. And different covers, you know, different stories, you'd obviously different examples you'd want to give, but maybe the core lessons might be the same.
Dave Chesson Well, I almost feel like that would be those three books would be very different books, right? Why would a, you know, the older generation probably doesn't want to go and hang out with the 18 year olds, right. So they're going to be more apt to, you know, to choosing an online school. The other thing too is do they really care if it's Harvard? Or do they, you know, and then they just kind of go after? Was that Arizona? Or, you know, Phoenix, University of Phoenix? Yeah, University of Phoenix. Yeah. I mean, they just want the degree. Yeah. However, the person in the corporate ladder on the other hand, okay, they might need to do night school, they probably don't have the time and it's all about Time, Time issues for the person in the middle, where's the retired person don't care. Um, the other thing too, is is that the degree the level of the degrees huge, you know, it's probably better that they don't go After the University of Phoenix, but then they go after insert prestigious online school. See, I mean, those are completely different chapters. Okay, you would. So in that case, I think it would have been a bit harder, you can't just kind of tweak it a bit to fit the demographics. However, though, as you can see, the book itself is going to be completely different based off at the knees, the demographic, and it would have failed if you tried to write one for all and they know this. If he had done his research, he would have known this and realized that and, again, coming down to understanding that the demographics exist, that was huge. But to tie back to our original point, though, you understanding what the market is typing in should go into your book cover your title, your subtitle, and your book description, because you're reaffirming to the market exactly what it is that this book will present to them and if you know what it is that they want, then you better be presenting that
James Taylor you mentioned Stephen King, earlier there so we think that you know, the, he talks about his ideal reader Writing for your ideal reader, I guess that that research you're doing advance also inform if you know that that you're writing for elderly persons that just want to go go to University College to get some skills to brag at their bridge club, that's a certain type of person that you're writing for. So that they can then inform inform the kind of writing which should hopefully give you better reviews because that reader can can actually say, I feel this person's writing for me, he's writing to me, he's talking to me, or she's talking to me.
Dave Chesson I have added chapters to a book I was reading because I found research that proved that the market wanted a certain answer. I was working with an author who is writing a book on how to sell art. Right. And I mean, they had a great book, it was beautiful. Mirror fact, I think they're still they're still crushing it on Amazon. But the key factor for them was that when I think we saved save this person's career, was that we realized that the biggest keyword wasn't how to sell art. It was how To sell Art Online, them like that's what the market wanted. And this, this author had not even thought about the online component. They were thinking in the traditional way of like how to set up these sorts of, you know, art galleries, how to promote, like how to, you know, potentially an agent like all of these things. And I was like, Look, the market shows that the majority of people are really want the online part, how do I sell it online? And that caused the author to have to go back and add almost another half of the book before publishing, by the way, thank goodness. Because Can you imagine like how pissed off somebody would be if they were choosing your book, and they want to learn the online aspect and you don't even talk about it? Like, I'm sure that person would have gotten some one stars, just because they didn't cover the most important thing in that markets mind. So in this case, it can absolutely help you write a better book because you know what people are looking for what they really want. Want, and not, you're not trying to, you know, pull the wool over their head here, you are just understanding what it is they want. And now you know what you should write to so as to fulfill the need of your market.
James Taylor And when right is at the stage of looking to publish to self publish, we have things like KDP or create spaces is two big options. Can you describe what's the difference between those two and have you? Why would you go for one as opposed to the other
Dave Chesson but for KDP print versus CreateSpace? Yeah, Unknown Speaker well, nowadays, you definitely have to go with KDP print because CreateSpace is shutting down. And Amazon is moving all the CreateSpace people over to KDP print. So, and personally, I've got a lot of books on CreateSpace anybody listening to this, don't panic if your book is on CreateSpace I'm not doing a thing. I'm like, Alright, Amazon, you make it happen. And a lot of people think that I'm crazy or being naive, but here's my take on it. I don't know the exact percentage I'm pretty sure that the majority of books being sold on Amazon right now are print on demand from CreateSpace. And would Amazon be stupid enough to all of a sudden make a majority of those books not sell anymore on their marketplace? Not they'd lose so much money. If it's if it's a money issue, I trust Amazon, you know, if it makes more Amazon more money, they'll do it. So in that case, let them I'm letting them worry about it. I'm sitting back and enjoying. But yeah, pretty much all my books will be moved over to KDP print.
James Taylor Okay, so as you've gone through your own journey as an author, can you tell us about maybe a key insight, an aha moment a time when you said okay, in my writing, this is what I want to be doing with my writing, oh, this is who I want to serve. Well, you just made an important distinction and what you want to do with your writing
Dave Chesson Well, you know, the funniest thing about it is that I've never, even when I was a kid, I thought I was the worst writer in the world. I remember in high school I once I was given This assignment and I was like, I'm gonna pour my heart and soul into this thing and I'm going to do the best paper ever. And my teacher who is an amazing, funny person, she comes out to me she hands me back my papers. She says, Dave, you're gonna go study physics, right? I said, Yes, ma'am. And she goes, good call and I look, it was a D minus. I was like, and I mean, she's a great person. She said it jokingly, but I was like, Yes, I am. I'm going to physics because I suck at this thing. So I've never spent my life believing and writing. I'm also dyslexic too. So I have a real issue with words. So for somebody who's dyslexic, who has been kind of told his entire life, he's not a great writer. It's crazy. It's crazy that I'm here today. I only say that because if anybody ever feels that they're inadequate, or that they aren't meant to be a writer. I'm living proof that that's not the case. Now, I found that when I if say you go to a party and everybody wants to know the answer to something and you're the only guy with that answer. It doesn't matter how well you present the story because you, you gave them the answer. You're the man of the night, I sort of started off with that thought process and writing my books. And that gave me courage to be able to write over time, as we've all learned, the more you write, the better you get in time studying the great writers spending time understanding it. That's why I did the john C. Maxwell tactic You know, that's something I learned why do I care? Why do I like his, you know, irrefutable laws of leadership when I've read so many other leadership books, but his sticks out? Oh, yeah, you story. Why don't I just do that? And um, you know, I've read so many things about style points and and how to grab a reader's attention. And that's all built up over time. So if you're struggling or you think that you're not a good enough writer, I love the tactic we talked about because I know that I'm serving existing market, and that gives me a bit of leeway to grow as a writer but now That even if you're dyslexic or not, the more you write the better you get.
James Taylor Now we've spoken quite a lot just now about your the marketing because that's what you kind of known for the the marketing and the kind of search engine optimization, only marketing of the books and I'm really finding those challenging problems. But I'd be remiss of me if I just didn't ask you one question about in terms of the craft piece. What is your daily ritual look like? What is your writing ritual look like?
Dave Chesson Well, okay, so I'm not gonna lie. I'm a morning person. And I was forced to be that way because I was doing this on the side. You know, in the military, I had to be there at work, you know, Monday through Friday, you know, from 8am to 5pm. And sometimes I was gone on the warship, right? So I was like, all day. So the only way that I was going to be able to build this business, shall we say, this writing career was that I needed to make sure that I didn't try to fit it in my busy life. Instead, I got up at 4am every morning and that was my Time from 4am to 7am. Okay. And I it was amazing because nobody was up. Nobody bothered me. Nobody was talking to me on the internet, right because everybody's leaving. And that was my time. Every morning, Monday through Sunday. Now, I started I had to cut out movies. I no longer watched movies during that time, and that meant I would go to bed at a decent hour. I also did this thing to where I would only reward myself with coffee if I got up at four. So if I ended up hitting that snooze button, okay, and I snooze till five because I felt like well, it means I went the whole day without coffee. It was very masochistic. I'm not gonna lie, but it really trained me that I needed to earn that coffee. And that cough that time. Right. It was like reverse Pavlov's dog here. When I had my coffee, I mean, I needed to write. Now, fast forward later and I do this all day. still get up at four because it's just a wonderful period, I don't have the kids asking for anything, I don't need to make breakfast. You know, I get my time. And I think that that was one of the biggest Keys to Success were most authors fail is they believe they can fit it in here fit it in there. I just said, You know what, I'm going to get rid of the sleep period. And to make up for that I'm going to stop watching movies and TV shows.
James Taylor So that's a great thing for you to be sharing as well. Because I think for a lot of people probably watching listening to this, they're there when the biggest challenges is time the saying where do I find the time to do this. So the example you just provided there, hopefully will give some people and as you say, you have to cut out other things. Netflix has to get this to go for a little bit. But what you make up for that is is invaluable, both in terms of obviously your the business but but what we're writing gives back to you as well. So that's great, a great example. So thanks for sharing that. As we start to finish up I'd love to know what tools do you use what more tools you find very useful in your In your writing and your publishing
Dave Chesson Well, I I'm not gonna lie. I'm a big fan of Scrivener. I love using Scrivener to help kind of plan on my books. The thing about Scrivener, though is that it's got a very high learning curve. The but once you understand it, it's really cool the things you can do. I used it to write my thesis way back in the day when I was doing my masters. I've written it for used it for all my books and even for courses to help plan out courses. So that's been fun. I'm biased, but I also love KDP Rocket, that the coolest thing about being an author and having a programming team is every time I come across something that I'm like, Ah, man, this is such a pain in the butt to do. Oh, yeah. Hey, guys, let's automate this script. That's right. Yeah, we were able to like a ms ads. I love doing ms ads. Because advertising to people through MS is advertising to people who've decided they want to buy a book, they just need to figure out which one they want, right? If you're doing Facebook ads, you got to convince somebody to stop scrolling on Facebook. You know, stop watching that cat video and come over and Amazon and buy your book right then they're much easier when they're already on Amazon trying to find their book, you just say, hey, this one. So I've been doing a lot of AMS ads. And so I was like, man, there's there's this part that just sucks. Hey, let's automate this. So we have an MS keyword feature on on KTP rocket. And same thing too, is like finding the best category for your book where you have really, you absolutely have a great chance to rank number one. Yeah, we automated that too. So
James Taylor And what about what about a book if you were to recommend one of your own books, but a book by another author could be on the craft of writing or the the business the marketing side? What would that book be?
Dave Chesson I'm going to be a bit off because I'm sure a lot of the authors are going to talk about author books, but one of my favorite books that helps me understand the business side and how to present and package and communicate is called story brand by Donald Miller. Now, I think it's like how it's how to write a story brand or something like that, but just typing So
James Taylor yeah, I had him on my podcast Dolan's fantastic, I love I love what he does about the grunt test, as well. That's a great book.
Dave Chesson Yeah, the grunt test. He lives like down the street for me here and I yet I haven't actually run across him. I'm in Franklin, Tennessee, which I think is like the biggest hotspot for like online marketers, because we've got Dave Ramsey, Michael Hyatt, Jeff Goins, Tim gras, like the list goes on and on. But yeah, I think it's a wonderful book and understanding like if you have an online presence, you need to read that one.
James Taylor Now, I want you to imagine just for a second, there's one last question I have for you that you woke up tomorrow morning. And you're going to have to start from scratch. So you have all the skills you've acquired, but no books are out there. You can have to start again, no one knows you, you know, no one, what would you do? How would you restart things?
Dave Chesson I guess kind of the way I started, which was researching what people are looking for in Amazon so that I know that the next book I write is going to make sales. And best part is that same book, we'll be making sales 23456 months down the road, and then I can just build more and more books, build more assets. And then that brings me in a monthly income that I can continue to use to grow the business, apply towards marketing and just see everything grow out instead of what I see a lot of authors doing is that they write this book. And then they gotta hustle really hard to do this book promotion stuffing. And then the moment they stop hustling really hard to say move on to another book, all of a sudden, their sales start dipping, I sort of call it like blowing air into a balloon that already has a hole into it. So long as you keep blowing into it, the balloon will stay but the moment you stop blowing. So
James Taylor that's what I do. That's wonderful. And if people want to connect with you to learn more about Kindle printer and everything you've got going on, where's the best place to go and do that?
Dave Chesson Yeah, well, so there's two things number one is that if you have any questions about what we talked about today, or so just go to kindlepreneur.com. Find the contact me page, click there and hit me up even though we have 200,000 visitors And, to this day, I still answer every one of those. It's just one of those personal things I've had when I first started, I would send out an email to, you know, somebody I was following and nothing against them. I mean, I get it, there's a lot of emails, but they never respond. And I always was like, you know, a gut punch to me. So I always make it a point to answer every one of those emails. Also, too, if you guys are interested, and you want to learn more about Amazon marketing services, AMS ads, I have an absolute free course that will teach you everything you need to know about AMS ads, and it's a video course professionally done. It's not one of those, you know, here's the course And oh, by the way, now you got to pay me to take the extra CT is straight up everything I know. And you can find that at ATMs. course.com such a creative URL, isn't it but pretty easy to
James Taylor enter you know, if you're looking for so we're going to put all of these links here below. So if you're anyone's watching this just now, you'll find all these links here and you'll be able to go and check all those out as well. They thanks so much for coming on today. It's been absolutely been a pleasure speaking with you and Learning about part of boot publishing and writing I didn't know too much about so as you gave some great advice, and I'm sure most people can go and check out, check out your site.
Dave Chesson Awesome. Well, again, thank you for having me.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity. If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
John Craske of CMS, Collaboration between Humans and Machines in the Legal Industry #340
18 Jun 2024
John Craske of CMS, Collaboration between Humans and Machines in the Legal Industry #340
Summary
John Craske, the director of innovation at CMS, discusses the firm’s AI strategy and the role of innovation in the legal industry. He emphasizes the importance of fostering a culture of curiosity and experimentation. The firm has implemented an innovation department and introduced innovation hours to encourage employees to pursue their ideas. Craske believes that AI can enhance the efficiency of legal work and sees opportunities for collaboration between humans and machines. He also highlights the need for foundational legal skills and human skills like empathy and creativity.
Sound Bites
“We’re using our computers more like electronic typewriters for many years.”
“Innovation hours are like seed funding for ideas.”
“AI has captured the imagination of people in a way that lots of other technology has never had.”
Fostering a culture of curiosity and experimentation is crucial for innovation in the legal industry.
Implementing an innovation department and introducing innovation hours can encourage employees to pursue their ideas.
AI can enhance the efficiency of legal work, but collaboration between humans and machines is essential.
Foundational legal skills and human skills like empathy and creativity are still valuable in the age of AI.
John Craske is responsible for the innovation and knowledge functions at CMS, with the aim of helping their clients and business to work smarter: to find the right balance between client satisfaction, cost effectiveness, profitability and opportunities for our people. He leads their dynamic Legal Innovation, Legal Operations and Project Management, Legal Tech, Managed Legal Services and Knowledge teams. He’s passionate about fostering a culture of innovation and encouraging people to be curious, ask questions and experiment. John is currently leading our firmwide AI strategy as tjeu look to use AI to supercharge our digital transformation programme. He regularly works with clients (and others in the legal industry) to help design / implement practical (and innovative) solutions to their challenges.
James Taylor is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, often booked months or even years in advance due to his exceptional expertise. Given his limited availability, it’s crucial to contact him early if you’re interested in securing a date or learning how he can enhance your event. Reach out to James Taylor now for an opportunity to bring his unique insights to your conference or team.
Free 3-Part Video Training Series On How To Unlock Your Creative Potential, Break Down Creative Blocks, and Unleash Your Creative Genius FREE training video shows you how to unlock your creative potential in 5 simple steps. The world’s top creative individuals and organizations use these exact strategies.
james-taylors-studio-hj5fj_james-taylor-may-27-2024-001.txt James Taylor (00:08) John Craske is the director of innovation at CMS, an international law firm with offices in over 40 countries. He is responsible for innovation and knowledge functions at CMS with the aim of helping their clients and businesses to work smarter and to find the right balance between client satisfaction, cost effectiveness, profitability, and opportunities for their people. John leads CMS’s dynamic legal innovation, legal operations and project management, legal tech, managed legal services, and knowledge teams.
He’s passionate about fostering a culture of innovation and encouraging people to be curious, ask questions and experiment. Currently, he’s leading the firm -wide AI strategy at CMS as they look at AI to supercharge their digital transformation program. In his role, John regularly works with clients and others in the legal industry to help design, implement practical and innovative solutions to their challenges. He loves hearing about specific legal and business challenges.
that clients have and then trying to solve them. And John, welcome to the SuperCreativity Podcast.
John Craske (01:09) Thanks James, lovely to be here.
James Taylor (01:11) So share with us what’s going on in your world just now, what currently has your focus.
John Craske (01:15) Well, thanks for the intro. Yeah. I think the focus at the moment is working hard on our AI strategy roadmap. But secretly, I think we’re using that to help kickstart the digital transformation innovation journey for all of our lawyers. That’s been quite hard in a law firm when I think probably if I’m being unkind, I would say we’ve been using our computers more like electronic typewriters for many years. So it’s great to sort of be secretly using that to help drive it.
James Taylor (01:45) Well, we’re definitely gonna get into the AI piece, we’re gonna get into the genesis of AI piece as it affects the legal industry. Just let everyone know, my wife is a lawyer and a solicitor, so I’ve been getting a kind of a bit of a seat to see how that world is transforming with some of my legal clients as well. But let’s just take you back, how did you get into this work you do? Did you come from the legal profession before that or from the technology background?
John Craske (02:09) Yes, so I’m a qualified lawyer. I’m actually a Scottish Solicitor, even though being English, so I live up in Scotland. I know you do too, James. And I’ve always been interested in that sort of junction between the practice of law and the business of law. But a long time ago, my wife told me I need to do something a bit more creative and she didn’t mean painting or music, although I do love music. And then I think it was a series of…
lucky accidents maybe that everyone’s careers a bit like that so you know I had a boss I didn’t get on with so well we did a merger with Anderson Legal and then a de -merger with Anderson Legal when the Enron Scramble happened and then another things like that and so I’ve just kind of taken the opportunities when there’s been moments of change to get into that why are we doing things the way we’re doing it and I’m also always been that person in the room who asks the stupid questions and
why are we doing it like this? And that’s kind of led me down the path that I’ve gone down.
James Taylor (03:10) Now, a lot of my legal clients have innovation departments, innovation labs. I was speaking the other week for a law firm. They had an innovation week to help their partners and their associates and their administrators kind of focus around legal tech and innovation. Tell us about the development of the innovation department within your business. How did that get started? How did it start to develop over time?
John Craske (03:40) Sure, so I think we started probably a good long time ago. I mean, we’ve always been interested in using technology to help us be as efficient as we can be, both for our clients benefit, but also because the more efficient we are, then obviously the more profitable we can be like every other business. So for both of those reasons. But…
think the lawyers find it quite difficult to get involved and think about how they can use technology themselves. It’s almost like they would want somebody else to do it for them or provide it for them or innovate to them and then maybe that’s something we can come back to a bit later. So we started off quite gently. We did lots of work around legal project management and helping people think about
how they might structure their work in a sort of more innovative way. But then we realized we had a sort of missing gap and we were talking to all of the practice groups about innovation and what does the future of their work look like and how they’re gonna develop in the future. And actually they almost universally then said, that’s great John, but what tech have we got? And…
and so we were like okay no we’re not really here to talk about technology that might well be a way that you can use you can use technology to help you innovate but that’s not what we’re here to talk about and they’re like yeah well we’ll get to that our clients are demanding to know what technology we use so what tech have we got so that’s when we built out our legal tech capabilities and built our portfolio of tools that we’ve got and then moved on from there and actually we’ve always whilst we’ve always been sort of nudging away at the
core innovation piece, it’s only relatively recently when we’ve been able to go back and say, okay, well we’re back to talk to you about innovation. And still they say often, well what tech have you got? And we’re like, okay, well we’ve got a good answer to that now, we’ve got a team that can help you and we’ve got lots of tools. We really want to help you think about what ideas you’ve got for the way you deliver your work, what services you deliver and stuff. So we’ve incrementally grown the team out and it’s been a bit like a guerrilla war as well. So.
messages from the top and infiltrating from the bottom as well.
James Taylor (05:58) Now there’s this tension that often exists in legal firms and accountancy firms, audit firms, where as a lawyer, you’re often thought to, you think in billable hours or five, 10 minute chunks. You’re always having to do your, I know lawyers have to do their time sheets and they’re thinking about that and the files and everything as well. And innovation obviously doesn’t work in that way. It kind of works in a slightly different way where we sometimes have to step away from the problem, kind of think from different perspectives, do a lot of research.
That takes time, that takes resources to do that as well. So how have you worked with the people within the business in order to get them to think about really innovation and the value of innovation as a concept and something that they should do, rather than it’s like, well, this is a compliance thing or you think about innovation from that perspective.
John Craske (06:50) Yeah, sure. It’s actually, funnily enough, it’s every six minutes. Well, most law firms, it’s every six minutes rather than five or 10 because it’s a neat divider for the hour because you get 10 of them in an hour, right? But you’re absolutely right. It’s one of the key drivers in the law firm is this sort of need to record every six minutes of your day. And actually, most lawyers, certainly in private practice, will have targets around the number of…
billable hours or billed hours that they have to achieve in a year and if they don’t achieve those targets then they don’t get their bonus. So you know, we all know you get what you measure and so that’s what the lawyers do of course is that’s why they were driving. So we’ve done a number of things. The first thing is we’ve started at the bottom and we’ve made sure that innovation is in everybody’s competencies and that the people understand it’s part of their job.
Now, that’s only a beginning. We also try and do some training around things like creativity. I actually heard somebody once say to me, I’m sure you’ll disagree with this, but I heard someone say to me that, you can’t train creativity. But I don’t think that’s true at all. I think you absolutely can. But probably the, you know, one of the most interesting thing we did was introduce this concept called innovation hours. And I managed to convince the management team that.
This would be a valuable way of demonstrating to both the firm and to our clients that we took innovation seriously. So the way they work is if someone’s got an idea, think of it like seed funding for ideas and if they’ve got an interesting idea that they want to pursue then they can say, hey I’ve got this idea, this is what it’s about and can I have a budget of hours? And so then they kind of get a budget for hours the same way they would get a budget of hours if they were working on a client job. So…
and then we would support them with either help accessing tech if they need to do that or with the creative process if they need that or connecting them with other people around the firm or externally to try and experiment with their idea. Importantly I guess that the hours aren’t contingent on whatever it is being successful, it doesn’t matter, it’s more about them getting into the zone of trying some things out. So over the years we’ve had an increasing number of
innovation hours projects. And as I said, it’s partly symbolic. Of course, it’s partly practical because it gives people hours that count towards their target, but it’s also partly symbolic because it shows the way that that’s important for the firm.
James Taylor (09:32) And how do you link that in terms of the strategy of the firm as well? So let’s say you have a partner or associates or people within the marketing functions of a law firm and they want to, they have maybe an idea of a problem they want to try and solve or an opportunity you want to look at. So they need to think in an innovative way. How do you then basically maybe build a team around this? How do you ensure that it is in alignment with what you’re trying to do as a firm? So it’s maybe has wider.
applications across the firm, so it has maybe a bigger impact. And then how do you go to that next stage where maybe you’re going from say a prototype of an idea to actually it being reviewed and saying actually this is something that we can give more additional resources to.
John Craske (10:16) I think we try and start early and just help and the short version is and then just iterate around it to try and improve it, make it better, improve it, make it better. Each of the practice groups, so the legal departments in the firm has got a partner who’s responsible for innovation and they tend to have a group around them of lawyers who are interested in it and so we try and cultivate that and often…
the ideas for innovation project will come out of those groups not exclusively sometimes they come from someone who just got you know and and and idea to help solve the real pain point for them or for their clients and but we really trying support each person as they come through but we don’t try and do it for them i think that’s been quite an interesting journey that we’ve been on in and it in as i said earlier we quite often get the lawyers wanting us to innovate for the more to them and actually
that may be a bit like parenting. You can’t do that for them. You have to kind of do enough to support them and help them along the way, but you can’t do it for them. They need to learn themselves. And then, depending on what the idea is, we will either extend the project or iterate again around it. And then there’s been a few of them which have ended up being sort of market -facing things that we’ve launched, or just as many which are internal things about efficiencies or improving things for teams.
James Taylor (11:42) Now, whenever you start talking with lawyers about innovation, the first term that usually comes up is artificial intelligence. How are we going to implement AI and what we’re going to do? How is it going to make us more productive? Is that a threat? Are we going to get rid of all these paralegals that we have in our law firms just now? So tell me, in terms of your personal approach to artificial intelligence, where do you see the biggest opportunities in the short term for firms like yours? And then maybe what are you a bit more excited about?
in the medium to longer term around AI.
John Craske (12:14) Yeah, so I mean, I think it’s captured the imagination of people in a way that lots of other technology has never had, has before, at least I’m starting to sound like a beer advert if I say it quite like that. But the, yeah, and I think that’s been brilliant because we’ve, for one of the first, which is why we’re using it as a lever to help drive the digital transformation, because for the first time people are coming to us and saying, hey, how could I use this? Or what can I do with this? Which is really exciting.
I think there’s loads of opportunities to work with the technology to improve the way that we work. I think it’s really, really actually fascinating because people do say, well, what’s going to happen with our particularly junior resource and whether that’s paralegals or junior lawyers. And actually, I think…
The key, and people at work who are bored of me hearing me say this now, I think the key is to think about this sort of human plus machine. And I know from watching some of your stuff, James, that this idea of working on the human bits is something that you’re passionate about as well. But I think what we need to be doing is we need to be thinking about the future. So right now we can be using AI in what we do. And that can improve the efficiency of what we do. And we’re doing lots of experiments with AI.
things and we’re trying out a bit of a portfolio approach on lots of tools. So we can do that now, but we need to be thinking also about the longer term, about how are people going to be working in the future and what skills will they need to work with the machine, so the plus bit, but also what are the human skills that they’re going to need to make the best, do the best job. There’s also a bit of a thing around foundational skills. And this is not just law, but if machines are going to be doing
what our junior people are going to be doing. We still need senior people. We still need senior doctors, chefs, lawyers, whatever it is that, you know, where some of the stuff might be being done by machines. But how do you get to be a senior person if you’ve not been the apprentice, if you’ve not learned the basic skills? So we’re still going to, so those people are still going to be needed in the system. So I’m not worried about, you know, major like losses of jobs in the legal industry.
I think there is going to be major change in the legal industry though in terms of the tasks that people do. But I think that people will, so we’re going to need to think very carefully about how we build those foundational skills, legal skills in our case, into people and all the way through from university through to when they’re training in a law firm and then getting experience on jobs. But I think we’re also going to have to think about those human skills. So human skills, things like empathy and emotional intelligence and creativity and curiosity.
and those things that make us fundamentally human. I think actually we’re going to paradoxically we’re going to need those things even more in the relatively medium to medium to longer term, maybe not immediately. And that’s going to be an interesting thing, as I think as a, you know, for law firms, for industry, for humans, I think it’s really fascinating.
James Taylor (15:30) a few years ago in California, I used to live in California and there was a young gentleman called Robert Huang and Robert trained as a computer scientist first of all learning about AI and then he went and trained as a lawyer. I’m not quite sure why you would go from being a software engineer to a lawyer, it’s kind of unusual, I can see you maybe going the other way but so he went trained as a lawyer and his early years as an associate he realized how mind -numbingly boring a lot of legal
work is, especially if you’re doing due diligence and certain things, and he said there must be a better way of doing this. So what he would do is, during the day he would do his legal work, and at night he went home and he basically programmed and worked on AI programs to replace himself. That’s really what he was doing, and by the end of the year he’d essentially replaced himself by building out different tools and functions to do that, and then being entrepreneurial he went and started a new type of law firm called, I think it was called Robot, Robot and Huang.
and there were three partners. Two of the partners were AIs and one of the partner was him as the human. And one, I think Darya, she specializes in AI, but specialized in litigation. And the other one specialized in mergers and acquisitions, I seem to remember. And what I find interesting about that is what then the human, what he was doing in his role. And it was exactly what you were speaking about there. It was the, the creator work, the curious work, the strategizing, empathy, building, building that relationship with clients.
so much of the kind of softer things that we don’t think, while the machine was able to do what is better doing at a tactical level as well. And certainly a lot of my clients, that’s what I’m seeing a lot of them using that for the first level is amazing for discovery, amazing for being able to send an algorithm across all of your legal agreements to say, hey, there’s this new Brexit has just happened or something has just happened. What is the risk factors to all of our legal agreements that we have with our clients just now?
and it pulls up that. So there’s obviously great things there as well. And I don’t know whether you’re seeing this in some of my clients, I’m seeing what traditionally was, let’s say, a 30 page contract, because some of these firms are using AI now, and on both sides are using AI, we’re now seeing 100 page contracts, because the AIs are kind of adding things that maybe the human wouldn’t necessarily have thought about adding before.
John Craske (17:47) Well, I think we’ve seen the trend of contracts getting longer and longer for a good while actually. And I’m not sure it’s AI that’s driving that. It’s a mix of the world just being more regulation, more uncertainty, more volatility, all sorts of things and complexity that’s going on in the world. But you’re right. And I do wonder whether actually they will go over a peak and then they’ll start getting shorter again because they’ll only put in the contract the things that you really need. Who knows? But yeah, absolutely. We’re…
when we’re seeing AI helpers, you know, summarize meetings and actions, coach you in your email with your drafting with your, you know, like your sidekick. But it is really interesting to think about the mode in which people are using it because actually quite a lot of lawyers are good at delegating. So delegating to a more junior lawyer to do that or paralegal to do a task, but not so good at sort of
co -creating and working with and a lot of the interesting challenges around AI especially around the sort of edge of where AI is capable today and of course that edge is moving out all the time. It’s not universally good at every task and one tool isn’t universally good at every task so but so when you’re on the edge of the capabilities you need to be working with it not delegating to it. So if something is very capable then you can delegate to it but if something you know and
and there’s a lot of noise in the world around hallucinations of generative AI but if you’re working with something then actually a lot of those risks around hallucinations go away because you’re using it, you’re working directly with it to help you in your work process, whatever that is. So yeah, I think that’s going to be really interesting to watch.
James Taylor (19:36) I know within the world of management consulting, there was a study done the other day by Harvard University and Boston Consulting Group, where they gave a bunch of their consultants access to a generative AI. And it was interesting just seeing how, I think it increased productivity by 40%, the task was judged to be, I think, 12 % better in terms of quality. But what I thought was interesting about it was that you had these two groups in particular that really excelled, and they were called Cyborgs and Centaurs. So, yeah.
John Craske (19:44) Yeah, that’s exactly it.
That’s right, exactly that, that’s what I’m referring to.
James Taylor (20:04) Yeah, so the Centaurs were what you were kind of talking about a little bit there, where you would look at a project or a task and you would say, okay, these are the things that the AI, I’m going to give to this AI to do this particular task, and these are the things that I’m going to reserve as humans. Whereas the cyborgs, and they were almost intertwining everything that they were doing with AI. It became like a guitar player would have a guitar, or, you know, it just became an extension of themselves. And that is the kind of more that, that kind of co -pilot thing kind of going on. It’s more collaborative in nature.
John Craske (20:35) i think that’s exactly right and that’s the same study of referring to them to read if any of the listeners are wanting to get that it’s called the navigating the jagged edge of a i a that’s a harvard business review article and within that they they collaborated with boston consulting group is worth reading the whole thing but actually that nothing cyborgs and sent or this is like almost like a a footnote in appendix seven or something is right at the very end and but i think it’s one of the most interesting nuggets in the whole thing and
James Taylor (20:58) Ha ha.
John Craske (21:04) If I’ve got time, my daughter, if she ever listens to this, will be embarrassed about me telling you this story. So I read that and I didn’t really absorb it. And then just over Christmas time, she was doing some homework, or before Christmas, she was doing some homework at the kitchen table and I was cooking. And she was writing an essay, a critical essay on a book they’d been reading in class, which is, it’s another twist in the tale. It’s a book about female empowerment, about…
Oliver Twist’s sister that you’ve never heard about before and and and she had chat GPT open and she had a word processor open and she was Working with it in the way you described like playing a guitar So she didn’t go chatgy page chatgy PT write me an essay about this book You know the way that we’re all worried about people cheating on exams or whatever with generative AI She just didn’t do that. She was like she’s the right route a bit and she went. I’m not sure about some words
Hey, can you give me some words that mean this or describe that? And then she wrote a bit more and then she said, not sure about that paragraph, copied that paragraph into chat. Can you help me rewrite this? And she was backwards and forwards all the way through. And so she produced something which was probably, she produced something quicker and probably better than had she written it herself, but she didn’t just delegate the task to the AI. And I think that was for me a real, a real light bulb moment about how we should be.
talking to our people about how they should be using AI at the moment, especially at that jagged edge of AI where it’s not universally capable at that thing. So forgive me for the story, James.
James Taylor (22:38) No, but I think it’s great as well. I mean, obviously that generation is coming through now. A friend of mine, Mark Prensky coined the term digital natives and you know, very much. And actually her generation is way beyond that. They’re AI natives. You know, they’re using these tools in slightly different ways. My wife who’s been in law for a long time, she hadn’t really been using many of these tools. And I just kind of sat down with her one day and she was having to…
John Craske (22:46) Yeah, totally.
James Taylor (23:05) review a new piece of legislation that’s currently going through the courts, going through the Scottish Parliament around food. I think it’s called the Good Food Bill or something around food. And it was amazing because what she was able to do was to pull in all these different studies from different places, feed it in, and then it was about the quality of the questions that she was asking, in this case, to chat GBT, to help her think about how to term something, how to kind of use the language, in this case, of the…
the Scottish government to kind of refer back to what she was wanting to do, her target, her goal with this particular thing. And it was like that, I was saying, and you could see her, it was the first time I’d really seen her eyes kind of go sparkle because she’d, I didn’t realize I could use it in this way. I just thought, I didn’t realize I could use it as that type of collaborator. So it’s not too late for everyone. If you’re kind of coming to this a little bit later in life and you’re not a youngster, then there’s lots of opportunities here.
John Craske (24:03) Yeah, totally. And that’s why I talk about human plus machine. Because so you’re now, that sort of prompting skills we’re talking about is that plus bit, right? So you have to work how to work with it as well. But you still need the human questions and things. So you need to be able to ask them. So yeah, I think it’s lovely when we start to see that, whether it’s at home or at work and people exploring it. I think it’s great.
James Taylor (24:30) And then your own journey as a lawyer working within innovation as well, was there a key insight or a light bulb moment in your life and you work your own creative journey?
John Craske (24:43) I think when I realized, I mean I’ve always been interested in this junction between the practice of law and business and law, but when you described doing due diligence as really boring, I was a real estate lawyer so I was just doing lots of occupational leases, which for those of you if you’re not a lawyer means…
if you ever get a shopping center and all of the units in their elect every one of those got a leak behind it and the whole framework documents of such a doing those all day and there’s only so many occupational leases i think i could could do and and so i’d and that my wife and saying to me that i needed to do something more creative is probably the real sparkle and what led me down this that this path i think this many light bulb moments all of the all the time though i think it’s
you know so i i’d wanted home just a couple weeks ago and i bought myself a new saxophone because i’ve never i’ve always wanted one i can’t play the saxophone it’s not very well yet but i have played the clarinet for ages and the guy in the music shop he was like olivander honestly matching instruments and things to people but i’ve been playing my clarinet with the same mouthpiece i’m fifty one now so it must have been for forty years with the same mouthpiece and he went
you’re on beginners mouthpiece what you want is one of these and so he sold me a new mouthpiece a bit of plastic only at you know 100 pounds or whatever it was and you think 100 pounds for a mouthpiece and I played it and it was like it was like the clouds parted and the sun came out so you know so that idea of having the right kit and knowing your as part of knowing your craft and things because you know people always say that it’s about the kit but of course it’s not it’s this join between the person the human and the
kit and knowing how to use it whatever you’re doing so yeah there’s a there’s a personal one and a work one.
James Taylor (26:36) Yeah, that reminds me a little, we had a guest on the show a little while ago, Professor Roger Neybone, who’s the world’s leading expert on experts. He wrote a book all about experts and he’s a surgeon originally. And he talks about this idea of a mise en place in French, you know, if you’re a chef, you have certain tools closer by because these are the ones you’re using all the time. Well, you might have other ones a little bit kind of further out of reach because you’re not using those so often. It’s that distinction of being able to know which tool to use in the right way, in the right order for the right
right thing and that adds, you know, that adds a little bit of distinction from someone that’s just an amateur in what they’re doing to actually someone who’s a professional and more skilled and more expert at it as well. Let’s get into some final quickfire questions before we finish up here. First of all, is there a quote that you live by that kind of a guiding light for you in your life?
John Craske (27:29) I don’t think I’m a big one for quotes or sound bites, but I do firmly believe that you get out what you put in. And I remind myself to try and lead with kindness.
James Taylor (27:38) Beautiful. And is there an online resource? We’ve been talking a lot about tools and technology today, but is there an online resource or a tool, like Gmail or Evernote, that you find very useful in your work?
John Craske (27:50) I like finding new tools and things, but I think I’m going to give you a bit of a different answer. I love Spotify. It’s always got something to listen to, whether that’s new music, trying to take you away or focus on something or podcasts or audiobooks. I consume new music all of the time, almost all genres, so I love Spotify.
James Taylor (28:08) Great talk, great talk. And if you could only recommend one book to our listeners, what would that book be?
John Craske (28:14) We’ve been talking about AI today, so I think everybody should listen to or read The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleiman.
James Taylor (28:23) Great, wonderful book. And as we finish up here, Sher, what is the best way if people want to connect with you? Maybe we’ve got a lot of lawyers that listen to the show. We’ve got a lot of people within legal profession, a lot of people within innovation labs as well. If we want to connect with you, learn more about the work you do, learn about your firm, what’s the best way for them to go and do that?
John Craske (28:41) Probably just message me on LinkedIn, that’s the best way to get in touch.
James Taylor (28:45) We’ll put all these links on the show notes. People go to the SuperCreativity Podcast, go to jamestaylor.me, just look for the SuperCreativity Podcast. We’ll have all the links for this particular episode and all the other things we’ll be talking about on the show today. John Craske, thank you so much for being a guest on the SuperCreativity Podcast.
Elaine Pofeldt is an author and freelance journalist who specializes in small business, entrepreneurship, and careers. Her latest book The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business, looks at how entrepreneurs are hitting seven-figure revenue in businesses where they are the only employees. How do they do this? Well by tapping automation and other technologies to scale their efforts. Her work has appeared in Fortune, Money, CNBC, Inc., Forbes and many other business publications and she is a contributor to the Economist Intelligence Unit.
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James Taylor interviews Elaine Pofeldt and they talk about Her latest book The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there is James Taylor and I'm delighted today to be interviewing Elaine Pofeldt. Elaine is an author and freelance journalist who specializes in small business entrepreneurship and careers. Her latest book The million dollar, one person business looks at how entrepreneurs are hitting seven figure revenues in businesses without the only employee. How do they do this? Well by topic, automation and other technologies to scale their efforts. Her work has appeared in fortune, money, CNBC, Inc, Forbes and many other business publications. And she is a contributor to The Economist Intelligence Unit and it's my great pleasure to have Elaine join us today. So welcome Elaine. Thank you so much James. It's great to be here and we connect with you I have so I love speaking it was always you always a fascinating person to have a conversation with because you read so widely you can have you write on so many different areas robot tell everyone what are you working on just now what's currently got your focus?
Elaine Pofeldt Well, I'm actually working on the proposal for my next book, I've been out and about doing a book tour and talking with a lot of entrepreneurs and hearing what's on their mind so it's given me a lot of ideas for where to take this concept further and where it can be most helpful to readers.
James Taylor So so I know in your your very kind of case study focus, you do a lot of interviews, a lot of research, especially on this book, as well. Where did the Where did the initial idea come from? Where did the the inception of the idea of writing a book on this topic come from?
Elaine Pofeldt English It was an accident, James. I am a writer better Entrepreneurship, as you know, and for many, many years, I was writing stories about scalable startups. That's kind of what the public likes to read about the next Facebook, or LinkedIn, whatever it may be. But what I found was a lot of the people running one person businesses had great stories too. And they were very happy. And they had amazing likes. Opie was interested in them. Just kind of in the back of my mind when running up against a deadline. Like a lot of writers, I tend to write things at the last minute like the really last minute. So it was it was the last day of the month and I had one more Forbes blog do and I was scrolling around on the internet for ideas. And I came across these Census Bureau statistics on the non employer business that's just that term non employee your business could put you to sleep by itself, but I knew it meant freelancers and one person businesses which I was interested in and I noticed that there was a packet of them bringing in between 1,000,002.4 9 million a year there were also some even over 5 million, but it was a very small number. So I started scrolling through the statistics. And I wrote a post about the industries that they ran because I thought it was fascinating. But you can't find out from the Census Bureau who the people are, it's a confidential survey. And when that post went up, I started getting a lot of reader mail saying, I would like to start a million dollar one person business. And I need to know exactly what they were doing. Was it e commerce? Was it professional services, etc. So I wrote to the readers and I said, people are really interested in this. If you're one of these businesses, please write to me. So about five of them wrote to me, and I wrote a post about them that went completely viral is now it's something like 340,000 page views. It went up about, I think, three years ago at this point. One of them was a babysitting company, a woman named Rachel Charlie ski. started at while in college she has 2500 babysitters, as contractors. Amazing and she's still in business. And then there's another one Alan Walton who started an online spy camera shop. And he got it to a million on his own. Now he's scaled a little bit I think he's currently at five or six employees, but he kept it ultra lean for a long time. Dan Meza wretzky in Toronto, Canada has been on the go, and he was a personal trainer who he hadn't trainers as employees. But he found it didn't work out too well. They were sort of cutting side deals with the clients and taking them off, you know, as freelance clients. So he started using them as contractors instead and then found the contractors business would grow when his business grew. So their interests were more aligned. So he's, he's built it up quite a bit to it, but that was just the beginning and then I started covering more of them. As they would read that post, which was very widely circulated in, you know, over a number of years, and write to me, and that was what eventually led to the idea for the book, because I never really had the opportunity to look at them as a group, I had over 30 in the book. And now I've probably interviewed at least 55 of them to really look at it from the high level and say, Okay, what have I noticed they all have in common, and that's what the book does.
James Taylor Now, something that I was quite surprised that because you've been writing as a journalist as a freelance journalist for a long time, but this was actually your first book out under your own name. So I'm correct in saying that, that was that was a that was a first under your own name.
Elaine Pofeldt It's not my first book, but it is my first book under my own name. So I had some experience with with structuring a book and the whole process of outlining it which was really helpful actually, having done it before for other people. I had a sense of how to cut out the things that would not be that interesting. to people and really focus on the entertainment and the value, at least I hope I did. Right. readers have adjusted very but but but I wanted to make sure that sometimes you can get books where there's so much instruction and you don't get inspired by them. You just you know, you read them and you think, Okay, I'm gonna settle this up and then you never do. I find stories are more memorable for people and inspire them more. So I it's very story driven, but I've had people write to me and say I've either listened to the book four times or read it multiple times. And each time I read the stories, I get one more nugget that I can apply to my business and what I found in my own business, just that one nugget could be like a six figure nugget that you add to your revenue. It's a matter of taking it and realizing this not a cookie cutter to how to apply these things. Like anything creative. A business is a creative thing. You have to interpret it and apply it to your own business, which is not going to be exactly like the businesses in the book. But we'll have some similarities. So that's the fun part, you kind of have to get into enjoying the process of experimenting and iterating till you get it right for you. There's no right but right for your business,
James Taylor but one of those things by going and choosing different case studies from different types of industries. I know you talk about really six types of industries where you see these one, these these one person $1 million businesses more and more prevalent. But the other thing I think, as I was reading, it was thinking, I can imagine there's there's a viral nature to someone reading this book as well, because they will read it and they'll say, Oh, that's, that's it. I've got a friend that works in that industry or my brother in law works in that same industry, I should get a copy of this book for him. So by choosing different industries, they can have going on you come in different areas. I can actually imagine this is this is quite a giftable type of book. Here we go. I mean,
Elaine Pofeldt I don't know I don't actually know too much about how people are purchasing it and what they do once they purchase it. Now, I looked at it from the point of view of a journalist because I thought, this is really interesting that this is even happening as a freelancer myself. I didn't know that there were people with no employees who were getting to 1 million I just didn't know it was possible. So when I saw that it was I thought, wow, like there's got to be something to this. So what you know, what, what are they doing, you know, and certain areas really surprising manufacturing. Who knew you could even do that as a one person business? The way that the businesses can do it is by using a co Packer second outsource manufacturing for more often they're in food when it's a one person business. So I have a panel coming up in San Francisco next week, where there's a woman who makes a product called boobie bar, and it's for lactating mothers. It's like powerbar type thing filled with nutrition. And she's a nurse had no business experience whatsoever. She's not in the book by the way, I met her after the book and I'm so sorry that she couldn't be this perfect example but maybe in the next one and she used a co Packer because she she started baking these bars for this group. She was running as a nurse teaching moms how to breastfeed after they had a new baby. And she couldn't make them in her kitchen for health reasons. You have to use a professional facility they have to have the right labels on them. But once she found the CO Packer to do all of that for her she was able to get into Walmart and and even with the name of the product, which my kids say I shouldn't even say on the air.
James Taylor I like it. I think it's a memorable name. Oh
Elaine Pofeldt parked in Walmart in bulk, right so so neither will I. And now she's gone on Shark Tank and it's been a great business for someone who had no business experience at all. She just Did it right she figured it out. And that's what I think is so cool. It's, there's not any precedent for this. So all the people who are doing this are inventing it as they go along. It was similar with another couple that's in the book, Rebecca Cronus and Luis Ceballos, they're a married couple with two small kids. And the woman's husband is a beekeeper and her father brother is a beekeeper and he was selling the bees to farms if he does it on a commercial level, and not doing too much with the honey. So they said, Dad, we want to sell the honey and we know there's been a problem in the market with adulterated honey with toxins in it. We know this came from you. It's clean. And so they built tropical trader specialty foods and online business where they sell this honey and it's not inexpensive. I think it was about $16 a jar but for someone who eats a lot of honey and concerned about toxins, there's a market and they've done really well. With this and they the way they do this is with a co Packer because they made a very deliberate lifestyle decision. She wants to be in the house with her children. She does want to work but but she has limited time. And this is how they extend what just two people can do
James Taylor by using Luca Vikas. I know I know one of the examples you mentioned in the book is is an author as well. So, this this woman Megan, who is one of those one person $1 million businesses that tell us a little about her story.
Elaine Pofeldt Megan Telenor is a great story. She is a nutritionist, and she started blogging about 10 years ago, I believe, might even be 11 at this point, but she blogged every single day for four years straight about different nutritional topics that kind of put her website on the map. And over time, she built a rapport with her readers and was able to figure out what are they really interested in and that led her to productizing, the business where she introduced the The green smoothie fast it was like a $10 product, a PDF file that she sold. And when it sold well, she realized I can build on this idea. What can I do next. And so gradually, she scaled up her product offerings to the point that she built the Academy of culinary nutrition, which is a school to teach people healthy cooking. And now she's close to 2 million in revenue. I think she's hired one employee since the book. But she's got a small baby. She's able to run this while taking summers off and has a great lifestyle it and she also wrote two cookbooks, the undying cookbook and another one under the diet brand, where she explores some of the recipes that she had put on the blog and it's a good example of discipline with writing. When she looks back I did a panel with her and she said she was sort of cringing looking back at her early blog like we all cringe looking back at our first drafts in early writing. But if you keep on keeping on, then you start building a body of work, you start building your reputation and and people keep coming back. I think the consistency is a common theme in all the businesses, whether they blog or not, it's just the consistency and showing up, maybe it was doing an email newsletter, for instance, they're good communicators with their following because that's the one thing as a one person business, you can do better than Amazon or any of the really big companies is connect on a human level
James Taylor your click, you're closer to your customer. And you mentioned this idea of discipline and consistency. What is your daily writing practice, okay, because you obviously writing your your books, but you're also writing articles and obviously for Forbes, and we mentioned fortune as well. So tell us about your daily writing practice.
Elaine Pofeldt I write every single day of the week, pretty much it's a little challenging for me, I have four children ages eight to 14, so sometimes My husband and I double as their personal Uber drivers. But, but I I am very disciplined about writing I have to say I wish I was a less disciplined person in certain ways but I can't help myself and I get up at five every day and either I go and do yoga or or cycling or something like that in the morning and then write or I write and then go do something like that. I tend to break it up with exercise because I find I'm not a good sitter, like I'll stand at my desk but when I'm doing heavy thinking I can't stand I have to sit for some reason I have to pay
James Taylor I'm a terrible Pacer. I'm I've got whiteboards I'm always pacing especially in those ideation periods.
Elaine Pofeldt Well that's good for your Fitbit right? Yeah,
James Taylor yeah, I get my steps up that way as well.
Elaine Pofeldt Me miles today so far kilometers.
James Taylor If I could only figure out a way to be able to write and and walk at the same time I haven't quite got that I can do this. The speaking ideas As I'm out walking or if I'm running, but haven't got the bit to be able to do that where you can actually, you know, get words out in the page. I bet I haven't mastered yet.
Elaine Pofeldt Yeah, I wish I could do that too. I'm a pacer a little bit too. But I find breaking up the day that way where you're not just glued to your computer, I remember reading a book saying that we all have a better 90 minute attention span for doing that type of work. So after 90 minutes, I usually break I mean, sometimes I do household chores or things like that, or I make a phone call. I'm gearing more towards AI since I'm a journalist, and I interview people a lot. And I'm starting to do things with my schedule, using an app called scheduling once where I have days that I don't do phone calls, because I find they're sort of interrupting factor to my train of thought when I'm doing a lot of phone work. And I'll just group all the calls on one or two days. That can be stressful too. But then there's no perfect balance. I mean, I think with writers if you have to make a living doing something like a book is sort of a long pay off type of project. So you have to pace yourself. And there's the perfect world, we quit everything, you have no other responsibilities and no bills to pay. And then there's the real world, we have these chunks of time that you can use to write or not right? But you have to treat yourself like these business owners do as a precious resource, and not neglect yourself. I had to learn that over time, because when I had young children, it would, you know, I like a lot of working parents, it would be like, okay, I'll skip yoga, because I didn't have any quality time with my children today or whatever, which is, you know, makes sense at the time. But now I realized that for stamina and staying power and doing what I want to do, I do have to actually physically take care of myself too. And then it's not bad for my kids to see that. Yeah. So I think for the people that tend to sort of feel they have to always say no to themselves and yes to everyone else. It's important to just think of it as more of a marathon and not a sprint and think about what would you do to take care of yourself if you were training for a
James Taylor marathon, I did the same thing as you you mentioned like the scheduling your calls I scheduled mines. Mostly on this isn't unusual. We're actually speaking on Friday, but normally I'll do mine on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays I'll do them in the afternoon and I never do calls in the mornings because I just find that's my most creative time. And it really is, I get really frustrated if I have to do a call for some reason in the morning. Because it just it breaks my my flow a little bit so that I think that's a great and mentioned schools to like schedule once I use calendly very similar. So it allows you can have someone scheduling all those different research calls and interviews that you can do to start getting the ideas and content for your stories.
Elaine Pofeldt And that makes a lot of sense. And I think first thing the morning energy if you're a morning person is really helpful because your mind is so uncluttered and it's usually quiet and in once you bang out that writing, then the whole rest of the day you feel you've been productive.
James Taylor You've what you've won that day already. I haven't quite got the I am thing I'm very, I would love to get to this that 5am thing I haven't quite managed to get that Father,
Elaine Pofeldt I would have if I didn't have four children. It's funny because I was when I had my third child, I have, I have 214 year olds, 12 year old and an eight year old. So I had like three babies at one time, basically. And afraid I was having trouble getting my work done. And one of my friends said, Oh, you got to get up at 5am. And I never had really gotten up at that time before. But I started doing it. And then I adjusted my clock to it. And then I found I couldn't really live without that two hour block before my family got up that quiet. So now I just do it on the weekends most of the time. It just gives you back some time that no one else is going to be up and ask anything of you. So you have no excuse not to, I don't know what
James Taylor whatever other guests who actually worked in the Navy and he was building up his writing career as he was doing a full time job in the Navy. So you work from eight to four, eight to five in the job that he was doing there. And so he was he He said, I just had to get up at 5am because was the only time I would be able to do that work. And he said, even when he left the Navy, he still keeps that morning ritual, even though he doesn't have and that allows him, you know, eight o'clock, you know, starts preparing food and things for the kids and whatnot. So he said it was difficult at first, but he said, you can get used to it as you say,
Elaine Pofeldt yeah, you just you'll eventually reset unless you're really, really a night person. Sometimes I do writing at night, I think it's important to just get it done. Whatever time of the day it is, if you sort of loan your perfect schedule. Last night, I was writing till one o'clock in the morning, which I didn't really wish to do. But it was just I had some scheduling issues yesterday that changed my schedule, and I had to get it done. So if you stick with it and say what my deadline is today, that's another thing I would say. I need deadlines. Everybody needs deadlines. When I work with ghostwriting clients, they need deadlines for thinking about the ideas. If you don't set deadlines, you won't get things done. Just saying I want to get a book done. In the next year does not cut it. You have to, I think, use some project management skills, sort of think about, okay, you know, what are the components of this project? This is what I will do with a ghostwriting client is what I wound up doing with myself. Okay, you know, what are the chapters that should be in this book? What are the sections of those chapters? How much time does it take to write each chunk of the chapter? And then you plan it that there are certain deadlines like maybe this month you're doing this one chapter, I think with a book, realistically, you aim for two weeks for a chapter with almost any book. And then it will spread to one month because things happen like you get a creative block or you get busy or whatever. If you could knock out say, a five or six chapter book over the next six or seven months, your book will be done.
James Taylor Done. Yeah, it's just getting it as good as you say it's going to setting those deadlines, scheduling those those times in your calendar, whether it means getting up early or Time blocking, and we often hear about as well. And what about tools? Are there any tools that you find very useful wrench and schedule once they're in terms of scheduling calls with, with people you're gonna be interviewing for your books? But is there any other tools that you use you find very useful in your writing?
Elaine Pofeldt No, it's not really a tool. But I know this will sound counterintuitive, but I find that actually getting out of my house and going to things like meetups or having my own events around the book, where I actually spend time having real conversations with entrepreneurs is the most important thing because sometimes you get into an echo chamber in your own head where you you're processing the material, and you get to a sticking point in your understanding, and you're not going to solve it on your own. So I might schedule a call if I can't get out with somebody, you know, maybe when, like it for the second book, I've been talking to some of the entrepreneurs from the first book that some unresolved questions that I had from that book, to get their take because they're the ones Who are the entrepreneurs? I mean, I, I am somewhat of an entrepreneur too. But I'm basically a freelancer and a book author. It's different than running, you know, an e commerce store, for instance, that, so I tried to get their take on things. And then I decided, Okay, that makes sense to me. It doesn't make sense to me, and then come back to the material fresh and try to imagine them reading it, like, would they get any value out of it. So it's more of like a real time interaction with the types of people that you think would be interested in the book, and also the people that might become those people. So I pay a lot of attention when I have an event, to the people that come up to me afterward and say, Elaine, I would love to get to $1 million in revenue. But I'm at 40,000. I want to get to six figures first. What do I do? And a lot of times it wasn't having lunch with them or coffee and talk with them. And that helps me to see their thinking patterns and why why is their business different from the person that got to 1 million and what's stopping them? And then that helps me fill in the gaps with exercises and things that I can do in the book that will help them to make that leap. Which is not easy. Yeah. And it can be a 10 year process too. It's not an overnight process, I won't.
James Taylor But if you do recommend one book on the year, the craft of writing how to be a better writer, or on the marketing side of writing, what would that book be? Oh, that's,
Elaine Pofeldt that's really a tough one. You know, I recently read a book called Super connector by Scott Gerber and a co author. And they talked a lot about building deep relationships with other people, basically. And not the kind of superficial and networking that other people have. No, this is not so much about the craft of writing, but in terms of like journalistic writing, if you want to do good journalistic writing, you have to be good at building relationships with people and I think there are people that are used to being sort of used by journalists and exploited. That's why the media has a bad name. So to build real relationships, you have to go deep and you have to spend time with people and talk with them and care about them. And you know, not not go down that path that some folks in the media do. And so I think he talks about it in an interesting way. It's sort of indent millennials, I think. But there there are a lot of good grains of truth in that. And that out of that flow is good writing. Because if you don't get the good stories, then you're not going to have much to write about, or people are only going to tell you the high level and not the backstory that
James Taylor you really need to understand when I hear that word, super connector I think of in the 1920s, late 20s with the whole scene in Paris with like Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald, and I'm trying to remember the name who was the who was the editor that was there at that time the or she was an author. Yeah, Gertrude Stein. Gorgeous. And she was like, in my head that's like a super connector as well, because she was she was connecting all these different artists and creators differently. And I think when you see a lot of scenes come up, regardless of whether whether it's someone that I see coming up in the speaking in the professional speaking side, and there's certain people in that world who will let the super connectors of those they they have relationships with, with everyone and often built very deep relationships with people. And that the the have a long term view of those relationships is, but then if you're one of those people if you have those those skills, and and that's something that you think is a very powerful position to be in because everyone wants to want to be able to connect with someone like that.
Elaine Pofeldt Yeah, I think so. And you know, I think it happens somewhat, it's somewhat of an innate type of thing. I mean, some people just are deeper people. You know what I mean? I think a lot of people who are book authors are they tend to be introverts, but he makes the point that introverts can be the best superconductors because Exactly, yeah. So good at like the small talk side of things, but they're really good at connecting on a deeper and more thoughtful level. But I think we can all learn from this, you know, in terms of how to reach out to other people. Some authors are shy, and they're very shy people like my so so they can pick up some techniques from this book I wrote about them for Forbes. It's funny that you asked him about it, because I hadn't thought about that book in a while.
James Taylor But we'll put we'll put we'll put a link here to that book as well. And a final question for your lane. I want you to imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, and you have to start from scratch. So no one knows you, you have none of your current relationships. You'd have none of those current connections. But you have all the skills you've acquired over the years as a writer, what would you do? How would you restart
Elaine Pofeldt I would probably start out by building my own platform. Because I what I've seen after being in the media all these years is immediate as we know it has pretty much died. The traditional media it makes me very sad to say that but I see the fiscal state that the bigger Media Presence user in and they're gone. But there's a lot of innovation coming out in areas like podcasting, video audio. And I think there's still an appetite for high quality writing. Yeah. But the problem is finding the outlets for it. Because once these big entities die, which I think is going to happen in this period of creative destruction, they're sort of a crutch for all the authors who don't want to deal with the business side of things. Where are you going to publish the good stuff? Right? Not everybody wants to just keep churning out listicles that they get paid 100 bucks for or whatever. So So where do you publish quality, it may have to be through your own platform. And that's one of the reasons I wrote this book, because so many of us are in fields that are changing, and we don't know where to begin. But all these folks have essentially built some sort of a platform for themselves. And I think we have to be more entrepreneurial in addition to being creative writer types. That is a vital skill set if you want to do anything creative these days, and I think it's going to lead to good things, I think it's just, you know, many of us are habitually dependent on these editors in, you know, in a publishing house or in a magazine that we worked with. And now, that's going to be gone. It's almost
James Taylor kind of going back to the way it wasn't, we think about 100 years ago, we really starting in the big employment outcomes, like Ford, for example, employing large numbers of people, but probably, I don't know, 200 years ago, if you'd looked at it, most people work for themselves, or they were and they weren't the as a result, you had to be more they wouldn't call it entrepreneurship at that point. But you had to be you know, you're always thinking about how you could drive things ahead, how you could kind of build that biz how you could bring that person into, into your world as well. If you want to connect with you learn more about the the book, great book, where's the best place to go and do that
Elaine Pofeldt it can go to themilliondollaronepersonbusiness.com that's the book title. spelled out in words, not numbers. And there's a contact me box there. So I invite everybody to write to me, I hear from so many people read the book on LinkedIn and Twitter, it's under my full name, which you can get in the show notes. I won't spell it out, because it's a mouthful. I love hearing from people and talking with them about their businesses because it helps me as a journalist to try to stay relevant and, and there's just something about a book that brings people together, it's a wonderful thing that people around the world can connect around a book. So I really hope you will write to me and get in touch.
James Taylor Fantastic. We're gonna have all those links there. I mean, thank you so much for coming on today and all the best with the the next book writing your your your proposal outline for your next book. I look forward to reading that when that comes out.
Elaine Pofeldt I thanks so much. It was so nice to talk with you.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
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Nina Amir is an Amazon bestselling author of works including How to Blog a Book, The Author Training Manual and Creative Visualization for Writers. She is known as the Inspiration to Creation Coach because she helps writers, bloggers and other creative people combine their passion and purpose so they become high performers and Achieve More Inspired Results.
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James Taylor interviews Nina Amir and they talk about Being productive Writer vs being prolific
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there is James Taylor and I'm delighted to welcome Nina Amir. Nina is an Amazon best selling author of works, including how to blog, a book, the author training, manual and creative visualization for writers. She is known as the inspiration to creation coach because she helps writers, bloggers and other creative people combine their passion and purpose so they become high performers and achieve more inspired results. my great pleasure to have Nina with us today. So welcome, Nina.
Nina Amir Thank you so much, James. It's my honor, and I'm really excited
James Taylor to share with everyone what's happened. In your world just now,
Nina Amir just now while I'm working on a new book and working with a bunch of writers who are wanting to author change, and so I'm just excited to be making a positive meaningful difference and
James Taylor helping writers. So take us back, how did you get into this world of, of working with authors and bloggers and helping them really become prolific? Because that's the thing that you're really known for?
Nina Amir Yes. So, you know, in high school, I thought I wanted to be a novelist, loved reading novels. And I went to my mother and said, You know, I think this is what I want to do for a living, I'm going to be a novelist. And she was very practical and said to me, you know, unless you're a really great writer, you're not going to make a living as a novelist. So I took that to mean maybe I wasn't that good a writer when she was just being practical. But what that did was it sent me down the path to journalism and I took a course in magazine journalism and I ended up going to school and getting a degree magazine journalism. And that put me in the world of publishing, right? So different type of publishing the books, but still publishing. And I had a professor who told me that if I could write a magazine article, I could write a book, because a nonfiction book was just a series of articles all on the same topic. So I thought, okay, I can do that. Then I was approached by someone that well, I went to work, I was editing magazines and writing for magazines. And that was my full time gig. And somebody asked me if I could edit a book for them. And it was a nonfiction book. And I remembered when my professor said, and I thought, well, I've been editing magazines. I can write magazine articles. Why couldn't I edit a nonfiction book? And I did. And so I had a couple books I did I edited that were quite successful and kept doing a little bit of editing, kept writing, started blogging, all these things and then suddenly thought, you know, why don't I write a book for these ideas? Maybe I should write a book. And that set me on a path to learn how to succeed as an author. And I got involved with the San Francisco writers conference and just kept doing everything I could to learn how I could succeed. But I started sharing that on my blog, and later created a month, something kind of like NaNoWriMo but for nonfiction writers to write a book in 30 days and just it just kind of snowball James into me knowing a lot about how to get published. But underlying all that was also this desire to write books that were spiritual and related to personal growth and personal development. And so as you know, I'm a high performance coach as well. And so, that's now been woven in to the work I do with writers, you know, a sort of a little bit of a spiritual flair, but more than that, you know, really, how do I get writers out of their own way. And so that's really how I got where I am now.
James Taylor Now. This is the That the artists way that Julia Cameron book she talks about this idea of, of shadow artists that people that they can have holding back, they can get involved in the industry in one way or the other. Like they say the painter, they get to become an art dealer, for example, or a musician. Instead of becoming a musician, they become a sound engineer, they kind of get involved in it, but they can sit back and often is, is a lot of people just gonna stay in that place that journey then to actually going you know, the, I think there's a movie called 20 feet from stardom going to the front of the stage that 20 feet is one of the most difficult so tell us that that journey that you went through from being an editor so you already writing obviously all the time in journalism, you were then starting edit people's books, you were getting really well known and getting good at that, that that journey to becoming a published author in your own right in that type of way. What was going on in your mind that the psychology of that at that stage?
Nina Amir Yeah, first I approached it with a whole lot of confidence, feeling like okay, I have an idea and I'm just Gonna go forth and do this right. And I very quickly had a setback, because I sent out my first book proposal. And I was really set on having a, a big time agent in New York, right? And going with a big publishing house and all those dreams we all have, right. And I got a call from a New York literary agent right away. Who said, I love your book. Yeah, I like the title. I like the the writings. Awesome. You did an awesome proposal. Everything's great. And then came that big word, but but you don't have a platform. And I'm sure you have lots of people talking about platform. But in those days, this was a new term. And so she explained, nobody knows who you are. So you better just go to a small publishing house in the meantime. And that to make a very long story short while I had some conversations with publishers and things I didn't get published. I then had a sequence of literary agents as well and didn't get published. And so I realized that this was much harder than it looked, at least from a traditional publishing standpoint, there were a lot of requirements that went beyond writing well, and I knew I could write, and I knew my ideas were good. And so I had to then fight with my own demons about you know, do I really want to build platform, I worked for about eight years on building platform and trying to get published and really thought I would quit. And I was like, this is, you know, this is just too hard. I worked all this time, still no deal. And I had to get to the point where I said, You know, I refuse I refuse to quit. I know that I have something to offer. And I will just embrace everything it takes to achieve the goal of getting a book out there that will impact people in a in a positive way. And when I changed my mindset to One of you know, I will embrace it all because it all gets me where I want to go. Four years later and half the time I held my first book in my hands, my first traditionally published book. So I really had to get out of my own way and say, you know, I'm not doing this because I have to do it. Like, I'm not building platform or blogging because I have to do it, I'm doing it because it gets me where I want to go. And that was a big change in mindset. As well as just getting back to a place of confidence of you know, okay, so just because it hasn't happened, doesn't mean it's not gonna happen. And I have to just keep telling myself that I have something important to say, and I'm going to say it
James Taylor I knew you'd be able to see in that world of journalism, so you weren't going into it like a baby where you just kind of you didn't know what was happening in terms of the publishing you obviously you came from publishing obviously there was a slightly different obviously with journalism and, and and more kind of traditional kind of book style publishing But you knew you know a lot about the industry. And then for you, you kind of took that initial knock there on your confidence you can add to start with kind of rebuilding whether any mentors or guys, there's I mean, this is the thing that you can do today you can act as a guide for those for those writers that are going on that journey. Did you have someone when you were going on that journey?
Nina Amir Well, I had, as I said, I was involved with a San Francisco writers conference. And actually, via that conference, I, I was mentored a fair amount by the man who started that conference, Michael Larsen. Some people may know him, he has a bunch of books out there, how to write a book proposal and how to find an agent or something like that. Anyway, he mentored me quite a bit and kept encouraging me and a lot of my education in the book publishing world came from that conference and I met people who I later for many years, for 30 days in November, I had blog posts that were primarily guest posts from people and so I would ask them to write about topics I wanted to learn about. So I had mentors from a lot of areas because I was actually reaching out and saying, will you write about this and so I can learn and so my audience can learn. But I would say that the San Francisco writers conference was huge for me. And, and that was where I made the contacts with people. And I learned I mean, I met people like the late Dan pointer and was able to have conversations with him. And so that's I really recommend that to people to Yes, find a mentor and go where you can learn and get supported because that's, that's where you're going to stay inspired. And when we, when we get discouraged, we lack inspiration, and we want to stay inspired. And
James Taylor I think that the right thing obviously is quite solitary activity for love. So having that sense of being part of a community of other people that are just as crazy as you doing this thing that they love, is quite affirming as well. Especially if you know if you get people in there that That that have more experience a little bit further along the road, they can, they can act as that guide. And so you you kind of act as that role now you have the will kind of get into the kind of the work that you do, really as a, as a writing coach, and a mentor. And you talk in your work about high performance and about being productive and prolific as a writer. So why is that important when we think of like Harper Lee, for example, who is not that not prolific in that sense, but why is being being a productive and prolific author important today in the environment that we're in.
Nina Amir So today, there are a lot of books out there, right, lots of people trying to get noticed. And if you're not producing work on a regular basis, you're going to fall by the wayside. And I can tell you in my own experience, so the last two years I haven't published as much I haven't had a new traditional, traditionally published book come out and I can watch as My book sales and I'll drop, okay, so it's really important to stay in front of your audience on a regular basis. And there are lots of ways to do that, for instance, blogging, you can do that on social media. But a productive writer is somebody who sits down every day and writes, or five days a week, or whatever it is, and actually produces work, right? Not somebody who's dabbling. It's somebody who actually is, is producing work, which then they can publish. So to me, productivity is sitting down on a regular basis and producing something usable. That doesn't mean it doesn't need to be edited or revised. But something usable, we have a goal in mind and we're moving towards it in a consistent fashion. And prolific to me is not just producing a lot of work, but actually getting it in the hands of your readers. So you you want to be producing something that can be published and you are publishing and getting it out there. When you're doing that on a regular basis, you're going to build platform no matter what you're going to have more and more readers who want to follow you, right and want to read your work. And so they'll read one book, and they'll go to your Amazon page or whatever. And they'll see that you have 10 other books, and they're going to begin to buy those books too. And so you know, we call this the long tail effect, right? So you know, you could have one book that hits after you know, maybe it's your 15th book, but because it generates a bigger audience, or more visibility, people begin to grab by the other books too. And so all your book sales will, will increase. So to me, even if you're putting ebooks in between, you know, short ebooks in between longer ebooks or printed books, whether you're self publishing or traditionally publishing, the more prolific you are, the higher likelihood of you succeeding
James Taylor and Is this something is this something obviously there in the psychology of people like your voice, there's something about your voice Is your view of the world that they want to find out more. But I also guess that the way the algorithms work and things like Amazon, for example, you know, if you enjoyed this, then you'll enjoy this and that's gonna go then go able people to go deeper into your catalogue.
Nina Amir Yes, but, but I'm going to go back to that has all true, but I'm going to go back to the psychology of it. When you don't write consistently. You lose. It's a you lose steam, right? You you become disconnected from your work. And over time, you get discouraged and frustrated. You lose your confidence in your ability to write consistently. I mean, think about it writers, right? However, the majority of writers talk about writing and don't write
James Taylor this is that expression. I think it was Austin kleon said, a lot of people want to be the man without doing the verb.
Nina Amir Exactly. Right. Yeah, they want to be a writer, but they're not writing. So the thing is that more the more that happens. And the more you're stuck there, because it just becomes more discouraging more frustrating. You get negative self talk going on, you know, you know, what were you thinking you said you were gonna write you didn't write, you're so stupid you never follow through and everything, you know on anything. And it's a it's a downward spiral from there. But when you begin to write on a consistent basis, suddenly you're a writer. I had a client, she came to me, I told her, I said, write for 15 minutes a day, that's all just 15 minutes a day. And she came back, like two weeks later and said, Well, I didn't just write 15 minutes, of course, I wrote 30 minutes. And then I wrote 45. And guess what, I suddenly see myself as a writer. And her confidence level went way up. And she became very consistent because she could see how it was building. And so I think that's the other issue about being productive and prolific is that when we are that, it allows us to be more so it's a
James Taylor it's a when someone changes Self images, I've seen people, friends of mine who have become really into running or cycling. And they it's almost like part of their identity. I'm a runner, I'm a cyclist. They, they, they, they really inhabit that word because they're making a consistent ritual or process.
Nina Amir Yes, exactly. Right. And I can tell you from my own experience, you know, I do way more than write. I mean, I blog consistently, of course, and so I'm always writing and I'm always writing promotional emails, and you know, all that kind of thing. I'm not always working on a book, or in the last few years, I wasn't. So I'd be writing a book when I had a book to write. And I was very involved and all the promotion of my courses and my membership sites and coaching and all of these things. And this year, I said to myself, you know what happened to Nina, the writer, like the person who that was the primary thing she did. And it's very easy to just let other things get in the way and lose that identity and we really have to cultivate debate, that identity, which is happening, you know, up here, but also in the world, it's the action of writing that makes us the writer. And then we believe it. There was a, you mentioned that I was gonna say there was a there was a teacher I had on the metaphysical level. That was he taught metaphysics and, and he once said, that, that you you really have to make an affirmation of action. So we talk a lot about affirmations and self talk, but until you do it, you take make an affirmation of action over and over and over again, repeating it just like an affirmation, you would tell yourself it's not till you do that, that that the brain gets it that this is who you are and what you do.
James Taylor You spend up to my productivity, I'm going to eat you one of the other piece I know you speak about a lot you speak a number of keys we're going to be covering but one of them is purpose and the purpose of why you're writing the purpose of what this particular thing Is that your writing just now what the purpose of that is? When you go into, especially as a nonfiction writer, do you have to get really clear at the start what your purpose is for writing? Or is it something that you just gradually evolve you discover as you as you just kind of do the ritual of writing.
Nina Amir So there are a lot of people who think that purpose is going to, you know, is going to be something that just, you know, either they should know, or they have to find it, or it's going to drop on their head, and suddenly they'll understand what they're meant to do in this lifetime. There are people who do know that this is what I'm meant to do in this lifetime. There are other people who can choose it. If you don't know your purpose. You can choose one, you can say, Okay, I, I want to write a book that will well help eliminate school shootings, right? Could be anything, but you can choose that that is my purpose. It's meaningful to me, and this is what I want to do. Is it going to be your life's purpose? Maybe, maybe not. But I think we can choose a purpose isn't important. For a writer to have a purpose, yes. Because I think when you have a purpose, you can then go from that act. That idea of this is, this is my intention, this is what I want to do this is the impact I want to have to an actual mission. Mission being the goal that comes out of that purpose. Right. So I want to eliminate the number of kids affected by school shootings. And my mission is to write a book, and to do other actions in the world that will reduce school shootings by 50% in the next five years, so that, you know, 50% less children are are affected, right. So now we have a mission, and our book is going to align with that mission. It's going to be one one aspect of accomplishing it. So you know, we're talking about nonfiction here. So either there are lots of types of nonfiction, there's activism type books like that. There could be just a book on you know, trying to, you know, a self help book or something. Spiritual book where we're, you know, trying to impact one person. But still, we have to know why we're doing that our purpose really comes out of our big Why Why am I doing it? Why is it meaningful to me? What's my emotional connection to this? And then there's the mission, which is bigger. Okay, so that's what I want to accomplish, and how am I going to do it? Right? Does that make sense?
James Taylor No, absolutely. And so, we've spoken there about this idea of, of purpose. We've spoken about the the, almost like the psychology and you say some of the things that you've reflect on things that you're when you work with clients that know that they come to you with as well. And there's some other than the bit like the productivity piece goes on from there as well. You mentioned like just that very simple one of the 15 minutes, just being seen who's sitting down there, 15 minutes kind of writing that. For those people who are just, they're just struggling. Maybe not necessary to, to, to write but to to finish a piece. Let's say if they're working on on a book and they, they're like, Okay, I get into this thing and then I'm suddenly this bright shiny thing is over there. And then I'm gonna go over that thing. And I'm going to this other bright shiny thing is what advice you give in terms of that pretty sure, I guess it links to the productivity and the being prolific as well, how to stay on track with your writing to be able to complete things,
Nina Amir right. And this is gonna go back to the P of purpose as well. Because really, what, when you understand your purpose, you are going to fairly naturally figure out who you're writing for. So we know we're always here to write for your audience, right? You really have to get clear on that who is going to be impacted the most by my book. And when somebody isn't writing, or they're not completing, I always go back to this because when you can get a picture of the person who's going to be impacted the most by your book. You can begin to think through and this is how I would advise somebody is think through to this person, right? What is the? What is your goal for them with your book? What is it that you want to accomplish for them, right? How do you want to impact them? And then you can say, Well, if I don't write my book, what? How will they remain struggling? Like what are their pain points that if I don't give them a book that eases that pain, what will happen? And that begins to generate some necessity, right feeling of necessity, I better get this book out because there are people struggling and suffering. And it's my job to alleviate that. So as an example, I had a writer who he had been writing, but he wasn't finishing and he would start he would stop and life would get in the way, which is what typically, you know, I hear all the time life got in the way so I didn't write this week. And I asked him, I said, Who are you writing for? He was writing a book for fathers about parenting. And I said, Okay, so the Father's will be impacted by your book. And he said, Yes. I said, Okay, and who else will be impacted? And he thought for a moment, and then he said, the children, ultimately the children will be impacted because they will have fathers who do a better job of parenting them. And I said, Okay, so how long do you want to let those kids wait to have better fathers? Because every day that goes by, they might have fathers who are not parenting them as well as they could? Well, that was the fire under his butt, right? Because Because now suddenly, he had necessity and he also had urgency. Right, there was a need for his book. He knew that already. But now he really could see who would be impacted by this book. And if he didn't write it, they were going to suffer. And so now there was an urgency to get it done. So that's usually where I go with this guy. You're not writing or you're not finishing, create some urgency and some necessity by really getting in touch with who you're writing for, and how you are letting them down. I love
James Taylor that because also it can work to, to that that part of a lot of people's minds off, you're more alert to the negative consequences of something in the positive consequences. Although you still think you would love it to be we'd be different, but sometimes that that is just the way that the mind works is looking for the threats and whatnot. And so, so you're kind of using that that part of the brain that's just trying to get to go down that way and kind of harnessing it for some, some good there, and war, but we talk about the physiology and this is one of the things you work with people on as well. And just managing managing energy levels, for example, you know, this is a, we're in a kind of marathon, I guess as as writers, what what advice would you give in terms of, you know, we think about what we do and like I'm just now sitting, maybe sitting for long periods of time. So there's that part physiology these might just general energy levels, mental energy, physical energy, what advice you you give around this area?
Nina Amir Yeah. So this is something that is rarely talked about and writing and publishing circles. And it's enormously important for us to not only Master Master our psychology, but to master our physiology. Right. So yeah, if you, you have different kinds of energy that you bring to your computer every day. You have emotional energy, you could be sad, you could be happy, you could feel great, you know, emotionally or you could feel really lousy emotionally. You have mental energy. Are you clear and focused? Or are you distracted? Right? And then you have actual physical energy. Do you feel tired or do you feel you know, energized and ready to go? If you show up at the desk with low energy and any, you know, mental, physical, emotional energy that's low, you're gonna have a hard time being productive. You really are. You're going to just struggle you're going to be sitting got, you know, flipping over to Facebook, you're going to be looking for another cup of coffee, you're going to do all kinds of things. But right. And if you do, right, it's going to be very slow and laborious. If, however, you come to the desk with high energy, emotional, physical and mental energy that are that is high, you're going to be way more productive. So what does that mean you have to do, you have to judge whether your emotional energy is, is where it needs to be. So if you're worried about something or you're sad, or whatever, you're going to need to do something to shift that. The best way to shift that is to focus on something positive, or to move your body because we know that when we exercise, we release endorphins and all those things that make us feel better, right? So we don't want to focus on what's making us feel badly. And we want to move our body so that we feel better, right? Also, when you move your body you're going to raise your physical energy. Now do you have to go out for a run? No. You got to Do breathing, right do very deep, forceful breathing for 30 seconds and you're going to energize your body and your brain because your brain needs oxygen. And we tend to sit at that desk and not breathe. You could drink some water, which is also going to get your brain functioning better. Right? So and then as you do something like breathing, you actually focus your mind. So as you do, you know, you could go do some yoga moves, it doesn't matter, but do something where you get your breath moving and your body moving. And that physical energy is going to focus your brain and also give you the energy to work. Most people will say, you know, I'm writing after work and I'm tired and so I don't do it. You can actually do breathing exercises and regenerate yourself so that you have the energy. So we have to show up at the at the desk at the computer with good energy in General if we want to be productive
James Taylor and those exercises whether it's breathing or yoga or just going out for for a walk, I guess it also brings you back into your your body when your mind has been in other places and it brings you back to being present rather than looking back or think I've got all these things in future I am gonna get that done. So it brings you into that place that that more present place when you can go into your own you can go into your own world and you can you can you can really kind of punch those depths of you know, your creative potential which is difficult when you've got Facebook pings or various things get a guy going all the time. And I know we're gonna let's call it kind of final questions. I would love to know from you. Are there any tools or we actually talk about Facebook guys there but are there any tools or apps that you find actually can be useful for writers and and bearing in mind, you know, old tools have their pluses and minuses but there any ones that you find online tools or apps or things to help the writing process, make it just a bit more enjoyable or easier. Or maybe even in the researching process.
Nina Amir Yeah, I like focus at will. So there's a small fee to it. But focus at will gives you the ability to choose the type of music you like. That is actually it trains the brain to be more focused. And so you get more done because your brain waves are sinking up, and it's helping you focus. It also will track your productivity for you. So it'll you know, you can actually it'll ask you how productive were you during this period. So, I like to set it for 50 minutes because in high performance, we know that at about 50 minutes, our productivity drops, because we you know, are we just we kind of get burned out a little bit and so we need to, to rejuvenate a bit. So at 15 minutes, I like to stop, move my body a little bit, get a drink of water, do some breathing and then start Again, a lot of people think that you're going to get out of the flow, you won't get out of the flow, you're actually going to come back refreshed and ready to keep going. So focus a will is one of my favorites. And if you don't want to pay for it, you can always use Spotify and it has a focus station that you can go to. And it's the same idea
James Taylor I love I love that I use focus it well as well. And I noticed you mentioned 15 minutes on the I have a same thing I put on my watch buzzes me every, every 15 minutes just to remind me to get off my button a little bit to kind of get that every week you can get energy and what about if you and we're going to be talking just we're gonna have some links to your books here as well. But if you were to recommend a book by another author, it could be on the craft of writing or the or the or the mindset or even the marketing side of writing. What would that book be?
Nina Amir I can't think of one on the like the mindset of writing. I usually recommend Brendon Burchard high performance habits just because I actually think the problem is not In learning to write or to, you know, I just think the problem lies in our personal development. And so when you can learn the habits of high performers, you're going to become more productive. And even if you're learning the craft of writing, it's the same idea. You really need to, to become a high performer so that you master the skills and then you'll master the writing, right? Yeah, move through, you know, you'll be clearer. So you'll have clarity, you're going to have more energy, you're going to be more courageous and bold about your writing, you're going to be more productive. And you're also going to be more of an influencer. Because you're going to, you're going to put all that together and have more self confidence. And you're going to be out there telling stories and sharing your work and people are going to start to listen to you. So I just think that would be the best book, I could recommend this high performance habit.
James Taylor And obviously, Brendon really lives that as always a great example of someone that is very prolific and it's not just of books, but online courses, and then lots of other things as well. I'd love to know, if we imagined someone someone like yourself is around today, who is maybe a journalist or the other blogger, they can have a cup reporter working somewhere or they're doing writing but they really want to be an author and do write their kind of nonfiction work, write those books, but they have no contacts. No one knows who they are. What advice would you give them at this stage? Knowing all the you know, you know, both about the craft and about obviously, the business side of writing? What advice would you give them today in terms of getting getting in getting starting making that journey?
Nina Amir Well, one is to get involved with something like a conference to just get an education or, you know, get involved to the you know, they're not just me, but there are other people who have membership sites and things like that for nonfiction writers, you know, so join something where you're with other people. So a little plug, you know, I have the nonfiction writers University, so something like that go there to a conference. Are there other organizations. The other thing I would say which is more tactical, is I would say blog. Because to me the blog is the foundation of your platform building. So if you want to get out there and get known, which is I think what you're asking how do we actually get started and get out there, you need to begin to develop a body of work and practice your craft and develop voice. And a blog is an awesome place to do that, and as a nonfiction writer to become an authority on your topic. And once you have a blog post, you can share it on social media, people are saying, Well, what do I share on social media, you share your blog posts, share your expertise with people, and that will go a long, long way. And I can tell you that I wasn't an expert on blogging books until I started a blog called How to blog a book. And five months later, I had number one Google status, you know, when you do a search, and people were contacting me, you know, for to speak and to appear and all of that and that's how I got the book deal. So I think that you need to establish yourself as expert or authority, if you're a nonfiction writer, and a blogger is an awesome way to do it, and plus, you're going to impact way more people from your blog, then you likely will with a book, even though I encourage everyone to write a book, because it's a great way to have impact and to be an authority and expert. But I get more comments daily from my blog posts than I do from the books I sell. And, you know, in the world of publishing today, you know, the average book sells only 250 copies per year. So a blog, you could have 250 readers a month or more, and be impacting a whole lot of people and developing a platform and creating the foundation for your publishing career.
James Taylor Fantastic. And now if we're going to have a link here as well, you have a really cool productivity quiz for writers and we're going to have a link here so people can go on that. So obviously a quiz was identifying some of those things we've been speaking about today in this conversation. We're gonna have a link here below, people can click on that go through to that, that that Productivity quiz if people want to learn about you mentioned your membership I know you have you have other products and programs well where's the best place to go and learn about that and we'll also have a link to that here as well
Nina Amir yeah, they can just go to Nina Amir comm so and i n a m er calm Everything is there they can click through and around and they'll find it the other place they might want to go James is to my blog that is specifically for nonfiction writers. And it is called write nonfiction now calm
James Taylor fantastic mobile gonna have all those links here as well, to kind of go check out that quiz. Check out all the programs and products you have as well and also that blog and get some get some ideas get your creative juices going. Nina thank you so much for coming on today. Sharing a little bit about your own personal journey and some giving some great advice for any of those people that are on their their writing journey as well. I wish you all the best with your your next book we're gonna be working on
Nina Amir Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on. It was honor as I said and good luck.
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Writing Your First Draft
Cathy Fyock is The Business Book Strategist and works with thought leaders and professionals who want to write as a business or career development strategy. She is the author of eight books, including On Your Mark: From First Word to First Draft in Six Weeks, and Blog2Book. Since beginning her business in 2014, she has helped over 150 professionals become published authors.
James Taylor interviews Cathy Fyock and they talk about Writing Your First Draft
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there is James Taylor and I'm delighted today to be joined by Cathy Fyock. Cathy is the business book strategist and works with thought leaders and professionals who want to write as a business or career development strategy. She is the author of eight books, including On your mark from first word to first draft in six weeks and blog to book since since beginning of business in 2014. She has helped 130 plus professionals become published authors. It's my great pleasure to have Kathy join us today. So welcome Cathy.
Cathy Fyock Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
James Taylor So let me see you again. We met up at the National Speakers Association winter conference recently as well as lovely seeing you and, and I know you, you got a chance on things on the Sunday to go up on stage and give give a Prezi. And I felt I felt really sorry for because you had the hardest gig of, I think the entire conference. So everyone else was getting like maybe 20 minutes or 30 minutes. And yourself. I know Deborah God and a number of us we got five minutes to do your thing. So what was that? Like?
Cathy Fyock Yes, I know. It's crazy. That was crazy. I have never prepared so much for so little time on stage. But it was really a great experience. It really causes you to hone your message. So, so crisp and so sharp. So it was it was a lot of preparation, but it was a lot of fun.
James Taylor And you said I think the slides were going through automatically as well. So you had to really stay on track. The whole
Cathy Fyock You had to so yeah, it was it was very challenging and to talk for just five minutes and to make an impact. And the whole thing too, I wanted to make a point of it's important to give your audience members space to hear and process. So I also wanted to work in points of sort of silence and letting the audience process so that was very challenging.
James Taylor Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So sure that what's going on in your world just now?
Cathy Fyock Well, just really staying busy. There are lots and lots of speakers who want to become authors, or who know they need a new book to position their thought leadership to stay relevant to stay current, to say in the spotlight.
James Taylor So I guess this is I was talking to a speaker the other day and she is repositioning she, she's a successful speaker, but she's going she's now speaking about a very different thing and kind of repositioning a brand as well. And she was talking about as you were saying, I'm Now starting to think about writing the book, because it's such a big change I need to be positioning myself in a book is a really good way of doing that.
Cathy Fyock Well, exactly. And that's exactly what I did when I was a human resources professional and consultant and expert, and wanted to reposition myself as a book coach. So I needed to write the book about how to do that. And that was able to position me or reposition me in this whole new space. And that's the power of a book. And that's really I tell a lot of my authors that I work with. That's the power of a book is it allows you to go from here to there seamlessly, because you've written the book on it.
James Taylor Now today, do movie speakers are watching this just now they're just coming into the world of speaking. Do you still need to have a book I mean, we think of this word, author, you know, you know, authority being an authority and something is it require that you you haven't booked today in the speaking world.
Cathy Fyock Yes, yes, I continue to hear many of the authors come to me and they say I want to get that keynote role. And I can't become a keynote or unless I'm an author. So it's it's imperative, it's imperative that you have the book Plus, if you are already if you somehow have made it onto the keynote stage, and you don't have a book, you're leaving money on the table. And so a book is a way to gain additional revenue to and then and then many times, you can double your fees triple your fees, because you are now the author.
James Taylor Now I'm going to use myself as a little bit of a guinea pig for this as well. I am one of those speakers who's been Spin Spin for a little while not not too long, but I know that I need to write a book and I know every All my friends are successful speakers all said when you're going to write that book and I feel so bad about it because they keep if I Scott McCain, who I interviewed recently, Speaker Hall of Fame Inductee, incredible speaker. He said I Tim, what was the one thing you wish you had done? He said, I wish I'd written a book earlier. That was his, you know, in terms of building his thought leadership. So for someone, anyone who's watching this, maybe like myself, who is getting started speaking but doesn't have a book, can you hear me talk about, you know, how do we even start thinking because it feels like it's a, it's a big undertaking writing a book, it feels like a very solid, kind of heavy thing to do.
Cathy Fyock And it is, and it is, and I can't believe you've escaped a conversation with me about writing your book, James. We're gonna have to have another sidebar conversation about just that. But yeah, it's incredibly important to have that book. And yes, it is a huge undertaking. And I think what makes it so hard, is that a book will always be important, but it will never be urgent. So it's always going to be important but never urgent. And that's why I think we sometimes don't ride it as soon as we should, or when it's really the right time to Get that book out there is it's never urgent but always important. And we tend to work our to do list by what is urgent and not what's important. So that's why I suggest to everyone working on a book that you scheduled time on your calendar, it doesn't go on your to do list. It goes on your calendar.
James Taylor So I had one of the other guests I had recently he he'd spoken to Zig Ziglar, Zig Ziglar when he was as he was alive and said to him, sit down, sit down. So you're an author. He said, Well, no, I'm not an author. And the person is considered back a bit. What do you mean, I've got your books at home, I read I've read all your books, said no, no. I write three books. I write three pages a day. And at the end of it at some point, someone says you've got a book there and then that's what we published. So he was very much like every day we just even rating every day. We didn't think about it so much as writing a book. He just he was writing he was getting to that daily practice of Writing every day for someone that is maybe wanting to start developing their chops as a writer and kind of developing that skill is a skill. And what's the best way to start unlocking that part of themselves? Well, I
Cathy Fyock think the whole concept of blog to book is an easy, fast, and almost painless way to create a book. That's the topic of my last book. Because an NSA meeting I had within the course of about 24 hours for people come up to me at a convention and say, cafe. I've been blogging for years, 10 years longer. I have all this great content. I feel like I have enough content for a book. How can I make that happen? And it's absolutely doable, whether you're going to start writing now and at the end of the year, have a book or you've been blogging, you can repurpose that writing for your next book.
James Taylor I guess you could also do that. If you're more of VloggerFair more YouTube tapers. I mean, I'm tend to I use straight up my cross is going to strange for doing my blog, which is really it's really a vlog, I write it first and then I speak it often to autocue. And then it gets taken away. So I actually have the written words there. But but it's been the video tends to be the key thing, so I could take the video and that that transcript there, and then start reworking that into a book. But I'm thinking I mean, I'm, I'm not most patient of people, is it better to work with a final editor or co writer to help you in that process?
Cathy Fyock I don't think so. If you're a speaker, you want to really own your thought leadership, you want to own your intellectual property. So I think it's really important as a speaker, and maybe other folks, maybe it's not as important but I think as a speaker, you will get deep, deep knowledge around your area of expertise that will make you a better speaker for having done the book. But once you have this content, what you need to do is just create a strategic plan for That book that is aligned with your business strategy. And you basically say, Okay, here is my concept for this book, this is what I've been writing about for or speaking about, or vlogging about. And what you do is you create your outline, you see where you already have content pieces. And then you just simply write and fill in the gap, who still want to have some important content that you haven't developed
James Taylor yet. So I was talking to someone the other day, and they had just attended an event by Brian Tracy and Brian had mentioned that he writes a book or he publishes a book every three months now, because he said, the publishers that their attention span is so short, you said you have to continually keep publishing in order staying top of mind so so I'm guessing for some people that are really, really prolific in terms of publishing, they could also perhaps find curators and other people to maybe let's see, if someone's an expert on one particular topic, they could perhaps even find other experts on topic and Korea book together?
Cathy Fyock Absolutely. So that's possible. In fact, with a book, which was kind of exciting, it's, I was telling an author this the other day, it's sort of like having a blank canvas and you are the artist. So sometimes authors say to me, Well, what goes in the book? Well, I don't know. It's like, it's like an artist saying, Well, what should I What color should I use? What what? What strokes should I use on the canvas? What picture do I want to paint? It's, it's up to you, you're the creator of this of this book. So it can be anything that you want it to be
James Taylor that you mentioned, workable and thought thought leader, and we hear these different words they, so author, speaker, thought leader, expert, and they can get used interchangeably at different points as well. What How would you define a thought leader what makes a thought leader and imiquimod we can get into like, what it takes to actually become a thought leader.
Cathy Fyock I believe a thought leader is that individual who is leading the charge in some new area. Now, it could be an area that's been explored like leadership, but it's exploring it in a new way. It's putting on a new lens, a new perspective, perhaps it's using a different metaphor, a different analogy. It's using your own spin on that topic. So it's going where no one has gone before, in a unique and individual sort of way
James Taylor that bring up a point on I'm looking at my my library of books. And I think that's the one particular topic. I think, it feels like every book has been written on that topic, where can I fit into that topic? It seems people written better, more concise, or more expansive, than than I could ever do. You know, is that a common thing you find with some of your clients that they just just feel overwhelmed because if you're that someone's already done it maybe better than them?
Cathy Fyock Absolutely. So I say to them though, in response, let's take leadership. Have we solved all the leader ship issues in the world today? I hardly think so. No, no. So we're always looking for a different way to approach that topic. It's still important. We haven't gotten all the answers. No one has sort of codified that in a way that really makes sense for everybody. So perhaps your view of leadership is that new slice is that new way of looking at it, that's going to make sense maybe not to everybody, but it makes it make sense to somebody or to a certain industry or, or a niche. So that's what I tell my authors is you definitely have a story to tell. But it's figuring out where you have your area of expertise and then how can you present that in a way that is unique and solves a problem. Your client or your reader has
James Taylor as someone can start writing this book, putting it together. And I knew there's multiple stages and periods of time in this company to go through all different stages of the book use, yes, you can go through, but it feels like a lot of times, authors I've spoken to, especially first time authors, they get to the end of having the book ready. And they're so exhausted from the the process of actually writing and getting editing and everything in the book, that they then fall flat on the marketing part. And so when someone's going to going into you mentioned strategies earlier on, when someone's thinking about the strategy should have taken that step back and think about the the totality of what this book means for them in their career and for the the readers and people that are looking to serve in that way. How should you be thinking about the marketing piece?
Cathy Fyock Well, definitely you need to start thinking about marketing when you start writing the book or even ideally, before you start writing the book. And part of that is about building your tribe who are the individuals that find you work really intriguing, really interesting really write out a spot on and, and then writing blogs and articles and other pieces of writing that will create that energy around your topic and that connection. So and here's the thing that a lot of authors think is they have to write new content, say the book is done. And now they need to think about blogging and getting articles out there. I'm all about repurposing. So what, what pieces of the book can you extract as excerpted pieces, or as pieces that are perhaps of interest because of something that's happening in the news or it's a seasonal issue, or it's that time of year. So thinking about repurposing writing, either excerpting it in chunks or repurposing, writing and getting it out there? It doesn't mean new work, it just means thinking more. Speak, being smarter and not necessarily working harder. I guess you
James Taylor can also do some news jacking there. If you see a news piece of news, some something happening in the news, you can if it relates to your topic, and you have a chapter where you can release that you can repurpose some of that content, you know, push out there, stop talking to some journalists and try and get a featured.
Cathy Fyock Absolutely. So yeah, it's it's being aware of what is in the news, what are the trends? What are the issues? And then always be looking at your topic and saying, How does my topic connect to that topic? And how can I write a little blog piece that does link to that because that will keep my topic fresh and relevant.
James Taylor Now, one of the books I bought recently was by thick you're involved in behind the scenes on this book as well as Louis creamer agreement. Yeah. And it was a it was, I think his book, more business, I think was the name of the book. Yes, yeah. Yes. It was a great book. Really. hypervisor for speakers is a fantastic book on marketing and building your speaking. Now talk me through a process like that, because there's someone you know that you could argue that's quite a that's a very narrow type of audience you wrote that book for. So that was, you know, with practice aim speakers, and I and it's really aimed at people who want to be professional, as opposed to those ones just speak because they have a message and did not bother about being paid for it as well. So I'd be fascinated to author like that with the process that you can go through in identifying that tribe and thinking about that tribe and how that relates to the book that ends up going and kind of being published.
Cathy Fyock Well, it's interesting. Lewis was actually one of those four people who came up to me at the conference who said, I've been blogging for four years or 10 years. I don't even know how long it was. And she said, I know I have enough content for a book, I need a book, but I don't know how to get there, and can you help me and that's when I thought, Oh, yes, I can help you. And I should write a book about how to do that. So I help Lois though on her book, and she did. To have wonderful content, she wanted to just really add a couple of pieces. So it was a process of going through seeing what she had, creating an outline, seeing what pieces were missing, having her write those, those specific chunks of narrative, and then looking for a way to organize the material so that it made sense. And what we did was looking at sort of the different phases of becoming a speaker, and sort of what is the branding and the issues up front about who you are and what your messages and who you're for, and then how to make the sales call, how to target the right audiences, and the sort of that sequence of, of going through. So we organize the book content that way, and, and then just organize her blog post accordingly. We also needed to take out some redundancies there, because in a blog, you can repeat that same message, something that you really feel strongly about. You know, if you have something out there in January, you can have that same message or a version of it in July or August. But in a book, it's just too much it's redundant. So we had to edit out some content, and then make sure it was evergreen. What I found in almost every authors blog content is there's a sense of immediacy in blog content. I saw this yesterday or this happened to me this week. And so I'm going to reflect on that. So we have to make those pieces evergreen so that it it has that evergreen field because we want to books content to be relevant for five or more years.
James Taylor What about those many speakers, the kind of stock in traders stories we trade in, we use stories, that's one of the things we doing on stage. Whereas maybe like trainers that much better tend to use the more processes action you do this then then this as well. And I'm thinking about someone like, obviously met named James, great speaker. And she talks a lot about conceptual models using visual representations of what you're trying to get at. So if someone's just been writing, writing blog posts, but maybe haven't, and the they haven't necessarily been showing the ABCs of something and maybe telling a story or maybe the opposite of telling a story, how do you then take that information and then wrap around it? stuff that people can actually remember those? You know, that the Stephen Covey's the the grids and all the other things that we actually remember? They were because I felt like a lot of these books. I remember my retention is probably this this much, but I do remember graphics, I remember conceptual models. So do you work with with authors on that as well?
Cathy Fyock Absolutely. For example, I worked with an author who had an amazing story. He went from couch potato. He lost 130 pounds and became an Iron Man. And so it's like his story of how he did that. Which is a fabulous story. But when I was talking with Mark, I said, I think you want to do something more than just tell the story. I think you probably want to give some folks some, it's a What do we do? What are the steps? What is the process? So I had him think through what are the steps? And he goes, Well, that's interesting. I've been sort of thinking about these six principles or pillars. I said, Great. So let's, let's identify what those are. And then let's dissect your story and see if we can't insert that into these different pillars, if you will. And he was able then to create his book, he was able to create his keynote. And in fact, I just saw him give his keynote last week and it was awesome,
James Taylor fantastic. And that reminds that reminds me a little bit of this. One of our other guests, Peter Cook, who's from thought leaders, business school, partner with Matt church, amazing speaker from from Australia. I remember them telling me that they do. They do this thing called pink sheets. And I think Gina Anderson is one of our other guests. She's talked about his Pink Sheets, which is a one pager just because a lot of the time speakers when they're, they could have a number of years into their career. And then they actually looked into what intellectual property do you have? And or do you have to write a book now, but all you have to give a training and like, I don't know, what do I have, I don't have anything. So one of the things that they remember they teaches is, is having stories is having but processes is having some kind of visual represented representation, maybe a mantra, beginner chivari whoever is guessing this is great, like mantras having mantras as well. So you so you've got you've kind of got all these different things in place. And then they were saying is then easy. You can if you're continually adding to this Nick ethicon Pink Sheets, but if you have some form of continually adding to these things, that could be a chapter in a book that can be you know, 10 minutes in a talk that could be a three hour pass. Have a workshop. But unless you write it down and have it in some kind of written form, then isn't it is just gonna go go and etha.
Cathy Fyock Exactly. So stories are wonderful. And that's what people remember. But in order to organize you your book, you probably need to think about, well, what are the three lessons are? What are the morals of the story? Or what are the steps that get you to the other side of the pain or the problem that you're having. So that's what I typically do will help folks understand what those keys are, because that is really the heart of what it is to be a thought leader is to have it boiled down from this wonderful story with a great message that's very inspirational to Okay, so how can I apply that? So it's those steps, the process the model, that is what creates a thought leader.
James Taylor So let's go to some quickfire questions for us. Now, Kathy, let's talk about what to Do you use it, you know, as an author as a writer? What is that that software that you use to to do your writing? Or is there any particular online tool or resource you find very useful for yourself as a, as an author and also as a speaker,
Cathy Fyock many of my clients and and I use word I mean, pretty basic. And what I like about word is that we don't have to learn it. Some of the other software that's out there is great. And I've heard wonderful things about Scrivener and some other some other apps, but here's the thing, we know, word. And what I found with a lot of authors, it's, oh, I think I'm gonna buy this new, whatever. And I'm gonna need to learn that so it becomes productive procrastination. In other words, putting off what you should really do. It's like, Oh, I can justify it because I'm doing something. I'm learning something. But I'm really putting off what's most important, which is writing my book. So I say stick with what you know. I think we're It is very functional. And especially if you have this sense of I need to get my book done. Do it in Word.
James Taylor I know that there's some writers who will do that first draft just getting out of their head by just writing it on the page and then they will then go and put it on to a to a document in editing I remembering the children's author Roald Dahl, who I was big, big fan of and Roald Dahl always. He always sharpened six pencils, HB pencils before he would grit and grit into write. And he knew he'd done a day's writing. When those eight pencils were blunt. That was the that was the stage right? It was a very easy way without having to count words like banette blunt that's me I can I can go and have my lunch. And what about when it comes to a book because you're an author, but is there a particular book you find you think especially for speakers is very useful for them to read?
Cathy Fyock Well, I love Stephen King's on writing. I think it's one of the best and it What it does is let you know that while writing may be hard for you, it's hard really for everybody. And it takes a certain amount of discipline to get it done. And so that to me is is reassuring to know that even the best writers even the most prolific writers, have a process and have a discipline about their work and what about in your speak of buying what is it that buying that you carry with you to all of your your speaking engagements, you never leave the home or the office without what's in that bag? Well, usually I carry my books with me because I think an author should always carry their book, I have at least one copy. And I also wear my my button which is asked me about my book. And I wear this to all engagements. because inevitably, if I wear that on the plane, I'm selling a book on the plane or because somebody's gonna say, Oh, well tell me about your book. And I've also got new stickers that I put on the back My phone. So yeah, so I really, really love that. So, but definitely carry your books with us as a speaker and an author. Always have your books with you.
James Taylor There's definitely something you feel there when you meet a speaker and they give you that book and it feel they instantly there's an authority that comes with that. I know they talked about the book as a business card that has been overused as a phrase. And obviously, you don't want to write a bad book, you want to write a good book that you're proud of as well. But having that book you're proud of you're happy to get over there just feels and I think the why so recently, I'm a huge fan of what how he did it was phillium Jones, who had the book and it was it was not a big book, it's 80 something pages or something. Yeah, so they just yet
Cathy Fyock always have your book whether you have it with you and and give it away. I think giving away your book is maybe one of the best strategies to because it creates new fans it builds your tribe and It is a great calling card, people will not throw a book away. They may or may not read it, but the impact of having a book and they may give it to someone else, and they may read it. And so lots of good things can come from that. So Kathy,
James Taylor I want you to imagine tomorrow morning, you wake up, and you have to start from scratch. So you have all the skills you have acquired as an author and as a speaker, but no one knows you, you know, no one, what would you do? How would you restart things?
Cathy Fyock I'd write a book. Which is really how I reinvented myself because I was a human resources consultant in my former life. And one day I decided I needed to reinvent myself. So I put the business plan together. And I wrote the book about how to write the book. So I think anytime someone is thinking, Okay, so now what's next, if you see the path that you want to go and you have some expertise there, then perhaps the the strength strategy is to write the book because it's it's a great way of establishing your credibility, your visibility, to expand your impact, and get some media coverage too. So it's all good stuff.
James Taylor Cathy if people want to reach out to you and maybe learn more about your services and your speaking and your things you have going on, where's the best place to go and do that?
Cathy Fyock It's CathyFyockcom. That's it. C A T H Y F Y O C K
James Taylor Cathy's a pleasure speaking to you. As always, I love when we get a chance to meet up and, and chat as well. Thanks so much for coming on today. And I wish you all the best with your next book, as well.
Cathy Fyock Thank you so much.
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Self-publishing vs Independent-publishing
Joanna Penn is a speaker, entrepreneur and award-nominated New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Since becoming a writer she has authored 27 books and sold over 500,000 copies in 84 countries and 5 languages. She writes thrillers under the name of J.F.Penn and uses her full Joanna Penn name to write non-fiction for authors. When not sitting at a desk crafting her next work you’ll find her on stage speaking about self-publishing and book marketing. Her site, TheCreativePenn.com is regularly voted one of the Top 10 sites for both aspiring and professional writers.
James Taylor interviews Joanna Penn and they talk about Self-publishing vs Independent-publishing
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey there, it's James Taylor, and I'm delighted today to be joined by Joanna Penn. Joanna Penn is a speaker, entrepreneur and Award nominated in New York Times and USA Today best selling author. Since becoming a writer she has authored 27 books and sold over 500,000 copies in 84 countries and five languages. She writes thrillers under the name of jF pen and uses a full giant a pen name to write nonfiction for authors. When not sitting at a desk crafting her next work you'll find her on stage speaking about self publishing And bookmarking, a site thecreativepenn.com is regularly voted one of the top 10 sites for both aspiring and professional writers. It's my great pleasure to have Joanna with us today. So welcome Joanna.
Joanna Penn Oh, thanks for having me days. It's good to talk to you.
James Taylor So what's happening in your world just now what are you currently working on?
Joanna Penn Oh, it's a great days talk to me because just this morning, I actually delivered my next thriller, which is called valley of dry bones to my editor. So for me today, it's a it's one of these moments like as in I've just finished the first edit so the book is like if I published it right now it would be fine but it's about 95% I think so. Yeah. One of these good days when I probably have a gin and tonic after this actually, sort of a celebration
James Taylor with different authors I know that they can have little gifts to themselves little things that just to mark those different occasions in your first draft and other things. So is a gin and tonic is that is that your your reward of choice then when you kind of get to this stage in the process?
Joanna Penn Well, to be honest, it's it's my reward of choice. All my drowning my sorrows of choice. But I think I think the big the big deal is with when I finish this draft when I send it to my editor, that's when I set up my pre order. So this is a kind of a bit of a tip for when you know the timelines when you're an independent author, you need to know the timelines of when you can publish stuff. And once I've got this draft, I know pretty much the dates I can send to my proofreaders my beta readers and put you know I can put up my I know when I can get this book out now so I that's why this is such an important milestone, I think.
James Taylor Now, this is a fiction book, this one you've just worked on, but you've also you write nonfiction as well. Do the timelines differ from this stage? And when you have that, that version of the book, is it different depending on whether you're writing fiction or nonfiction?
Joanna Penn It depends very much and I know we might come on to series in general, but this is book 10. In an established series, my arcane thrillers, which are kind of Laura Croft meets Dan Brown. And so I know the characters I know worlds I know the structure, I just need the plot. This is actually taken about 18 months of thinking but it only took six weeks of writing my last nonfiction book, which was how to write nonfiction, which was quite meta was actually a longer book, it took about three, three months, three to four months. And it was it's, you know, it's a standalone, although I've got books for authors, and I think that one was much was kind of much more difficult because it had so much to go into it. So what I would say to people is, I don't think that is necessarily a guaranteed timeline for any book. I do think you have to set deadlines for yourself so this is a really important productivity tip. I mean, I know you know this but when you're if you know that I can't remember the Laura is but the project will expand to the time that you when you give it that one yeah, there we go. Yeah, if you say, oh, I've got forever to write my book. It doesn't matter then it will take you forever and there are authors you You know, he's been years and years writing. Whereas I tend to set a timeline, a deadline for it, aim for that. And even if you miss it, you still tend to get close enough to that. So I find that really important. And again, especially as an independent running my own business, I have to set my own timelines. And of course, readers always want the book like the next day. So you have to kind of balance productivity with mental health, which can be a difficult thing, but
James Taylor that's important point. You know, that mental health that you know that being a healthy author, because you're speaking all the time, but lots of different types of authors are the ones that you find are both productive and sane. At the same time, and they have a kind of healthy attitude to the to their work, and they're just nice people to the good people to be around. Have you ever said anything in common with them? Or is there anything in terms of the person you think personalities or you may be giving yourself little rewards? What's what what am signifying someone you Thing is, that is both a good one is a really good author, but they're also they have quite a healthy attitude to writing.
Joanna Penn Well actually last year, I co wrote a book with a medical doctor called the healthy writer. So this is something that's very dear to my heart. And what we actually found and you know, it's one of those things with health, you think it's rocket science, and then it's not, is getting a lot of sleep. So it's really funny. I'm very productive. I've written 28 books, so I write a lot. I do a lot and I sleep for eight to nine hours per night. I'm like asleep asleep machine. Because my conscious brain really needs sleep. I read a lot so I normally go to bed quite early, and I'll read for an hour to be done. And then physical movement is critical for writers. So I'm standing up right now I think you are as well right you at a standing desk. Actually, I'm sitting my sitting desk but
James Taylor I just I invested in a very, very nice chair recently. It's a I can't remember the makeup but it's like it's a very, very nice chair is the one that I was told to get for ergonomics and all that stuff, but beyond You You're standing in, could you prefer doing all of the standing thing? Yes,
Joanna Penn I am a standing desk for things like podcasting. And then I have various accoutrements for working in cafes. I mean, I get it all out for the cafe as well, so that everything's at the right height. But definitely, I think people people think that writing is simple. You know, you just sit down and write stuff. But it's very tiring. And I think that this is because you know, they say we have a certain amount of willpower a day or a certain you have a certain amount of capacity per day. And when you are making decisions, whether it's making decisions for your characters, whether it's what chapter to write how to kind of download your brain for nonfiction, you're making so many choices with what you're writing even down to word choice. That's actually very tiring. So what I would say to people is, don't underestimate the stamina, you need to write a book. It's very different to writing a blog post very different to, you know, writing in a thing much shorter or something you're used to, you know, you really do need to set aside the Time, but also the time for your unconscious subconscious. So that exercise and sleeping and, you know looking after your physical and mental health, taking a break, like don't fall into internet negativity, which can really set you back. Don't compare yourself with other people that can be really tough to but you know setting those regular guidelines, those routines, there's a lot of books now on habit formation, routine formation, and I've I found that I really really need my routine in order to write. I have a table at a cafe I have the stuff that I set up my desk with, I drink the same coffee. I go to the yoga class at the same time. I you know, I write I do my dictation at a certain room in a co working space. And that's how I get my books done. And that's not the glamorous stuff, right. No one wants to hear that. But I intersperse that non glamorous stuff with my research trips, which is why I travel a lot as well.
James Taylor So yeah, dude Those like, I sometimes think in terms of Twitter and posting things and, and I thought I would probably have the most boring Twitter they've I've actually posted the tweets of actually stuff I do for most of my day as opposed to the fun stuff where you're traveling and you're speaking and stuff like that. It basically consists of making cups of tea sitting, walking, going around the room trying not to go to the fridge to have a cookie or whatever. So it's all those things that you How is your process as you become more experienced, right? Obviously, you can be successful writer as well, that that those habits those routines have those change because you didn't go from like Day Zero of saying I'm quitting my job and I'm going to be a full time author. There was a there was a bit of a ramp up to how you did that. So I'm interested, how did you you kind of ramp that up slowly when you know writing wasn't a thing you the only thing you were doing every day?
Joanna Penn Well, I think the main thing and we know this as entrepreneurs as well. There's a lot of skills you have to learn around everything. So at the same time as I mean Even learning to write fiction versus nonfiction is quite different skills in themselves. But then at the same time, you're probably learning how to blog or how to podcast or how to do speaking or how's it how to go into networking things or entering competitions. And so I first started writing nonfiction in 2006. So 12 years ago was we're talking now. So that's when I decided to write my first book, self help book, which became career change. And it took me five years of writing to go full time. And in that time, I'd written a couple of books and started the blog and the podcast. But what the main difference, I think, to who I am now is that back then I really didn't ever expect to make a full time living with my writing. I was primarily a speaker, looking to make money from blogging primarily and now and so a lot of my time was much more around that more Regular online stuff. Whereas with books, you kind of have to take a step back and think about intellectual property creation, which might not earn you money right now, but will earn you money over the long term. So I know that my mindset has completely shifted to the idea of creating assets, which will bring me income for the long term. And this is a very powerful concept. And it is why everybody listening that publishing companies want your book because they want assets on their balance sheet. And that will make them income on their profit and loss statement. So this is the thing when you run your own business and you start thinking about creating assets that earn you money for the long term, every hour I put into creating assets will make me money for my lifetime and 70 years after I die as long as I manage my intellectual property assets well, and so that's a big shift. The other thing that shifted is of course, when I started writing my first novel, I Had a day job, I didn't have to pay the bills with my writing. So that first novel took me what 14 months to write. It was it was a hobby. As in, I didn't expect necessarily to make money from it. I wanted to, but I didn't expect to I didn't have an audience. And that is both a pro and a con. But now we've booked 10 in that same series is this is that you know, but one strain of fire. This is book 10 of that series, and I haven't I have an audience who want that book. And then I know the day after that book comes out, they will say, where's the next book? So it's, it's like, great, people are going to buy it. And then oh, my goodness, they're going to want another one so far. So there's lots of pros and cons with how things have changed and what I would say to people listening, what you need to do is make sure that you don't wish your time away and wish that you were at another point in the journey. I know how difficult that is because I think I do too. I mean, I often I'm always looking forward to the next goal, but make the most of not having an audience to really test ideas play around with stuff because very soon you will have one and you'll have to deliver to what they want as well as what your creative self want.
James Taylor And I'm also I'm a little bit cautious now. And this is more more from the author speaking where I gave, I gave a speech recently and, and someone about two weeks later publisher actually sent me the front cover of the book of my speech. So like with my name, they've basically mocked up the front cover this, this publisher had been in the audience, and he's seen my speech and a basic basic pitch me to say I want to publish the book of this now I'll bring in a ghostwriter or bringing a co write it with you and actually made me it was very nice to have that but also made me think I have to be a little bit more conscious of not kind of giving things away as I'm going to going through the process of obviously, you can have costly testing, but there's certain things about I'm a little bit more cautious now about seeing and putting out into the into the world so I wondered like as you're writing to you wrote, obviously fiction but you also you We were well versed in nonfiction as well, and you publish a lot of nonfiction books. How do you balance that? You know, you must have all these ideas kind of going around all the time like, Oh, this is going to be a great idea. How do you balance that like testing it into the market with not giving away too much. So when the book comes out, it's it's going to be there for folks?
Joanna Penn Well, with nonfiction, I would say, give everything away. app just give it all away. What is amazing. I like some people turn their blog into a book or their talks into a book, I often will write a book and then I turn my book into articles. So a lot of the chapters, my nonfiction books and our articles, their videos on YouTube, that talks. But what's so interesting and again, you know, I think everyone realizes this. People want things packaged in an easy way. So for example, I am a podcaster. But I also have audiobooks of all my nonfiction like most of my nonfiction and my fiction. So people who listen to audio you know, we're so busy. So then someone might find a blog post of mine from, you know, my book how to write nonfiction, but they're not going to sit there and read the like all the blog posts on the blog, because that's just not a handy way of doing it. Instead, they might click the link to buy the book, and also the audio book, or the print book or the workbook, because they're like, Oh, that's a really useful chapter. So what I would say when nonfiction is very, very different with fiction, but with nonfiction, I don't think it you know, give it away, and then turn that same material into multiple products and multiple streams of income. I really believe that very different with yourself. Like if you were looking to work with a publisher, remember that if you sign any contract, and it goes to everyone listening, if you sign a contract, you really need to be clear what that contract includes. For example, your publisher might not let you publish that as a blog post. They might not let you do an audio book. They might keep those rights. They might not let you publish in America or You know, Australia. So the important thing is, to me, it's about control, and the ability to be global, digital mobile to take advantage of anything I can, which means I keep control. But for example, I just signed a deal yesterday for Korean rights for one of my nonfiction books, so that books going to go out and print in Korean. I was never going to self publish in Korean. So you know, these are things that can come up either way. So I'm not saying don't sign a contract, I'm saying be very aware of what a contract contains, and make sure that it still allows you to do the things you want to do with your own material and intellectual property.
James Taylor So I say that, you know, this kind of brings this idea of obviously, traditionally published, we hear like, often traditional published and self published or independently published and then you kind of have this kind of hybrid type of thing that can goes on as well. First of all, explain, explain to me into the difference between we hear the self publishing and in Independent publishing. What is it? What's the difference between those things? And who is if it's almost too good, then that channel, the channel, the route that you have gone? Who do you think that is right for? And who do you think would actually be better going for maybe the more traditional way of publishing?
Joanna Penn Yes. So, first of all, I would say the really important question is, What is your definition of success? Really important? And most people don't know what their definition of success is. They think they do. But then if you actually ask them, they're like, Oh, I just want to sell some books. It's like, yeah, that's not that's not good enough. So that's just the difference between to me. I don't like saying self publishing, I don't Self Publish. I work with professional designers, editors, a number of different editors, proofreaders, beta readers, you know, book designers, printers, you know, so I work with a lot of freelance professionals, many of whom work with traditional publishing. So and I write I have my own small press, called curl up press. I work with With the publishers like Ingram Spark, who do printing for the biggest publishing houses in the world, so these this is why I call myself an independent author. And, and some people would say independent publisher, but independent publishers often publish other people's work. I'm an independent author, I only publish my own work or those I am co write with. So and I have no desire to publish other people just before anyone pictures. But then, so the difference with that, and then with traditional publishing, obviously, what you're doing is instead of doing it yourself, you're gonna work with a publishing company, with an editor with a designer and they have the control and you're going to sign a contract with them. And the amount of control that you get and input into the process will totally depend on your contract. But just on a purely financial level, most publishing contracts are around 10 to 25% royalties, some digital first might go up to 50. percent, but most of them are the lower end. And as an independent author, I get 70% seven zero percent when I published it with Amazon and with my print books, I will do maybe $2 a book, profit. So and if people were traditionally published, they'll know they normally get a lot less than that. So there's a there's a different financial side, the control side is very different. Many traditionally published authors might not get control, it's nice that you've got that cover, for example, many authors would not see a cover until much later. And what I would say in terms of who it suits, if you are someone who runs your own business, you might struggle with working with a publisher who wants too much control because you're used to everything being in your control, unless you really just want to hand off the whole process to someone else and you're not doing it for the money. So this is a really big deal about this coming back to definition of success. If you want to win a literary prize Then get a traditional publisher. If you want to be a speaker and make money at the back of the room, then you have two options, one, get a traditional publishing deal, make no money, but get bigger speaking gigs, or self publish and make big bucks at the back of the room. So this is the thing, you've got so many choices now. And this is what I love about the new model, you have the choice, and you can mix and match. So you might decide to do one, but with traditional publishing, where you get less money, but kudos, and then you might self publish a book at the same time, and then use that for marketing. So you make the money on that one, and the other ones for kudos. So it totally depends on what you want to achieve
James Taylor presented for you. You know that that sense of being independent having that that sense of control. Obviously, there's a there's a big financial difference between those two different ways of doing doing things, but it's really the the sense of independence and sense of control that being being an independently published independent author that that's a big thing for you.
Joanna Penn Yeah, and the other thing I would say is speed. You know, if you sign a pub, if you get an agent right now, it might take a year to get a deal. Once you get a deal, it might be another year before the book comes out. So book deals take a long, long, long time. And I don't have that patience. I like it when I feel like I've handed that book to the editor today, as we talk in the beginning of September. I know that book will be published within a month. And I know that because I control the rest of the process was again, if I was traditionally published, it would probably be a year to 18 months by which time I will have written like three or four more books. So yeah, so this is the thing for me. The speed is a big aspect, the control. Also the world is changing every day. Like there are more exciting opportunities every day. I've just recently last week, got my books into China through published drive. I've now got audio books on Google Play. You know, we have new opportunities at Walmart with Kobo, my books were in the opening of the Walmart ebook store in the US. These are things that come up All the time that the you know, you just don't even know what's going to happen. So if you don't have control, you can't take advantage of this. I also have control of pricing so I can do promotions. So yeah, I think at this point, I mean, I would, I would absolutely take a deal where if it fitted what I wanted, but I also went into this in order to make good money. I am a businesswoman, as well as a creative and my goal was always to make six figures and multi six figure income. And I know the way to do this as an independent and the reach is clear. I know you've interviewed like Joseph Alexander and some other independent authors who there is a clear route to making six plus seven figures money in this game now, whereas traditional publishing feels a lot more like a lottery ticket approach. Yes, you might, you know, you might luck out, but it's not a business plan.
James Taylor And we interviewed a few Joseph Alexander as well and it was it was very complimentary to you because I said I mean, if anyone looking for advice on how to kind of do what he did, which is kind of going into from six to seven speaker author, he said, just read Joanna Penn's books. That was it. That was his cue. I said, it's really I just followed those, you know, the books that Joanna I just looked at in terms of writing and publishing, and I know you do things, you know, in other areas, well, in terms of how to build their writing business, I think he said now having been Joseph, he did like 14 books in the first year as a nonfiction writer. So he really ramped up and now he's obviously working with a lot of CO writers, as well and creating almost a bigger publishing business as well. But as he said, as you're saying, there is a route, if you want to go down this independent way of doing things, and you get that independence, you get that sense of control. There's that sense of speed. And I know that a lot of people probably watching listen to this are professional speakers or aspiring to professional speakers. One thing that I'd never thought of someone that I interviewed recently Phil M. Jones is a British speaker lives in New York now. He said, one of the things he wants to do in independently publishing was when he's working with a client now he can have 500 copies made with that clients, you know, logo inside with maybe a foreword by the CEO of the company, that he can give out x numbers of books, because he knows that those books will bring him in speaking engagements, which will far You know, give a massive ROI on what he's doing. And he said, If he'd been with a traditional author, he just wouldn't have had that flexibility. He just couldn't have done that as well. So I know that is a complicated issue. But I think you know that if you are going the that the independent publishing route, then your books, and people can read your books, and they can go through that. And it's a great way of thinking about it.
Joanna Penn Yeah, why don't we just add on that is Ingram Spark, who are one of the publishers that many of us use, including big publishing have just introduced, it's only $1 to personalize a print run. So you can do that one page or whatever at the front of books for which Have a client you're in and it's only gonna cost you an extra dollar plus you get bulk discounts if you order lots of books see once you know these things the seriously the publishing bit is this much of the process the writing is this much the marketing is that much you know i mean you know marketing any kind of business is that much the publishing isn't many than publishing takes me like a couple of hours. Now, you're
James Taylor really skilled obviously, on the marketing the marketing side in a lot of people can come to you to get ideas and you're the creative pen has some great ideas in terms of renmark marketing. But for a lot of authors or aspiring authors, there's still that stage where, where someone like Steven pressfield say they have that resistance, just that process of getting and sitting down every day and in writing those 500 words or the thousand words in your journey as an author, what have you learned to help with that? The the mindset, just the, the ritual of being able to write everyday to get that to get those words happening.
Joanna Penn Well, I think like better tough love people, like how much do you want this? Like, seriously, that's what it comes back to. And I think it comes back to it, whether you're a speaker, whether you're building your small business, if you want to write fiction, whatever you want, how much do you want it? And when I, I had the, you know, the sort of early 30s, what should I do with my life, and I wrote down what I wanted my life to look like. And it was I want to read, I love to read, I want to travel, and I want to write. And the other thing is that I was so miserable with my job because I just felt like I was on, you know, the rat race and had nothing to show for it. And what I love about writing a book is that you can hold it in your hand and say, I made this and at the end of the year, you can stack up your books and go, I made these, like, I've got some over here, I made those. They came from my brain, and it's like, wow, I have achieved something and it just feel it. So tangible. So now I measure my life by what I create. And that to me, keeps me going. I mean, like I said, I just finished that book what I did, between finishing it at lunchtime, I cleared my desk, I've stuck my map on the wall because I'm starting my next book, because I'm addicted to this process. I need to get on with the next book now, because I love doing it. So what I would say to people is like, if you're not driven by wanting to achieve, being a writer, and it's got to be what the daily routine is, it's the reading. It's the writing. It's the what I have created. It's not some mythical. You know. I don't think there's much glamour really being a writer. There really isn't. I mean, even with being a speaker, like people think, oh, you just travel around the world stuff. But yeah, you're in hotel rooms a lot. You have to go to networking, drink, bad wine, that type of thing. So I mean, I think you have to love the job. Otherwise, it's just another job. I might as We'll just have stayed being an IT consultant. But the point is, like, how much do you want this? And what do you want your life to look like? And how do you measure your success? And for me as an introvert who just likes being alone a lot and making stuff up, this is the best job in the world.
James Taylor I just seen I'm reminded I think was Austin kleon. He said, a lot of people want to be the noun without doing the verb.
Joanna Penn Yes. And you have to want the verb you have to want lighting. Yeah,
James Taylor yeah. And actually, I think Elizabeth Gilbert did a very funny video she did interview with Marie Forleo about exactly this same thing I'm not gonna say but it because it involves some rude language. Really the way you describe it. If you look at that refold Elizabeth Gilbert video if anyone's watching this just now and it talks exactly to this, the things that maybe the unpalatable things that you sometimes have to do because you love what you do so much, and it's a bigger a bigger calling. And I'd love to know, in the time we have left, what tools do you use in terms of your your writing You're obviously marketing and publishing, getting things out into the world. Okay, so
Joanna Penn Scrivener is the number one tool I would really struggle to write a book without Scrivener. I'm sure you'll put a link in the show notes but it's really cheap. It's like 50 US dollars. It is a you can plan with it, you can write with it. You can even publish with it. It does export files, but I use vellum, which is a Mac only but vellum to, to publish and I've got a tutorial on my website, so maybe you might link to that tutorial. But basically vellum allows me to create Kindle files, EPUB files for the other platforms, even print files. So really, with those two tools, you've really you've gone a long way and then the rest of them are very much online. So they are like Amazon, KDP and Kobo writing life and their services. I mean, these just to be clear to people, these are free, it is free to publish. So what costs you money is obviously at work. With an editor, working with a cover designer, even cover there, you can go with a site like Canva, canva.com, which I also use for blog posts and for social media things, but they do book covers as well for free. There are lots and lots of tools you can use like that. But yeah, the the two I would say that are critical to my business would be Scrivener and vellum at this point.
James Taylor I was scripting I'm interested in when you come to starting to write your outline in your book, because I use Scrivener as well. One things I've always tried to figure out is like when I'm I can I like to can think about who I'm writing, who I'm going to be writing for who the audience is, and put some just an outline and really construct almost like an internal proposal proposal, except I'm the only one that's going to be reading it at this stage. Is that something that you would do and you'd put into something like a Scrivener so you've got some way of kind of looking back if you if you get off of off target a little bit you can pull yourself back in like why Who is this for? Why am I writing? What's the goal for this book?
Joanna Penn I'm probably not quite saying I mean, I would agree with With that, but for me, it's more like I will create a Scrivener document when I'm thinking about a book. For nonfiction, I will just chuck in a whole load of one liners. So I'll just put you know, like for my how to write nonfiction, I put things like book title, as one chapter heading and then things like personal stories, quotes, you know, these were just one liners and then what I do is I fill in the blanks with nonfiction. The brilliant thing about Scrivener is the ability to drag and drop and this is why it's far superior to Microsoft Word or anything, you know, just that you drag and drop. You will never ever write nonfiction in order. You cannot. I really truly believe that it will just never work. So you're going to have to drag and drop it around and reorganize. And then for fiction, I generally start with my research. So there's in Scrivener, there's a manuscript part and a research part. So I will generally throw stuff in the research area and then I'll put my tentpole scenes, which are the you know, the big six Mine, like I just wrote a scene in Alcatraz, I knew I was going to have a scene on Alcatraz. So I, you know, had Alcatraz scene. And I knew I'd have one in Palma in New York. So I put that, you know, so, and then again, I kind of fill in the blanks, but yeah, the drag and drop. writing out of order is just just critical
James Taylor there. We're gonna have links to your books as we finish up here. But I'd love to know, if there was one book you would recommend to other people. It could be on the craft of writing or the marketing side of things. What would that book be
Joanna Penn the book I come back to over and over again, is turning pro, by Steven pressfield. Steve's been on my show three times now and I just worship the guy. It's so funny. Whenever I interview him, I'm like, Oh, hi, Steve. But he's he his work is very, has been a big impact on me. A lot of people talk about the War of Art, but for me, his book turning pro is the one I reread it probably every, you know, at least every year, generally more regularly, and I've got it on audio in print. In EDA, you know, it really is it. And the point is, and he it's hardcore. It's like the amateur is this, the pro does this? And it's like, What do you want? And for me, I want to be a professional writer for the rest of my life. So what? What do what can i emulate that will help me be a writer like Steve, for example, and stand the test of time. So yeah, that would be my recommendation, turning pro by Steven pressfield.
James Taylor And final question for you. Let's imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, I'm going to New York, we're both big lovers of travel. So let you choose wherever you want to wake up, which city in the world place in a world you want to wake up to? But you have no books out, you have to restart again. But you do have all the skills you've acquired over the years. And although you don't have a platform, no one knows who you are. What would you do? How would you restart things?
Joanna Penn I would I would just start writing again. I literally I would have a laptop. But I would literally just start writing again. And I would write we did mention series a little bit. I would think definitely start writing a series. I would probably start with nonfiction because it is easier to make immediate money with nonfiction. Because you can find a niche and write to it. Fiction takes a little longer to make money out off. Because, you know, you generally have to build up more of an audience. But yeah, I would aim to probably write three books in a niche and use the first one to start the marketing, put that for free, do some promotion and start building up that way. What I would say is, you know, there's a lot of people starting every day like don't feel it, you know, if you're listening, like you're like, you'll never get anywhere, because new people come along every day and break out every day. And he and I think what the amazing story for authors is if you ask people like who's your favorite author that often only, like less than 10 authors that people can name. Most authors are making a decent living, and no one's ever heard of them. So if you want to be a writer, this truly is the best time in history. Free to be one. So yeah, I would I would just get writing wonderful. And
James Taylor if people want to learn more about you, and because you have an incredible site, absolutely lovely reading, you're saying your blog. So tell people where to go for that and tell if people want to just read your work more genuinely and learn about your books where they should go.
Joanna Penn Yes, sure. And if you want to find lots more at thecreativepenn.com. And also my podcast, The Creative Penn Podcast, which is now almost at 400 episodes, so lots of backlist for people to listen to for free. Lots of Steven pressfield. And I'm on Twitter at the creative pen if anyone has any questions.
James Taylor Well, Jonah, when I thought about putting this summit together, you one of the first people I really wanted to reach out to because you're such an authority. We weren't author You are such an authority also on writing and publishing as well. So thank you so much for coming on today. I'm looking forward to actually listening I'm going to after this I'm going to listen straight to that Steven pressfield one because I'm a huge fan as well. But thank you so much for coming on and all the best for your future writing.
Joanna Penn Thanks so much for having me, James.
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How To Outline Your Book Using Mindmapping
Michael is the world’s leading authority on the application of genius thinking to personal and organizational development. A pioneer in the fields of creative thinking, executive coaching, and innovative leadership, he is the author of 14 books including the international bestseller How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci: 7 Steps to Genius Every Day. His other titles include Creativity On Demand, Innovate Like Edison, Discover Your Genius and Thinking for a Change. Michael’s books have been translated into 25 languages and have sold more than one million copies. Meanwhile, as a keynote speaker and seminar leader his clients have included DuPont, Emerson, Microsoft, Nike, and the Young President’s Organization.
James Taylor interviews Michael J. Gelb and they talk about how to outline your book using mindmapping
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there is James Taylor. And it's my great pleasure to have with me today, Michael J. Gelb. Michael is the world's leading authority on the application of genius thinking to personal and organizational development, a pioneer in the fields of creative thinking, executive coaching and innovative leadership. He is the author of 14 books including international bestseller how to think like Leonardo da Vinci seven steps to genius everyday. His other titles include creativity on demand innovate like Edison, discover your genius and thinking for a change. Michael's books have been translated into 25 languages and sold more than 1 million copies. Meanwhile, as a keynote speaker and seminar leader his clients have included DuPont, Amazon, Microsoft, Nike and the young presidents organization. It's my great pleasure to have Michael with us today. So welcome, Michael, thank you so much. Great to be with you. So share with everyone what's happening in your world just now.
Michael J. Gelb Let's see, I just got back from co leading a Qi Gong seminar. g Gong is the ancient Chinese methodology for cultivating life energy, and it's one of my passions, and recently made a video about that as well. I'm working on three new books to client meetings coming up this week. Not to go for a walk in that Rockefeller preserve near where we live. will cook a fabulous dinner tonight and drink a great wine. So that just typical snapshot I liked
James Taylor one of the books that you wrote. It was about it was all about how wine can inspire, inspire think I used to live in Maryland. I used to live in Napa Valley, great area for the wine in California so so do you find wine and conducive to your creative process has nothing
Michael J. Gelb to do. I wrote a book called wine drinking for inspired thinking, uncork your creative juices. And I've been leading seminars, as you shared it, with my biography for companies around the world for decades, and they always asked me for team building. So years ago, I came up with a wine tasting team building exercise, which clients always love. And then I wrote a book about it. And the result of this is that clients pay me to drink wine with them.
James Taylor That is a tough job. Someone's got to do that. But that's a tough job.
Michael J. Gelb Last week, I was with a client In New York City, and she gave me the wine list and said, Just order anything I want to have something we've never had. That's really wonderful. And even though clients can afford it, I'm still protecting their interests and I'm a value oriented wine buyer. So I just checked and I said, Okay, is there a ceiling on your budget? And basically she said no. So they happen to have the Winston Churchill pole Roget champagne and from 2002 is an absolutely legendary one is the one they named after Winston Churchill because he used to drink a bottle every single day. And it even though it was quite expensive, it was still a remarkable value on the list. It was not overpriced. It was about the price that you could find it retail on this wine list. So I ordered it on behalf of the client I told her a little the history of the wine and she was so excited. She said let's have caviar dividual ounces of a cetera caviar for me, there are only three of us. And drinking this poll, Roget Winston Churchill 2002 eating this caviar and I'm thinking, get paid for this. This is pretty cool. Just how we roll, that's just what we do so. So
James Taylor there is obviously there's a lot of history to about whining and creativity, obviously, the the symposiums the, you know, the Greek words to drink together, you know, the ancient Athenians would drink and they would serve in the shallow cups and water down a little bit. I don't know where I'm from near Edinburgh. They, they had the great clubs of the of the Enlightenment era where you had Adam Smith and all these incredible inventors and Scientists and they used to do the same thing but with with clarity, but also they always watered it down slightly. And I'm not sure if it was like two parts clarity, two, three parts water, because they knew they knew a little bit of wine was quite conducive to the creative process, but too much was maybe maybe detrimental.
Michael J. Gelb And then and then the geniuses of the Scottish Enlightenment helped to inspire Thomas Jefferson, john adams, George Washington, who, well Thomas Jefferson spent 20% of his presidential budget on fine why, and, and what really what they were trying to do and you know, of course, Ben Franklin went and visited Edinburgh Yeah, and got a lot of the ideas that that really ultimately led to life liberty, the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental core value of of a nation and in a way that dramatically has changed the world. And Ben Franklin said, wine is proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.
James Taylor Wonderful. And so that's that's kind of carried on. So I want to take you back to where you got started as an author that take us back to that very first book that you publish. What was that? What was the journey like in terms of writing and getting that book? And what what at that point? What did you want writing to do for you?
Michael J. Gelb Well, it wasn't about what I thought I wanted it to do. For me. It's about what I thought I could do for others. So I was actually living in London and training as a teacher of the Alexander Technique, a method for developing stage presence that still taught today at the Royal Academy of drama, The Royal Academy of Music, the Juilliard School here in the New York area, and many of the top performing academies around the world. So I was on a three year training as an Alexander Technique teacher. But what I found was that many of my colleagues who were very skilled at this beautiful Dennis Sara Lee able to talk about it in a way that was memorable or compelling. And there were no real books that seemed to be the book that I would have been looking for as it when I was a beginner. Somebody gave me a basic book about what's this all about? So first, I wrote my master's thesis about the Alexander work. And, you know, when I went to college, I graduated in three years with honors the two majors, but I realized I knew something very valuable. Like Socrates, I realized that I knew nothing of any real value. Ah, because generally, the, the, the process was to feedback the professor's thinking or writing if you had the professor who wrote the textbook, and if you did that accurately, and jumped through the appropriate academic hoops, you were rewarded, so I learned how to do that in my master thesis I was genuinely asked to write my own thinking. So that was a new challenge for me. Fortunately, it was then that I learned mind mapping. And I made a mind map of all my ideas. My mind exploded with creativity. And I was able to write the thesis out longhand. This is before there was word processing. A friend of mine typed it up. A sent I sent it into the thesis advisor, who said, I've never seen a student's writing improved so much in the course of my academic career. He said, it's as though you found your true voice, which I did. And that's part of how I became committed to helping other people find theirs. So then I gave that thesis to a few different friends, a number of whom were published authors, and they read the thesis they said, You made this complex subjects so simple, so clear, so accessible, so they sent it to a publisher and I to point to two different publishers. They both made offers. I accepted one of them. They published the book A few years later got translated into 16 languages. And it's still in print and selling well today 37 years after publication. So I learned how to write by learning how to mind map and express, organize, integrate my ideas. And then I learned to teach other people how to mind map and how to develop their memory and their creative thinking ability. And suddenly, I noticed I was an international author and people began to invite me to speak around the world. And I said, Well, that's good. Let's do it again. So I wrote another book On another subject that I thought might be helpful for other people, which was the subject of how to give a great presentation. And people really liked that book. So they invited me to speak about that. And so here we are. I'm working on book number 16 seven To 18 I'm working on three books at once now. And people invite me to speak around the world. I use, I use my maps. Here's my desk here. Here's my mind map that I'm working on. Now. I always have my maps and here are my colored pens. Yeah. So I recommend to people use colored pens big sheet of paper. Later, you can go online and do one of the mind mapping programs to share your mind map. But you get much more stimulation of your brain and your creativity when you draw images yourself in your own hand.
James Taylor So you were you in London around you might have been in London, right but at the same time, Tony Buzan lived and he was living in North London and that kind of Mind Mapping thing as well. And I often think the the, the work that you do and the speaking and the keynoting you do and I see I see Tony boos and kind of also kind of out there as well. You'd be quite complimentary to each other those those areas. Oh, yeah,
Michael J. Gelb well, I taught Tony Buzan how to juggle and I was his martial arts teacher. And he taught me my method. He was studying the Alexander Technique at the school where I was training as a teacher. At the end of it, he came and gave a lecture. This was when Use your head just had come out. And he was just on duty. His first BBC big, very popular, well received a television show called Use your head. And he was having lessons in the Alexander Technique. And he came to our school in North London. This is a 1975. And I went to the head of the school and I said, that lecture was fabulous. I love what he said about the brain and how to develop it memory and creativity. And the head of the school said, well, Tony said to me, who's that young American fellow. He's a genius. I want I want to him to collaborate with me. So we connected then. And eventually it took us a couple of years but we created something called the mind and body seminar. So this is back now in 1978. Tony and I started doing these five day seminars together around the world for global corporations. And we did that together from 78 to 82. That's when I moved back to the US because I thought I wanted to spread the gospel here. And Tony and I just was at Tony's 75th birthday party. Last year, my wife sang my wife's a world class metso soprano genius opera singer, and she's saying Happy Birthday to Tony blew him away. He was really thrilled. So we've collaborated been friends for many years and that that's part of how it all goes. got started.
James Taylor And so you you one of the things that I think is very interesting about you is you talk on this topic of really of creativity, which I know some I heard this a while back where some speaker once said, Oh, actually, you know, creativity is a bit of a dangerous thing to speak on. Because companies that beat the b2b world, we talk about innovation, it's all about innovation, innovation, speakers get paid more than, than creativity speakers, but you've, if you look at your client list, and it's very much blue chip, you know, kind of client list other other kind of organizations that you go to speak to, so how have you been able to bridge that that world from the very b2c world of helping individuals with their creativity and and you've had books on them on more kind of b2c focused publishers, but then at the same time you go out and give keynotes to large corporations and helping helping them with with creativity?
Michael J. Gelb Yes. So What is creativity? What is innovation? Creativity is generating ideas that have subjective value. What is innovation, generating ideas that are translated into objective value. Specifically business innovation is ideas that are translated into profitable sustainably profitable products and services in a highly competitive environment. So, even though how to think like Leonardo da Vinci is by far my most popular book, it's by itself it's sold 700,000 copies where maybe being on your show push us over into a million.
James Taylor I am I am one of those buyers and sits up in my in my library. It was a great book.
Michael J. Gelb Excellent. So because There is no innovation without creativity. But creativity doesn't necessarily is necessary but not sufficient for innovation. So you have to learn the skills of creative thinking. And then you need to learn the strategies for translating them into sustainable innovation in a competitive environment. So that's why I wrote the book about Edison, which I wrote with Thomas Edison's great, great, great grand needs. So Leonardo is probably history supreme role model for creativity. Edison is definitely the supreme role model for innovation. When when the Edison book came out, I was interviewed by USA Today, it's a big newspaper here in the US and the reporter asked me if Edison and DaVinci got together, what might they ask each other? So I said that I thought that Da Vinci might ask Edison about the nature of light. And Edison would ask the Vinci Do you want a job? They really go together. It's part of not I'm creating this library of when they should be sent talks about mental literacy, which is knowing the workings of your mind how to remember how to generate ideas. I focused on innovation literacy, what are the fundamental competencies if you want to have an innovative organization, which everybody says as they want, you can't do it unless a critical mass of your people are literate in innovation and that means that you, you understand what are what are the components of a creative mindset? What are the methodologies for generating creative ideas what To the phases of the innovation process, what are the tools? How do you develop and cultivate a culture that supports innovation? How do you lead innovation? It's one thing to know how to be innovative yourself. How do you overcome resistance to innovation and change, which is probably the most important skill, it's relatively easy to teach people how to generate new ideas, and it's not hard to teach them about the phases of the process. The most challenging part are the interpersonal leadership skills. My most recent book is called the art of connection. Seven relationship building skills every leader needs now, and I wrote it because people really need help. In the interpersonal skills, these are not getting better at the error of the cell phone and the devices People are constantly on people aren't improving their ability to make direct, empathic connection with other people and help them overcome their resistance to change in innovation and get them aligned around a shared vision. So, those still remain the most important leadership competencies. So I decided it's time to write about what I've learned about that in many years of working with with clients around the world.
James Taylor So Stephen King, he talks about this idea of kind of writing to your ideal reader and and kind of thinking having that that person in your head and I mean, the I kind of think of yours a little bit you know, like some like an Edward de Bono as well, that that has these kind of very consumer audience books has this very kind of corporate and said that they can a corporate audience over the years as well. So when you're writing that book, or even like thinking about like that keynote as well, but it's definitely interesting. In the book, who is the ideal reader in your head? What What role do they have?
Michael J. Gelb Okay, so I'll tell you, I'll tell you the answer to that. It's the same way that I cook a cook because I know it's going to taste good. And I have vivid gusto, gustatory and olfactory memory and creativity hose i can i can imagine just what it's going to taste like. And if I think it's going to taste really good. Almost always, everyone else thinks is that they just said this is unbelievably delicious. This is so incredible. They always say to me, you should you should own a restaurant. And I say that's like saying if so. You should do this professionally. I said there's two things I won't do. I won't do it for money. Because love is just love and cooking is just for love. I would never want to open a restaurant. But I do speak for money and I write for money. And when I'm doing that I, the real criteria I have is, do I think it's smart? Do I think it's useful? Do I think it's well said? Do I think it's helpful? So I don't have some mythical other person even though of course, there is. I want to touch everybody. I have to say, I want my books to be because you may work in it, like the b2c and b2b Yes, it's important distinction. But who makes up the beat? Yeah, it's humans. So I'm writing. What I tend to write about are things that are universally relevant. The seven dimension principles are relevant to your child's school. To your own personal development program, and to the culture of your company, the CIO or the Edison competency is, so are the exercises in creativity on demand. Now the art of connection, seven relationship building skills every leader needs now it's in the business section of the bookstore, because I'm in business, and that's who's going to actually hire me and pay my feet. But the book is designed to be is going to help you with your marriage, it's going to help you with your being a better parent and being a better friend because the skills are the same. We just, what's the difference between talking about those skills to a business group and a group of parents or teachers? If I'm talking to a business group, I'll use business examples. If I'm talking to teachers, I'll use school examples and I've talked to parents I'll use parenting examples, but the principles are you First, and then No, I'm not really interested in. You know, one of my mottos is, it's either universal truth, or it's something else and I'll be polite. I won't say a word. I'll let you feel that if
James Taylor No, I mean, I bet even when you talk when you're talking about cooking, I love using cooking stuff in in Keynote as well, because it's one of those universal things I don't like using sport. Because Because it feels very, you know, obviously, if I say soccer in that place in football and out plays football in the UK, for example, it's going to be having different connotations. And one thing I've noticed with the with what, in terms of your publishing your work with different publishers over the years, I think, I think double day I think was the one for the Leonardo da Vinci book. You've had different Random House. So why did you always you can have a lot of speakers speaker authors have to have maybe are struggling thinking do the You want to go with a traditional publishing house? Or do they want to go self publishing? Which is there's maybe more revenue in it. But you don't have to have other people to help with the things. Is your thinking changed over the years? Or you've been much committed to that can more traditional type of publishing relationship?
Michael J. Gelb Yeah, here's the weird thing is that, I mean, if you self publish your book, and it sells a million copies get picked up by a big publisher, God bless you, you're going to be really wealthy, and you really made it and that's fabulous. But when that's very rare for that to happen, and what's really weird is that despite the increasing legitimacy of self publishing, people still seem to be impressed that you have a real publisher and that somebody actually paid you to write a book. It still seems to have a certain degree of people confer a certain status. When they say, Well, you know, did you Self Publish? And I say, well, well, who's your publisher? Not that I could really care less. But when you say well, Random House, Penguin, Harper Collins, or so For my publishers, then they go, Oh, well, you must be really important. I mean, it's it's really rubbish, the whole thing. Having said that, it's probably if you can get someone to sponsor you, what you'll get is the distribution. That's the hard part. Now, I've had some publishers have much better than others. Many publishers will take your book, and they'll put it through their department of sales prevention. So they will try to snatch defeat out of the jaws of success. And it's shocking. It's just shocking. We could do a whole show and I could tell you horror stories. But one just continued. The reason I have all these different publishers is not because I decided I it's because they fired my editor after my book became a best seller in a corporate shake up that had nothing to do with how great an editor he was. And then he moved to another company. And then he hired me to do a book there. And then they fired him again. And then. So it's called Getting your book orphaned. And my books, many of my books have been multiple, multiple, or buys your book is once champion your book internally at the publishing house. So the thing you must know, wherever you are in your publishing career is you are the champion of your book, whether you self publish, or you have the biggest publisher in the world, giving you a big advance because I've had it all. I've never actually had to self publish yet. But it's close to. I actually have a new publisher that I really love. I've now done two books with them. And they're fabulous. I'm doing my, my next book with them, because they're great. A new world library on California. really fabulous.
James Taylor Yeah, they, they're great. They're a great publisher. I like what they do. So So I mean, you didn't you know, the da Vinci book, and I mean, you were talking about the publishers It kind of made me think of like the mitchie fat having those kind of patrons that they like your, your publisher is a kind of a patron. And even today, obviously, you can still you have you can have a traditional publisher, which is a kind of patron. But then there's other routes like there's things like Patreon and crowdfunding and they all different types of patronage in one way or the other. They can either provide resources or distribution or, or access in some way or another.
Michael J. Gelb Yes. And and having said that, and I encourage people to explore all the options and all the possibilities and I'm, we're always thinking about how do we get, I mean, I have to tell you, so just true confession. I focused more on the quality of what I write than on selling the books. I am more interested in writing the next book than I am on the endlessly out there promoting or doing social media or I I probably should do more of that and I'm getting I'm gearing up to do more talking to different people. But I'm waiting for people to come to me, because I have content. I've got masses of super powered content, which were just waiting, you know, just piling it up. And now people are coming to me. But my focus is on I just want more goodness to bring to more people. What am I most passionate about? What am I most interested in? Having said that. And the truth is, companies hire me to speak to them and give pay me lots of money. And and even more than that, I get put on retainer to consult with your company on how to create a culture of innovation. So they hire me for, you know, 10 or 15 days a year. In some cases, I met my client now, it's a five year contract. Two years, we just renewed for three more years. I do 10 days a year, so I don't have to sell them anything. I'm just in there, helping them So I'm not, you know, hustling and sending tweets about, you know, when nobody knows that I'm doing that. But that's how I actually earn my living most of my living. Now what I like to triple it or quadruple it and have tons of passive streams of income coming in. Sure. And now people are coming out of the woodwork and saying, Let me help you do this, oh my god, you're a goldmine here. And let's just get this out this way. But I've carefully vetting those people because they only want really good partners. So I have been very patient as far as that's concerned, because I make enough money. And I love what I do. And people are paying me to drink wine and teach them Qi Gong and Tai Chi and how to juggle, and he managed to do this for 40 years, and I'm gearing up for the next 40 so I'm having tons of fun. And yeah, if I was just starting now i'd be all about, you know, all this stuff and optimal amaizing it. But people are coming to say how do I be an author? How do I be a speaker and I say, well, start by having something helpful to other people that you've actually lived and experienced and know about
James Taylor that reminds me a little bit is a friend of mine with Bob Dylan and, and Dylan never looks back. He's not interested in the slightest in his back catalogue and all that stuff. He's always thinking about the next project, which is very common, you know, your wife's as a singer, my wife's a jazz singer. And I think that's very strong. I've seen musicians as well. They're always even when they're, they're finished the first this album, one album, for example, there's nothing Okay, I want to move Okay, what I'm gonna do the next for the record companies trying to tell them actually no, you still need to promote it. Last thing you just created. Well, yeah, I just
Michael J. Gelb called at some Bob Dylan concert many years ago and also with the Rolling Stones. So I met Bob Dylan many years ago. Busy focusing on the next thing you He was going out great. So I'm sure you're that's a good point.
James Taylor So So as you've kind of gone through this journey of writing was a been a key aha moment or lightbulb on insight in terms of what you what you wanted to do with your writing and where you wanted to take your writing.
Michael J. Gelb Well, you know, the real thing. The significant, most significant aha moment, besides the obvious one have, I learned mind mapping and that unleash my creative power. And it's still the methodology I recommend. Just to everyone is what I teach you on my bookshelf over there. There's, there's a whole couple of shelves that are books that people sent me. It's the first book they ever wrote, that they used, inspired by the ideas in my books. So I have all these books. This is a special thanks to Michael Gallup, who taught me blah, blah, blah, or dedication to the book to me and whatever. So I've got I've got tons of that and I don't want to fill that shelf to the overflowing where I help as many people possible. So mind mapping all the other techniques and methodologies in in the books. But But the real Aha. And this was gradual. This didn't even happen after my first book I published and translated, didn't even have the second book now, I'd say, I'd say really wasn't until I wrote how to think like Leonardo da Vinci that I, that I realized that as an author, I could probably whatever the thought was, I could say in a way that I thought was original, and that I like better than the famous person who said the quote. So in other words, my new criteria for putting quotes in my book was it's either so a profound authority that's echoing what I want to say. It's hilariously funny in a way that I want to pay tribute to. Or I just can't say it better than this person did. But what I realized is that a lot of these thoughts are in almost every book. These are not original things. You know, there's, there's, this was all created by Plato and Socrates and Aristotle and, and go to the east and Lao Tzu and Confucius and go to the Middle East. And there's Rumi and there's Eben RB go to the sources of wisdom around the world and ideas were thought of a long time ago.I mean, it's shocking to go back and find something you think is this new idea? Wow. I just got This is just a best selling book. Well, we could trace it back for thousands of years. So it's actually a line in my most recent book, there's there's a great line from playwright. He says something like, everything worth saying, has already been said many times before. But since no one was listening, we have to say it again. I love that quote. Right. And our job is to say it in a new and refreshing and timely and original way. So your job is not to come up with a new thought that's so new that it just gonna rock everybody's world completely. Nobody ever thought of that. Oh, my God. Your job as an author is to come up with these universal truths but link them to people's experience in a way that's so compelling that they finally get it Yeah. That they They get it and they're they're inspired to act or really change or rich their lives or somebody else's life. And that's that's a tremendous realm for creativity. So realize your questions, the author has to realize that. I mean, I remember when I realized this, and my goal is to help other people realize that you have your own voice. You have your own, your own. But if you what that means is you it's its authority, it's authoritative. This is the same Buddhist author and it's auditory you have to listen within. You have to be have the courage. When it comes to core meaning heart You have to have that heart quality, to be really open and really willing to express yourself and share what you what you see what you think what you believe. Which means you have to ask the question, What do I think what do I see? What do I do? Believe, you know I read all this other stuff I take this all in what do I really think about it? What's my what's my take on this and then be willing to express it being aware that you will be criticized that and that if you if you really tell me what you think what you feel what you believe there's a certain vulnerability inherent in that whereas if you just say what everybody else says blah blah blah I've got it right it can be said that bla bla bla bla bla Well, you're hiding behind a lot of academic writing and
James Taylor so as my friend said, I mean he's he's a great great speaker actually speaks in the same on on that topic of creativity. And members showing a video to him very early on him saying Tim, so it's really great said but cuz he knows I come from the world of music originally said. You sound like a cover band. You're playing other people's hits. And and he said you need to start writing your own stuff. He said, he said, because you're really good at it, you're really good at covering those songs. And and we've all probably been in those bars where there's a band while they're doing a great version of Steely Dan, he 19. But it's still a cover version is not it's not the only thing. So I totally get what you're saying there. But finding that voice, and I think it does, it does take a while to be able to do that.
Michael J. Gelb And having said that, what a great way to start as a cover band, or copying the masterpieces of the greatest painters history or singing in the style of some of the great singers of the past. Immerse yourself in genius. That's that's
James Taylor Yeah, said to beat The beat. That's how the Beatles did it. They did that those clubs in Hamburg and they were playing everyone else's stuff. But then they they find their own voice while they while they wanted to say themselves and they put their own thing out there.
Michael J. Gelb So feed yourself, nurture yourself with genius in all areas that this is what I I this is now fast. to YouTube at pretty much every night. I am watching amazing documentary shows about the greatest geniuses who ever lived. I'm watching live video of some of the greatest spiritual masters who've ever lived. And I watched comedy. Watch this in the last week I watch. I watch a show about Michael Faraday. Ben Franklin says on Monday something about a mathematics and you know the Fibonacci series and pi and all that good stuff. And this is just this is accessible in a way that it never has been in human history really high quality in depth. Plus, I last night, I was hanging out with ramen and Maharshi You know what, maybe the greatest spiritual genius of the last hundred years And you're having one of his closest disciples read his book. And we're looking at film of him at his ashram in India. I mean, that's, this is and then I watched some Seinfeld and stands up is the yin and the yang of it.
James Taylor So what about it? Let's let's talk about some start to finish up here. Some of the tools that you use what what tools do you use to to write the other particular things you find very useful to kind of help kind of get your ideas out there.
Michael J. Gelb Yeah, well, the simplest thing is Mind Mapping generate first, then organize, get over, inhibit the tendency to premature organization. Don't try to put things in order 1234 even with bullet points, go nonlinear. Use lots of imagery keywords, generate first then organize, rinse, and repeat for wherever it's the yin and yang of creativity, you have to go into the chaos. The other thing of course is incubation missing link. take walks in nature. I mean, every day I go for an hour long walk in the woods. I shut off my phone and I don't talk. So have some sort of incubator Tory practice where you know, meditate every day, do Tai Chi Qigong go to yoga class, walk in the woods. get lots of input. This doesn't happen in a vacuum. So, read, watch YouTubes talk to inspiring smart people. Surround yourself with the most brilliant people that you can. real and virtual. And that is what you know that is our life. We have amazingly brilliant people coming over to our home. We Like an ankle, we just want high level inspiring influence coming in to our our home and into our media. We we delete rubbish really quickly and try to screen it out because that even though you have access to Rama Maharshi and Michael Faraday in your, on your device or in your bedroom in your living room, if you're not consciously accessing genius, the default setting is going to be utter rubbish. So, so you have to be a champion for high level curation of your mind and your soul and your spirit in the world today, more so than ever before. It's stuff, but it's what I call the tsunami of spam It's coming at you. So you want to be vigilant in freeing yourself from from all of the rubbish.
James Taylor And well, but if there was one, one book, we're going to have links to your books here as well. But if there's one book by maybe another author on the craft of writing, what what book would you recommend to people?
Michael J. Gelb You know, the book. The book I really I would recommend to people is the War of Art by Steven pressfield. Just because he does a great job of helping people become aware of resistance and how to overcome it, and he gives it a capital R. And he's, he's, he's very articulate. He brings that to life for people in a way that I think will really help them. So I that's a book and it's also a short, easy to read book.
James Taylor Great book. I'm gonna be a final question here. I want you to imagine tomorrow morning, you wake up, and you have to start from scratch. So you've got all the knowledge that you've acquired over the years, all the skills you have as an author as a speaker, but no one knows you, you know, no one, the slate is wiped clean. What would you do? How would you restart?
Michael J. Gelb I get to work writing this book that I'm working on anyway. Ah, it is, but it's really the place I would I would focus on writing about and making it great. Because being an author, your book is the brochure. It's a pay brochure for everything you do. And you know, I would I would then be, I would be also going out and interacting with people. I'd be attending events. I'd be making personal connections. I'd be focusing on how I could help other people first because Then they want to help you. Usually some generosity. So, principles operate for anyway I just say okay, well, I mean, I am starting over tomorrow I don't take it for granted that the people, if people come up to me all the time, they say, Are you famous? I said, Well, if you had to ask the answer must be no. But other people come up and say, Oh my god, you're you know, you learn how to think like that. And that book changed my life, oh my god, blah, blah, blah. So, am I famous? Or am I not? Who the hell am I, I you know, I'm not identified with either of those things. I what I am identified with is the source of creativity. So I'm a servant of the source of creativity, and love and light and inspiration and wisdom and connection. I am in service of that source. So I tune into that source every day. That's the only thing that has a walk in the woods or do my Tai Chi or my Ji Gong and I I let that source guide me. And it's it's so it's just I'm surfing I'm surfing
James Taylor surfing that wave of credit. And it's I mean, you've been very inspiring in our conversation today and, and I loved you know, the Leonardo da Vinci book about curiosity and all these is a great, great book. So if people if people want to go and learn more about your writing, get copies of the book, and I know you do other things in terms of events as well, where's the best place for them to go and do that?
Michael J. Gelb Thank you. Well, the best thing to do is go to MichaelGelb.com it's G E L B. MichaelGelb.com you can sign up for our free newsletter. There's also lots of free video on the site and articles you can download for free. And then they can also look for if if people come to Michael Gill calm and go to the blog and click on the area where talks about upcoming events. And if you don't see what you're interested in on the site, you sign up for the newsletter, and we'll let you know what we're what we're up to.
James Taylor Well, Michael, it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. Thank you so much for coming on today. Sharing your insight sharing your wisdom, inspiring us to to create and to write, and we'll put all those links here below for everyone I wish you all the best with with everything you have coming up and with the new books you're writing,
Michael J. Gelb thank you so much.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
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The Book As A Brochure For Your Business
Ron is the world’s leading educator and motivator for uplifting customer service and Uplifting Service cultures. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Uplifting Service, and fourteen other books on service, business, and inspiration. In 2018, GlobalGurus rated Ron the #1 customer service guru in the world. Ron is a man on a mission – to uplift the quality and spirit of service everywhere in the world – including with us here today.
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James Taylor interviews Ron Kaufman and they talk about the book as a brochure for your business
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
James Taylor Hey, it's James Taylor here, and it's my pleasure to introduce my guest today, Mr. Ron Kaufman. Ron is the world's leading educator and motivator for uplifting customer service and uplifting service cultures. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller uplifting service and 14 other books on service business and inspiration. In 2018 Global gurus rated run the number one customer service guru in the world. Ron is a man on a mission to uplift the quality and spirit of service everywhere in the world, including with us here today. Welcome Ron.
Ron Kaufman Thank you very much James. pleasure to be with you and your Viewers all over the world. So
James Taylor share with everyone here what's going on in your world just now who
Ron Kaufman I was recently scuba diving with my wife in the Maldives. It's our avocation passion. And I'm about to jump on the road I'll be traveling for the next six weeks all over the world clients family, working with different members of our team. And looking forward to being here right now with you and with everybody we're about to talk
James Taylor with so we met for the first time in Singapore a convention I got a chance to hear you speaking incredible speak and then also got a copy of this book which is uplifting service. Fantastic. We this this obviously was New York Times Scylla but as I was kind of going through it, one of the things that struck me is it has one of the best formats of any introduction for any book I've ever read. So this was this was how I kind of like I love making notes on on format and structure and things. And so the format you had was like you had kind of crisis problem one, problem two solution outline. Imagine if taking a backup and what you get by reading on and I just thought, I'm so going to take that and use that. So. So there's this book here. And I know you're saying to work on on your neck on your next one as well. doesn't get any easier. I mean, you're going to 15 book does it you know, from that very first book you're writing up until then writing this one, does it get any easier or do actually the challenges become bigger, who?
Ron Kaufman Great question. I would say that in in my case. The challenges now become bigger because the next book is embarking into a whole other area. Yeah, not just more about service and more about service culture, but the whole phenomenon of, you know, why do human beings care about what we care about? And how do you take better care of what really matters. And that's not an area that I've had three decades of domain expertise accumulated in. So I do have a new challenge in terms of content development in terms of story illustration in terms of architecting and shaping and crafting the overall message. I think if you're writing in the same space of expertise, but with a different angle, or the digital twist, or for this particular industry, or it's the action Field Guide, rather than the step by step, you know, that kind of thing. It could be easier because you know what you're talking about? So there's two different areas. One is how much work do you have to do to figure out what you want to talk about? And then the other is, once you've got what you want to talk about, how much work are you willing to put in to make sure that that book is an outstanding book, which is the number one thing I stand for with anyone who talks to me about I want to write a book, make sure You put in all the effort, all the investment all the time, get all the advice you could possibly get. Because once it's published, that book is associated with you for the rest of your life.
James Taylor So you're kind of doing a bit of a repositioning here with this, this new book that you're working on. I'm wondering then as you can go into this, this new book is a bit like the, you know, the Bob Dylan, we kind of did everyone kind of got to know him really well for doing this kind of certain thing. And then he went electric. And then there was like, people going to going, no screaming, don't do that. We want to go back to the old stuff that you used to do is, is really loud is a fear for you that you know, you're going to come out with this, these new ideas as this this new book, actually people will just kind of say, actually, we we kind of wanted like version two of the previous book
Ron Kaufman of the customer service service culture. Well, it's fascinating that you use that example because this week I saw Bob Dylan live in Singapore. 77 years old, the guy's still rocking it and the range and depth and variety of work that he's done, as you say, over different genres over the year. I mean, deserves that Nobel Prize. And when they equate them to Shakespeare or a homer, I mean, there's a good reason for that. If you dig into Bob, in my case, I'm not so much making a complete pivot of genre, I'm just going deeper with what I consider to be the essence of the same message. So in my case, I'm known worldwide for being that service guy. Well, what is the essence of service? It's care, we care about each other, therefore, we're willing to take some action to serve one another, you know, what's the essence of care? Well, when you get right down to it, that would be love the experience of genuinely heartfelt meaning for and with life and someone else and, and I always say, at this point, I'm too young to teach about love. I'll do that when I'm 80. But to get from the service guru, over to that kind of uplifting of humanity, there's going to be this era here, this period of time, where I'm writing about what is essentially a new topic, which in this case, we can call it care or dynamic neurology word that didn't even exist until I came up with it. And then means migrating, that's a very different kind of thing that a lot of professional speakers will never really have to do. Because they find a domain area creativity, innovation in your suitcase, for example, or sales expertise, or somebody on leadership and they may need a different flavor, a different twist a different application, but a genuine shift to a related but not the same topic. That's a more what would I call it a, you know, more vigorous endeavor and undertaking and, and so I'll be bringing even more of what I was said earlier about, you got to make sure that what you come out with is fabulous, because people are then going to associate you with that your credibility with that, your reputation will be riding on that. And a book is a brochure for whatever your business is. If you're a pure author, then you're writing books. But if you're an author, speaker, or if you're an author, consultant, or you're an author, trainer, or you're an author, something else, then what's in that book is gonna guide your reader towards the larger back end, ongoing offer that you have built your business to be and you want your whole name and reputation and contribution in the world to be. And in this particular case, I haven't figured that part out yet either. So I'm not in a rush to come up with this new book. But, you know, since we're talking about this in terms of an author summit, it really for anybody who's listening to this to be thinking about, am I putting in as much effort as I should, in every aspect of developing that book, every aspect, because any one of those you don't really pay attention to can come back and bite you. So
James Taylor if we think about that, that that move from service to to care to, to kind of love you know, we often talk to the you know, to think of your ideal reader, have the ideal reader in your mind. What does it then mean to, to care to provide service to to kind of delight your your ideal reader when it comes to writing writing a book and that
Ron Kaufman James points to just how nascent and how early in this work I mean, the fact that this is a public interview, and you're gonna be going live and people around the world are watching it, you know, we're kind of showing people very, very early. Because if we look at this phenomenon, take somebody who's in high school, and they're getting ready to graduate, and they're not sure where they should go to work, or should they go to university? And what's it all for anyway? And should I be chasing the grade? Or should I be, you know, connecting with the naked, somebody who's in university, and they're looking at the work world going, you know, what do I really care about? And how do I know that the company that's offering me a position is something that I'll be happy with? And what should I be doing? Is my meaning and contribution in the world with young people that are struggling with? Or Hey, how about all the people midlife? You know, you've got the two kids and all the responsibility in the house and etc, etc. But are you really doing what you care about? Is this the way you want to spend the rest of your life? And what about the people who are about to retire who have retired and saying, is that all there is now what? How do I reengage in the world where it's something that really matters to me? So this topic of neurology, it will apply to everyone. Which of those is my ideal Raider Well, that begs the question, you know, where's the first place to land? Yeah. And then how can it expand from there and the advisors on that they're not people who necessarily help you design the interior of book or or edit the copy of your book, or, or so much develop the promotional campaign as the early early positioning of the project itself. That's where I'm at. I mean, that's, I mean, that's, that's such a critical decision. And because it's done well, if you make that first step, that first audience that you're really writing to and you're speaking to, you choose them Well, then, then everything you do after that, it will be easier and quicker, because like it's like a domino effect. It's domino effect. So it's choosing that lead Domino that you want to go for first. Yeah, and in my case, it's a little trickier because I already have a global reputation as the world's number one guru, as you politely pointed out, thank you, but in a very specific area, which is service quality service, excellent service culture in business. And to a certain extent, government, little bit nonprofit. But if I suddenly pivot, and say now what I want to do is work with personal development and individuals and families and, and volunteer communities and faith based communities. What happened to that guy? And so I want to be able to harness the credibility of one and bring it over in service to the other. So it just adds an extra layer of Oh, this is interesting. You have to really think this one through for someone that's watching this just now who is perhaps a speaker that maybe news being a very experienced speaker or they have a you know, a consulting business in the same that you have a global consulting and consulting business. What role does the book play? Is it still is a book still relevant today in this very digital world? Absolutely. Absolutely. The book is a brochure for the business. Now in today's world, we can self publish, you can lay things out, you can print your own copies, you can go on Amazon, you can just be purely digital, you can record your own audio Book etc. But the history of book publishing means that somebody put in all the effort to write it, somebody put in the effort to actually lay it out and design it on the page, somebody believed in it enough to invest in publishing and printing in some bookstores believe it enough to put it out there, some reviewer did enough, you know, credibility associated with it, to write about it. So then if you're able to say, I'm the author of that book, then it's not just because I had an idea. It's the volume of other people who looked at that idea, looked at the work you did on that idea, and then gave you the salute that said, Yep, that actually is a book. So that's the tradition. That's the historical space in which book publishing lives. And all of us really are beneficiaries of the generations of authors that came before us that we can now say,
James Taylor I want to write a book. And I mean, that gets to that expression. Oh, you know, she wrote the book on it, you know, that there's that that thing, we kind of think and I guess I mean, you You also really know I think of you. First of all, in my head, I would think he was an incredible speaker. This is, you know, speaking all over the world, especially around around service. And I guess, you know, one of the challenges that anyone that's booking a speaker, as a keynote speaker, is they're looking at risk mitigation a lot of the time as well. And and for them for that. It's almost like having a trust indicator, it's you know, having that you've, you've can, you're de risking it for the client, because they know you are going to know your, your topic, you have your expertise. Well, the word author is the root of the word authority.
Ron Kaufman So if you wrote it, you know something about it. And at least in terms of de risking, if you're the author of the book, they know they've got an expert. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you're a great keynote speaker. Yeah, that's a whole nother topic. So then you get characters like us who really put in the effort to learn two distinct domains, but see the linkage between the two.
James Taylor Now you've you've mentioned that an expression to me before page experience, which I'd never really heard of, and I'm really going to thought about so. In this process of someone going from having an initial core concept of a book that they want to write to getting it out into the world and people reading it, what is page experience? Where does it sit amongst all this?
Ron Kaufman Well, when the reader picks up the book and opens it to a page, the font that is used the point size that is used the size of the margins that are there, whether or not they're illustrations or icons, whether or not they're call out boxes, how is the chapter heading done? What is the Table of Contents look like? In other words, is this book attractive? Nevermind what it says is this book something that my eye is drawn into, or was this a self published where you know the the typos are found in there, unfortunately, or, or you know, the page ends sort of in a weird, ragged way, and so it looks amateur. If you go into a bookstore and you pick up there are a lot of books that are just pure text, but if they're published by a great house, they're generally going to look pretty good. Then you pick up some other books again, I got to tell this has been self published by somebody who didn't really get the advice that they needed to make sure that it looked like a highly professional publication. Now in my early books, I did them all self published, and part of it was because I wanted to design here you go a page experience. That was, you know, so engaging and dramatic. And I'm just showing you one page right here. But on this book, I mean, I could open it up to any page. And you can say, Well hold on a second, is that a workbook? Or is that a book, and in this particular case, my very first book from the year 2000, this was sort of a combination of the two, it wasn't a workbook because there wasn't room for you to write down your thoughts. But it was a book that you could open to any two pages or even one page, and you'd be able to get enough right there to go. Wow, that was useful. That was helpful. Oh, and it was a little bit entertaining. Because of the photo he put there. Oh, there's a caption. I'm gonna read that too. Before I close the page. You click it, then close the book, get value and I know you're going to open it again in another time. Yeah. Right. So I mean, that's, that's one kind of page experience. Of course, the challenge with that is, Try translating that into Japanese. Try challenging that translated into German, where the language length is going to be longer. And now you got to wrap it around all the graphics. So when I went to this book, this book was not self published. This is the 15th book that I've written. And the page experience, though, is still something that we spent a huge amount of time and rigor and hiring great people to look at. So that for the reader, the enjoyment and the engagement with what's on that page, is something that gives them a sense of awe and you focus their attention on what you're talking about. For example, you would never want to have on one page, italic, and bold and underline and all caps, please, if it gets a phrenic page, well, it's called it's called in the publishing industry. It's called page noise. And what does it mean? It means that you're cognitively distracting your reader at a slightly unconscious subconscious level, and you're making them work harder to figure out what it is that you're actually talking about. So as you as you were kind of getting going from this self publishing, and then obviously into publishing 15 books as well. Were there any guiding lights that you had any authors that you can have? Look, maybe he didn't maybe he wrote in a very different topics to you. But there was something about the style, the way that they wrote the way they were able to communicate or maybe that their overall business that they had in relation to the writing. Yeah, the volume of time that I spent in the bookstore, James, just pulling titles off looking through pulling titles off looking through, take my phone, take a picture of what do I like about this? What do I like about that? What's done well, on the back cover, what's on the flap? How does that cover design? Look, how does the Table of Contents what so that was one kind of study. Then I really looked at business models themselves, because in my case, I am a keynote speaker and the author side of my business is really not the part of the business that I'm looking at to be highly profitable. I'm not an author like a Seth Godin, or a Tom Peters. I mean, these guys are making a lot of revenue from their authorship and the volume of book sales. In my case, I need that book as the credibility, I want that book to be in the hands of every single person I give a keynote speech to, so that they in turn will take it back, they may look to it right away, and they may look at it later, but it sits on their bookshelf as a reminder, I need that book to serve the leadership team of a large organization that we're serving, like Hewlett Packard, General Motors, Coca Cola, these are clients of ours worldwide. And every single member of their senior leadership team should have a copy of this book and be able to talk about it. We as we're consulting to them should be able to say okay, we want you to go to chapter 17. You know, read the three examples that are there look at the list of questions at the end of the chapter. So as I said, it's not so much that it's a workbook like right in but I need that book to give people the guides of do this next,
James Taylor I guess as the difference between is great is actually demonstrators are always always wanted why why academics were paid less than consultants. And someone said to me, it's because consultants, you know, the academics will describe this to problem very well. And they will give, you know, the the background to it, they'll give the data on it, but what people really want, okay, what do I do with that? You know, that, you know, so So what? So what, in Miles Davis question and so so what you're what you're kind of doing there is you're, you're kind of providing, obviously giving all that context, everything but you're actually saying okay, with this, this is how to move forward on this particular challenges problem, and they could just pick it up from the shelf. When you're writing, you mentioned I can senior leadership. That's an interesting one there. Because when you're writing in terms of thinking of your ideal reader in your head, for someone who maybe doesn't understand the corporate world, there's there's quite a difference between someone that's just starting an organization, maybe on the shop floor, someone that's in management, senior leadership C suite as well. So are you writing very much for the vice Present type of level. How are you thinking about that?
Ron Kaufman Yeah, it's a fabulous question. I'm just flipping here into the book to show you at the end of one of the chapters, every one of the chapters here actually ends with a section that says, for service providers and for service leaders. Okay? So in other words, I'm writing that chapter with enough of an engaging story, some interesting case studies and examples highlighting the key points, but I want to summarize every chapter with if you're a frontline, you're a first level supervisor, here's what you can do. If you're a senior manager, if you're a leader, if you're in the C suite, if you're on the board of directors, here's what you can do. And actually, the topic is something that you share with each other. But remember it it works in my case, because what the book is about is how do you build a organization wide culture of uplifting service. If I wanted to write a book just for the leadership team, I would have skewed it that way. If I wanted to write a book just for frontline, I would have skewed it that way. But in This book, I actually wanted to write it in a way that both of them can embrace. And that was one of the developmental challenges for creation of the book. And I'm just gonna dig into that a little bit deeper. You say you want to write a book, you've got some content expertise. You've even got a target audience. Number one, who's your developmental editor? What's the developmental editor? This is the person that comes in and says, Wait a minute, you got this over here, and that over there, and you should reorganize this and this chapter is too long and throw that stuff out. And I know you like that story, but it doesn't work anymore, because the time has passed on. That's a rough rough stuff. Are you willing to have your book developmentally edited? If not, you're gonna be risking going out there in the world with a book that really taught people who know how books structure well, so that they succeed in the market, you need a developmental editor, and that doesn't mean your mother. Right, then you need a copy editor, somebody who's actually looking at the words you chose. I'll give you an example. In my first book, I had these four different stories and one of the copy editors pointed out that in two stories back to back, the customer in both cases was a man and the service provider was a woman. And this person said to me, would you like to mix that up just so that it flows better? I would never figured that out. That's when you'll get to the proofreader, and the proofreader is the third and final person on the page. Aside from page layout, which is more of a graphic treatment, the proofreader is the one is finding you put the comma in the wrong place. You know, the one that makes sure there is no typo, the one who might even look at it and say, you know, the word that you use the historical meaning of that may be slightly different for people in another culture. How about try this word instead? Whoa, that's different than Hey, I wrote a book
James Taylor that that's a little bit that one on the copy editor reminds me of something I noticed that you used to do in your speaking, where you when you're using examples, you're using examples from people from different backgrounds, maybe different cultures, different nationalities, different industries as well. And I'm guessing because you're doing that because from the reader all the time Attendees perspective in their head they going, Oh, I should I know someone like that, or that's me, or when they, you know, when they A week later when they're at some dinner or something and someone said, Oh, what do you do? Oh, I went to run coffee and I'm reading Ron Kaufman's book and actually mentioned a story, someone just like you are just in this situation. So is it kind of word of mouth thing that you're kind of baking into the product?
Ron Kaufman That's important. And James, the other reason I do it is, as you know, I'm a very global person. I'm from the United States. I live in Singapore on more than 100 flights every year. I've been doing it for 30 years. The world is my audience. And so I don't want my topic is a global topic. So I don't want people going, Yeah, he's the retail customer service guy. Or he's the food and beverage customer service guy or he's the airline food and beverage service guy. Actually, I'm the manufacturing service guy. I'm the supply chain service guy. I'm the technology service guy. I'm the financial services service guy. I'm the government service guy. I'm the community service guy services a global topic. That means when I'm teaching or I'm speaking or I'm writing, I need to make sure that my examples as you pointed out, come from enough different aspects of the universe that people can say I got it this is a global topic. Not this is a put it in a niche and it doesn't apply to me.
James Taylor Now the marketing the selling for a book like yours, if we press on, you got the Seth Godin folks on on one side who are very much you know, very b2c, you could argue, although they have big business audiences that are reading them, and then you've got yourself who I'm guessing you know, because you're you're you're looking at this as a way to help bring you into organizations whether it's a speaker or as a consultant for them How does it how does that change the the marketing and the kind of selling distribution of a book, as opposed to someone like you know, that some like Seth?
Ron Kaufman Yeah, from from Seth's standpoint, you know, okay, you got your book, you're so glad you finally got it written. You know, it goes into the Page Layout, it goes into the the final publishing stage, etc. And sometimes, especially if First time authors think their work is done. Your work is just beginning baby motion of that book. It will never, never, never never end. And and if you take someone who writes a book that's more b2c business to consumer oriented, then who do you want to review it? Which magazines? Do you want to write about it? Which bloggers Do you want to show up on? Who do you want to interview you? How are you going to excerpt that book and tweak it in certain ways so that it's easily accessible from your own website? What's the PDF download that you're going to let somebody have as a checklist or a list of tips, that's very different. If you are going b2c then in our case where we're going primarily b2b, where we're looking at leaders, organizations, competitive positioning, internal culture, appeal of the culture to attract talent, the ability to attract and retain customers to develop loyalty, all of those are business issues that I just articulated. And so the kind of audiences I want to speak in front of industry associations, that kind of publications, I want to be in business publications. Kind of you get the point. Now that kind of thinking about where am I going to promote this? Who's going to write about it? Who's going to interview me on this? What? How am I going to excerpt it into different smaller bite sized chunks and make that available? That's as important as writing a great book. Because otherwise, you wrote a great book, but how is anybody gonna know about it?
James Taylor One thing I noticed as I was going last time I was going to Changi Airport in Singapore is i see i, you would definitely in the store, you may even had like a part of the table, as opposed to just being in the actual thing you I think you can highlight it, and that's in our bookstore there. And I actually seem to remember there was a, like a billboard of you there as well. So how does something is that something that you and your team coordinates as something your publishers organize?
Ron Kaufman Well, I work closely with our book distributor in Singapore because they're the ones who supplied the books to in this particular case, all of the stores in Changi Airport, which is my home airport, Singapore, and that that's an investment that comes From our marketing budget, bookstores don't do that for you for free. But the investment that we make, to have the billboard, to have the tablespace, to have the layout to have the promotion of the book in that location makes sense for us because again, think about what's our businesses, pure b2b, large global organizations, I need to get that book into the hands of the CEO, or someone who reports to the CEO. Well, those people are flying through the airport. Well, how do I get them to see this then I can't just have it sitting up on a shelf, I'm gonna have to attract their attention. That means the billboard So then how do you get the billboard that's retail space, you're then competing with you know, the whiskey that wants to be up there or the the other publisher that wants to put some other book up there and is willing to invest in making that happen. And that's a substantial part of our marketing budget and it works. Absolutely. It definitely made a big impact on me going to the store and I thought wow, to be able to NSB and something like Singapore, which is such as you say such a global airport as well as it is a hub airport for people in the world. And many other parts of the world as well thought, that's a great position.
James Taylor That's a great position to have as well. And as you've been going through your careers as an author, as it been a specific aha moment or lightbulb moment, a time when you went, Okay, this is direction I want to go with my writing, or you just made some key distinction in what you do as an author and as a writer.
Ron Kaufman Yeah, there was a moment James after 14 books, when I'd been writing about service and how to improve service and how to deliver service excellence. When that whole era of books that I wrote, which is called the up your service series of books, you can find them on Amazon and elsewhere, succeeded. And the implementation of that with companies is what required us to realize, ooh, there's another equally enormously important area, which is not how do I give good service? But how do I build a strong culture of service in this large organization, so that we're serving each other Well, so that we're helping each other serve the customer. Well, that's different than how to give good service. It's, it's there's all kinds of other issues involved there. And so over the decade, if you will, from 2000 2000, all the way up through 2010 2011, we learned an enormous amount. And then I wanted to put those two together into one book. And then that one book, which is the one that went to the New York Times bestseller list, I knew that the level of commitment and investment in that was not just I needed to have good writing, I needed to actually architect the entire set of intellectual property that we had developed over 20 years and bring it out to the world in a way not where it's like, you know, an academic tome. But like, it's actually an enjoyable bestseller to read that at the same time inspires you to action. I mean, and so the commitment to write that book was very different than Hey, I've got a lot to say. It was okay. I have to now take another level of maturity as a thought leader and it's paid off
James Taylor by I'm probably sounding bad being bad towards academics at this point. But something to bear in note, Ron is you have the book, which obviously leaders are reading, but also a Harvard Business Review. There was so much study and case studies and research into creating this book. I believe that Harvard Business Review actually created something on the back of that.
Ron Kaufman That's right. That's right, we published a white paper about how to lead a service culture transformation in the world. And it's, you know, full of data and case studies and real examples, applying our principles applying our architecture, and Harvard Business Review had a hold of that and they said, We want to excerpt this and turn it into an article. They call it revolutionising customer service. And, you know, were named in there by name and the principles are cited in there and the CEOs of some of the companies in the examples. So you know, that was a real nice solid pat on the back and but Harvard Business Review is not purely academic. Yeah, Harvard Business Review is writing for the business community worldwide. Now I do want to say something about academics since you brought it up now twice. Number one, in the world of acting academia because a lot of people right there, there's a huge competition going on right now. There's always been a competition in the academic world. I don't consider myself an academic. I'm a practitioner. I want to know what works and I want to help make you make it work. You know, an academic, as a teacher, and academic, as an intellectual and academic is, is sharing, you know, new knowledge or they're in there. They're assessing and evaluating knowledge, making you more knowledgeable, I want to make you more effective. We're a bit of a difference. Yeah. But a very, very good publisher, author, and presenter and promoter who's an academic today is going to make a lot of money. Yeah, because you can have 1000 academics around the world teaching a class and using your textbook. So whose textbook are they going to use? It's the one that's best written. It's the one that's best promoted. It's the one that everybody else is talking about. But that's not going to be every academic that wants to write a book. Same thing is true for us as keynote speakers or author or consultants or trainers. A lot of people want to write a book Some
James Taylor of those books are going to stand out. I want your listeners to have their book stand out because they're willing to do the work necessary to make it a great book. That's a very interesting observation. I'm definitely seeing that also in the online world, where a lot of these top academics, who are also great presenters, great, you know, they're great communicators, as well. There's a bit of a bidding war going on now with some of these, these big universities, because they're rock stars on whatever their subjects, you know, forensic anthropology, or whatever the topic is that they speak on. And that attracts people into the brand of the university. So as we as we start to finish up here, I would love to know, what tools do you use to help assist you in your writing? What would you what is the tools or apps you use to write with?
Ron Kaufman I'm going to answer in a slightly different way. I'm one of those people that if I can see what it's going to look like at the end, I can make it happen to get there. You've seen for example, a picture of the video production studio that I'm setting Sitting in here right now in my home office. And you know, it's an incredible room and it's got all kinds of equipment, and it's soundproof and etc. But before we built it, I had a designer make a picture of it for me. So when I'm writing a book, it's may sound funny, but the first thing I need to do is see the cover. So I'll actually invest in I got a 99 designs or something and, you know, take what I think is going to be the title. And I'll pay some people to generate a bunch of book covers for me, because when I can see the cover, now I really want to write that. And then what I'll do is I'll sit down with the content, and I'll start to break it apart into Well, actually, there's is it two sections or three sections? Waiting, maybe it's four sections? Well, okay, three sections. Now, within that section, how many chapters are there? I don't know, what's the sequence of the chapters, but I actually when I write my books, I have a ring binder. And in the ring binder, I have those, you know, folders in separate sections, and I actually build out a section for the different chapters. And then as I'm writing it, printed out, I'll stick it in there. And I come up, oh, that's a good idea. I know where to write it down. I see an example in a magazine or something, you know, I'll rip it out. And I'll stick it in that part of the ring binder. And then over time that starts to accumulate. And it helps me gather into the already defined space. Everything I need to write that book, I love that I was you know, there's that idea of begin with the end in mind. Warren Buffett's business partner Charlie Munger, always said invert, always invert. And that was that was his phrase. And, and so you mentioning that how you kind of get the book and it's almost, you know, there's a strong visualization element to that as well in terms of making making it. So we had David Allen on as well. And he said, the first thing he wrote was actually the reviews for his book. He sat down and wrote the reviews, including the names of who would be reviewing it, which magazine or publication they were with as well. It's very, you know, we can love it, but actually, it's incredibly powerful, and especially if you backed it up with implementation And then you know, just getting stuff done is he would say, that's, that's very powerful. David's David's a friend of mine. And you know, I'm so glad I'm doing this interview with you. And you shared with me from one of the other interviews, and I would encourage the viewers of this, to watch as many of the others as you possibly done, James, because you just taught me something very important for this next book that I'm working on, where I just sit down and go, who do I want to rather use? And what do I want them to say? Thank you.
James Taylor What is it? What's your writing ritual? You mentioned you having these binders? Do you tend to write in blocks of time? Are you writing every single day? How does it work for you?
Ron Kaufman Tim Ferriss did a wonderful piece on manager versus maker. And it may be that he was just pointing to it, but I'm sure you can find it online. If you just Google manager and maker manager versus maker, you know, manage your time his meetings and decisions and quick reviews and all of that email maker time is carved out time to focus on the need to pay attention to and bring your creative and intellectual powers to focus on something will long enough to produce good result. I'm just now reading a wonderful book called The War of Art. The Art of War, the War of Art. Yeah, great, great right now he says, Look, there's this thing in the world called resistance that its job is to prevent you from doing what turns you on and keep you from doing what you really want to do. And you'll never get a chance to be who you really hard because resistance one. And so what he does every day is he sits down and gets himself ready. And he writes for four hours and he doesn't care whether there's good writing or bad writing. He's writes, and he sells it. I do my work. I do my work. I do my work. That's not me. Okay, I am a deadline driven extraordinarily successful procrastinator. And so what I need to do is set up deadlines, where I've promised something to someone by a certain date, or there's an event coming and I need to have that ready. Or as you know, I'm about to go to Seattle and I'm going to carve out 48 hours of time, maybe make it 72 and sit down and just Work on gathering all my content for this care ology concept and project, laying it all out on the table. And knowing that that effort there, I'm not telling people that I'm telling you that I'm going to go there, but I'm not going to give you the phone number where I'm going to be, you're not gonna have my address, and I won't look at it much of my email, I'm going to focus, but I had to carve out that specific time in place to make it happen. Once I get into a book project, it starts to really gobble up other available moments of time. And you know, it's not a pretty process to write a book. I don't know anybody said, Oh, god, that was so much fun writing my book. It's hard work.
James Taylor That's great. I mean, it was really nice about interviewing all these different great authors is everyone's got different rituals, different ways of doing things, some people really early in the morning or late in the evening, like yourself, you're you're very good at kind of batching work very strongly to deadlines as well. So there's no there's no right way but you're you've obviously found that time you know that how you how you operate best in terms of creating, you know, that mentioned that the making versus Managing side of things as well. Yeah.
Ron Kaufman Versus manager. I'll say one other thing about a very, very famous offer the the fellow who wrote the book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
James Taylor Yes, it's been back. So I've actually got it on my desk just now to read it. There you go. He's a friend.
Ron Kaufman Okay. I met him many, many, many years ago when I lived on Orcas Island in Washington state where he also lived, and actually got to go to his house and met his wife and you know, we had a little food together. And he showed me where he writes and they're on his computer remember this and this is 3540 years ago. And so computers were still pretty new back then. But he had the right equipment and there was a post it and the posted in the lower right hand corner of his monitor said, I hate to write. I love writing. And I looked at I said, got it when there's something I need to write. Ah, but once I get in To write in, whoa, baby, here we go. Here we go. So the challenge is not writing the challenge is getting yourself to sit down and write.
James Taylor And that's great. And I want you as you mentioned that a couple of great books there already, but if you do recommend one book that would help everyone with maybe the craft of writing, you know, the, or even in the business of writing, perhaps even getting a book out there. What would that book be?
Ron Kaufman There's a book by I think it's Anne Lamott called Bird by Bird, Bird by Bird. She's an author, she wrote a number of other books, traveling mercies. You can find her online, but the book title is Bird by Bird. And it's sort of a reflection on the challenges of writing. And she talked at one point when she was young, and she had to write a book report, and it was going to be about a bunch of birds and she was struggling, she was suffering with it and her father was there, a very compassionate, helpful, warm hearted guy. And he said there am Bird by Bird. Yeah. So she started writing it Bird by Bird until her book report was done. And actually,
James Taylor that's a great book in terms of just the mindset and I know many other things that she does. She has this very small one inch by one inch little picture frame on her desk when she writes in order to get her to remind yourself like when you're you're thinking all these ideas are so big and it's so you know, you can't get your hands on it. Just that just that just you know that for who is that right. That's true. That character, right that does thing. So we're definitely a great book Bird by Bird by Anne lamb. We'll have that there as well. And finally, I want you to imagine, Ron, you wake up tomorrow morning, and you have to start from scratch as an author. So those 15 books have never been out. No one knows who you are. You have no platform. We don't have the speaking platform you have today. You if you have to start from scratch, what would you do? How would you restart things as an author,
Ron Kaufman I don't recall who first said this to me. But if I had to restart all over He said, You know what people want is to get rich, get thin, get happy, and get a kiss. And if you can help them do any of those things, you've got an interested audience. And I think I would have sat back and clearly with the care ology project, it's going to be around, you know, get happy, but in a really deep meaningful way. I would have, you know, scanned the, the range of potential customers, and also, especially at this moment in the evolution of human history, I think, you know, scan what's going on culturally in the world, politically in the world, economically in the world, technologically in the world. And think carefully about Who do you want to be in one, two or three decades time? What do you want to be known for? What do you want to be asked about? What kind of conversational set do you want? To be a participant in Who else would you like to be considering to consider you know, a colleague and intellectual colleague, what kind of evolution of humanity is of interest to you? So for example, yes, customer service and service cultures my field was mostly business but I'm an educator, I'm an educator who helps you apply it that makes me a practitioner in the business space. Now as I make the shift, and in this area of cardiology, I'm still an educator that I love to do but what am i educating people for? And it's it's a you know, very different, larger and hopefully even more meaningful contribution in
James Taylor life wonderful. If people want to connect with you want to learn about your writing, maybe start learning about this journey you're having on the on the care ology and even check out your previous books and you're speaking, where's the best place to go and do that
Ron Kaufman best place to find me is that my website, which is my name, calm, so it's Ronkaufman.com You're just getting the real b2b side of the business you'll find a link in there that will get you to up your service calm. But there are contact forms on both sites and I see all that mail that comes in my own email addresses easy it's Ron at Ron Kaufman calm and I answer my own email. I don't promise 24 hour turnaround time because sometimes on on a plane or I'm on stage, but I do answer all of my mail. So people are welcome to get in touch especially if they're listening to something from you.
James Taylor Well, Ron, it's been a pleasure speaking with you today I love I love your speaking what you don't say this is a great book as well uplifting service phenomenal, but I'm really looking forward to, to watching where you go next with it with your writing. So thanks so much for coming on today.
Ron Kaufman pleasure to be with you, James and all your viewers worldwide.
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How To Use Your Book As A Platform
Lisa Bodell is an author, speaker and the founder and CEO of futurethink, a company which enables organizations to kill complexity, create space for innovation, and get to the work that matters. As a globally recognized innovation leader and futurist, she is the author of 'Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters'; and 'Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution', which was named one of the Best Business Books of 2012 by booz&co. Lisa has also contributed her expertise to a wide variety of media, including Fast Company, WIRED, The New York Times, Inc., Forbes, Harvard Business Review, FOX News, and CNN.
James Taylor interviews Lisa Bodell and they talk about how to use your book as a platform
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
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Hey, there is James Taylor and I'm delighted today to welcome Lisa Bodell. Lisa is an author, speaker and the founder and CEO of future thing a company which enables organizations to kill complexity, create space for innovation, and get to the work that matters. As a globally recognized innovation leader and futurist. She is the author of why simple wins, escape the complexity trap and get to work that matters and also kill the company and the status quo start and innovation at revolution, which is named one of the best business books of 2012 By Busan cope. Lisa has also contributed her expertise to a wide variety of media, including Fast Company wire, The New York Times, Inc, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Fox News, and CNN. It's my great pleasure to have Lisa with us today. So welcome, Lisa.
Lisa Bodell Hey, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to speak with you today.
James Taylor So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now.
Lisa Bodell Well, you know, the big thing from a writing perspective is I'm starting my third book. So this is a very exciting time. And it's one of those things, you know, for the people that are listening here, every time I finish a book, I say, That's it, I'm not writing another one. As you know, you know, if you've written one before, but you know, you you kind of get into that addictive trap of can you come up with an idea and you want to share it, you want to learn more about it. And it's as much about the journey of it as it is about you feeling that finished product when you're done. So I've just started that and I'm in the book proposal stage, but I'm pretty excited about it. I'm building on my last book, and I'm hoping to get some research going here in the next month. So
James Taylor what feels easier going into a third book what feels easier on a third book and what feels a little bit more urgent?
Lisa Bodell Well, you know, a couple things first, it's one of those if I knew then what I know now, you know, you know, the routine, you know, the approach, you know, I've got an agent, I have a writer that supports me, actually, because I also run a business and I am on the speaking circuit. I know how to organize my research. I know, I know how to organize my thinking, to get a book done in the way that I really want it. So that that's one of the things is I don't worry as much about will it be good enough? How will it work? Will I be able to meet my my page count my word count, I know all that stuff. So that feels much easier. The process part? The piece that still always, I think don'ts any writer is going to have a good enough idea. You know, is this something that's actually going to work out? Is the research going to tell me what I hope it's going to tell me and now the reality is, maybe it will maybe it won't, but we think we have a good, pretty good hypothesis about what we want to talk about. And we're building on my last book, about simplicity. And this time really delving into it from the individual perspective versus just business perspective. I'm excited to learn about it because I'm still on that simplification journey myself
James Taylor so that that process of you know searching for that that core idea that you would have and then finding supporting evidence and looking for doing your research. I was talking to I was reading something that they Ryan Holiday the writer was talking about how he goes into this he does always research and then he goes into he causes drawdown period we basically doesn't do anything just before
Well, you we start ever nation but I've been
James Taylor so he basically goes to this period of like, Okay, I need to stop reading stop inputting your stuff now, and I actually need to just like that that time for me to think is do you work in a similar way? Oh, you always just along the way, you're just just trying to kind of write things down and and hopefully, at the end of that process of researching something will have emerged, I guess
Lisa Bodell it well, I love that. Kind of the draw down I call hibernation or fetal position, depending on how, at the moment, right, there's that like trough of despair when you think you have nothing and then you emerge from it. And I cast a really wide net I gather every From the podcast to videos to TED talks to know that I sit next to on an airplane, I gather a ton of research and I, Google doc and I tab it, let you know who I should interview where, you know, different types of categories of research, I can go back to Atlanta, I really love to have it organized. But it is what you're getting at those, I think is wanting to know when when to say when, basically. So one of the things I like, is that a really good body of research, probably like a couple hundred pages, stuff. And then I do spend a couple weeks just calling just reading, just organizing, what are the key themes, and then I do more research on themes. And what I stopped. And the reason I stopped is because then I think I need to start getting subject matter expertise and Devil's advocates. And so one of the things I really like to do is talk start my interview list of people that are experts in that topic, and people that are skeptics on that topic. And that really helps me litmus test my ideas. And the cool thing I'll tell you that I really like to do is hot to people that scare you, which are the people that you're either afraid to talk to you never think will talk to you or are going to tell you things you probably don't want to hear an avant garde research projects. I'm giving you more than you asked for. But what was really interesting was, for example, people were telling me around complexity, one of the things is their bosses, right? No one thinks they're the problem. They think everyone else's problem. And we said, well, we better learn how to deal with bosses, Who should we talk to, and a lot of people we found feel like it's like a marriage either could be a good marriage that needs help or bad marriage needs help. But we're talking to marriage counselors that can help us understand how to simplify relationships. And we're talking to hostage negotiators, also help us understand right? How to deal with difficult bosses because you just have to learn how to work within parameters to get the goal you want. And we're trying to take a really different approach to it with this book. So anyway, that that's kind of how we go about it. We cast a wide net and then we find out Some Unusual Suspects to add that little, little spin no one else has. So
James Taylor you also mentioned I'm working with a with a co writer as well. We have interviewed Lou ronica as part of this who Lewis Yes, Sir Ken Robinson's co writer on lm lm and great, great books. And he was talking about that relationship to the CO writer has, especially with someone who's who's a real thought leader, like yourself, you know, you're out there speaking, you're you can be visible and visible in that way. What What is the for you? What is the CO writer add to the process? And do they take on that devil's advocate role, or the different fill a slightly different role from that?
Lisa Bodell Well, devil's advocate is definitely one of the roles because I think what you can do is you can come fall in love with your idea, become really enamored with it, because you just want to have a great idea and, you know, push forward, and sometimes it's a really crappy idea. So, one of the things I really like when I'm talking with a co writer is you know, it's kind of like a doctor, you have to have the same bedside manner to be able to work together and kind of know what each other's thinking. But you also have to have a level of trust that they can poke holes in your idea. And they'll know that you're respected. So devil's advocate is definitely one. Another thing is just to be able to shape ideas, I really like to know, you know, that research. And then I like to just spew I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to say yet. But I just I have to get it out. And I have to spew, and the job of the writer to me is just like write down key phrases here and try and crystallize it. So because sometimes you're so close to it, it's hard to pull back. And that's what I need from a writer.
James Taylor And I wonder if that's because you're also known very much as a speaker. So one of the ways that you like obviously communicating as a strength for you communicating in that way versus some some other authors that that's not there, they would prefer much more solitary kind of sitting there with the page where you, you you can have, what's that you can speak you can have speak to think through your ideas,
Lisa Bodell I have to win. The other thing too is that I get very frustrated because I want to get it right right now. Because like with speakers, I want to all of a sudden get to my, like key points in my sound bites. And that's, you know, I think in terms of what I call stages, not pages. And the reason I say that to people that are aspiring authors is you have to know what you want out of your book. I mean, if you're an academic, and you like lots of big words and lots of flowery language, and that's one way to write, and that's one type of writing that is not me, I like to get to the point I like to talk in plain language and plain speak. That's why I like to be a simplicity expert. And I like to have sound bites because I think that's how people think now, you know, people don't even read anymore. They watch. They don't, they don't read full sentences, they want sound bites, they want pithy phrases. So I think in terms of that, so I can then translate that more quickly to my speeches on stage. Because the goal for me is memorable stuff.
James Taylor And do you think is that related to because you're early in your career you worked in advertising?
Lisa Bodell related? Yeah. Related mean now that you say that? I would say of course, yes. obvious. But I don't know if that's
James Taylor okay. I think it like Ogilvy like great. David Ogilvy, which he had this is seven things about how to write. And one of them was not using flowery language. And again, getting to the point being quite lean, in terms of how you communicated your ideas. One of my,
Lisa Bodell like, I met when I was doing one of my first Talks at Google. And because Google, like Ted, when you do the talk, sometimes they give you speech coaches, and he met me. And happily, he said, I'm glad I'm your speech coach, who obviously don't need one because you speak a lot. But we became friends and his company, elevator speech. He talks about using weakened language. And what I like about weakened languages, how do you talk to your friends, if you're having a barbecue or sitting on a patio or having sitting at a pub and you don't talk in this big flowery language, you talk to them like everyday people, and that's how I like to write my books because I think my goal is to make it approachable for people and I want to make them feel like they can do it and be empowered and if the language doesn't relate to them, or it makes them Some feel dumb. And then I've done the opposite of what I want to accomplish. And when you started moving into the world of writing, who were those mentors or role models for you, who were the authors that you either knew personally and you able to get mentorship from, or maybe you had, you can look at them from afar and said, that's the type of writer I want to be. You know, it's funny, because I'm a creative writer, I, when I was younger, I would want a lot of creative writing awards for fiction. So I really liked people that could help spark an imagination. That's number one. But the things that I really liked even more were people that were convincing on their point of view. And that's why I like op ed writers, because they have to convey people a very specific point of view on sometimes very controversial or complex topics in a very short amount of time. And me, those are the kind of political writers I often engage those kinds of people can make make sense of a topic and a very quick concise way. And those are the types of writers
James Taylor so as you essentially kind of go on your Your writing career was there a key aha moment that you had maybe a time when you said, Okay, this is the direction I want to go with my writing, or these are the kind of books I want to write on these subjects I want to cover?
Lisa Bodell Well, two things because I have, you know, some people are full time authors. And that's, that's one route to go. But I'm an entrepreneur, I have a business. And so my book is a platform, not not necessarily a legacy. For me. I don't know how else to say that. But my point being is it's a vehicle for me to grow my business and my, my, my point of view, so my whole thing is that we teach people about change and innovation. And so I wanted to have my book be able to help convey that. And I guess the aha moments for me were when we were trying to teach people innovation. And we just couldn't do it. We were getting a lot of pushback, and I wanted to know why. And so I said, Well, I'm going to figure it out and then write a book about it. So a lot of my books are about overcoming a process or a problem or a challenge to help me work through it with my business. So that's where the aha moments come from me is in real life. What's holding me back? Same thing with toxicity, right? I'm going to do this research and kind of figure it out for myself and then write a book about it to help others.
James Taylor So what was it on that piece? You said, you know, companies, some companies were hesitant about bringing companies in other consultants in to help with that innovation process. Well, what were the what were the challenges? What did you discover in that journey?
Lisa Bodell Well, you know, I talked about this a lot on stage, which is this is where killed the company came in, which is I've got this training business, it had been around for a decade, innovation was really hot on all these companies have resources and money and strategic initiatives to get their teams to innovate, and they would hire us and we would get there. And then the very people that brought us in, were the ones that were telling us to just not, you know, not do that much innovation when we got there. So we were really frustrated going, you know, do they really want to do it or not want to do it? Is this just window dressing? And what we started to do is we asked people, you know, why is this so hard for you to do you asked us To come here, and people said that they want to do it, but they didn't feel empowered to do it number one, and they didn't have time because they spent most of their day in meetings and emails. So that's where the idea for killing the company came in. And that's the idea for where getting rid of complexity came in. If we're spending all our time in meetings and emails, how are we going to be innovative? So then that that was that natural lead on to the second book, which is pretty much about simplification like, Okay, what if one of your biggest challenges is, I just don't have the time to do that deep work? I suppose that you know, the covey one, we said that the important but not urgent work, this is required, then that kind of lead into that that simplification piece. That's exactly right. And so that we came out of kill the company, which is why can't people innovate. And the thing was, they don't have the space to think about it. They own the space of the time. It's not that they don't want to they can get to it. And that's what led to why simple wins. And then it's funny because when I wrote my first book, you have to kind of have to listen to how people react to your books to really understand what the next one Bite, that would be a piece of advice I would give people. And I realized that for kill the company, people were saying to me, I don't have the time I don't have the space. And that led to why simple wins. And now what's interesting about why simple wins when I get off the stage, people literally want to hug me like a therapist. And it's a completely different feeling of, you know, they like to kill the company, they think it's really provocative, but why simple wins, then touch them at the company level, personal level. And that's what led me to the third book, which is, the feedback I keep getting is people just want to tell me their stories about you wouldn't believe what my boss did. Or if I miss the soccer game for my kid, or even they have these personal things that they this catharsis they want me to help them with. And that's what I want to tackle now. And this third one is how can I help the people that find me after my speeches get even further in that journey? So listen to how people react to your book, either those comments on Amazon or the feedback you get from people on Twitter, or when they find you after a speech because they're probably telling what you should do people an export
James Taylor that's really fast that the first thing that I mean that that whole topic of innovation, I mean, I speak on create creativity, not so much innovation. And that whole topic of innovation always feels like it's a corporate, you know, complex organizational type of thing. But you but you're you and B and B, your journey in terms of what the people they kind of want to get back to the the individual in some senses in terms of like, Okay, what can I do? What is my role in that? How can I contribute to that?
Lisa Bodell Well, one thing I would say too, about writing is fight for what you believe in with your publisher. Because if I hadn't my book never would have been called kill the company because it was too controversial. And I said, screw that, because that's the whole point. That's what sells if you if you hug the middle as they say, you're never going to sell anything. So controversy helps provocation health. The other thing is I always said I want to be in two aisles in the proverbial bookstore. I want to be in the business aisle and the self help file. And the reason for the business hours people feel good that they're going to further their career but the self help aisle because that's what people really care. About people want to improve themselves, and they like to talk about themselves and they like to diagnose themselves. So, you know, this next book is really going to focus on the individual because, yeah, they want to further their career. Yes, they want to help their company, but you know, what they really want to help themselves. So I really got to figure out that work life balance piece and that complexity piece for the individual next
James Taylor time, that's a really hard piece to do, because I agree with that, that Venn diagram of if I think, in my topic of creativity, you know, the artists way, one end with Julia Cameron, great book be self help, but then creativity, Inc, by Ed catmull. You know, these are both kind of come at it from different perspectives. But but they have, there's something there and there is something there in the middle. But that's a hard book to write, I think,
Lisa Bodell I think it's, that's the problem, which is, you know, it's always do I just use it as a chapter at the end of the book, you know, and just call it you know, something for you. The way I've gotten around it, it frankly, is the aha moment for me has been putting in a whole chapter about tools because I really want to You know, do I want to be someone who's known as just a thought leader? That's great. But the other thing I really want to be known for is helping people do it themselves. And that's the practical what I call Midwestern side of me. I just want to, you know, I want to give them things that they can do. And that's why my last book in the things people come up to me and say is, I really liked your book, and I really read your tool of do kill a stupid rule with a team time. Do within and Jason beyond with my team all the time, questions my team all the time. But then I know not only do they read it, but they're using it. So that's one of my signature pieces, as we always put in tools at the back so people can take it and get it done.
James Taylor And I guess that then leads quite nicely on to the consulting part and the speaking part of your business as well, where when you're speaking people that the client is looking for deliverables, what are they going to be able to do when they get back into the office on Monday morning? What's still going to be there in? What is that phrase that they're going to or internally with an organization you're going to be talking about, oh, let's do x y, Zed that, you know, that's how have we done this That that translation into into doing that is is great, because Because otherwise, you're in the world of the academic of just purely being it. It's just being an intellectual exercise.
Lisa Bodell Well, I also think there's an advantage to it because people say, Well, how do you know? What's your book that you know what you're saying is true. And some people do it via research. I'm not a big quantitative research, no researcher, I'm no scientist. So mine is through actual experience and anecdotes, and I think people, they like data, they also like stories. So you know, when you're writing a book, it's you have to have a thesis, you have to have something provocative, and you have to prove it. And so of course, I have to have data, but I really have the stories and I do that through my business. So and we run kill the company workshops and people take it, they love it, you know, because they could we get in there and we show them how they can literally be their competitor and find their weaknesses quickly. And then with killing complexity, we do the same thing. And what's great about it is that I can tell them across lots of different big companies that they're familiar with how They did you know how they killed rules and or how they killed their company and what happened. And people really relate to that because they, they think you, you get their world right you understand the day to day that they live in and understand that it is doable. That's great.
James Taylor I love that it's a real virtuous circle then about all these things can feeding into each other and building upon each other. What was your writing ritual look like? You know, how are you very much you work in blocks of time and you're known as someone who is an extremely productive in your articles and and also your books as well? How do you get how do you get stuff done?
Lisa Bodell I'm very disciplined. I definitely have my to do list that I like to do. I'm one of those people. That's the oxymoron. I feel like it's not about what's on your to do list, but you also have to have one to organize yourself. I mean, I get up early, so I'm an early morning person and I like to get all my writing done when it's quiet. I'm alone and I have a massive cup of coffee and that's that's a ritual. The other thing that I might My writing ritual is once I have all my research organized until that's done, I can't start writing. I make a plan to tackle a chapter each week. That's how I do it. So to me, it's about the process of, we've got the outline, let's do a chapter each week. And then once we have it written, we go back and we start the editing process. But it's early morning cup of coffee has to be definitely
James Taylor silent. And then what about tools? Are there any tools that you use apps? You know, what do you use in terms of for writing that are very effective for you?
Lisa Bodell Well, it you know, not many, I'll be honest, I'm going to be the person that when you interview is going to be really old school. So I think my biggest secret weapon is I have very, is very provocative questions. And I have very avant garde search terms. Because I think that when you go online, you know, Google's not a search engine, that's an answer engine, and basically, you can get whatever data you want. Are you asking good questions, and you Using the right search terms, so, you know, being very creative and the adjectives you use the search terms, being at the negative side, not just positive side, those types of things I go in, in terms of in terms of my research, I don't use a lot of apps. The other thing that I do, and this isn't a ritual, but this is just a good practice is I spent a lot of time walking, whether it's walking my dogs walking at night, walking home, and the reason for that is, you know, there's obviously a lot of good science around it, but it's just it's, it's thinking time and processing time. And that's usually where I have a lot of Tiffany's as well, I'm alone, and I'm just walking, I'll leave and drive and I'll go to you know, forest preserves and I'll just walk for a full hour and let my mind wander. And that's where I get a lot of my
James Taylor thoughts and you're absolutely right man is tons of signs to back support that I mean, even the color you mentioned being at a national park or the color green, the University of Berlin just had a big research piece all about all about that in that color green having that color green, Randy doing Some low level, physical activity walking is great for for that that thought process.
Lisa Bodell I like getting back to basics because I feel like I do feel like writers feel a lot of pressure, like they're never doing it right. You know, like, I have search right in and find the right research and talk to the right people I didn't, I don't know all the apps to use. And to me again as an expert is, don't say just like Cut the crap, don't feel the pressure, whatever works for you do a couple things. Well, rather than trying to do everything
James Taylor about a book, is there one book that you would recommend for someone who is on this journey just now maybe they're just in the process of writing that first book. There's been a book on the writing process on ideas, generating ideas more generally.
Lisa Bodell So here's a dumb, a dumb thing, but might be smart thing. One of the things that we teach in terms of understanding how to get an idea how to how to create an innovation, it's the same thing as creating a book. And we ask people, how do they actually create the what's their process for getting things done, and we don't we tell them not to write it down, but to draw it And what's interesting about that is people you know, they kind of think about, Okay, I'm gonna read a book, How am I going to do it, I'm gonna, rather than writing down the steps of how you want to write a book draw how you envision the process of a book going. And it might start with somebody saying, you know, there's a light bulb over here over your head, and then it it's an arrow to a library or a search engine, and then it's to a Google Doc, where they organize it, but what that's trying to do is get the process down on paper for them to see how do they think and how do they organize? And then how do they want to start engaging people in that process or change it it's a good visualization technique that'll help them get organized and
James Taylor maybe create a plan to go full forward that's great I mean, we've had one or the guests was just talking about he actually tube I guess from what had the mind map the the structure of their book right at the start and he said, you know, before when they used to do it, that being linear fashion, it was they couldn't really see the connections and that desperate thing over there was actually Oh, well, that's actually connected to that other thing that then he I just never saw it before because it but in a linear fashion. You don't see those connections.
Lisa Bodell It's The same type of thing because a lot of people think it's why we get so bored in meetings because people use PowerPoint versus when they get up at a board and they start drawing it, people start to get engaged because they can suddenly see what's in your head. Yeah. And I think that's what happens with with when people are trying to tackle something big like a book like God, I got to write a book, How am I going to do it? Oh, my God. Okay, so don't write it down, draw it out. And especially for people that are more linear thinkers, that's going to be very, it's like mind mapping, right? It's this aha moment where they might not realize that's how they think or how they organize their thoughts. And it suddenly starts helping them break it down into parts. And that's the key thing and solving a problem. When you break it down into parts or a big project. It's easier to tackle.
James Taylor So final question for you. I want you to imagine, tomorrow morning, you wake up and you have to start from scratch. your previous books don't exist. No one knows you, you know, no one. You have to restart. What would you do? How would you restart things?
Lisa Bodell Well, that's interesting. So once I got up out of the fetal position, walk and call myself Boom, oh, my big thing is I have a big, legal sized piece of paper and I have a pen and I just start writing down, like, what are the big thoughts in my head? Like, write down every big thought. So if I could write a book, and I would want to be known for something, what if what I want to be known for? What's my area of expertise? What has nobody written before? What's, what's a topic that somebody seems to own, but I disagree with their point of view? And maybe I could look at it differently. So if I was starting again, you have to figure out what do I want to write and that's those are the types of like questions I would start. So if you figure out what's my topic, search, you're doing it my thought I'd want to figure
James Taylor out what's my point? I think as a start starting with those kind of questions, we've had Warren Berger on this who wrote a great book about questioning and spending those first 10 minutes of any kind of bring some questioning the question and that's it opens up a completely different way of way of thinking. So, Lisa, if people want to reach out to you to learn more about about the book so they can get get a copy of the of the book and also learn about the His latest book movie get on early pre launch for the for the book all they want to learn about the business that you're involved in all your speaking where's the best place to go and do that,
Lisa Bodell ah, I would go to future thing calm, which is the name of my company. So future things calm, you can go on Amazon, obviously and go and take a look for the books there. And actually if you sign up for our newsletter on future things calm, you're going to get a preview of some of the survey questions and perhaps be interviewed for the next book because that's the that's the next thing is getting those anecdotes from people that are fans or have something to say and we're going to be doing that in the next few
James Taylor months. Wonderful. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for coming on today. Sharing about your journey, your writing journey, I wish you all the best with this, this third book you're going to be coming out with
Lisa Bodell Thank you, I'll need all the luck I can get so thanks very much.
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Using The One Thing To Write A Bestseller
Jay Papasan is the co-author of The One Thing, a #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller with over 450 appearances on national bestseller lists and more than 30 translations around the world. Before Jay Papasan co-authored The ONE Thing and the bestselling Millionaire Real Estate series with Gary Keller, he worked as an editor at Harper Collins Publishers. There he worked on such best-selling books as Body-for-Life by Bill Phillips and Go for the Goal by Mia Hamm. Jay also co-owns a successful real estate team affiliated with Keller Williams Realty with his wife Wendy in Austin, TX.
James Taylor interviews Jay Papasan and they talk about the one thing to write a bestseller
In this episode, we cover:
Understanding Book Contracts
Time blocking to get your writing done
Applying The ONE Thing to write a bestselling business book
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at James taylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey there, it's James Taylor, and I'm delighted today to welcome Jay Papasan. Jay present is co author of The One Thing a number one Wall Street Journal bestseller with over 450 appearances on national bestseller lists and more than 30 translations around the world. Before Jay Papasan co authored the one thing and the best selling millionaire real estate series with Gary Keller. He worked as an editor at HarperCollins Publishers. There he worked on such bestselling books as body for life by Bill Phillips and go for the goal by Meaghan j also Colin's a successful real estate team affiliated with Keller Williams Realty with his wife Wendy, in lovely Austin, Texas. So welcome, Jay, on to this interview.
Jay Papasan Thanks for having me back.
James Taylor So share with everyone what's happening in your world just now what are you currently working on?
Jay Papasan Oh, gosh, we are currently hard at work trying to see if we can write a fable around the one thing we've been wanting to follow it up. And just to make things interesting, we thought we tackle you know how to figure out what your purpose is. So that's been a big project this year. And we're also wrapping up work on our very first book, The Millionaire real estate agent, we're updating it after gosh, that would be 14 years of publication. They're ready for another round. So I've got two concurrent projects working most of my focus is on the fable today.
James Taylor Now I mentioned you you had this other life before at HarperCollins did that equip you with some secret powers when it came to launching and putting your own books out into the world?
Jay Papasan It was really helpful because at HarperCollins the you know, I started as an editorial assistant where everybody started On the editorial side, they make you do everything. We joyfully called it the salt mine. And editorial systems there. It didn't just write jacket copy and rejection letters. When you had a contract, you often I would often do the first round of negotiations with an agent. We would then run it up to legal and then when the manuscript showed up, we would work it to editorial with our editor. And then we would take it through proofreading and design. So we had to kind of Shepherd the projects. And what was great is I got visibility in all the aspects of how books are actually made and marketed, didn't always have responsibility for all the jobs because in the beginning, as an editorial assistant, you're dealing that with a senior editor, and they stepped in for the into the sales staff, etc, etc. But you saw it all and my big aha, as an author was I learned what contracts were all about. And I think one of the biggest mistakes that would be business authors make is that They're so happy that a publisher is willing to entertain publishing them. They don't really properly negotiate for themselves and certainly not for the book that's going to serve their business. So that was my, my biggest thing that I learned that I didn't expect to learn was about contract law. So we're the in it. I remember doing music games, I've done a couple of book book agreements for clients. By remember when doing the music agreements, it was always like that first page had all the things that they obviously wanted the artists to really pay to really know about to get feel good about. And then there was like 40 pages of all the reasons why they would never see money at the end of the day. So what are the what are the traditional landmines that are in there? I don't know if in the book industry, they do like cross collateralization. Is that something that happens there? What are some of the dangers that authors have to
James Taylor be aware of?
Jay Papasan I think the number one thing that I tell people first is have someone negotiate on your behalf. If you don't have an agent, there are publishing attorneys. I have one fabulous lady. She may hate me for this right. I'm Debra Orenstein. in Minneapolis, she used to, I think, did contracts for hold for many, many years. So she's very intimately involved, then she goes on a fee basis, I just pay I don't want to pay her a percentage. And she advocates for me. So I'm a big advocate for having an advocate first, because her job all day long is to know publishing law. And the absence of that. Most contracts don't have any termination termination clause. So essentially, whether your publishing partner is carrying their water or not, right, they're, they're being a good partner or not, your editor might get fired, the person who was in love with your book may leave, you know, and then you're an orphan. You're still stuck with that publisher until the copyright expires. So is there grounds for termination? Can they actually default, in most publishing contracts, the publisher can't actually default, there's no grounds for termination. Also own multiple books. So the language is called the option clause and if I'm getting to nitty gritty here, just give me a throat. This is great. I usually ask what's the option they have? I think if they're a good partner, I'm always willing to give them a 30 or a 60 day option on my next book proposal, but they don't have a right to publish it. So I'm still a free agent. Because we were partners, I'm going to give them the first shot, and I might be willing to give them a chance to match any offer, so they can keep me. But if they have an absolute option on my next word, then you may be a prisoner of a bad partner. Okay. And I had a good friend that signed a three book contract, not knowing she had signed a three book contract was very unhappy with the first book. And you probably saw this in the record industry. There are some famous albums. I'm trying to think was it the great rock and roll swindled by the sex pistol was their option album they threw together just to get out of the contract. Yeah, and I used to be a fan growing up as a little punk rocker in Memphis, Tennessee, so there are actually some good tracks on that, but there's some legendarily bad albums because of that, there's some really bad books because of that, too. So, first off, how do I end this agreement? What are the rights on my future work? And then you hit on the other one is how do I get paid? Most publishing agreements, I want to put this politely It's a small world. The fairest way i can say is the standard agreement is draconian. I mean, everything is tilted to the publisher. But there's also this nod, nod, wink wink that everyone expects everyone to negotiate. So nothing is written right in stone. So you go in and say you're offering me 700%. I want 15%. Great, let's go 10%. But if you don't negotiate, you've started from the worst possible financial position. So unless you're somebody, they usually give you a boilerplate contract that everything is tilted in their favor. So those would be the top three for me. You know, it's make sure you're not a prisoner to the contract itself. Make sure make sure you're not a prisoner to feel works and make sure that you're going to be paid fairly if you deliver and they deliver.
James Taylor Now, having said all that, so you know, where the bodies are buried in these agreements, you know, how difficult can be with those agreements. But I noticed that with your books that you go out, you put out with them, you have a kind of interesting kind of model. So you have a publishing business almost like an imprint, but then you go out through traditional publishers into a so you, you obviously can decide, I think some of the books will be McGraw Hill and some. So talk to me like when you had to make that decision of like, you could have absolutely just built up your own publishing gone directly that independent way, you could have just gone fully into the trad side, but you you choose a slightly different way of doing it. So can you just talk to your thinking there?
Jay Papasan Sure. Well, when we first started in 2003, the world was very different. We didn't get any offers on our first book, we had one offer from amacom. For 220 $5,000. That was our advance and they paid bigger advances back then. So that actually wasn't a lot, given what we thought we could do. And so we sell publish the book. And because Gary Keller had built a company, that's my co author, right, we had a network to distribute it through, we actually sold 100,000 copies all by herself. The book was ugly. I mean, it looked like a textbook, right? Because self publishing wasn't then what it is today. And, but we sold 12,000 copies on Amazon, which was still 2003, that was still kind of a new thing. And I remembered editor solid, we were number one of the real estate category. And that's how we got acquired by McGraw Hill. And we will with McGraw Hill, because back then, there was no way for a self published author to end up in bookstores without a publisher. And so we reserve some channel channels that we'd already built, and we let them have the trade channels. And that's how we ended up with that partnership for many of our books. today. The one thing we published with the Bard press, and there's a new breed of publishers, there's not a lot of them around. Some of the big companies have experimented with it. I think Harper had Harper studio for a while whereas ventually your co publishing. And that's our relationship with the one thing. Legendary publisher brings wonderful insights has all of the power of the National Book network for distribution and inventory, all the things that you need a publisher to do. But we essentially walk in and we're risking our money instead of asking him to risk hit so we pay for the first print run. But we also get the publishers income on the book sales. So there's different models right now, the the publisher takes all the risk in New York, and that's why you get seven and a half percent of gross or whatever that is, and they get to keep whatever they get to profit on.
James Taylor If you go in and you're writing the check for the print, run, and you're at risk, you're entitled to more money. And there are more models that do that today. And those who bought press, they, they actually they don't publish a lot of books is that I actually have a small number of books that one one a year, one a year, so so they have put their they're putting a huge amount of focus on you as, as their Client have, you know, author as well. So they, they're only going to make that decision if they feel that is stacked,
Jay Papasan you know, well in their favor. Yeah, I had to woo Ray Bard for about three and a half years to get to work with him. And he doesn't even. So everybody's gonna rush off and try to Google them and send them a script. He doesn't do any unsolicited manuscripts. So good luck, everybody. But there are other publishers out there like that. And now, publishers group West and National Book network are two huge distribution hubs. But they actually a lot of small publishers essentially do all of their back office through them inventory supply, fulfillment all happens through those networks. So I mean, you can be a one person show and effectively be your own publisher today. So it's a very different world. You would just have to have the contracts. But the folks the good, folks, I'm looking at my bookshelf. Strength Finders, right. Tom Rath. For several years. That whole they had been with a publisher they moved they basically started their own imprint at one of these big Distribution hubs. They circulated their own books, eventually, I think they got bought up by Simon and Schuster, our crown, I can't remember, they ended up going back because they got a great offer. But I think today's authors, business authors have a choice, I can self publish, I can go with a traditional publisher. Or I can look for one of these hybrid combinations where I have a job. And I have financial responsibilities attached to it. But I can get all the benefits of big publishing without necessarily some of the downsides. So there's just a lot more offerings out there. Now,
James Taylor one of that's a great just to get an understanding of the landscape and had landscapes changed over the years. So you wrote this, authored this book, the one thing phenomenal book is probably my most suggested book that's just over the past 12 months, I've just taught so many people about it, it's like one thing and I've, I've spoken at events, and then I've mentioned it as well to audiences. So that so there's one thing for people that haven't read the book yet, explain that the central premise of it and then when it comes to To the world, the audience of authors or aspiring authors, how does it How can it help them?
Jay Papasan Sure. So the big idea on the one thing. So it's been talked about so much, right? Essentially, it's focused on what matters. But the idea is giving people a process for identifying their number one priority, and then giving it the bulk of their time and energy. And it sounds really simple. And it is really simple. It's just hard to actually execute. If you've tried to live the book, you've now that on a day to day basis, focusing on your number one priority is tough. So that's 220 pages, trying to walk you through why that matters, how one does it and how one maximizes that lifestyle really does simplify things and it accelerates your outcomes massively. I kind of fail on a daily basis just like everybody else, but I've been doing it for 18 years with Gary Keller. I feel like I'm overall pretty focused and I know where I should be spending my time. When I think about authors and the one thing You know, when we were writing this book, we lived it. And so you identify your priority and we call it time blocking. You know, Gary, and I just sat down and said, When are we writing. And most everyone in our world for several years knew that between 10 o'clock in the morning and 2pm, we were holed up downstairs in our conference room, we would break for lunch. And that would be a chance for our staff to get in, and, hey, what's happening, but essentially, it was four hours, four days a week. We did not write on Mondays usually, because that was our day to meet with our staff. But that was our schedule. So we knew that we had a quantified amount of time to focus on this one thing, and it was big blocks of time for hours. Yeah, this is the chairman of the board of largest real estate company in the world, devoting that much time to one project. But that's how we got it to the finish line. And instead of it just being good, it actually ended up being pretty good results. I'll stand by the track record in the field. It's done pretty well, but we gave it a tremendous energy. For a burst of time, that's how we got to the finish line.
James Taylor And there was the thing I remember, someone asked me about the book, and I'm gonna paraphrase that I probably make a really bad job of it. So you're going to have to correct me. Oh, perfect. Yeah. So it's. So when thinking about that one thing, what is the one thing that if done well, will make everything else either easier? Or unnecessary
Jay Papasan focusing question focusing question. So
James Taylor I asked myself that multiple times a day now after having read that, but I think that's a phenomenal question. Just to get it is a question. It makes you pull up, pull back a little bit, and there's a lot of things you suddenly realize you don't really need to do not necessarily in that order.
Jay Papasan Oh, yeah. So it's very specific language. And it's a lot to remember. But once you kind of internalize it, you can kind of say, what's my one thing, but what's the one thing I can do? Such that by doing it, everything else is easier or unnecessary? So it's one thing it's not things. Your brain is really good and my experience at figuring out what the one thing is, most of the time we actually get to the end of the day and feel guilty for not having done that thing, because may be our number one priority, but it may not always be the easiest thing on the menu or the most pleasant thing, right? It's just the priority. It's something that you can do. It's not that you could should or would write those are different verbs. And you want to think about what can I actually do today? Because that gets you results. And it's so leveraged, right? We talked about the domino metaphor. It's your first domino, and it always has a bunch stacked up behind it. So when you knock it over, you just get a whole bunch of impact. Everything else is easier or unnecessary. And I'll tell you, everybody who started living the book, they want everything to be unnecessary. The reality is, a lot of times when you do the one thing, it just does make things a lot easier. All right, postpones needing to do them. It's business. Yeah, there's still things that have to be done. You have to hit some of those things on the checklist, whether you like them or not, just because they have to be done but it does get easier when you're doing your one back
James Taylor after I was talking to a marketer with Perry Marshall, great marketer, very good at in terms of Google ads, understanding SEO, and we were talking about the Pareto principle which this kind of leads leads from, you know, that the idea that 8020 rule, and one of the things he said to me, he said, he said, You have to really change that. The Pareto principle 8020 rule is fractal. So essentially means 64, four, or 51. So 1% of things, you do deliver 50% of the results. And then that kind of got me thinking back to, you know, this book again, which is that anything that can be right, and you sit and figure now that is actually correct.
Jay Papasan I don't know that the numbers always perfectly line up. But the principle is absolutely true. I actually did that. You know, we have 180,000 real estate agents in Gary's company that we've incubated our publishing company out of, and I did the math last year, and 80% of all the real estate sold in our company was sold by you guessed it 20% of the realtors and it was to zero. I didn't round up or anything. And then I played with it, and 10% of them sold something like 55% of the real estate, it's still massively disproportionate, you get down to the top 1%. And they're selling like 30% of all the real estate. So it is, I don't know if that's the definition of fractal are not. But it's exponential curve when you get into those smaller and smaller. If I focus on this group, I get much larger impact. So
James Taylor for our audience, I'm going to imagine someone that's listening watching to this just now, there may be a speaker, they may have a training business, they'll maybe be consulting and they want to get that first book they have, they have expertise in whatever their areas they want to get that first book out, when when their their weakest being divided amongst traveling and speaking and and putting this workshop thing together. And then there's an admin stuff together, how we think about that one thing, how you can figure that pile, for someone like that in terms of writing that book.
Jay Papasan Well for writing the book, I can give you that formula in terms of their business. It's really about their business. Like every business has an economic model. And there's always a first domino there, right that if you did this, everything that came after it would be better. And in our business, the first domino is giving people the book, right? I mean, it becomes the ultimate calling card for our other businesses. All of the books we've written, 11 of them have been essentially, really high value marketing pieces. I mean, nobody's gonna, there's never been a review. Please, Lord, let this be true. But out of the 2500 reviews on Amazon, I don't think any of them says this is a marketing book. But when we looked at it, we said, we know something, and we want to share it with the world. So if you write a great book, it becomes an amazing calling card for your consulting business or your speaking business. And my friends who've written books that are public speakers have been immediately able to double their fees. Yeah, whether the book was a best seller or not, because it gives them validity. I wrote the book on x or we wrote the book on X, therefore, you ought to have me come in, and we'll talk about x. So it helps you get leads, it helps you convert leads, and it usually gets you to convert leads at a higher price point. So I see the book as a part of a great business's economic model. Like for you, it might be your product isn't a book, it might be the summit, right? What's the first domino AI books come up a lot, because they are while it can be labor intensive to create one. It's a known quantity, and you can make it happen and the people who are speaking consulting, they already have the ideas the challenge for them is getting them packaged in a way that's attractive to people.
James Taylor And it can also it's one of those things obviously creating intellectual property there has a long lifespan like you after you pass away plus 70 years that's going to go to your families and, and relatives as well. So, if you think about that lead Domino being the book, then the one thing from that and I because I in terms of getting measured is it Just getting that word count happening every day. That's the that's the kind of actionable parameter I remember seeing in terms of in the world of realty seeing how the one thing was being applied there. And it was as it was the number of of listings, I think it was, it was getting kind of listings. That was the kind of key when the key kind of KPI so in the case of authors isn't, isn't getting that word count happening.
Jay Papasan I studied writing for a long time, you know, you look at some of the greats. And you know, Tom Wolfe, I think he wrote something like crazy, like 10,000 words a day, like that was his like, and then I knew other people who measured it by the number of hours they work, not their actual output. I think you should have a measurement right for me and Gary, it was time it wasn't pages. We knew that time on the task would eventually yield the product we wanted. I do know people who've simply gone in and said, Look, if I write one page today, you know, every year I'll generate a book. That's just how it works. Yeah. So if they it's something they can stumble over, but it's harder than You think write one page every day. And I think
James Taylor Roald Dahl I believe it's Roald Dahl day to day as we're filming this, the children's authors. His was seven pencils. He would every day he would sit down his little cabinet and he would sharpen seven pencils. And when he got when all seven pencils were blunt, that was his day. He measured his day by day pencils. It's a little
Jay Papasan different when you're writing a business book than if you're writing fiction. If I'm writing fiction, and I've done some of that, right, I think it's easier to go on word count and page count. If you're writing nonfiction, there's a process right? You have to think about how is this book organized because it's not flowing out as a narrative, necessarily? What are the topics I'm going to address? What's the order, I'm going to address them in? And then you have to execute each of those. So the way we actually did it, if you want to know is when we had outlined the one thing, we've broken it up into the big sections and then those sections into sections. We'd like literally got binders, right? Old Fashioned binders is where we started. And for every chapter of the book, we created a section in the binder. And then we each we divvied it up and I said, Look, I've got, you know, everything matters equally is a lie, right, which is our first lie, which is where we talked about Plato's principle. Well, we started writing in there, what are all of our thoughts on this? What do we come to the table? We read books, we looked at our bookshelves, what have other people had to say about this, what our famous quote and relate to this. And our only job then is to pack that section with all our possible thoughts and ideas. And so there was a certain amount of time, right. And a lot of people do this over time, but we just were being very focused on it. That's how we approach books. So we have our outline. We've got we had two full times researchers helping us but you can totally do this by yourself. You pack all the ideas in there, and then when it's time to write, I would look through that outline, and be like, Okay, this month, I'm going to tackle This chapter. And because it is I'm thinking about it already, or I feel inspired to write it. And then my job is to take this massive paper, which is grown right into hundreds of pages sometimes of newspaper clippings. And then I start organizing that chapter. And I do the same process. Now, what are the four or five thoughts that make this chapter whole, and I break them into sections. And when I'm actually writing, I'm just taking a very thin stack of maybe two stories, a half dozen quotes, maybe a research study, and I'm writing that section of the book. And if you flip through the book with the column A heads or be heads, or one heads or two heads, there's little sections in the book that are complete capsulize thoughts, the opening of a chapter, the meat of the chapter, some subsection of chapter, the finish, right, you might only have four or five sections. Each of those has their stack and that's what I'm working on for the week. So you've taken this really big overwhelming project and systematically broken it into pieces. And when I show up to write I just Maybe 15 pieces of information. And I have to weave those together. And that creates a kind of flow. And sometimes the chapters flow from each to each, I wrote all the lies together. It took me about seven weeks to write those six chapters, maybe eight weeks. And then it took Gary came behind me and edited them, and added to them and removed from them. And it took him three months. So that entire process right was essentially five months to write five chapters. That was that was our process. But in the beginning, it was overwhelming.
James Taylor So that at the start that you told about the outline process, how long did that that that part? So you figuring out and having those discussions about what your chapter your main parts were? And also be interested know, you went out through this hybrid publisher? Were you were you kind of creating that as almost like a book proposal using as a book proposal for them or were you writing this on spec? So you bet you're going to write the book anyway. And then you kind of went and found your your partner that you wanted to put
Jay Papasan When we had the idea, and we had two big, big breaks like this is what we think are the lies, we had a couple of big principles around it. We did not have the full outline when we pitch the book. But we had a track record. It was an idea that already existed in our company and had for a long time. So we've had a lot of anecdotes and evidence to support that approach. And we had started the process because we've maybe done this for two or three months, we'd spent brainstorming the book and that's just flip charts and whiteboards. dedicate a few hours a lunch, so let's get together talk about the book. And, you know, we're reading books around the topic, and we're coming back, hey, I think we should have a section on this. And we prioritize and reprioritize I think our outline ended up fitting on to flip chart pages, and that was it. And then when I typed it up and ran it by Ray, you know, at the time and he added to it, he goes well, where's the section on how to implement it at work or whatever. And, you know, it was a group project because we're not writing we're writing as a team. Yeah. publisher was a part of that. So he definitely had input. But it was mostly Gary and I,
James Taylor I'm trying to remember also how you handled you mentioned, like, the publisher was saying, you know, something in there for a team. I'm trying to remember that how you, you dealt with the, you know that this is a book that could be read as a self help book that could also be read as a manual for managers for executives. And that's very few books are able to bridge those two worlds. And I wondered how you how you did that?
Jay Papasan Gosh, that's a great question. I'm thinking we really wanted to write a business book. And there's a reason we wanted to keep the book in the business category. Because we're business people and any, even though the book was its own outcome for us, like that was a goal in itself. We did want it to be something that our coaching company could leverage, right and our training company could leverage and so we had other business outcomes behind it. So it was important for us that it lives in business, not self help, okay. And the other reason is, if you look at The Wall Street Journal, that's the only business left less this left there used to be Businessweek. That's gone. If you're a business author, you're either on the New York Times monthly list, The New York Times weekly how to list or The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal is only hardcover of those three lists that is the most accessible to the average person. If you launch your book in hardcover, and it's considered a business book, that's what is catalogued. It really depends on the week. If you sell 1500 to 2000, through normal trade channels, and you're not just buying them all in one bulk cell and loading them in your warehouse. They have checks and balances for that, right. It's real people buying the books. If you can build that much of an audience, you have a chance of getting on the wall street. business person that's a great out. I'm a Wall Street Journal bestseller. Yeah. Otherwise books in the self help category, the only list that you're really going to achieve is going to be either the New York Times list, which means you're competing with diet books, and celebrity how to books, which are very tough for the average business person to compete with, or the USA Today list, which combines all books, all formats. So now you're competing with Patterson and crime novels. And it's it's just it's much tougher. So from a outcome standpoint to reach our audience the fastest. We wanted to be a business book. But the nature of the topic, what's the one thing I can do? Right? That's not always a business answer. Yeah. The one thing I can do such that I mean, it might be getting more sleep, it might be lose more weight, so I have more energy when I go to work. And we ended up addressing, you know, your spiritual life, your physical health, all those things. So it's a business book that very much applies to one's whole life. The number one first use I see for people, a lot of people use it, the principles to apply to their health because we believe That's foundational to your business life. And so they'd go back a step before they get to work they're working out, or they're eating properly. So it is kind of a self help book. But we very much wanted it to be seen as a business book first
James Taylor go to and that was that was always something really fascinating, fascinating because you've managed to do a very difficult thing in doing that and being able to bridge bridge those in those ways.
Jay Papasan As we start to finish up
James Taylor here, I'd love to know what tools or apps do you find very useful for yourself as a writer in in writing and creating all these
Jay Papasan works? I think Evernote, everyone's going to tell you Evernote, right because if you do any web research, it allows you to quickly and easily organize it so I've been a power user on Evernote for how long has Evernote been around I mean, I really think it's been 10 years I might be lying. It feels like at least a decade. I've been organizing tons of notes and thoughts and pictures in Evernote. A very simple piece of technology that every writer should have. I have a notebook. It goes with me everywhere I go and I Maybe call me old fashioned, but I think better on paper. And if you know our book, the one thing we have lots of drawings in it. And we we tend to think visually, especially for a business book, six out of 10 readers are actually visual learners, it actually helps them to see a visualization of the idea. So that this gives me a place to do that. So I always have a place to drop my ideas. Evernote allows me to store research around those ideas. Those are probably the top two tools I use outside of a word processor. And then what
James Taylor if you do recommend one book? No, no one of your own books, but book it could be on the craft of writing. What would that book be?
Jay Papasan Okay, I'm a big fan of Tim grace. I don't know if you're familiar with Tim or not. He marketed a lot of business books. I'm a fan of Chip and Dan Heath books, Daniel Pink's books, and he's very scientific about it. And he wrote a book called your first 1000 copies. And I give that book away a lot. Because it's very true. He actually giving real numbers he's very analytic. He was a programmer first. And he's like, you know, when we did a social media posts, we sold this many when we had our mailing list, we did this many, it's really a treaties and you need to build your list if you're going to be an author. And that's your foundation of your business. And he makes the argument I think powerfully, and truthfully, it's not what a lot of people want to hear. But that's how you build that fundamental audience. And that's a great book, other books on just craft, like I give away with the Stephen King book on writing, I'm written that way a million times. And I identify with that, that's in the fiction world, but he's defending that you can still be an artist and be commercially viable. And I've always had that attitude. I mean, I never wanted to be a starving artist. I wanted to be a prospering artist, and there should be no shame around that. And it's crazy how a lot of authors and writers like they they are self destructive, because they're not They don't want to actually feel complete. They want to be able to complain about not having success more than having success. And I don't understand that.
James Taylor I think part of that is also probably the media that the stereotype is quite useful to them. So they would rather talk about, you know, the Amy Winehouse type of story rather than the thousands of other musicians who are doing absolutely perfectly fine the kids and paying the mortgage and going out and touring and doing recording. That's that's a less interesting story,
Jay Papasan probably for the media. So if a patriots perpetuates this myth and 40,
James Taylor what I'm going to leave you with a final question here, as we start to wrap up, I'd love to know if you were to if you had to restart. So you had none of your books were out, no one knew who you was, you knew new one in the business. And you had to restart things. But thankfully, you've got all the skills or the knowledge you've acquired over the years. What would you do? How would you restart things?
Jay Papasan I love that I think I focus on building my list again, because that's gone. I had a list i got i keep a track. We have 177,000 emails right now. And like that's our number one metric we track so I would start writing Again, how would I build my list? with things like Kindle singles and the ability to self publish and reach a very large audience, I probably would try to write some very, very short ebooks around very small problems that people faced in the area I was going into, and create lots of hooks and knows for people to click on and give me their email address. And it might just be hey, here's the problem. I've built a handy worksheet for you to work through this for yourself. If you click here and go there, in my experience, we have links in our physical books. But when we did a promotion with Amazon Prime, and they gave away in two months, I think 56,000 copies of our ebooks, our reviews went through the roof, and our email capture went through the roof, because on a Kindle or on your iPad, it's very easy to click those links and actually take those actions. And so I that's where that would probably be my first tactic is can I solve very small problems so I can write those books quickly, I can bring great value, and I can make an extra offer so I can capture them and start a conversation in their inbox. And that'll help you out how I'll sell the next book and the next book in the next book and that will be the asset I'm trying to build. Does that make sense?
James Taylor That's a that's some great advice there. And if people want to just reach out to you more generally like follow you on social media and things is a place to go and do that
Jay Papasan because my name Jay Papasan. I'm the only person in America that has it I'm very global. So it's very easy to find me but I'm, I'm pretty active on Instagram. I probably post a couple three times a week and I respond to direct messages. They're on LinkedIn and Facebook. I'm just not as active on Facebook and LinkedIn as I am on Instagram because that's actually my true diversion. perk to all this pictures, right?
James Taylor We can put nice pictures of food nice pastor and things. So thank you, Jay, so much for coming on sharing your knowledge, your wisdom when it comes to One Thing fantastic. recommend it for anyone and I wish you all the best with whatever your one thing is that you're you're working on just now.
Jay Papasan Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
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Why You Should Write A Book
Honorée Corder is a strategic book coach and the author of more than 50 books, including You Must Write a Book, Vision to Reality, The Successful Single Mom book series, and The Divorced Phoenix. She is also Hal Elrod’s business partner in The Miracle Morning bestselling book series. Honorée provides group and one-on-one strategic book coaching to business professionals who want to write, publish, and market their books to bestseller status, create a platform, and develop multiple streams of income. She also does all sorts of other magical things, and her badassery is legendary.
James Taylor interviews Honorée Corder and they talk about why you should write a book.
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at James taylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, it's James Taylor here and delighted to welcome today Honorée Corder. She is a strategic book coach and the author of more than 50 books including you must write a book vision to reality, the successful single mom book series and the divorce Phoenix. She is also how l rose business partner in the Miracle Morning best selling book series. Honorée provides group and one on one strategic book coaching to business professionals who want to write publish and market their books to bestseller status, create a platform and develop multiple streams of income. She also does all sorts of other magical things. And our badassery is legendary, and it's my great pleasure to have Honorée join us today so welcome
Honorée Corder thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be with you and that's a mouthful
James Taylor so share with everyone what's going on in your world just now
Honorée Corder I'm in the process of moving from Austin, Texas to Nashville, Tennessee. I have my next book with the advanced reader team we just launched two Miracle Morning books my daughter graduated from high school we're adopting a puppy and we're homeless right now other than that nothing
James Taylor I'm using music cities magnets for you Do you find being in those those kind of environments those types of cities have strong music elements is that conducive to your creative process?
Honorée Corder I'm I'm an introvert. So my creative processes whatever coffee shop or couch I'm situated on, but yes, I like to meet other creative people. I'm married to someone in the music business. So we tend to live where there is music.
James Taylor So take take us back, where did it all begin for you? Where did becoming a writer becoming an author start?
Honorée Corder Um, it be. It started when I met Mark Victor Hansen other conference and I was sitting in the back of the room taking notes from all the speakers and he came to the back and of course, I knew who he was right? Chicken soup, co creator, and he said, I mark and I said, I know and I introduced myself and he said, Oh, honoree, what do you do? And I said, Oh, I'm a coach and a speaker and I was so proud of myself. And he said, Oh, yeah, so everyone's a speaker. And he said, You must write a book. And I said, Okay, I don't know anything about that. And he said, Well, do you have a speech that you give that's popular? Yes. Write that down. That's your first book. Use that and turn that into your first book. And that's what I did. And when that happened, I neither considered myself or Writer, nor an author, nor legit author, nor a capital W writer, like none, none of that was right in my head. I wasn't like, Oh, of course I have a degree in journalism or English. Like there was. There was no, there was nothing that prepared me for that moment, but I took his words to heart. And I heard that that, yes, there was the difference. The differentiating factor for me could be having a book and it was, and I'm so glad that I took that advice.
James Taylor So from getting that advice from from Mark, how long before the book was out? Was there a prolonged period of time or was it was a pretty quick process?
Honorée Corder It was very quick. So I met him in October, and my book was out by the following April,
James Taylor as quick so when you first published because, you know, you work a lot now, especially in Canada, more than independent publishing or self publishing, printing how you describe it was that very first book self publishing. Do you go with a publisher? Oh, yes,
Honorée Corder I'm so I did not consider myself a writer. And there was there didn't even entertain the thought, which I think most people do. Right? When they're, I'm going to write a book, I'll get an agent and I'll try to sell it to a publisher never even crossed my mind to do that. And I just had I had friends who had self published books, and like, I knew James Belen check living in Las Vegas. I knew him a little bit. And I had made friends with a couple of other authors and they were doing independent publishing and it never occurred to go the traditional route.
James Taylor And so is that more from a sense of speed just kind of wanting out there? Or are you are you a control freak? You love just being everything? What was it that drove you to be self published?
Honorée Corder Oh, it's, it's much different than that. It was really I didn't think anyone would have me never even occurred to me that I would have something to say that someone would want to buy.
James Taylor Now you see this today having authored more than 50 books, including one of the biggest stories?
Honorée Corder I know, well, we all start somewhere, right? And so that's the that's the, the The reason I share that is because we all have that Gremlin, right, the person on our shoulder that says, oh, but nobody wants to hear that. Ever. You know, there, there are so many books on the topic that you want to write on. Why would anyone want to hear what you have to say I publish the book because I intuitively knew instinctively knew and strategically knew that having a book would be a good way for me to engage clients, but it did not occur to me to try to take it big time as it were. Now,
James Taylor yeah, I mean, and as you were writing that very first book, so you had those you know, the, you know, that that Gremlin you had some of the imposter syndrome type thing kind of going on in the darkest Days of going through that and working on that book and all the edits and everything. What pulled you through what took you to the point and just kind of getting getting through and getting the book out?
Honorée Corder Well, you're making it sound so fancy I didn't I was supposed to be editing. There are so many things I didn't know with that first book. And I wish I'd had someone like me to consult with or talk to or who had a book that I could have followed the independent publishing this Keep in mind, this is 2004 that this this is the timeframe. So independent publishing was not even a thing that people like self publishing was a dirty word like you went and washed your mouth out with soap after you said it. Back in the day and still a little bit today, not as much, but back then I didn't know to have an editor or proofreader. I wasn't talking myself through the process. I literally sat down and wrote the first draft of the book. Be in in the, in the form of my speech, I didn't know any better. So I took a speech I had written, which was linear and progressive. And I wrote that down. I sat at my computer for three straight days and just typed it out. It's 45 minutes speech took me several days to type, I'm not sure why. And then I was so over it, that I didn't touch it again for a few months. And then I called a friend of mine who had published a book traditionally, and in the business realm, and I said, I'd like to hire you as my coach. And I don't know what I don't know. Can I send you what I have? And he said, Well, I don't know. I don't know what to charge you. I don't really do this. That's not really my thing. Send it over. And I think underneath all of it was, what if it sucks and I have to tell her so, so I send it off over email. And we had scheduled a call and I was all excited because it's Friday, it's time for my coaching. Call. With my coach, and I get on the phone and he was like, hey, it's really good. And he couldn't, he didn't or couldn't or wouldn't disguise the other shock. He was feeling that it was actually not that bad in its current state. And that was the beginning of that, of that process for me like, Okay, what do I do next? Why I need a book cover. So I'll have someone design it and that someone wasn't necessarily a graphic designer, so it was terrible. And then I put a copy of the book out and then I met Jeffrey Gitomer, who has written many books in the sales field and he saw my book and I had quoted him in my book and he said, Oh, this this book this your writing is pretty good. But this is terrible. This is awful. Book was terrible. Whatever the format, I mean, I mean, he was just and thankfully I didn't hear you are horrible. I just heard this as hard
James Taylor as it was working on The crop so you so you
Honorée Corder didn't take it personal note I didn't hear Andre You're terrible I heard this book is terrible some people hear you're terrible when someone says their book isn't well done, which isn't correct.
James Taylor So you had that kind of coach or be a reluctant coach if us to help you with that book. Now you're really known today as well as being being an author also being a strategic book coach. So explain to me because we hear these different terms we hear like, you know, you know, editors and coaches but you know, you're very, very keen on this, this phrase, strategic book coach, how is that different from any other type of coach?
Honorée Corder Well, so I did a, I did business coaching and executive coaching for a long time. A coach's job is to bring out the best in their clients and get them from point A, which is where they are to point B where they want to go, I understand the coaching process and did that for a very long time with business professionals of all time. disciplines. When I started publishing and publishing prolifically right at nine to 15 bucks a year, some of my professional clients said, well, should I have a book too? And I'd say, Oh, sure. And can we work on that? Also, why not? So I would walk them through the process. And as I started to hit, you know, the 20s, and the 30s, in the 40s, with my books, and I just am working on book 51. Right now. I have a process, that's soup to nuts. And the strategic part comes in, because you have to know what the book is meant to do for you. And you have to know what the book is meant to do for the reader, among other things.
James Taylor So that very, very, very first conversation you're having is, what is the being a fly on the wall of those chairs, first kind of conversations, what's being said, What are the what are the concerns, what are maybe some of the misconceptions that you have to maybe help That person with an exploring themselves?
Honorée Corder Sure. So it's Do you really want to book? Or is it a romantic idea? Right? What do you really want to book because it's there are easier ways to spend your time. More fun ways to spend your time and then what do you want the book to do for you? What's in it for you? That's my very first question is what do you want the book to do for you? And if you want to be Hallo rod, then look elsewhere. Right? Because there's only one you there's no other Tony Robbins. There's no other Hello, Rod. So it's where does the book fit into your life and your business? And what do you want your book to do for your life and your business? And also, ultimately, what do you want the book to do for your reader? What do you want the reader to do as a result of reading your book? What do you want the reader to not do as a result of reading your book? And that informs and influences the different pieces and parts of the book itself? What does the book look like within the book in addition to just the manuscript, there are so many other parts and pieces of a book when it's done well, that are strategic.
James Taylor And what the big gap. So once as people kind of thinking through this, you get a sense, okay, they really this is they want this is not just like a nice thing to have or something that, you know, kind of fancy they've hadn't had they really want this, then and you've worked out that what role the book plays in their life and in their business, and then you worked out what value is going to provide to the to the reader what that gap or those gaps exist between where that person is, and where they want to get to where are the biggest gaps? Does it tend to be more around the craft of the writing? Or is it the marketing or is just unsure about you know, the distribution process where the big gaps
Honorée Corder are? You mentioned them so there's the How do I get what's in my head out of my head and on paper? And is it valuable to the reader? How do I make it valuable to the reader? Do I write it myself? Do I hire a ghostwriter Do I have a content person? Then how do I make the book readable? How do I make it excellent, because you most likely have some sort of degree. And that degree is what people that is what they pay you for your area of expertise. So you're not going to, you know, you wouldn't trust a doctor who had gone to the, you know, University of the blah, blah, blah.
James Taylor We apologize, anyone who's listening who has gone to the University of blah, blah, blah, we apologize. Yes,
Honorée Corder I am Dr. So and so from the University of blah, blah, blah, calm, and you would say, I think I will go to a trusted medical professional. Therefore, you don't want to go to the University of book writing.com blah, blah, blah. That is that is lower than your professional standard. You want to have the same professional standard for your book that you do for your business. And so that's very important. And how do you make sure that it does resemble? In my words, traditional publishing? Because traditional publishing tends to have the same standard as one would have for their business? And how do you get there? Who are the people that you need to hire? How do you know who they are? How do you know how much to pay them or not to pay them? How do you know if they're any good at what they do? There's a bunch of people you need to produce your book. And then you need to actually publish your book, where do you do that? And how do you do that? Right? And then how do you market your book? When when does marketing take place? Hint forever? It's started yesterday and and goes until you die. Those right that's, that's marketing phase one and two. And then what you know, what are the different ways that you can turn your book into multiple streams of income? So what else can you do with the contents of your book once you've flushed out this great wealth of knowledge that you're walking around with it people will pay you for you can repurpose that content. And so what are the best ways to repurpose that content and all of that is missing. And I didn't even talk about launching the book, there is a specific way to launch a book so that it sells forever online, specifically Amazon, but at the other platforms as well. There's a there's a, you know, there's a way there's a way to do it. And there's a way to not do it. And I see people doing it in a way that is a Dutch is detrimental to their book rather than good for their book.
James Taylor Now, part of your genius, I think, is that you mentioned they start big Mark Victor Hansen, and obviously with with Hal Elrod as well, is his idea of writing in IndyCar Series. So I'm quoting you when you're getting going in you have this new idea, or you're always thinking, how could this be a 10 book series or is it what is that where does that because that's that that is I guess that is also moving from the tactical to the strategic As well, sure so
Honorée Corder my first book series was mine, it was the successful single mom. And when I wrote the successful single mom, I had an idea that I would write a book to solve the common problems single moms have, and have the six books which I wrote. The reason that I partnered with how is twofold one, because I was a good person and wrote him a five star honest review. Because I don't honestly I don't leave reviews unless I can leave a four or five star review for an author
James Taylor and also do authors do read those reviews, they read all
Honorée Corder three of them and other and other and other potential readers read those reviews also. So if you are if you are a good person, leave a good review for your favorite author. And two, because I had a series so I decided that I needed to start leaving more reviews for other authors because I have a philosophy and part of that philosophy is that you give away What you want more of and I wanted more book reviews and I realized I wasn't reviewing books. So part of the reason I work with Hal is because I left a review for him. And the other part is because when he looked at my review, he realized I had a series and he wanted one. I see rather Ah,
James Taylor I didn't realize that I didn't realize that was an older thing. So how had he written the Miracle Morning? First already? And then he's with you and then then it can that that will fit now and I'm wondering then when you when the sample of successful single mom, did you have, you know, all six ideas, you know, kind of just like you had them in your head or you can get mapped out or what was it very much okay, I have these first two ones. I think this is going to be a series.
Honorée Corder Well, I didn't book series wasn't in my head. I was just trying to be the most helpful to my reader. I'd like to say that I was the strategic genius and thank you for using that word earlier. I'd like to say that I just kind of sit up here and just throw it And they're all brilliant and amazing. But really, I didn't think anyone was going to read the successful single mom, then some people read it. And they started writing and asking me questions. So then I was doing a blog in conjunction with it and writing for Huffington Post, and realize that there was an opportunity for me to turn my knowledge I was writing from a place of, I've been there, I've done that. And I figured out what works for me, let me share it and see if it will work for you, which is one of the two places that I suggest someone can write from, which is the place of expertise, which is I figured it out. So here's my formula, or in the case of Napoleon Hill, the reporter, yeah, I haven't quite figured it out. But let me go interview a whole bunch of people who have and then I'll report that and that can also be a book. So if someone is wondering, oh, Do I have enough knowledge or experience? Well, maybe you don't, but you can also gather that and then share it with other people. That's another option.
James Taylor I love You work with are in more in that kind of there are that kind of expert. They're there. They're the business professional. They're the speaker, they can have seen as being, you know, maybe a leader in their field in their industry. And I'm guessing with them when you even if you if you have a conversation about book series, it must come up like, what is the first book? What is the first domino? Do they want to have so much in the head?
Honorée Corder Sure, yes. Well, they all have that first book that they want to write. Most people come to me because they have an idea in their head. I'll give you an example, if I may. Phil Hellmuth, who just won his 15th poker World Series of Poker bracelet, just not very long ago, came to me and wanted to write hashtag positivity. It was his philosophy, part of his philosophy as a human. And it wasn't very long into the project when he shared that he had an idea to go further with positivity. So positivity has been released and it's out there. Now that he's won this next bracelet, it's very probable that we'll start working on the next book in that series. And it will become not just one book, but two books, and then on and on from there,
James Taylor and then the merchandise Siri.
Honorée Corder There's all these opportunities. And that's why asking the, the pre questions is so important, James, right. Well, it's not just blood, okay, here's my book. And I do have people who reach out to me and say, Okay, my manuscript is almost done. And my English teacher from 10th grade is going to edit it and it'll be ready to go, what do I do now and I say, pump the brakes and get on my calendar. Because we want to make sure that the manuscript that you think is almost finished is actually almost finished and it's going to do for you and your reader, everything that you have in mind and some things that you don't know to think of quite yet.
James Taylor So what would the honoring of Today say to that array back then on that was just starting to write that very first book. What advice? Would you give that? That maybe bright? Perhaps they were just getting started?
Honorée Corder Well, I would, I would send her a copy of my book, you must write a book. And I would say, because we know each other really well, when you have questions you can call me. Um, I would say that you, gosh, you know, you're gonna look out girlfriend in a lot of ways. But there are a lot of things that you're going to do wrong right now. And by wrong, I mean ineffective, right. There's effective and ineffective as a coach. I don't live in the world of good bad, right or wrong, I'd say either effective or ineffective. And there are a lot of things that I did that were ineffective. And there were some things that I intuitively did that were effective. I would tell her to write that first book and then immediately start writing the second Because the first book was tall order published in 2005, early 2005 the second book was the successful single mom published in 2009. There was a gap of time there because I didn't think I was an author. I wasn't a writer. But then I had the next idea and I decided to pursue it and because I'd already done it once before, I was like our our topic.
James Taylor So I'm guessing I mean, that was the value of of bringing in a coach yourself and bring it because you can say it's not just like, okay, here's what to do is also here's what not to do. Because you have, you've got those battle scars, you've gone down some of those roads and, and and you kind of understand where that person what their, their mission, what their objective is in writing the book and where they're coming from. And you can see for you, me, you mentioned just that you're the expert of the reporter model, perfect example. You can understand Yeah, this is where this person is, this is where this person can give the most to the reader to the world and themselves. And this is this is the this is the path We're gonna go down to this Yes.
Honorée Corder Yes What what to do what not to do and where does it fit in? Is this the right time? Is this the right book? Is this the right title? Is this the right subtitle? Does the book have the right contents? Do you have the right metadata? I mean all of the things I talked to someone the other day, I was like, Look, the book is very simple on the inside, you could redo it and make it more complex but it's doing what you want it to do for you. So why do that? Just write your next book? That was someone who wanted to hire me to redo his book and I said I don't think that's a wise business decision.
James Taylor Now someone this obviously 51st book is about to come out. Tell us you know, what is your What is your your ritual? Yeah, are you you know, get you get your writing done in the morning kind of get it done and then then you head out or, or has it changed over the years do you do work in batches? What would what is a day or a week of writing look like for you?
Honorée Corder I from six or 630 to seven or 730 every day, it's the summer my daughter graduated from high school. So I let myself sleep in that extra half an hour. The days that I didn't, I really regretted it. I always have a list of books that I'd like to write. And outlines and ideas that I'm working on. It's just a matter of picking one particular project. And then I write that that hour is inviolate. For me, I put in my headphones, I'm on the couch, I've got a cup of tea and a cup of coffee, and a bottle of water. There's no reason for me to be disturbed. And I just put my head down and I write whatever I'm writing.
James Taylor And you tend to stay writing on that same project until completion or do you take it until you get closer until
Honorée Corder it until it goes to the editor. And then while that book is at the editor, I'm working on the next one,
James Taylor got it. And in terms of tools is there a particular tool that you like to use to write with it like a like an Scrivener or all the things that you'll find very useful in terms of the researching stages for your book.
Honorée Corder I am a Microsoft Word girl I tried Scrivener. My assistant uses Scrivener. So technically, technically my team uses it but not me. I use Dragon Dictate a little bit. In Grammarly. Grammarly is worth its weight in gold, Grammarly the app and I suggest the professional version that you install on your computer and it edits everything that you're typing. And just one tip for people when they're writing is when after I'm finished with the book when the book is done and I'm doing my review of the book, I go through the book again. And then I go chapter by chapter and I take the chapter and I paste it into Grammarly and I let it flush out for me which words are my crutches you've used? Absolutely Li 17 times chapter, maybe choose another word on array. Okay, bye.
James Taylor That's you. That's your the written equivalent of a verbal tic, I guess you came back time and time. It's an easy, it's an easy one to go. So I actually haven't used them. I've used another one called Hemingway app, which I think is a very simple type version, but but I love them and, and it really does kind of the first couple times you do it, it's pretty appalling. I find myself
Honorée Corder just like, yes, it's just like when I work with any new author, I will say when you get your book back, it will look like a crime scene. You're going to turn in this beautiful manuscript that you think is finished, and you're going to get that paper that you got back in high school, right with the A plus written in red pencil with the 100 on it and a smiley face. That's what we're thinking when we turn into manuscripts and what we get back is an F it looks like someone playing up in red pen on your manuscript and that's, that's the editors job, the editors job is to take it and make it clean, make it a clean, easy read for the reader.
James Taylor Now we're going to have a link to your book, especially, you must read a book. We'll talk about that in just in just a minute as well. But if there was one other book that you have to recommend it could be on the craft of writing or the business or writing or even just something to get people inspired that they can do it. What would that book be?
Honorée Corder I'm gonna go off the reservation a little bit and recommend you are a badass by Jensen cero.
James Taylor I think I've actually read this one as well. Yes, I think it was. Yeah, yeah. She's, we actually had her on the show on my podcast, as well. She was incredible. Incredible. Yes. So
Honorée Corder I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge fan of Jensen cero and then relentless by Tim Grover, relentless by Tim Grover is what I listen to when I'm running on the treadmill and I'm not feeling it. I will Put that on and he's like a cleaner doesn't quit a cleaner gets going. I'm like, Okay, okay, I'm gonna do so I listen to those audio.
James Taylor Great. We'll put we'll put we'll put the links for those as well. And I can find a question for you. I want you to imagine you woke up tomorrow morning and all 5051 books have disappeared. Your your Amazon record is unknown. You're unknown as a writer, you have to start again. What would you do? How would you restart but thankfully, you're going to have I'm going to give you all the skills and all the talents that you have as a writer.
Honorée Corder Um, I would just write my next book. Yeah, get it happening. I would just Yeah, I would say okay, what I probably not the best on the planet, so I really like excellent. No need for that bonfire. I would sit down and make A list of what I know what I know for sure. Right. As a writer, what do I know? For sure? What do I know works? What do I know, is at our absolute certains certainties. And then I would write, and I would do it in record time, because I have had situations where I've had to pump out a manuscript in eight or nine days. And I've done it, and I know it can be done. So it wouldn't be before I'd be back
James Taylor Honorée as always an absolute pleasure speaking to you thank you so much for coming on. If people want to just kind of connect with you to learn more about your your coaching, do you do group group coaching you do one on one coaching where's the best place then to go and do that?
Honorée Corder I can find out more on honoreecorder.com for sure and I have a group class coming up in the fall. So they might be interested in that as well.
James Taylor Well, Honorée , it's been a pleasure speaking to you today. Thank you so much for coming on. And I wish you all the best with book 51.
Honorée Corder Thank you so much.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
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CL267: How To Write A Book Proposal with David Allen
30 Jun 2020
00:33:32
How To Write A Book Proposal
How To Write A Book Proposal Interview with David Allen
The work of my guest today has had a profound impact on the lives of many authors, entrepreneurs and creatives, including myself. David Allen is Founder of the David Allen Company and author of Getting Things Done – the Art of Stress-Free Productivity. If you are new to Getting Things Done or GTD, it is a self-management methodology that became a worldwide phenomenon and has helped countless individuals and organizations bring order to chaos. Indeed TIME Magazine called Getting Things Done “the defining self-help business book of its time” and the insights contained within it have enabled many to alleviate feelings of overwhelm and bring greater focus, clarity and creativity to their life and work.
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode. Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode. Hey there, it's James Taylor, and I'm delighted to be joined by the wonderful David Allen. The work of David Allen has had a profound impact on the lives of many authors, entrepreneurs and creatives, including myself. David Allen is founder of the David Allen company and author of getting things done the art of stress free productivity, if you're new to getting things done, or GTD is as often called is a self management methodology that became a worldwide phenomenon and help countless individuals and organizations bring order to chaos. Indeed, time magazine called Getting Things Done the defining self help business book of its time, and the insights contained within it have enabled many to alleviate feelings of overwhelm, and bring greater focus, clarity and creativity to their life and work. It's my great pleasure to have David join us today. So welcome, David.
David Allen Delighted to be here. Thanks for the invitation.
James Taylor So show them what's going on in your world just now. What are you working on,
David Allen we just launched a new book, getting things done for teens, teenagers, staying focused in a distracting world. And that's doing all kinds of interviews and podcasts and things about that. So just helping get that launched. We're also in the process of working on getting things done workbook book, kind of in the genre of, you know, a lot of the Seven Habits workbook and things like that. So, really more focused on Okay, people want to really dig in. And, and here's a real practical how to is about how to get started in applying the methodology. So those are, those are two big projects going on. We're also Consistently refining our global training curriculum. My wife is doing a lot of the heavy lifting on that just graphics and support materials and trademarks on how kinds of things like that. So a lot of stuff going on.
James Taylor So when you when you started on the journey to writing, writing, getting things done, could you ever imagined that it would kind of you'd be one day sitting behind in front of a mountain of translations of your books and writing now for teens and writing for these other groups?
David Allen You know, I've sort of learned a healthy attitude A long time ago about stuff like that have high anticipation, but no expectation. So, you know, so I had a vision, like, wouldn't it be cool if this hit a nerve out there, but I had no idea and I was ready to kind of gird my loins to say, Hey, you know, it's a noisy world. I'm not sure anybody's gonna really kind of catch what this is. And I had a lot of very healthily skeptical people say, gee, David, I don't know if he can put you in a book. And I knew I could translate this methodology with You know, I've spent thousands of hours with some of the best and brightest on the planet, you know, implementing this stuff with them one on one, and certainly having hundreds of thousand people in seminars, you know. So I know that if I had a captive audiences that I could capture them, I wasn't sure that I could put that in a book, or that people could catch it. And then book so I really didn't know I mean, to me, it was a big question mark as to whether I was able to virtualize essentially this methodology and get it in a book. So
James Taylor that took us to the actual process. Then you met you mentioned when you initially kind of went out to the world with this German it's this idea about writing a book about the work that you'd been doing with with clients. How long was that process from you thinking okay, I am going to make this. I want to have a book coming out to the process of actually being in the stores and people being able to read it.
David Allen Well, it was unlike sort of someday maybe list for probably several years. I really pulled to trigger to make it happen from the time I decided, Okay, go on that and start to make it inactive. Make the project active. For years, pretty much. I started in 97 really, and I got on the bookshelves, the beginning of 2001.
James Taylor And that process I would definitely like fiction and nonfiction or fiction, often they'll have to have the whole book written. Did you work on it was creating a book proposal first and then going and speaking with with agents? So what was that process? Like?
David Allen Yeah, I was scratching my head, I had no idea. So I figured, well, I guess I better study how to how to you got to write and sell a book? And what do you do at the time, and I died? Sorry, I don't remember what the books were. But I think at the time, they were three or four books on the market about how to write a book proposal, or how to then write it and sell a book. So I certainly studied all of those. And I'm basically had to create my own version of some sort of a business plan. You know, like, Who's this more what's unique about it? What you know? You know, why would somebody buy this because obviously, if you're trying to get somebody to buy it, to sell it, they're gonna have to trust that they can sell it. And that was an agonizing, but a very fruitful process to go through is write a business plan for your own book. So I did that. I also wasn't sure whether I go right to an editor or publishers because I knew I knew a couple and, or get an agent. And, you know, I made the mistake of actually, you know, sort of contacting a couple of people who were editors are in the publishing business directly themselves. mistake, because I didn't know really how to frame it for them, you know, and so I had a very good friend who was he was in, he was head of adult books for Mifflin in Boston. And he was a client and a good friend. And he said, you know, David, if you're, if you're, if you don't have a name as an author, and your book might have potential, you know, sort of universal appeal or national appeal. He didn't say International, but if it wasn't like a niche, like the the, the retirement of green Eskimos, you know, I don't know, if, if you've got a really niche topic, you probably need to find the niche publisher that that, you know, we'll do that and you'd probably go direct to them. So that's what you would do but if it has more universal appeal, then he said get an agent because they're gonna know how to frame this and help you frame it appropriately. You know, and, and make the deal. And he said, By the way, I know a good one happened to be at NEC his next door neighbor, and she was great. And she still is my agent. Now, this was a thing 18 years later, so that was great. And then she, you know, worth every penny and they know that she gets for her 15% Believe me, and if she had been an ex editor in New York anyway, so she knew the world. She knew that world and she knew people that and she was able to prove you know, to do that but funny when I gave her my book proposal Because, you know, I wrote a sample chapter or two, whatever. She said, Well, Who wrote this? I said, Well, what do you mean? Who wrote this? He said, Well, most people in writing business books don't write them. They're ghost written. So she was quite surprised that I actually had that I'd written and I'm, I'm scratching my head cuz I thought you're supposed to write your own book. As naive as I was. So anyway, so she shopped it, we only got one deal, but it turned out to be a great deal. Yeah.
James Taylor For the book, and how different was that the book eventually hit the shelves compared to that initial proposal was it? Was it like pretty much there? Just it was just kind of tweaked around the edges? Or was it really a big difference in the in the final product?
David Allen Now? Yes, and no, there's kind of a there's kind of a both answers to that. Because, well, the methodology I knew, and I knew it backwards and forwards because I've been doing it for 35 years or 30 years by that point. And so I knew what it is that I wanted to communicate. What I didn't know was how to put it in a book form. So it took, it took a while, took the first year to just sort of get the deal and sort of craft the thing and set it up. And it took the second year to write the first draft. And the first draft didn't work. Because I wrote the first draft, like I delivered a seminar. And on a pretty linear format doesn't work. I want this, this just isn't quite the way it really ought to be. And I had sort of the dark night of the soul, oh my god, I spent all this time and this is not as good as it really ought to be because I was putting this as a bit of my life work, or at least my professional life work that I put into this book. And I literally just threw it away and wrote another draft.
James Taylor So was there ever a point in that process where you just actually said to yourself, I think I could do I'm gonna have to give give the you know, if it was in advance, give the advance back and just know you knew that you were certain you have a obviously good at training and working with clients and consulting and speaking but was there ever a point you said, Listen, maybe this Isn't it to me? I don't
David Allen know, I there was certainly a point where I thought, I don't know if I can do this. I don't think I ever thought I would give up. But I, you know, I guess one of the problems is, is that one of the first thing actually, maybe the first thing I wrote, when I sat down to start to craft, this whole idea was I wrote the reviews. And you know that because I'm a firm believer in sort of affirmation, thinking and visioning, thinking and knowing that, you know, if you set something up like that, internally, you know, you You're, you're gonna perform and perceive things differently. And that's the problem is that those reviews, it's not, and I and I even wrote who wrote the reviews, but not that they did, and they weren't exactly the reviews that showed up. But what that did was it raised the bar, and inside of me about the quality of the book, and that's why the first draft didn't work, because I wrote it again, like I do a seminar and that's not the way people really need to read a book. And there were three things that I really wanted to dress or that I wanted to deal with that about this methodology. First of all, I wanted people to just understand kind of what the methodology was itself. And then if people were interested in implementing it, I wanted to give them the How to kind of the specifics about how you actually go about this. And the third, and probably most important thing was I wanted to communicate the, the, And oh, by the way, the cool stuff that really happens when people actually implement this seemingly simple methodology, how transformative it can be, both for individuals and for organizations. And, you know, I could get all that out. If I had people for a two day seminar, I could kind of, you know, I could weave weave it all that stuff through but couldn't do it on a book and not just a linear format I In other words, I had my first draft, people would read it and they went, Oh, my God, David, you nailed me in the first paragraph. But it took four chapters for me to find out how to do it. And so well, that doesn't work. So again, it's kind of the dark night of the soul. One of my big epiphany was okay, David write in three parts. So the first part was a quick overview of the methodology. The second part was, by the way, if you want to implement this, here's the how to use third part was the old by the ways. And that really worked. But it took about a year to do it. So, you know, so I just threw away the first draft I just wrote in a whole nother draft took another year to do that. And, you know, we're at, you know, very cooperative editor and publisher. This was penguin Viking. Janet Goldstein, at the time was my editor. She was fabulous. A great coach. Fabulous on this very light touch with me. But just some of the great little tweaks about how to reach people through a book. Cuz people in a book, you know, you kind of have to it's sort of armchair stuff. somebody sitting in an armchair. You know, how do you reach them in a way that they're not sitting in a seminar. They're not, they're not they haven't hired you as a coach to sit with them at their desk.
James Taylor And it's a very different game. You can move on from that kind of guy. I know you do a lot of speaking keynote, speaking moving from that sage on the stage, the guide on the side and kind of walking them through that. One of the things that I love about the book is you mentioned it that the seven habits, you know, the great Stephen Covey book. And one thing I think your book shares with that is, it's, it's a perennial as a client as a classic. And this is I guess, this, I want to how you kind of resolve this because I'm wondering at certain points, you might have had some people kind of pushing you saying things like, Okay, what tool what, gadget what, you know, widget Should I buy in order to do this? And you felt you very much you left those things out in the book, there's obviously a community that can build around that. But was that was that quite a definite decision that you made? Thinking about? How can this book last for a long time and I think that's something a lot of writers can struggle with, especially in the kind of writing in the kind of business area two or three things ways
David Allen to answer that. First of all, we did want to try to make it as evergreen as public So that it wasn't outdated. So we went through the book, the first draft of the book anyway, several times to try to pull out all the business buzzwords and anything that was particularly time based. You know, it's So to your point about the technology I did mention in the first in the first edition now, you know, I wrote the new edition and Britain for 2015. You know, getting things done. And one of the things I did was take out a lot of the references in the new addition to technology I actually talked about in the first edition, Lotus Notes and Microsoft and palm pilots and so forth. And, you know, you're probably not old enough to remember a Palm Pilot. And, and so, you know, that ultimately was going to date it. Not only that, you know, once GTD kind of hit as a meme out there in the tech world, you know, at last count, there were over 300 apps that had been built around it now. They're coming out every week, because people read the book, or they get the idea of GTD, they said, well, all I need are lists. And so there's they're all just list managers. But they're, they're changing so rapidly, people say what's the best tool, I say whatever tool you'll use, you know, and it's it because it's actually tool agnostic, you do need a tool, because it's a lot about building the external brain and having holders for reminders, you know, of the of your commitments, you know, in multiple forms. So you do need some sort of external, you know, form and form and format. But any of them will do any kind of a list manager, whether that's low tech, you know, just file folders with data in them or mid tech, where you're just using a loosely planner, you know, pages that are loosely planner, or now high tech, you can use anything, any of the high tech apps that make that make lists, you can do and there's so I didn't want to get people too wrapped around the tool because people didn't get focused on the tool, not the methodology, if you don't get them. If you don't get the methodology, no tool will work.
James Taylor Yeah, if you get the methodology, you may get it to work, but Well, I think fascinating is there was very much I was speaking to Eric Reese recently about the lean startup and you He said, You know, he, how quickly a community started to kind of build up not necessarily by him putting out there. But I sense with looking at, like, if I look at GTD today, there's all these threads on these forums everywhere about how people are using it and talking about how they're applying the methodology. And I think that's great because that in and wait, you've got the core of the thing there. But you've got these communities, new people are kind of coming to all time new people, they're, oh, I've seen a new way that I can apply this, you know, with artificial intelligence nowadays. So you've got all those things starting to come into it as well.
David Allen Yeah, that's true. But again, most people who don't quite get the methodology, it's a lot more. It's a lot more subtle than the simplicity of the model may may indicate. And if you don't really get it, and you keep falling off the wagon, you think the new new is going to help you get back on and so where's the new new cool thing? that'll really get me make me get it to work? And wrong answer. Yeah, no, that's not that. That's That's the new new thing. Yeah, there is to some degree of cool tool helps, you know, because they'll give you more motivation to do it. I know when I first got a Palm Pilot in a way back in the mid 90s I thought wow, that was really cool just because it looks so cool on a dark bar, you know, just great to have a you know, and to learn the graffiti, it was really fun that in your pocket, you know, the form factor was great, you know, and it was kind of a new thing to have something that essentially that simple but that that was that was that functional, you know, in the in you know, as a digital tool. And so just having a cool tool can really help but any tool will work as long as as long as you're working. And then you as you start to kind of pivot to then marketing getting out there marketing and kind of selling the book. Obviously you have an interesting model because you a little bit like the covey thing as well.
James Taylor You have a whole training business behind that book as well. So I wonder when you first kind of went out to the book, what what did that marketing plan kind of look like who were the people that you knew you wanted to be the early adopters to it? And then how has that evolved over the years? Because GTD is a because it is a perennial. I'm guessing you're continually doing interviews like this, you're doing things all the time where you're, you're talking about it. So I'm wondering, what is a marketing plan look like for a classic? Well,
David Allen I can't say that I had a marketing plan as kind of follow my nose and you know, see who wants it and go there, you know, so, you know, and even back then the, you know, the publishing world was pretty much deer in the headlights about how to do this. And, you know, not not a whole lot of money was thrown after, they only threw money after good money. You know, if it only if the book worked, but to try to get it to work. Yeah, you know, the penguin wound up, you know, creating radio tour interviews and things like that. Not a lot. And they set up a few, you know, book, signings and so forth and some of the bigger, some of the bigger markets and bigger bookstores. But they're what really wasn't Much of a plan, the My plan is basically been, you know, pretty much take advantage of any invitation I get to talk about it. You know, so I haven't, you know, kind of time, I think I actually added up, I've averaged one podcast and interview a week for 17 years. So, you know, and they are they still keep coming. It's still, you know, talking to you right now. So they're still and of course with the new book for teens that just came out getting things done for teens, you know, that's, you know, so I'm on lots of interviews about that. So so but I just take take advantage of all of those. I you know, my mission is basically to get this to as many people on the planet as might want it. So why in turn any that down there couple I turned down because there's a sleaze factor, a little sleaze factor that seems obvious if you go, you know, they're either trying to make a whole lot of money off of it, trying to build off my brand, you know, and, you know, those kind of images Sort of filter a couple of those out but I probably turned out 515 years. Remember a point in the launch of the book when the book was kind of getting out there people start talking about you know, a kind of seminal point when you felt this is really getting traction now. So this is this is really moving. No, I don't think there was any one. I don't think there was any one point you know, they in the US anyway, they consider it a best seller if you sell 60,000 books in a year, in the first year in the in the nonfiction world, and it hit that mark. So that was pretty much an indicator and with the fact that that penguin or Viking kept it in hardback for a second year. Which your first hurdle is to get them decide they want to go to paperback and the second one is, or the second thing is, if it's even better than that is they'll keep it in hardback because I make more money off the hardback sales. As soon as it's out in paper, those things diminish, you know, tremendously. So those were indicators that at least in terms of the publishing world, they thought this was doing pretty well and I had been You know, I had been invited, there'd been a couple of fairly interesting business articles written about me. And as they're getting this methodology, we didn't call it getting things done back then, because we didn't call it getting things done until the book was out, because that was the title of the book. And so there was some press that I already had my my name had some brand anyway, Fast Company had done to do a couple of different articles about my stuff. Stuart, also, you know, who was writing for Forbes the time, you know, took a seminar mine and so his next column, he sort of wrote how you know how cool this was that he went to this thing. And it was funny in my seminar, he one of his projects was he had to write the next column. So, somehow, I made it and he's a bit of a curmudgeon. he's a he's a great guy, you know, he really likes to read a lot. And, and but he wrote some very glowing words. About Me and that, that because of just his leverage, and then the his name, that kind of spread. And because I was in the Fast Company articles, I've got Fast Company was doing conferences around the US and I was speaking at several of those. So I had a bit of a little bit of traction already, even before the book came out. So once it did and by the way, the other answer to that point was we did target this to the fast track professional. You know, and because it is it's, it's, it's universal, I mean, even back then, you know, I knew this worked for students, it worked for clergy, it worked for physicians, it worked for accountants, it worked for stay at home dads. I mean, it worked for anybody that's got a busy life. They need to keep track of their stuff. But the the fast track professionals were right about them late 90s were getting hit with a tsunami of email. And they were the ones who also had, you know, training budgets and coaching, you know, consulting budgets, you know, behind them. So that was just the sweet spot really for, you know, for inserting this. So it really looked that way. That's why the second edition that that, you know, I wrote in 2015, very much expanded, people say, well, what's changed a lot of what changed, which is the breadth of the market,
James Taylor and that that fast track professional Did you as you were writing the book, were you very conscious of that, you know, the Stephen King? Was he like the ideal reader in your head? Or was it something was that more kind of just kind of out there? You weren't thinking about it so much.
David Allen I wasn't thinking about it that much. But that was my experience was with that, that group. So all my experience has been a 95% of my experience with this methodology was without audience so you knew all those cookers, they'd been at your seminars, you knew all those kind of follow up questions or the gaps that they would, you'd want to ensure that you were covered in the book.
James Taylor Yeah. And then you've just written this, this one for teens. Now. I'm interested. What kind of you probably get asked this all the time about tools, but I'm interested in in terms of tools for writing Do you still you still make much a Microsoft kind of person do you some some other kind of tool that you find a useful for your researching in your writing stages
David Allen I word guy from day one. I've tried a number of things, outlining programs and so forth. And even in the early days tried the outlining function in Word, but it was way too complicated and technical for me to work with, I found the best thing to do when I was writing something, you know, fairly significant, like a book, I found it was best to just build two Word documents. One of them was the outline, and the other was the text. So instead of trying to use both those within the same document, I just made two documents. And it was much easier to then function that way to just create a kind of a working outline that I could throw ideas on to that. And then on the other one, I would start writing text because I tend to think while I'm writing text, so you know, I don't really pre think a whole lot of this stuff. I just need to get started and then see how it flows and see where it goes. You know, thank God for word processor. So you know You know, I still remember the days of hunting and pecking and and erase tape, you know, yeah. You know, handwriting was was much easier than then than that but, you know, that's why that's why word and you know the word processing app, you know, and functionality itself was a game changer.
James Taylor And as you can travel around the world just speaking or doing book signings as well, you come across many authors who kind of come to you who are using who use GTD to allow them to kind of get get more writing done as well. I mean, I use GTD I've been for a long long time. And I'm one of the few I was kind of gone from the very kind of techie kind of using certain tools to that to actually I now just use, you know, sheets and blankets again, and with all my lessons, this methodology is the same. And I I can I'm working on a one of my someday maybe projects is now moving into an actual project with lists as well. But I want to come across many authors who are Especially people that come from that professional world, or maybe now moving into the world of writing. And speaking of making that transition and applying the methodology to to their writing,
David Allen I can't say that I can remember anybody specifically saying they were doing that. I've certainly had, you know, thousands of people in my seminars, and I'm sure there have been people out there doing that in anybody who gets GTD, getting things, GTD is nothing but just being highly efficient with an effective with how you think through something and actually make it actually happen and how you execute on everything. So, yeah, I mean, the whole process of outcome and action, what am I trying to produce? What would my wild, what would wild success for this look like? And then you, you know, then you brainstorm, you know, all the potentially relevant stuff that might be relevant to it, then you organize all of that, then you come up with the components and then next actions on the moving parts. I mean, come on. That's how you get out of the room. That's how we talk. So getting things done was I didn't make that up. I just recognized what we do when things really work. really well, and the most optimally efficient way to think through something. So you're not wasting mental energy. Somebody, you know, probably accurately described GTD as lean for the brain, you know, the idea of no waste. Yeah. So don't have a thought twice, don't lose any good thinking. And then make sure that you're accessing all potentially relevant information for that. So the natural planning model that I talked about in chapter three of the book, you know, how do I think through a situation? You know, what's the purpose of it? What are the principles that I need to adhere to while I'm doing this? And what's what would wild success look like? That automatically creates a cognitive dissonance if a wild success is not what you currently have. When you say, Well, what if? So, I have the why and then I have the what but now what's the how and the How comes in two parts? You know, how Part one is just is just brainstorm. Oh my God, we need to think about that. Well, here's an idea. Well, you know, I could, we could do it that way too, and yada yada. So then you want to make sure that that that brainstorming process is for facilitated and rich, and then how Part B is okay, now out of all of that, how do I start to create a coherent structure? You know, out of what that is whether that chapters or sequences stuff for, you know, however you start to structure it, yeah. And then, but then, you know, get going, you can you can actually start this process anywhere to start writing.
James Taylor Yeah, I mean, I think I saw a quote the other day, I think it was, Daniel Pink said he's ewz you just said he's a devout card carrying GTD true believer. And and so he's, you know, this is up as a writer, very kind of prolific writer who can be used as it I don't see in terms of how he uses his writing. He definitely just in terms of being more productive as a human being as a person, in order to be Atlantic can get the work done, he wants to put out into the world.
David Allen Sure. I mean, a lot of what GTD is about is getting giving more space. It's not about time if you more room. So what you do with that room is up to you. What a an artist, you know, musician does with that room has had better song ideas and capture more of them and, you know, produce the songs quicker and faster. You know, somebody else can use more space to think more strategically in terms of their work or their business. Some people certainly writers could use more space call, hey, I need just more room to just do nothing and kind of let them use you know, show up as it does. So, but if you're distracted by two meetings ago, or you you know, or you know, your printers does always out of ink, you forgot to order some more and you know, all kinds of just the ordinariness of life that can then eat you up. You know, that should, you know, but if you don't pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it'll take more of your attention than it deserves. That's a big sort of GTD GTD saying so a lot of what GTD is about is handle all the open loops of your life, put them in, you know, appropriately engage with them. So it gives you clarity of space,
James Taylor and you have that that central point of truth that trusted system in order to get all those things out of the head, they get a brain dump happening as well, which I think is a useful, useful process for any creative person. And if people want to learn more about the the GT D system, where's the best place to go to kind of find out more about it, you obviously mentioned the book, but in a lot of our attendees just now probably got kids, they've got teams, as well. Maybe you kind of want to give them some of that methodology, where's the best place to go to find out all that all that?
David Allen Well, getting things done.com is, you know, our sort of major web website, but we now have a website for the teens, and the team book. So GTD for teens calm is that website, and the book just got launched. So you can get it from all the places you get good books, you know, at least in the in the UK, in the US and the UK is coming really soon. And it's coming really soon in three or four other languages, you know, pretty quick. So yeah, because there's been so much pent up demand. You know, people one of the reasons to write This book for teens was because 30 or even 30 years ago, when I started doing this work, people go God, I wish I'd learned this when I was 12. Right? Or they've got kids that are 12 or 15 or 18. Kids need this. Yeah. You know, as well as me. And I really Yeah, I just didn't know how to reach him because I don't have kids, but I co wrote it with Mike Williams and Mark Wallace. Both of them have kids, you know, and, you know, Mike's got teens himself and has raised them using this methodology. And Mark's a public school teacher and Minneapolis school system. And once he got GTD, he said, God, I can't keep this back for my kids. And so he's teaching, you know, eight 910 year olds, you know, this stuff very successfully. So I there they did really the heavy lifting of how do I, how do we frame this methodology for that next kind of generation. It's still the same methodology and there's the book teams doesn't step it down at all. I mean, you know, a chief executive has to empty their briefcase when they come back from the board meeting and then decide what to do with all that. You know, a 12 year old has to empty their pack. Yeah, when they come home from school, and you know, not let something crawl through in a hole in there that their mom needed to sign three weeks ago.
James Taylor I love that as well the fact that I mean, it makes a little bit of Edward de Bono where there is these different levels that he obviously spoke and he wrote for corporates, you know, many big companies shell BP, we bring him in to work with their top executives. But actually, perhaps the biggest legacy that he will leave is in terms of in kids learning his stuff and education systems, an entire country like Singapore, for example. You know, they've really built a lot of their education system around his his methodology when it comes to creativity. So, so I'm really interested to see how this goes next year, this next step of your journey, maybe you're gonna have entire countries using GTD methodology. I think it'd be a very cool, cool thing to do. That's the mission. Well,
David Allen you know, our mission is that we have have a world where there are no problems only projects. Kids get kids could get there faster than us probably.
James Taylor So well. David has been asked pleasure speaking with you. Again, thank you so much for coming on this and sharing your insights in terms of your writing process and publishing and getting your ideas out to always be in great pleasure talking with you today.
David Allen My pleasure. Thanks for the invitation.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me.
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JD Meier of Microsoft, Productivity Strategies for Success #339
11 Jun 2024
JD Meier of Microsoft, Productivity Strategies for Success #339
Summary
JD Meier, high performance and innovation coach, discusses his focus on using AI to advance high performance and change how the world innovates. He emphasizes the power of one person businesses to impact and influence a billion minds. Meier shares his two-track transformation model for innovation, which involves sustaining innovation in the current business while also working on disruptive innovation for the future. He also highlights the importance of productivity and offers strategies such as setting three wins each day and reflecting on weekly achievements.
Sound Bites
“I’m all about trying to use AI to advance high performance”
“I call it billion dollar solopreneur, not because you’re going to make a billion dollars, but it’s about impacting and influencing a billion minds”
“You have your current business, which is your current business model… and then you have your future business model”
AI can be used to advance high performance and enhance senses
One person businesses have the power to impact and influence a billion minds
The two-track transformation model involves sustaining innovation in the current business while working on disruptive innovation for the future
Productivity strategies include setting three wins each day and reflecting on weekly achievements
JD Meier is a High Performance & Innovation Coach who has 25 years of experience changing the world at Microsoft. JD was the former head coach for Satya Nadella’s innovation team at Microsoft and is also the author of the bestselling book Getting Results the Agile Way. His WHY is to advance human potential and to help people realise their potential in work and life while his specialty is to provide proven practices combined with information models to advance a space. People at Microsoft know JD for innovation, productivity, and changing the world because he always took on big challenges and moved the ball forward.
James Taylor is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, often booked months or even years in advance due to his exceptional expertise. Given his limited availability, it’s crucial to contact him early if you’re interested in securing a date or learning how he can enhance your event. Reach out to James Taylor now for an opportunity to bring his unique insights to your conference or team.
Free 3-Part Video Training Series On How To Unlock Your Creative Potential, Break Down Creative Blocks, and Unleash Your Creative Genius FREE training video shows you how to unlock your creative potential in 5 simple steps. The world’s top creative individuals and organizations use these exact strategies.
jd-meier-the-supercreativity-podcast-with-james-taylor_copy-of-scp339-jd-meier-edit.txt James Taylor (00:08) Meyer is a high performance and innovation coach who has 25 years of experience changing the world at Microsoft. JD was the former head coach at Satya Nadella’s innovation team at Microsoft and is also the author of the bestselling book, Getting Results the Agile Way. His why is to advance human potential and to help people realize their potential in work and life, while his specialty is to provide program practices combined with information models to advance the space.
People at Microsoft know JD for innovation, productivity, and changing the world because he always took on big challenges and moved the ball forward. JD, welcome to the Super Creativity Podcast.
JD Meier (00:48) Wow, that was a great intro. Thank you.
James Taylor (00:51) So share with us what’s going on in your world just now. What currently has your focus?
JD Meier (00:56) Okay. So that’s a great question. AI is definitely top of mind and specifically, I’m, I’m all about trying to use it to advance high performance. I think there’s a lot of tricks and hacks that people haven’t thought about yet specifically about enhancing your senses. And, the other big thing is really, I’m trying to change how the world innovates. I know that might sound audacious, but when I wake up in the morning, I actually ask myself how to want to change the world today. It actually guides a lot of what I do.
And with innovation, I think there’s an incredible, easy way to change how we innovate at the individual level, the team level and the org level. So that’s got my focus. The other big thing I would say is, I call it billion dollar solopreneur. I call it billion dollar solopreneur, not because you’re going to make a billion dollars. You might, but it’s about impacting and influencing a billion minds. I think that we’re in a perfect time and age where the one person business.
can actually share and scale their expertise with the world. And so I’ve been diving into that, looking at it from two perspectives on the, let’s say the left -hand side. The left -hand side is the tech arena. So what can we do with AI, of course? What can we do with social media? And what can we do with SEO? I know a lot of people think, SEO is dead, but not really. SEO, what I found, especially as an innovator, is the best way to figure out the language of your customers and your audience. There’s pains, needs, and outcomes, even if you don’t do SEO.
But so that’s on the tech side. There’s this other side though, this other side of scaling to the world. There’s tools that we have. So for example, there’s a massive transformative purpose. So for example, Nike, you know, just do it. Everybody fights their demons every day, but you get on board with Nike’s bigger mission. Microsoft empower every person in business to achieve more. Again, you know, it’s, it’s bigger than you. When you have something bigger than you, it’s easier to get on board. But there’s also these ideas of like,
simple, sticky slogans, the things that stick in your mind. And if you can create those idea viruses as the one person and then share and scale with the technology, you’re on fuego. So I think now is one of the greatest times ever to be able to change the world as one person. And even though I say one person, it doesn’t mean you’re just one person. You have your friends, your partners, your network, your family, you have your everybody, but it means that you don’t have to go and be part of a giant business to go change the world. I think that’s the key.
James Taylor (03:24) Yeah, we had a guest on the show a little while ago, Elaine Pofeld, who wrote the million dollar one person business. And I interviewed her, actually, and I spoke to her recently, we were doing an event for the New York Public Library together. And she said, if she was to change anything about the book, she said, maybe the one million is too small, because you have people, especially with technology now, that are doing and you see, you look at a number of companies now, I think of especially in the AI space who have very few actual employees.
JD Meier (03:42) It’s too small. Yep.
James Taylor (03:52) but they are billing multi -billion dollar businesses. So maybe the one person billion dollar business is closer than we think just now as well. Yeah. So you’re obviously passionate about productivity, you’re passionate about innovation as well. I thought where we’d go first is, because we’ve had a number of guests on the show recently who have talked about the challenge in being able to do the main…
JD Meier (03:53) Yeah.
Yeah.
It’s a reality. Yeah. And it’s exciting.
James Taylor (04:21) of what that business is about, whether it’s a legal business or it’s a technology business or whatever the business is. And then at the same time, innovating in their industry, innovating in their businesses as well. How do you, you know, those are two wild horses. How do you deal with those horses?
JD Meier (04:37) Yeah. Okay, so great question. It starts, believe it or not, it actually starts with your mental model. I asked an anthropologist long ago, I said, what are the best business leaders do that other business leaders don’t? And the surprise was she said, they share their mental model. I was like, for real? Like, is that really it? And it actually was, because when you don’t share your model as a leader, and you have tens of thousands of people reporting to you,
People guess and they make things up and they try to figure out how to do innovation. So they end up either doing innovation despite the organization rarely with the organization, because they don’t know what it’s supposed to be. So with that in mind, I kept going back through all my experiences, like where did people get stuck? Like why did I call it the innovator gets fired? I call it innovation gets a fired side -liner pushed out. And it’s because they don’t have a space in their mind where innovation goes. So recently I shared the model, but I call it two track transformation.
And the idea is to have a simpler, better metaphor for to do innovation in parallel. But here’s how it works. You have your current business, which is your current business model. It’s your current customers. It’s your current talent. It’s your current products and offers, and it’s your current KPIs. You know that track, but I’m, I’m letting leaders know like, look, that is your sustaining innovation track. That is your 10 % growth. Yes. Take care of it. Good. However, in parallel.
This is where we need to work future back. This is how we avoid getting disrupted. This is how we disrupt ourselves. This is your future business model. This is that second track. This is your disruptive innovation, possibly 70 % growth cumulative over time. This is your different set of talent, because it’s a different type of talent to actually focus on these kinds of things. But the reality is, is you’re stepping into the future. And this is where it’s going to be.
A lot of people get lost because they step in the future. They have no empathy for it. It’s like a stranger. You’re stepping into the future and you’re breaking it down into small business experiments to check value today. You validate value today. So what you’re really doing is you’re not suddenly wildly changing your business. What you’re doing is you’re setting up these two tracks and running them well. Because if you don’t do it like this, what happens is you use your current KPIs against the second track and you break everything. You don’t make space for innovation.
But with this, this two track mindset, with this two track mental model, you have space for both and you can do both well, especially when you recognize that, that first track that’s yeah, we’re doing innovation. Yes. You’re doing sustaining innovation, 10 % growth. Great. Do you want a piece of that 70 % growth? And do you want to have a chance to be able to survive in the future? And do you want to make sure that you’re not the one disrupted or that you disrupt yourself? Yes. Okay. So that model, it’s easy for me to whiteboard it. It lands well with people. People follow it very easily and it.
Usually it can easily get people out of the muck and the mess that they’ve been in going by all these other different, you know, models of innovation and trying to do even something as simple as like an innovation portfolio. As soon as you have those two tracks in your mind, now you know which KPI is to focus on. Now you know why they’re different. It’s intentional. And that basically makes space for the real, cause usually when people are thinking about innovation, they’re thinking about the disruptive stuff.
they’re already doing sustaining, they don’t realize that they’re innovating in their processes and their products. They’re doing that 10 % optimization, but the disruptive innovation is really where the big action is, especially in today’s world where change is so fast. And the other thing I told people do when you’re working backwards from that future to make it real, make your mock press releases, make your one page write -ups of those future scenarios that you want to bring to reality. That
lets everybody feel the future. When you can feel the future and start to create empathy, now you get more stakeholders and sponsorship in the game. And then that’s a good thing. But if we don’t, if we do not make space for this in the minds of the leaders, then there will be a lot of sabotage. Maybe not even on purpose, but it happens. But when you are very deliberate about carving out that space, you could protect and support it. Otherwise the current business.
is going to eat it up, is going to fight for the resources, is going to fight for the money, and it’s going to defeat it with the current KPIs. Does that make sense?
James Taylor (08:58) So you’re building almost like your competitor, your category killer, alongside you’re building the existing business as well. I love the idea of creating those mock -up kind of press releases. I’ve heard authors do that before where they’ve actually written up the reviews of their book before they’ve written the book to give them a sense, what value do I want to have this book? What kind of impact do I want this book to create? So you’re doing that. So that’s really kind of talking about, I guess, imagination.
JD Meier (09:03) Yeah, yeah, -huh.
Yeah.
James Taylor (09:26) and having a depth of imagination. I’m a big critic at the moment for, I see loads of great stuff on Netflix and Apple and all these great TV shows just now. But it feels at the moment when we talk about the future, a lot of the future that we see on TV and in movies is like a post -apocalyptic future. TV shows like Fallout, which are great, which are really fun and everything. But it doesn’t feel like we have so much of that painting that picture of…
JD Meier (09:27) Yes.
Yeah, right. Yep.
Yes.
James Taylor (09:56) a more optimistic future, what that could be and how technology can actually help us get there.
JD Meier (10:00) Yeah. Yep. I agree. And I think we have a deficit when it comes to the visionary leaders that can share that vision. That was actually the instigator of the billion dollar solarpreneur. I realized that people weren’t able to share the big visions. I’m like, you know, where’s the Disney’s? Where’s the Andrew Carnegie’s? Where’s the captains of the industry? And I was lucky to be surrounded by a lot of great people that were very good at articulating a future state. Like you could step into the future and they could connect the dots and they could light up these beautiful scenes of the future.
And it got people excited and inspired. And what I realized was, a lot of people don’t think about the future as this space of creativity and opportunity. They just project more of the past. So their past drives their present. And their present is driving the future, but all driven from the past. When you step out of that and you step into the future for real, but to do this, there’s also, I found that there’s another gap. So.
There’s a skill strategic foresight. It’s actually more popular in Europe than it is in the U S that kind of surprised me. But with strategic foresight, you’re learning about trends, you’re building vocabulary around the trends. So you have all of these little building blocks. So, I have a couple of frameworks that I use, but you know, one of my patterns is I call it the CEO pattern, customers, employees, and operations. You know, how do you transform the customers, the employees, the operations makes the people to realize where to focus their effort. But then the other thing I do.
Is then I would pull in, well, how does mixed reality or augmented reality change the scenario? How does AI change our customer experience? How does, and when you step into it that way, now you’re using these building blocks for innovation to create these scenes of the future. You become the choreographer, you become the director of the future. And if you decide deliberately that you’re going to work backwards from, you’re not going to accept bad scenarios in the future. You’re going to create great scenarios in the future.
you’re not going to try to predict the future. You’re actually going to create and shape it. When you come from that place, you have a lot of, it gives you a lot of empowerment. And especially if you stay on top of the trends, enough to know which ones to pay attention to enough to know which ones to ignore. And when I do that, I like to take a, a 10 year view. So if I look 10 years back, 10 years back was utility computing, your cloud companies, your Amazon, your Microsoft, your Google’s 10 years forward.
And the big mega pattern is ESG, environment, social and governance, or I think of it as good for people. I call it good for people, good for the planet. You know, think about it like that. Every business then has to reimagine itself, has to figure out how to be good for people, good for the planet. That means that you can actually go back to the basics of your business. And I like to use a business strategy pyramid. You can think of it like this at the top is your bold ambition. In the middle is your business model. And in the bottom.
is your operating model. The problem is too many people think, I’m transforming. And they’re focused on cloudifying or transforming or digitizing the operating model. And what they’re ignoring is that ambition part to start with the ambition. So if you were backwards from bold ambitions, it changes the strategies you choose. It changes the opportunities that you create. So you’re right. There’s a lot of a lack of imagination for the future because it’s focused on just doing more of the past. And it tends to be pretty pessimistic.
James Taylor (13:18) Yeah.
We had on Professor Sir David Ormond on the show and we’ll put a link here as well to that. And we were talking about, so he is the former, basically he was the person that advised the prime ministers in the UK on the various security services. So in the UK we have MI5, MI6, GCHQ, in the US you have CIA, NSA, similar kind of roles. And he was talking, what you just mentioned about the strategic foresight in his book, he calls it strategic notice.
JD Meier (13:41) Hmm.
Hmm.
James Taylor (13:53) So he said, you know, part of the role that you’re trying to do as an intelligence analyst is the kind of work he would probably talk about is taking that 10 year view that you spoke about. And he said, that does require both critical thinking and creative thinking, like the imagination and like, well, what is the probabilities? And now we get into the mathematics of it. What do we believe is the probability? And when we look at risk, obviously just today, today, we see…
JD Meier (14:04) Yeah.
Yep. Yes. Yeah.
Right.
James Taylor (14:19) certain risks that we’re seeing like now it’s on CNN, it’s on Fox and those channels, but the environmental, the E of the ESG piece, feels a little bit further away. So we kind of push it out a little bit further and we don’t kind of bring it in a little bit. So you’ve spoken about vision, we’ve spoken about the big picture stuff and promoting that vision and helping people understand that mental models with the Charlie Munger, like the kind of mental models. What about when it comes to the rubber hits the road, the productivity?
JD Meier (14:23) Hmm.
Yeah, right.
Hmm.
James Taylor (14:49) You’ve worked with these leaders at Microsoft and you’ve really helped these leaders on their productivity, both as a leader individually and as a team. Where do we get to on that? What are some of the key things that you notice on those people and the teams that are really great at productivity?
JD Meier (15:02) Yeah.
Yep, so it’s definitely a mind shift because usually what happens is people start to care about it when they’re in pain. They get a bad review in terms of their health score, their org score, their whatever score. Then now they start to care about it. And because I moved in so many different orgs in Microsoft, I had to learn how to change the culture fast. And I learned that I could change it through questions because smart people like to answer questions. And so one of the questions I would ask, I would…
You know, so we’d say, yeah, that productivity stuff. Why should we do this? I said, well, you spent a lot of time last month, right? You did, you spent a lot of energy. You probably did more than 40 hour work weeks, right? Everybody on the team did a lot of work, right? What were the three wins? I asked them for the three wins. And usually first I see a deer in headlights. Then I see them start to rattle off like meetings they went to and activities and all this stuff, but it doesn’t accrue to anything. And I go, you know, we can completely change the game.
by telling three stories of victories. We should be able to tell three stories of victories a day, three stories of victories for the week, three stories of victory for the month, three stories of victory for the quarter, three stories of victory for the year. And when I put it out like that, they said, well, we’re doing OKRs. I’m like, OK, show me your OKRs. And usually, it’s something abstract and disconnected that they don’t really have empathy for. And I go, look, if you’re trying to tell your manager that that was your impact,
Would that feel like a wow moment? Is that a press release? Where are the wows? And so I actually combine some of the practices I have in Azure results, where some of the practices that people do look like the OKRs, but thinking of three wins, it’s the simplest, easiest way to start to drive better outcomes because you’re working backwards now. Otherwise you fall into the trap of, and I fell into this trap too, where you hope that your process takes care of you. You hope that by doing the right things each day, it’ll lead to these awesome things.
But if you never put a line in the sand, if you’d never sketched out that model of the future, if you never thought about what that future scene of victory looked like, you’re not going to look your way there. Kind of like, you know, you’re not going to wander your way up the mountain, right? You’re not going to wake up one day and I’m on the top of Mount Everest like a zigzag. So the idea here is that you’re working backwards. At the same time, I’m a big fan that you do need to work your way forwards. And so the way I do it is I have the backbone of my book, I call it…
Monday Vision, Daily Wins, Friday Reflection. So on Monday, you step into your Friday and you look back on your week. What do you want those three victories to be? So that’s your Monday Vision. Now imagine that you’re looking forward to going through your week because you have three victories to pull you through. And it sounds simple, but now what you’ve done by identifying these three victories is you’ve prioritized. You’ve chosen what you’re going to do, what you’re not going to focus on. You’ve also created a way.
to channel your energy. So now you’re going to find your motivation. It’s meaningful. You can connect it to your values. Don’t call back a customer when a raving fan. Don’t go do a project, lead an epic adventure. Don’t go do a task. Turn your chores into chances to practice and master what your strengths and your special abilities are all about. So that’s really the key. That’s the Monday Vision on the Daily Winds through Winds for Today. So when you wake up, you’re going to have a day. You’re going to spend a bunch of time.
What are the three wins for today? You can do your, have your existing to -do list. It might be a laundry list, actually a lot of stuff, but just put the three wins at the top that you hope that you can achieve. So you can direct your energy and attention and you’ll get better at it. You will get better at that. And then Friday reflection. This is where personal development meets your productivity. This is where self awareness comes to life. You actually reflect on what were my three wins for this week? You know, what are three things going well, three things to improve.
And it’s that improvement piece that means that you’re going to get, but this is your chance to be honest with you and go, did you bite off more than you could actually chew? Did you get randomized? Like if you completed things that had nothing to do with your goals, did you get randomized or are you not good at learning in your system? Are you not good at understanding and predicting what’s going to be expected of you in the week? So you get better at that. And the surprise, this is, this to me is the biggest surprise is that, by practicing Friday reflection.
You know, I started by putting an appointment on my calendar for 20 minutes on Friday. I made space for it. I got so good at my basic productivity, like extreme, that I started to take on much bigger goals. And, one of the things that I started to do was I just started to add checkpoint questions about ways that I want to improve myself at the identity level. And I had read the book leadership challenge and in it.
One of the questions is around, you know, seeing around corners. How will DC around the corners? So I had this one little question in my Friday reflection. So each week I was just asking myself, yeah, how am I getting surprised? Am I seeing around the corners? Am I predicting what’s going to happen? That alone improved me to the point where I actually think if I trace it back, that led to me becoming an innovator that led to me becoming a futurist. That was the basic skills that helped me become the head coach for Satya’s innovation team.
So it surprised me in a lot of ways. But those are the basics. If you can do a day well, you can do a week well. If you could do a week well, it compounds. But you want to be working backwards from your big dreams, your ambitions, your future scenarios, your future state, and using that to drive why do you do what you do today? and then the.
James Taylor (20:36) Those questions obviously, so please carry on.
JD Meier (20:41) I was going to say this. There’s one more frame that really helped me a lot, like the light bulb went off. It was super productivity, as when you’re working on the right things at the right time, the right way. When you unpack that and you start to dive in, am I using my strengths? Am I driving from vision? Am I spending more time in my values so I can renew my energy? You’re on fire.
James Taylor (21:07) thinking as you were talking about this and kind of bringing some of these ideas together, there was Marshall Goldsmith, the leadership coach for a lot of various executives. He has someone who calls him every day, I think at the same time, to basically ask him a series of questions. That’s their only job. And it’s an accountability, it’s a way of keeping him on track in terms of what he’s doing. Now, that’s wonderful, but not everyone can…
JD Meier (21:26) Wow. Wow.
Hmmmm
James Taylor (21:36) You can afford to have someone that that’s their job. So I was thinking obviously now with AI, not everyone can afford windy roads from billions on their team that’s asking those questions and making them think slightly differently about things, but everyone can pretty much afford an AI to be asking questions, asking better questions every time and asking questions that kind of nudge us out of our usual way of doing things.
JD Meier (21:37) Right. Yeah.
Right.
Yes.
Big time. And so first and foremost, I would say structure your week. So for example, I have three recurring appointments on my calendar that ask me the question. So like my Monday vision, when it pops up, it asks me, what are your three wins for this week? And then each day it pops up, what are your three wins for today? And then Friday reflection, it pops up. So I made the space and the time for it. And then to use AI to take you to the next level.
You can actually pair up with AI. I think if it is pairing, you know, pairing up, you can pair up with AI to figure out a good personal, actually a great, a great personal development plan for the month. I think that when you do it at the month level, you get a different balcony view. And in that balcony view, you can ask higher order questions. Cause if you get too mired in the day to day, I think, and if you ask yourself too many questions in the day to day,
It’s kind of hard to see the forest for the trees, but I think when you do it at these timeframes, like, okay, what’s the, what’s the mindset of motivational questions for today that keep me growing and showing up strong. Like for example, one that I never expected to have is how do I want to change the world today? But there’s a little story there. Like, I kept for some reason it’s like deep in me. I think it’s because one of my early managers at Microsoft, every time he came by the office or in the break room.
He would say, did you change the world today? Like every day. And I’d be like, yeah, we changed it, but everybody wants us to change it back. And so, you know, it’s, it’s strong in me. And one of my early books, you know, went to like 800 ,000 people in six months. So when, when would you do that? You get used to changing the world. And so one day I found myself asking the question, how do you want to change the world? And I thought, you know, everybody’s stressed. They’re worried about the future. They’re worried about today. They’re,
James Taylor (23:32) Yeah.
JD Meier (23:57) overwhelmed, they’re overloaded and they’re in fear mode. I was like, that sucks. It’s like, what’s the best thing I can give people that would help them to start their day. So I ended up creating a, so that night I was like, okay, how do I change the world today? I want to change how the world wakes up. So that night I put together like 40 slides. I created a framework on the fly. I created 40 slides. I called it wake up great. I haven’t written. I don’t think I’ve even written about it yet, but it’s a, it’s wake up great. And it’s, I’ve been teaching it to different companies, but it’s a G is gratitude.
If you feel grateful, you can’t feel fear. So when you actually do gratitude, right, and you’re in that grateful mode, you can feel fear. So I thought, wow, what a great way for people to start, you know, gratitude. R is reflection. Reflect on your future self. People go, okay, reflection, but they don’t know what to reflect on. Reflect on your future self. Last week or even yesterday or even today, are you being that person that you want to be for the future? So R is reflection. E is of course, exercise, but people, I don’t have time and I don’t know what to do.
And so I put together a small set of things that people really can do, like Bruce Lee’s three minute workout. When he broke his back, he had to figure out how do I work out my full body? Well, he’s got a three minute workout. So when you learn these kinds of things, you, you open up these possibilities. So then there’s a affirmation, but most people do affirmations wrong. What do they do? They have a bunch of affirmation. I am smart. I am happy. I’m great. I’m strong. Choose one. You choose one. You picture it in your mind so your subconscious can see it.
So you know what you actually mean and you’re congruent. Otherwise, if you say like an apple, red apple, green apple, Steve jobs, you know what? So you picture it, but you have to feel it. So my affirmation, for example, for today, I am strong. When I say that, what do I look like when I’m strong? What do I feel like when I’m strong later in the day, when I don’t feel strong, I remember in the morning. So you say it, you feel it because you’re rewiring your nervous system. You’re changing your nervous system. That’s where this gets real.
So G -R -E -A and then T. It was funny when I was making the framework that night, I was like, what’s T? Three wins, you know, from my book. It was like, it was perfect. I was like, picture three scenes in your day, morning, noon and night, your three victory scenes. So you can have a compelling day that you’ve just envisioned on the fly in the morning, in your strength place, in a place of gratitude and greatness where you can be as strong as you could possibly be. And so, you know, that was like, you know, quick little framework, but it helps, it changes lives.
James Taylor (26:03) you can have a compelling day to just envision on.
I love that.
But changing how the world works, I often think about when I go into the shower in the morning, I call the shower my ideas machine. Because different people have their ideas at different days and at times of day. For me in the morning, I actually ended up having longer showers because all these ideas start coming to me. Obviously, you’ve been ingesting them overnight. You’ve been kind of thinking through them overnight. For yourself, where do you go, where do new ideas generally come from for you? Where do you go to just…
JD Meier (26:31) Yep.
Yeah.
James Taylor (26:50) Maybe take a step back from your day to day to kind of reflect, to really think at that kind of higher level.
JD Meier (26:56) Yep. So where do the ideas come from? God, they come from so many places, but of course, like you, the shower. So this morning I had a thought about thought maps or thought structures or thought scaffolding. I thought about a lot of times people give you a thought to think, but they don’t break it down. And I had a parallel thought around, and program management work, breakdown structures. I thought about what if we actually shared these thought challenge and responses for specific challenges that we have.
because people do have these thought patterns. There’s success patterns and there’s anti -patterns. But too often, I think we hit the tip of the iceberg, but we don’t drill in. And I bet that if we start to share examples of thought maps, like what should be my thought structure when I feel like nervous or anxious about presenting? What does that look like? Break it down, but like little example of thought structures. So showers is a place, of course, before bed is of course another perfect time. So I keep my handy little sticky pad, my yellow sticky pad and pen. It’s been my greatest advantage.
And I also use a practice I call Imagine If. Imagine If is how I channel my imagination, but in any situation that I’m in, I imagine how it could be better. And so it gives me a lot of flexibility around choreographing the future of like a restaurant or even in the movie theater, you know, traffic, you know, how would I redesign this? So playing with Imagine If and just playing out future possible scenarios completely changes the game. A quick example is…
You go to the grocery store and this is before we have all the things that we have now. But I remember I was supposed to design, you know, the future of, grocery stores for big company. And I thought, man, when I drove up parking sucked. What if I could just drive to the curb and the groceries come to me? And then another scenario was like, wow, I can’t find anything in the store. What if I could hold up my phone and like either play, find the vegetable or I could find the gluten free, whatever, you know, whatever I need to go look for. And, you know, as I’m going to fill these scenarios, I was like, well, what if.
groceries came to me. This was before they did. What if the groceries came to me? And to scare the leaders into the future, I gave them a competitive idea. I said, look, your house is the future store. If you don’t fill the shelves, then Amazon will. And so it’s those little ideas, but they come from everywhere. But what made that even possible was I read a book called Thinker Toys. And in it, Thomas Edison shared his idea quotas. And so that was the idea.
That first week, I took my little yellow sticky pad and I wrote one idea per note. By the end of the week, I had 10 notes. And I thought, wow, my God. But it wasn’t that. It was that as soon as I put the ideas down, and these were good ideas, these are 10 good ideas, when I put it down, my head was empty from those. I didn’t realize how much those were bouncing around. Once my head was empty from those, ideas wouldn’t stop coming. So the next week, I filled two of the notepads.
By the third week, it was getting silly. It was just absolutely ridiculous. So I think a lot of people don’t realize if you keep your ideas floating around in your head, see what happens when you put them somewhere. Have an idea catcher, a thought catcher, an idea portfolio, an idea catalog, put them somewhere. And then you’ll be amazed at how much space and room you have for ideas to come your way. And practice that imagine if habit. It’s a habit you can practice and share with your friends.
James Taylor (30:07) That’s great. And while we’re talking about capturing ideas, is there a tool that you use or an app, some way that you find it very easy, because you’re getting all these ideas all the time, how do you ensure that you can capture them so you can then go through them at a later date?
JD Meier (30:17) Yep.
Yeah, I know it sounds old school, but I use Evernote and I have more than 30 ,000 notes and the it I’ve been on a quest for probably, I guess, a couple of decades. I’ve been actually on a quest to find the world’s best insight and action. So I have principles, patterns, insights for mind, body, emotions, career, finance, relationships, fun. And so I have not just a big, deep library of profound knowledge, but then I have my catalog of my ideas where I have, I do two things. Actually, I have a.
a notebook for my best ideas where I capture those in different domains. And then I have a daily insights where it’s just, it’s, it’s a running note. I put today’s date and any like little idea that pops up, I put it in my journal. So basically the daily journaling combined with my catalog, my portfolio of my best ideas.
James Taylor (31:07) Yeah, I love I’ve been like you, I’m a long time Evernote user. My only complaint, if anyone from Evernote is listening just now, please speed up the mobile app, because it’s by the time you have the app from the idea to capturing it, those six seconds or 10 seconds it takes to open the app and put it in can be really frustrating. Very, very simple thing there. What about if you were to recommend one book?
JD Meier (31:11) Cool.
my god. my god. Yeah.
Yeah.
James Taylor (31:29) to our listeners. You mentioned one that’s Thinker Toys, which I’m going to definitely check out that one. If you would recommend one other book to our listeners, not one of your own, but kind of links to your own, what would that book be?
JD Meier (31:30) Mmm.
Hahaha, yeah.
It would be Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins. That’s my secret of how I read faster. But Unlimited Power is probably the deepest book that I’ve ever read that goes into the inner engineering. And what I’ve learned in life is that all things are created twice, first in the mind, then in the world. I think of it as inner world, outer results. But that book is probably the deepest that I know for modeling, learning, sharing, and scaling expertise of other experts. It’s a way to distill it because it’s the inner engineering.
You watch somebody shoot pool, you watch what they did with the cue. You don’t go through the thought process of wait, their neurology. What was their breathing? Where was their focus? Did they look at the, you know, the hole? Did they look past it? Did they focus on the cue ball? So that is probably the greatest book for profound performance, I would say.
James Taylor (32:24) a huge, like you, massive, I think I’ve read that, I don’t know how many times I’ve read that book. I read it when I was probably 13 years old, changed my life. I think it was, there was a line in that you mentioned in questions. I think you said, Tony said something along like the quality of life is the quality of the questions that you ask. And it’s just that constant, wonderful book, absolute classic. Let’s, as we finish up now, what is the best way for people to connect with you JD, to learn more about your books, your writing, your other things you’ve got going on just now? Where should they go?
JD Meier (32:33) my god.
Yes, yes, so true.
Probably the best starting point is JDMeier .com. So JDMeier .com. Yeah, that’s the best bait.
James Taylor (33:03) Well, JD, thank you so much for being a guest on the show today. After listening to you, I’m gonna go and pick up my old battered copy of Unlimited Power and reread it again as well. Thank you so much for being a guest on the Super Creativity Podcast.
JD Meier (33:09) Hahaha.
Thank you for having me. Awesome times. Take care.
CL266: Unlearning Anxiety And Depression – Interview with Dr Joe Luciani
23 Jun 2020
00:31:31
Unlearning Anxiety And Depression
Dr. Joe Luciani has been a practicing clinical psychologist for more than 40 years. He’s the internationally bestselling author of the Self-Coaching series of books, now published in 10 languages. His latest book is called Unlearning Anxiety & Depression: The 4-Step Self-Coaching Program to Reclaim Your Life.
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL265: Personality Tests – Interview with Dr Benjamin Hardy
16 Jun 2020
00:27:07
The Big Problem With Personality Tests
James Taylor interviews Dr Benjamin Hardy and they talk about the big problem with personality tests.
Dr. Benjamin Hardy is an organizational psychologist and bestselling author of Willpower Doesn’t Work. His blogs have been read by over 100 million people and are featured on Forbes, Fortune, CNBC, Big Think, and many more. He is a regular contributor to Inc. and Psychology Today and from 2015-2018, he was the #1 writer, in the world, on Medium.com. His latest book Personality Isn’t Permanent debunks the pervasive myths of personality as well as tests like Myers Briggs.
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL264: How To Find Your Voice – Interview with Caroline Goyder
09 Jun 2020
00:25:23
How To Find Your Voice
James Taylor Interviews Caroline Goyder and they talk about how to find your voice.
Caroline Goyder is a leading voice and speaker coach. For a decade she worked at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, a leading drama school in London. Author of Find Your Voice (2020) Gravitas (2014) and Star Qualities (2009) Caroline’s TEDX on The Surprising Secret to Speaking with Confidence has been watched 7.5 million times.
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL263: Intelligence In The Digital Age – Interview with Lyn Lesch
02 Jun 2020
00:30:36
Intelligence In The Digital Age
Lyn Lesch is the author of "Intelligence in the Digital Age: How the Search for Something Larger May Be Imperiled”. His book examines how our use of digital technologies may be affecting our mental capacities and emotional lives in ways that will make it increasingly difficult for people to explore the possibility of a larger, more expansive consciousness.
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL262: How To Price Your Services – Interview with Freshbooks CEO Mike McDerment
26 May 2020
00:31:32
How to Price your Services
Interview with Freshbooks CEO Mike McDerment on How To Price Your Services
Mike McDerment is the Co-Founder and CEO of FreshBooks, the world’s #1 cloud accounting software for self-employed professionals. Built out of frustration after accidentally saving over an invoice, Mike spent 3.5 years growing FreshBooks from his parents’ basement. Since launching in 2003, over 10 million people have used FreshBooks to save time billing and collect billions of dollars. This is How To Price Your Services
In this episode, we cover:
2:05 - Remote working
4:06 - Starting Freshbooks
5:28 - How to sort and sift ideas as a CEO
6:03 - Proximity to customers
9:36 - Getting the pulse of your organisation virtually
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL261: How To Deal With Rejection – Interview with Debra Wanger
19 May 2020
00:31:32
How to Deal with Rejection
James Taylor interviews Debra Wanger and they talk about How To Deal With Rejection.
Debra Wanger is an award-winning actor, singer, and certified wellness coach who has performed in theaters, cabarets, and screens from New York to Los Angeles. She’s a sought-after public speaker leading workshops at university theater programs and corporate groups across the United States. While working at CAA and as a talent manager, she helped guide the careers of many top Hollywood names. Debra draws wisdom from decades of working as an actor, talent manager, and lifestyle coach to give actors and creatives a holistic approach to their profession that marries mind, body, spirit, and craft. Her latest bestselling book is called 'The Resilient Actor: How to Kick-Ass in the Business Without it Kicking Your Ass’.
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL260: Why Is Creativity Important In Business – Interview with innovation speaker Duncan Wardle
12 May 2020
00:35:59
Why is Creativity Important
Duncan Wardle is an innovation keynote speaker, workshop leader, consultant and the former Vice President of Innovation & Creativity at The Walt Disney Company. During his 25-year career at Disney he helped them develop some of their most innovative ideas and strategies. Ideas that would forever change the way the company and its franchises like Lucas Films, Pixar, Marvel and ESPN expands their impact, trains their employees, and solves problems creatively.
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL259: What Is A Side Hustle? – Interview with Troy R. Underwood
05 May 2020
00:39:10
What Is A Side Hustle?
Over 433,000 ambitious entrepreneurs start up new businesses each year in the United States. Yet nearly just as many—roughly 400,000 annually—go belly up and close shop. And only one-third are still in existence when 10 years rolls around. In his latest book How To Launch Your Side Hustle, Silicon Valley software developer turned serial entrepreneur Troy Underwood shows us that entrepreneurship and business ownership are distinctly different professions.
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL258: How To Lead From The Future – Interview with Mark Johnson of Innosight
28 Apr 2020
00:34:40
Lead From The Future
Mark Johnson is co-founder and Senior Partner of Innosight, a strategic innovation consulting and investing company with offices in Massachusetts, Singapore and Switzerland, which he co-founded with Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen. He has been a strategic advisor to both Global 1000 and start-up companies in a wide range of industries—including automotive, health care, aerospace/defense, enterprise IT, energy, and consumer packaged goods. He is the coauthor of Lead from the Future: How to Turn Visionary Thinking into Breakthrough Growth, a manifesto for “Future Back” thinking and a hands-on guide to long-term planning, strategy development, and execution within established organizations.
In this episode, we cover:
Lead From The Future
2:15 - Points of inflection
3:32 - COVID-19 innovations
6:26 - The Bubonic plague and the Renaissance
7:02 - Cholera epidemic and golden age of Vienna
8:31 - The space race
10:22 - Future Back
10:54 - Questions as answers
13:03 - Invert Always Invert - Charlie Munger
13:29 - Taking an impressionists view
14:42 - Future state portfolio
15:29 - Walking it back with initiatives
16:14 - Vision to strategy
16:41 - Going beyond the core
17:49 - Building your innovation team
18:23 - Lead startup methodology
18:38 - Aligning leadership with innovation teams
20:20 - Strategic continuity
22:25 - The role of the board of directors in innovation
25:55 - Generative design
26:31 - AI in innovation
31:12 - Wayne Grestsky - skate to where the puck is going
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL257: Futurism, Innovation And Space Beer – Interview with Jeremy Gutsche
21 Apr 2020
00:27:55
Jeremy Gutsche
Futurism, Innovation And Space Beer - Interview with Jeremy Gutsche
Jeremy Gutsche, MBA, CFA, is a New York Times bestselling author, an award-winning innovation expert, sought-after keynote speaker, and the CEO of Trend Hunter, the world's #1 innovation website with 200,000 idea hunters and 3 billion views from 150,000,000 visitors. Prior to Trend Hunter, Jeremy grew a $1 billion portfolio for a bank, and today, over 600 brands and CEOs rely on his speeches including Google, Disney, Starbucks, Netflix, Coca-Cola, and IBM. He's even helped NASA prototype the Journey to Mars. He has been described as an "intellectual can of Red Bull” and his latest book is called CREATE THE FUTURE: Tactics for Disruptive Thinking.
In this episode, we cover:
Jeremy Gutsche
3:57 - A fascination for innovation
4:19 - Innovation exercises
4:47 - Corporate innovation
5:59 - Disruptive innovation
6:56 - Path dependency
7:24 - The 7 Traps
9:02 - Qwerty vs Dvorak keyboards
11:02 - Timing
11:14 - Universities going online
12:00 - Smith Corona
13:29 - What is the hard problem you are trying to solve?
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
Sir David Omand, Author of How Spies Think – 10 Lessons in Critical Thinking #338
04 Jun 2024
Sir David Omand, Author of How Spies Think 10 LESSONS IN CRITICAL THINKING #338
Summary
Professor Sir David Omand, former UK security and intelligence coordinator, shares insights from his book ‘How Spies Think: 10 Lessons in Intelligence’. He discusses the importance of critical thinking, the SEES model used by intelligence analysts, and the role of creativity in decision-making. He also explores the impact of biases, the Bayesian approach to probability, and the challenges of decision-making in high-stress environments. Omand emphasizes the need for diversity of thought and expertise, especially in the face of emerging technologies like AI and biotechnology. He concludes with the importance of ethical decision-making and recommends the book ‘The Three-Body Problem’ by Cixin Liu.
Sound Bites
“We have a polluted information environment, which AI, I’m afraid, adds to with the ability to make deep fakes and to provide misleading information.”
“You can spot trends in technology, international affairs, domestic affairs and social attitudes, and then have the imagination to say, well, if that were to happen, what would it look like?”
“The Reverend Bayes was an 18th century cleric in Tunbridge Wells, and he amateur mathematician. And he came across this rule, which we call Bayes rule named after him, which essentially relates the likelihood of something happening to which you’ve worked out to how you should then recalculate that likelihood when new evidence arrives.”
Developing critical thinking skills is crucial for making better decisions and avoiding biases.
The SEES model (Situational Awareness, Explanation, Estimate, Strategic Notice) provides a framework for intelligence analysis.
Creativity plays a role in intelligence work, particularly in finding innovative ways to uncover secrets and address challenges.
Understanding biases and creating a safe space for diverse perspectives is essential for effective decision-making.
Emerging technologies like AI and biotechnology require careful consideration and preparedness for potential risks.
Ethical decision-making is important, and doing what is genuinely believed to be the right thing provides a solid defense.
Biography:Professor Sir David Omand was the first UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator, responsible to the Prime Minister for the professional health of the intelligence community, national counter-terrorism strategy, and “homeland security.” He served for seven years on the Joint Intelligence Committee and was Permanent Secretary of the Home Office from 1997 to 2000, and before that Director of GCHQ (the UK Signals Intelligence Agency). Previously, in the Ministry of Defence as Deputy Under Secretary of State for Policy, he was particularly concerned with long term strategy, with the British military contribution in restoring peace in the former Yugoslavia and the recasting of British nuclear deterrence policy at the end of the Cold War. He was Principal Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary during the Falklands conflict, and served for three years in NATO Brussels as the UK Defence Counsellor. He has been a visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies at Kings College since 2005-2006. His latest book is called How Spies Think: Ten Lessons in Intelligence where he shares the methodology used by British intelligence agencies to reach judgements, establish the right level of confidence and act decisively. The British former Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary the Right Honorable Jack Straw calls ‘How Spies Think’, ‘A brilliant book, by one of the UK’s true polymaths – author, academic, administrator, mathematician – and former spy. But this isn’t just a book for those interested in the secret world of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ; it’s for anyone wanting to know how to make better decisions, and avoid the traps into which businesses and governments can, and do, fall, time after time’https://www.amazon.com/How-Spies-Think/dp/0241385180
James Taylor is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, often booked months or even years in advance due to his exceptional expertise. Given his limited availability, it’s crucial to contact him early if you’re interested in securing a date or learning how he can enhance your event. Reach out to James Taylor now for an opportunity to bring his unique insights to your conference or team.
Free 3-Part Video Training Series On How To Unlock Your Creative Potential, Break Down Creative Blocks, and Unleash Your Creative Genius FREE training video shows you how to unlock your creative potential in 5 simple steps. The world’s top creative individuals and organizations use these exact strategies.
James Taylor (00:08) Sir David Omand was the first UK security and intelligence coordinator responsible to the Prime Minister for the professional health of the intelligence community, national counter -terrorism strategy and homeland security. He served for seven years on the Joint Intelligence Committee and was permanent secretary of the Home Office from 1997 to 2000, and before that, director of GCHQ, the UK Signals Intelligence Agency. Previously in the Ministry of Defence as Deputy Under -Secretary of State for Policy,
He was particularly concerned with long -term strategy, with the British military contribution in restoring peace in the former Yugoslavia and the recasting of British nuclear deterrence policy at the end of the Cold War. He was principal private secretary to the defence secretary during the Falklands conflict and served for three years in NATO Brussels as the UK defence councillor. He’s been a visiting professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College since 2005 to 2006 and his latest book is called
How Spies Think, 10 Lessons in Intelligence, where he shares the methodology used by British intelligence agencies to reach judgements, establish the right level of confidence, and act decisively. The British former Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, the Right Honourable Jack Straw, calls How Spies Think a brilliant book by one of the UK’s true polymaths, author, academic, administrator, mathematician, and former spy. But this isn’t just a book for those interested in the secret world of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ, it’s for
anyone wanting to know how to make better decisions and avoid traps into which businesses and governments can and do fall time after time. Professor Sir David Orman, welcome to the SuperCreativity Podcast.
Sir David Omand (01:43) Thanks, James. Delighted to be on the show.
James Taylor (01:46) So this book was first published 2020, then you added a preface on the paperback edition in 2021. Since then we’ve seen the invasion of Ukraine, artificial intelligence enter very much the mainstream and increasing tensions with the West and China. If you were publishing this book today, as we’re filming today in 2024, any big changes that you’d be making to it do you think?
Sir David Omand (02:09) Not to the guts of the book, which as you say is about critical thinking, I might emphasize even more than I did in the book that we have a polluted information environment, which AI, I’m afraid, adds to with the ability to make deep fakes and to provide misleading information. So my message, which is how do you think clearly and straight, even when?
some of the messages reaching you are not true or are designed to be deceptive. That still holds, I think.
James Taylor (02:46) Now you give these 10 lessons towards the end of the book, but then you talk about the main framework, the way to think critically about situations, whether it’s in business or in other situations as well. And you call it the SEAS model, which is really how intelligence analysts think. First of all, maybe give us just a bit of a kind of top line, and then maybe we’ll get into some of those four parts of this particular model.
Sir David Omand (03:09) Yeah, I put C’s S -E -E -S just to make it memorable. But the first S is situational awareness, which is answering questions about what is going on, where and when. Facture, questions which ought to be answerable if you’ve got a good grasp of the situation. But then the first E in C’s is about explanation. And that’s the bit we often get wrong.
because that usually involves getting inside somebody else’s mind, an adversary, a terrorist group, a dictator, and trying to work out why are we seeing what we are seeing, what’s behind it, what are the motivations? So those questions that have why in it or what for. And then if you’ve got enough situational awareness and you’ve got some decent explanations,
You can move on to what the British Intelligence Community, the Joint Intelligence Committee, I spent seven years on the committee, what they tried to do, which is to assess and provide an estimate based on assumptions, but trying to peer over the hill to give an estimate of how things might work out. Normally in the sort of short to medium term. So that’s why the final S.
I add into my acronym Cs is strategic notice. Can you actually spot some way away developments which could either provide big opportunities or perhaps more often could provide serious challenges? It’s not a prediction. I’m clear in the book that there are no crystal balls. Nobody can produce accurate.
predictions over any length of time. But you can spot trends in technology, international affairs, domestic affairs and social attitudes, and then have the imagination to say, well, if that were to happen, what would it look like? And are the things we perhaps should do now in order to try and make it
that future more bearable if it were to come about.
James Taylor (05:35) One of the critical thinking tools you talk about in the book is the Bayesian approach. Hopefully I’ve got that right. What is this Bayesian approach and how can this be applied in the work that, maybe you’ll listen to this show in business when you’re thinking about probabilities, the chances of something happening or not?
Sir David Omand (05:55) The Reverend Bayes was an 18th century cleric in Tunbridge Wells, and he amateur mathematician. And he came across this rule, which we call Bayes rule named after him, which essentially relates the likelihood of something happening to which you’ve worked out to how you should then recalculate that likelihood when new evidence arrives.
So you have the prior position, which you believe, you’ve read intelligence reports, you think you’ve got a grasp of it all. And then some new intelligence arrives and should alter your view of how likely your proposition is to be true. And of course, all these magical AI neural networks that we’ve got used to in the last year or so, they are all based.
on Bayesian thinking you train the model and every time you provide some new information to the model, it works out. Does that help me? How do I get closer to the accurate answer? It adjusts the weights in its neural network, depending on whether it got it right or wrong. And if you iterate that millions of times, you end up with a sort of trained.
AI program, which is rather better at recognising faces than a human being, which is what indeed has happened, all playing chess.
James Taylor (07:27) And so this is often expressed in a kind of formula that we might see. I know you were involved in the creation of contests where we, in the UK, we had this thing, the Prevent Strategy, for example, where you expressed, I guess, risk using this type of formula.
Sir David Omand (07:32) Yeah.
Yes, I mean, the basic approach when we put together the UK counter -terrorism strategy was to reduce the risk that terrorism posed to everyday life. So it was based on this idea of normality and can you take steps which helps maintain normality? And when you think about it, the risk is the product of the likelihood of bad things happening. Your vulnerability.
to those bad things, which is something you might be able to do something about. And then if they were to get through your defenses and something bad happens, what’s the reaction? What’s the impact of that? Both immediately, how well did the emergency services cope, but also in the longer term, how resilient are the systems? So after, say, a terrorist attack, next day, is the London Underground working?
Well, on 7 -7 it was.
James Taylor (08:45) Now, one of the things you said as a common mistake you see organizations, governments make, policy makers make, is they immediately try to jump from situational awareness into the third part with the estimates, making estimates of what’s gonna happen. But there’s this kind of stage before that that you need to spend time on. Can you go into that?
Sir David Omand (09:06) Yes, that’s the E that stands for explanation. Why are we seeing what we are seeing? It’s a truism in all statistics that correlation is not causality. Just because you’ve spotted two things happening together, does that mean they are necessarily related or that one is causing the other? You need an explanation. You need some sort of explanatory model.
And particularly when you’re dealing with human beings who may mean us harm. So take the period just before President Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine a couple of years back. All those tanks had been on an exercise, tens of thousands of soldiers. Was he going to invade or wasn’t he?
And that’s the point at which you don’t just jump from those tanks to assuming he’s going to it. You actually have to work out what’s the explanation. And in that particular case, UK and British and American intelligence, they had the intelligence to be able to say with near certainty, yes, we know what he is up to. We know he’s going to try and mount a false flag operation to provide a pretext for the invasion.
We know that the medical supplies and other logistics have been, which you wouldn’t see in an exercise, have actually been activated. This looks like the real thing. So that’s the explanatory bit. And it is difficult to do. It’s the bit we most often get wrong.
James Taylor (10:58) Now, something I noticed in the book, I love the book, and it was just great how it took through in a very kind of systematic, very kind of logical way of thinking through things to think more clearly, as you say. But one thing you didn’t speak about so much in the book was the role of creativity in this. And I guess what you were talking about there in terms of the explanation is, is this is us as humans also using our imagination to understand, well, what is the role of this being? So I wonder, like, what is the role of creative thinking?
as opposed to critical thinking in the work of, let’s say, the analysts? And is that different perhaps from the people who are, let’s say, the agents in the field, that people are actually having to be a bit more improvisational in the work that they do?
Sir David Omand (11:40) Yes, I mean, you don’t want your intelligence analysts to be too creative. It has to be grounded. And this is, of course, the great lesson of 2003 to 2003 intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq. So you want it to be grounded. You want critical thinking to be applied every step to be tested. But when you look further ahead,
you certainly do want imagination because you want to be able to see some of these trends, which may not be obvious, which could lead to significant problems in the future. If the Chinese were the first to develop a quantum computer that works at scale, which nobody has yet really done, then they would be able to read, get through the encryption.
that protects all our financial transactions, our military communications and so on. There’s no guarantee they’ll get there first and maybe we will or the United States. But if they did, and this is the point about strategic notice, if they did, it would create quite a difficult situation. Implication, very obvious. Let’s spend a bit more resource on building quantum resistant encryption.
which can be developed and persuade people to use it so that we’re not stuck with that position if one of our adversary nations were to get there first. And that’s simple example. Where creativity comes in is particularly in the work of the intelligence agencies to think about how are we going to get around the determined will of the adversary not to let us.
see his secrets. So this is what secret intelligence is about. It’s about getting better decisions made because you have uncovered the secrets of people who mean us harm. Dictators, autocrats, people smuggling gangs, terrorists, criminals, and so on. They have secrets. They desperately don’t want us and our allies.
to find out those secrets. So that’s where you have to be really creative in trying to think of ways they haven’t thought of, which will enable you to penetrate the secrets of the terrorist group or the narcotics smuggling gang or whatever it might be. That requires a diversity of mind. And that’s something I would certainly want to emphasize. It’s something that my old department, GCHQ, has…
James Taylor (14:18) So,
Sir David Omand (14:29) has really developed is to employ people who think differently. And that diversity of minds makes it more likely that somebody will make the creative breakthrough, which is new and helps.
James Taylor (14:47) So with diversity of minds, when I often talk with organizations, we talk about, there’s different ways of doing this. I know we sometimes have things like, going back in history, like Edward de Bono, six thinking hats, a way of just looking at things from different perspectives. In the book, you talk about one of the biggest challenges for us as humans, humans and machine side, that the human part is biases that we all have and recognize that you talk about Dick, I think it’s Dick Huer of CIA.
Sir David Omand (15:15) Hmm.
James Taylor (15:16) and these six key biases that we have. What are the ones that you often in your career, you’ve often seen most coming up in these biases? And then second to that, how do you create a space, a safe space where these biases can be discussed, sometimes with colleagues, sometimes with other governments, for example?
Sir David Omand (15:37) Yes, I once went on a training course with Edward de Bono himself. It was fascinating and we wore the hats, his thinking hats. It’s a little artificial. What I was trying to get people to recognize is we’re all subject to cognitive biases, as they’re called. And it’s a natural human instinct, confirmation bias. We interpret information in the way we…
kind of unconsciously feel that’s what we believe. That’s what we would like to see. The group think is very well established. So if you’ve got an analytic group and it’s coming up for closing time at the end of the day, and there’s a lot of pressure to reach an answer, that’s where you want the, perhaps the one analyst who doesn’t agree not to just quietly accept,
the group consensus, but to say, no, I think you’re missing something. It’s a great skill to be able to work a group. There are different techniques that are taught. One is empowering individuals to, well, for the next five minutes, tell me what we’re getting wrong here. What are we missing? So that an individual doesn’t feel that they’re, particularly junior, that they’re somehow challenging.
the authority, but actually they’ve been told to, it’s your job to take this information and then tell us what are we getting wrong? Or what would it, an interesting question, what would it take for us to reach a different conclusion? And when you apply that logic, you may well find that your thinking is all based on one report, which when you examine it closely, say, well, we don’t, we can’t be so certain.
Creating the safe space is one in which people work as a team and they’re not dominated by the most forceful personality in the room. Something that I touch on in the book and I’ve come to talk about even more is that when you think about any serious decision that any of us have to take, whether it’s in the family or whether it’s the prime minister or something,
major matter of state. There are two different kinds of thinking have to be integrated within the single mind of the person taking the decision. On the one hand, you’ve got the emotionally based thinking of this is what I want to achieve. This is what I must achieve. This is what the world I want to live in looks like. And on the other hand, you’ve got the analytical thinking that says,
These are the limits of the possible. This is what the spreadsheets show. And so both are necessary. So if you haven’t got the emotionally based thinking, then you won’t have the right kind of narrative to incentivize people. You know, Churchill in 1940 gave the British people the narrative. Zelensky has given his people the narrative to enable them to keep going despite the odds.
but neither of them neglected the analytic part, which is it’s not enough just to have bombast. You’ve got to have grounded analytical thinking about what armaments are we going to need? What steps do we need to take? Churchill brought in Beaverbrook to revolutionize Spitfire production. So you need to integrate both. If you just have the former, then…
Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, it’s emotional. It may sound very powerful, but it’s not backed up with solid analysis. If you just have somebody talking off a spreadsheet, who’s going to put themselves out to do extraordinary efforts on the basis of what a spreadsheet says? So you need both. And that, I think, is one of the secrets of getting this safe space where…
you have the analysis, but you also can bring out the narrative of why all this has to be taken seriously and developed into a public message.
James Taylor (20:21) I’m wondering, as I was reading the book, and I was thinking, especially the story you start with in the book, which is about the beginning of the Falklands War, when there was a period of obviously high stress, you’re in a very intense period, time is contracted. I wonder what that does in terms of people’s biases, how that safe space is created. The other day I was doing an event and I was sitting in a dinner next to Willie Walsh, who’d been formerly the CEO of British Airways.
IAG. And we were having this discussion about stress, because I thought, you know, your job as CEO must be very stressful, things happening all the time. And he said, one of the things that you often find is that in high stress environments, people kind of revert to a version of themselves that is sometimes not the best. And he said, as a leader, your job is over time to try and nudge that and move that to a slightly better place as well. In your own working, I mean, is the
with these skills that you’re talking about, is this something you can be trained to become better at under more high stress environments where you’re maybe not sitting in the comfort of a nice ideation brainstorming room with cups of tea, for example?
Sir David Omand (21:34) Yes, I mean, I’ve written another book. It’s the paperback comes out on the 6th of June from Penguin called How to Survive a Crisis. And this is very much at the heart of how we survive a crisis, because the point about a crisis is not we have emergencies all the time. So I distinguish between emergencies and crises. And when a real crisis arrives, the person in charge won’t know what to do.
If they did know what to do, it’s just one of those emergencies that companies have to deal with all the time. And British Airways, you know, sometimes the computers go down, people know how to sort it, you get on with it. But a crisis is when events are hitting you faster than your responses can cope with. I have what I call the rubber levers test. You pull the normal levers and nothing seems to happen on the ground.
If anything, it gets worse. And some of the steps that you may have taken early on actually seem to make things worse and you risk sliding into disaster. And that’s where it’s so important that the person at the top, and that’s the person who doesn’t know what to do by definition, gathers the team. And this takes you back to the safe space and says to the team, we’re in serious trouble. We’re mobilizing.
all the best people we can get our hands on. This is number one priority for survival of a company or the business, or indeed the nation. This is now the priority. And together we will work out what the solution is. And that takes you into teamwork. Surviving crisis is a team sport and it’s not something that the leader will.
James Taylor (23:20) It seems so… yeah.
Sir David Omand (23:30) instinctively know exactly what measures to take. That’s why you need the expertise, you need the team together. And it’s high stress. And it’s very well documented that in conditions of high stress, tempers fray, people, there are what I think are called the Ds. So the first is denial. This can’t really be happening to us. Let’s just wait a bit.
Prime Minister Johnson doesn’t turn up to the first five COBRA meetings on the COVID emergency. That’s a very well -known phenomenon. You have the disparagement of people bringing bad news, so you send them away to do more work. You have displacement activity, where people, you get the staff to focus on anything other than what they really have to focus on, which is the…
crisis which is looming. So you can trade, you know, just talking about this, having little exercises, being coached, there’s a lot of things can be done to improve the performance of those at the top when something unexpected happens. And as the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been saying this morning, we’re entering an era.
of more and deeper crises over the next five or 10 years. So we better prepare ourselves.
James Taylor (25:04) And we had a guest on the show a little while ago, Professor Roger Nibran from UCL, I think, and also from Cambridge University, who wrote a wonderful book called Experts. He’s like the world’s leading expert on experts. So do you think we’re in a time now where maybe post -COVID experts are coming back into fashion? Because it certainly seemed in the UK for a little while, they were deeply unfashionable for a while.
Sir David Omand (25:26) Indeed, and we would have been well and truly stuffed if we hadn’t had the expertise, for example, on the vaccines task force. And if those vaccines had not been developed and innovative ways found of getting them into people’s arms quickly, then we would still be in the depths of a very major pandemic. It’s still hanging over us and people are still suffering, but we’ve got over the worst of it. But there are…
more pandemics to come, undoubtedly, and new diseases will jump the species barrier. So we’ve got to be ready for that. Technology will turn much of our life upside down. We’ve already mentioned artificial intelligence, but quantum developments, bioengineering, we’re going to see some remarkable things happening with bioengineering. We’ve already got
DNA being used for genetic disease treatments, which are entirely novel. It’s very exciting. There are lots of opportunities, but, and it’s a big but, are those who mean us harm, our adversaries, will take advantage of some of these. And we’d better be ready for that.
James Taylor (26:52) So you were talking about this idea of diversity of mind, having that diversity of mind, being able to hold emotional and analytical thinking at the same time. You’re obviously absorbing, taking in lots of inputs all the time. You’re obviously reading widely, you’re a polymath in the work you do. But where do you go for inspiration? How do you go to sort and sift this stuff in your head to take, you know, then to be able to take a step back and think about, well, what is it, AI or climate change or whatever the thing is, how do you…
Sir David Omand (27:05) Hmm.
James Taylor (27:21) set that self and yourself so you’ve got that time to yourself to be that kind of creative part of you to think in that way.
Sir David Omand (27:28) Well, the best thoughts come to me when I’m out running early in the morning. And I think that’s quite a well -recognized phenomenon. You do have to give yourself time, but this is one of the difficulties that as technology advances so quickly, you actually got to put in the hard yards to understand what is actually happening.
So to have the first inkling of what is going on with generative AI and what the magical treatment is that has turned simply machine learning into something so much more. You’ve actually got to do the work and you’ve got to study it. But we have a wonderful way. If you think about going to any hospital or medical clinic and you’ll find lots of talk about, well, we’d better get an MRI scan.
done and people talk about MRI scans, but that stands for magnetic resonance imaging. And magnetic resonance is one of those extraordinary, to understand that is one of those extraordinary parts of the quantum world that we’re talking about the resonance of molecules and atoms in a way that the general public has no idea of what is driving the MRI scanner.
So all advanced technology, you know, it looks like magic when it first appears. And then we all get used to it. I have no idea what is under the bonnet or the hood of my car. I used to, 20 years ago, I’ve been able to say, well, that’s the carburetor. And there’s probably a fuel pump. You know, there’s a bit of dirt clogging the fuel pump. I’ve no idea whether my car even has a fuel pump. So…
A certain amount of work is needed as well as relaxation.
James Taylor (29:29) And it’s interesting, you know, with obviously artificial intelligence, first coin, 1956 has been around for a long, long time, but obviously we more recently it’s, we’ve seen this drive primarily through big data, which the fuel for it as well. what’s for me is interesting is now seeing almost I can imagine a few hundred years ago, you know, invention of electricity being used where suddenly anyone has the ability, you don’t have to know how electricity works to be able to flip that switch or to.
Sir David Omand (29:35) Hmm. Hmm.
Hmm.
James Taylor (29:58) add electricity to your business in some way. Now you see people using it for good and for bad. Bad actors using generative AI to create deep fakes and all this stuff as well. So we’re certainly going into a pretty fascinating time in human history.
Sir David Omand (29:59) Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, the parallel is probably with the invention of the printing press, which has produced world literature and made it available to everyone. And simultaneously, a lot of other stuff, which we ideally would not have had to suffer. So the printing press turned the world upside down. It led to decades and decades of religious war, AI and
the other technologies, particularly biotechnologies, are going to do the same to our world in the next five to 10 years. So, you know, buckle up. It could be a bumpy ride.
James Taylor (30:56) So just to finish up, a couple of quick fire questions for you. There’s some wonderful quotes in the book, wonderful lines by different folks, Churchill and all kinds of different areas. Is there a quote that you live by you can have as a bit of a guiding star for yourself?
Sir David Omand (31:11) that’s a difficult question. Perhaps there is one. And I owe it to my former boss, Jack Straw, who was Home Secretary and I was his senior official, I was his permanent secretary. And Jack always approached the difficulties by saying, when in doubt, do what you genuinely believe is the right thing. It will still go wrong. Most things go wrong. And you have a defense.
Well, knowing what I knew at the time, I took the decision to do what I believe was the right thing. That’s a defense and a solid one. But the moment you start to say, I’m not going to take the straightforward course, I’ll try some devious maneuver, I’ll blame someone else, or I won’t tell all the truth, and you try and shimmy your way through, spin your way through, as the spin doctors say.
when it all goes wrong, you have no defense. Yeah. So I think it’s not a bad principle in life.
James Taylor (32:14) there’s no right way to do a wrong thing. It’s the ethical dimension.
And then what about, is there a book that you would recommend to our listeners? We’re going to have links to your books as well. Is there a book just now that you’ve been reading that’s really made you kind of rethink? We’ve been talking about AI, we’ve been talking about biotechnologies as well. Is there something that you think people should check out?
Sir David Omand (32:37) Well, a lot of people have checked it out, but the three body problem, and there’s more than that’s the first volume of the trilogy by Fikin Liu, if my Chinese pronunciation is right, is mind -bending. And I thoroughly recommend it.
James Taylor (32:54) Yeah.
Sir David Omand (33:04) It’s you can watch it on Netflix, which is rather a shortened version and rather a sort of dumbed down version, but the original. And there’s also a Chinese series in 30 parts, which doesn’t spare the mathematics and the but it’s about the future and it’s about, in a sense, a plausible future. And it’s well, it raises some very deep questions.
as well as being great fun because it’s an entertaining story.
James Taylor (33:40) Well, it’s been a pleasure being with you today. If people want to learn more about you, learn more about the books that you have coming out as well, where’s the best place to go and do that?
Sir David Omand (33:51) The King’s College website, I’m a visiting professor at King’s College in the War Studies Department and they can find all about it or just Google me and you’ll find a lot of details about the, as I say, latest paperback out on the 6th of June, how to survive a crisis.
James Taylor (34:12) Professor Sir David Omand, thank you for being a guest on the SuperCreativity Podcast.
CL256: How To Brainstorm And Co-Create With A Team – Interview with David Bates
14 Apr 2020
00:38:36
How to Brainstorm
David Bates, who some call a high-functioning eccentric, thinks in stories, speaks in aphorisms, and wields a passion for storytelling that’s unorthodox, approaching idiosyncratic. Hired at Google as only 22-years old, David held an objectively unjustifiable amount of power. He built a content team at Google Maps and established a global production strategy that covered the Canadian Arctic, Taj Mahal, and Pyramids at Giza. Then he left to turn his side project, a wedding video company named Bokeh, into a creative agency. He now develops campaign strategies and content for brands like Google, Instagram, Airbnb, WeWork, DoorDash, Visa and more.
In this episode, we cover:
How to Brainstorm
2:46 - Working within creative constraints
3:37 - Creative self-isolation
4:22 - Using your downtime to brainstorm
5:45 - Online brainstorming
8:47 - What is the story?
12:45 - Co-creating campaigns with clients
13:24 - VISA video campaign
16:11 - How to deal with rejection
17:14 - The politics of creativity
18:27 - Hunger and humility
21:46 - Empathising with your client
22:51 - Hiring 'right' people vs hiring 'right now' people
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL255: How We Make Stuff – Interview with Jules Pieri
07 Apr 2020
00:38:01
We Make our Stuff
Jules Pieri is CEO and cofounder of The Grommet, a popular online product launch platform that discovers, supports and sells innovative makers. These products can range from problem-solving kitchen utensils to high tech innovations. In her new book How We Make Stuff Now, Jules shares advice and inspiration on how anyone can turn their idea into a product they can sell.
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL254: Mindfulness For Creativity – Interview with Diane Gehart
31 Mar 2020
00:34:35
Mindfulness For Creativity
Interview with Diane Gehart Mindfulness For Creativity.
Diane R. Gehart, Ph.D., is an author, an award-winning professor of Counseling and Family Therapy at California State University, Northridge, as well as a practicing psychotherapist. Her new book combines wit, wisdom, and a touch of sweetness to help you uncover playful ways to transform any aspect of your life. It’s called Mindfulness for Chocolate Lovers: A Lighthearted Way to Stress Less and Savor More Each Day and in it she offers a recipe of surprisingly efficient and fun ways to increase your daily dose of joy.
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL253: How Fearless Innovation Helps Leaders Adapt To Change – Interview with Alex Goryachev
24 Mar 2020
00:30:33
How Fearless Innovation Helps Leaders Adapt To Change
Alex Goryachev is managing director of Cisco's global Co-Innovation Centers. He spearheads several award-winning international programs and initiatives to accelerate innovation – whether that impacts operations, businesses processes, or technology. An award-winning Silicon Valley veteran whose resume reads like a brief history of tech disruption, Alex is a sought-after speaker on innovation and a regular contributor to Forbes, Chief Executive Magazine, Information Week, and other leading media outlets. His new book is called FEARLESS INNOVATION: Going Beyond the Buzzword to Continuously Drive Growth, Improve the Bottom Line, and Enact Change.
In this episode, we cover:
How To Be A Fearless Leader
3:23 - Hitting the Wall Street Journal bestseller list
6:34 - Innovation vs disruption
7:40 - What is innovation?
8:31 - What is the difference between creativity versus innovation?
8:52 - Innovation is pragmatic
9:15 - Innovation is about execution
10:02 - From idea to execution
12:08 - Customer validation
14:51 - What is the link between innovation and leadership?
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL252: How To Be A Fearless Leader – Interview with Alan Weiss
17 Mar 2020
00:29:49
How To Be A Fearless Leader - Interview with Alan Weiss
Alan Weiss is a consultant, speaker, and bestselling author. Described by the New York Post as “one of the most highly regarded independent consultants in America,” his consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, and more than 500 leading organizations. He is the author of 64 books and his latest is called Fearless Leadership: Overcoming Reticence, Procrastination, and the Voices of Doubt Inside Your Head.
https://46qxm9wfeqfbuxib1z00uh1c-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Episode252-Alan_Weiss.jpg
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL251: How To Never Lose A Customer Again – Interview with Joey Coleman
10 Mar 2020
00:46:48
Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman
Joey Coleman helps companies keep their customers. An award-winning speaker, he shares his First 100 Days® methodology for improving customer experience and retention with organizations around the world and his clients include Whirlpool, Volkswagen, and Zappos. Joey's Wall Street Journal best selling book 'Never Lose a Customer Again' shows how to turn any sale into a lifelong customer.
In this episode, we cover:
Never Lose a Customer Again
2:37 - Learning how to be persuasive
5:28 - Working the The Secret Service
7:27 - The Customer Experience lifecycle
9:39 - The First 100 Days
9:51 - The salesperson experience vs the customer experience
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL250: How To Lead An Extraordinary Life – Interview with Darren Gold
03 Mar 2020
00:29:12
How To Lead An Extraordinary Life
Interview with Darren Gold - How To Lead An Extraordinary Life
Extraordinary Life to Changing how business leaders think with Darren Gold
The author of the new book Master Your Code: The Art, Wisdom, and Science of Leading an Extraordinary Life.
Darren Gold is a Managing Partner at The Trium Group, where he advises and coaches CEOs and leadership teams at many of the world’s most innovative companies, including Roche, Dropbox, Lululemon, Sephora, Cisco, eBay, Activision, and Warner Bros. Originally trained as a lawyer Darren has also worked for McKinsey & Co, been a partner at two San Francisco investment firms and served as the CEO of two companies. He is the author of the new book Master Your Code: The Art, Wisdom, and Science of Leading an Extraordinary Life.
In this episode, we cover:
How To Lead An Extraordinary Life
2:09 - Changing how business leaders think
2:41 - Optimising human performance
3:45 - 'Billions'
5:42 - Programming the mind
6:32 - Evaluating your beliefs and rules
8:01 - "What can be, must be" - Maslow
11:41 - Psychological safety
14:42 - How to use your physiology to optimise your performance
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL249: Leadership Killers, Courage and Humility – Interview with Bill Treasurer
25 Feb 2020
00:34:54
Bill Treasurer is the founder of Giant Leap Consulting and author of five books on courage and leadership, including the international bestseller Courage Goes to Work. Bill has led over 1,000 leadership programs across the world for clients that include NASA, Saks Fifth Avenue, UBS Bank, and eBay. His latest book, co-authored with former US Navy Seal John Havlik, is called The Leadership Killer: Reclaiming Humility in an Age of Arrogance. In the book Bill and John share insights from advising global organizations and leading elite military special operations teams to pinpoint precisely where good leaders go bad, and, more importantly, how to recognize your own hubris and become more effective and humble.
In this episode, we cover:
2:30 - Working with Accenture as an executive coach
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL248: Mindfulness And The Creative Process – Interview with Ora Nadrich
18 Feb 2020
00:31:15
In today's episode of The Creative Life I talk with Ora Nadrich about mindfulness and the creative process. Ora Nadrich is founder and president of the Institute for Transformational Thinking, and author of Live True: A Mindfulness Guide to Authenticity and the groundbreaking book, Says Who? How One Simple Question Can Change the Way You Think Forever. A certified life coach and Mindfulness teacher, she specializes in transformational thinking, self-discovery, and mentoring new coaches as they develop their careers. Her work has been featured in Women's Health Magazine, Reader's Digest, Fast Company, Success Magazine, Psychology Today, and many more.
In this episode, we cover:
4:23 - The practice of being present
5:04 - The open mind research
7:16 - Being your authentic self
9:01 - Finding your own creative voice
9:42 - Jumpstarting your creativity with mindfulness
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL247: How To Go From Idea To Done – Interview with Charlie Gilkey
11 Feb 2020
00:44:10
Charlie Gilkey helps people start finishing the stuff that matters. He is an author, entrepreneur, philosopher, Army veteran, and renowned productivity expert. Founder of Productive Flourishing, Charlie helps professional creatives, leaders, and changemakers take meaningful action on work that matters. His new book is called “Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done” and it’s been getting rave reviews from the likes of Daniel Pink and Johathan Fields while Seth Godin called it ‘a game-changer” and a "modern day classic".
In this episode, James Taylor Interviews Charlie Gilkey, and they talked about How To Go From Idea To Donewe cover:
2:38 - Teaching ethics
5:09 - Project management
10:14 - Bright shiny objects
10:48 - Projects as mirrors and bridges
12:04 - Idea triage
17:08 - Going from idea to project
17:44 - Picking an idea that matters to you
19:01 - Making space for your project
19:34 - Building a project roadmap
19:40 - Accounting for drag points
20:08 - Building momentum
20:54 - The Heroes Journey
21:58 - Dealing with poor team alignment
26:37 - The five projects for prioritizing your daily schedule
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
Hey there, it's James Taylor here, keynote speaker on creativity, innovation, and future trends. Today, I'm in Chicago, Illinois. And I'm here because I'm keynoting a conference in a few hours' time.
And it's a law firm conference. Actually, it's lots of law firms that are coming together. They're sending all their senior partners. Their managing partners all around the world. We have people from Japan, from all parts of Asia, Latin America, Europe, and of course, here in North America.
Collaboration
And the topic that they brought me to speak about is innovation, specifically how law firms and legal firms can innovate better. And the key thing I'm going to be talking about really is collaboration, and how we deepen collaboration, both within law firms and also across different law firms. So different firms can collaborate with each other. And in order to build the pie, increase the size of the pie and their businesses. Now, one of the interesting things last night, we were at dinner, and we went to an amazing restaurant, the client, for this particular event organized for us all to go to a restaurant, it was one of Frank Sinatra, and Al Capone's favorite restaurants, great restaurant.
So we're sitting there, and we're kind of having a conversation with some of the partners from these different law firms. And one of the things that we kind of all pretty much agreed on is that productivity stayed pretty high during the pandemic, all these law firms, professional service firms, and many businesses were able to transfer pretty quickly to working virtually working online. So productivity actually stayed held better than many people thought it would. But the thing that really suffered was innovation, innovation, and culture, which were the two things I see that many companies are bringing me in today to talk about because it really got pushed down further. And it was much more difficult to do in a virtual context.
So one of the great things here is all these people coming from all over the world, they'll have different perspectives, different skills, different expertise. And it reminded me of something that Andy Jassie from Amazon said the other day, and he said one of the reasons we want people coming back together and collaborating physically in the same spaces together, is because we just weren't riffing the same way was his expression here in Chicago is famous for the blues and jazz. And I'm actually gonna be talking about the role of riffing and improvisation as a way of improving collaboration in law firms. So let me show you a little bit of footage from today. And maybe you're a law firm. Maybe you're a legal network you want to bring me in to come to speak at your next conference. Go and check out JamesTaylor.me. Lots more information there. We have case studies from some of the big global 50 law firms that I work with. Check this out.
CL246: How To Rehumanize Your Business With Personal Videos – Interview with Stephen Pacinelli
04 Feb 2020
00:40:25
A passionate storyteller by nature who measures his success by helping people reach their potential, Steve Pacinelli serves as the Chief Marketing Officer of BombBomb. He is also the co-author of Rehumanize Your Business: How Personal Videos Accelerate Sales and Improve Customer Experience.
In this episode, we cover:
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CL245: How To Have Tough Conversations – Interview with David Wood
28 Jan 2020
00:33:21
After a life as a consulting actuary to Fortune 100 companies on Park Avenue, David Wood built the world’s largest coaching business, becoming #1 on Google for life coaching and serving huge audiences worldwide. He now coaches high performing executives, entrepreneurs, teams, and even prison inmates, to create amazing results and deep connection. One tough conversation at a time.
In this episode, we cover:
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
CL244: How AI Will Change Customer Experience – Interview with John DiJulius
21 Jan 2020
00:32:18
By 2025, AI will power 95 percent of all customer interactions. But despite of this technological disruption my guest today argues that the most important part of a great ?customer experience is relationship building. John DiJulius is a sought-after authority on world-class customer experience, working with companies such as The Ritz-Carlton, Lexus, Starbucks, and Progressive Insurance. In his new book, The Relationship Economy: Building Stronger Customer Connections in the Digital he shows readers how to attain meaningful, lasting relationships with customers.
In this episode, we cover:
5:43 - Customer Experience vs Customer Service vs Customer Support
9:10 - Being the cheapest or the best
10:49 - Why companies are reallocating advertising and marketing dollars to customer experience
12:24 - Why micro-experiences are important for building customer loyalty
14:14 - Checklist Manifesto
14:55 - From automation to experiences
15:04 - Using AI for improving customer experience
If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.