Personal Development;Life Enhancement;Achievement
Writing
Why did I Choose Self-Publishing?
Jan 5th
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” ~Alexander Graham Bell
My first book will be out for sale, on my website and through my affiliated partners on Thursday, October 25th, 2012. I will be self-publishing this first book. I call it my first book because I have already begun writing the second and the third books. I think I have more than enough material based on more than 20 years of coaching to write at least 20 books – if I choose to do so. But why did I choose to self – publish?
Why did I Choose to Self-Publish?
It wasn’t because I couldn’t find a publisher. I was fortunate enough to have a couple of smaller publishers approach me after seeing me speak and ask if I wanted to work with them.
I decided to self-publish for 2 reasons:
1) I wanted to make more money than publishers could realistically offer a first time author like myself.
2) I thought I had a decent author platform already and that I knew enough that I would be able to build a great marketing channel for my first book and then use that channel for marketing other self-improvement products that I might create in the future.
Would I make the same choice again given what I know now? Yes I would, but after working on this first book for so long I have a tremendous appreciation for all the work that publishers do for authors – they do earn their money!
Till next time…Jack
Juice Fasting Update
This is the 8th day of my juice fast. In that time I have not eaten any solid food – I have only drank freshly extracted vegetable and fruit juices. I intend to continue this juice fast for a total of 67 days. In the first seven days I have lost twelve pounds of bodyweight, a decent start, and my energy has certainly increased. My only complaint so far is that I have lost so much weight in my face that my former double chin has now become a turkey waddle! Tighten skin – tighten!
“Note to self: finding a cool quote and writing it in your journal is not a substitute for Getting. It. Done.” ~Betsy Cañas Garmon
Writing is Not the Hardest Part
Jan 4th
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” ~Mary Anne Radmacher
Last time I was talking about the day that I decided that I was going to write a book. It was an important day for sure and it could, and perhaps should, have lead to a book being out in fairly quick order, but it didn’t. There are lots of reasons for this, most of which I understand now and over time I will share them here – at the very least I want to be an example of what not to do as a fledgling author!
Writing the Book is not the Hardest Part
For me, the hardest part of the process of bringing a book successfully to market was not the writing of the book – although this has certainly been challenging. The hardest part for me as a first time author was deciding to become my own publisher, at least for this first book, and then committing to doing what I needed to do in order to make the book a success. I am still learning what it takes to build a successful author platform and I work on the marketing channel for my book every single day. This building of the marketing channel has been the hardest part.
Next time I will talk about why I decided to go the self-publishing route and the consequences of that choice.
Bye for now…Jack
Juice Fasting Update
This is the seventh day of my juice fast and I am feeling pretty good. I didn’t lose any measureable weight since yesterday, but my gout has relented a bit more and my energy is still acceptable. I worked out this morning for twenty minutes, Tae-Bo kick boxing, and I think that is decent for early on in this fast. I expect that my energy will continue to rise as my body converts ever more into fat-burning mode.
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” ~Epictetus
Happy 2012 – A Year of High Adventure
Jan 2nd
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” ~Lewis Carroll
Happy 2012! Are you ready to make this your best year ever? I know I am. I’ve been planning this coming year for most of the previous month and now I’ve started. Wow! – do I have some great plans for this upcoming year:
I am finally, ready or not, going to release my first book. Look for lots of information here about this over the next 10 months or so and an official release date of Thursday, October 25th, 2012.
I am going to do whatever it takes to get back in great shape. I intend to lose, as quickly and delightfully as I can make it, more than 100 pounds of bodyfat. You can read and even watch this process right here. (As I write this, I am on the 5th day of an alkaline juice fast.) Much more upcoming about this entire adventure.
I’m going to start traveling and speaking again. I moved my family from Colorado to Iowa 3 years ago to care for my mom and that has occupied much of my energy. I have things arranged now so that I have more freedom – time to start doing much more speaking to entertain and educate at the same time – I love it!
I am going to start accepting new coaching clients again. I haven’t accepted any new clients since I moved to Iowa- I just supported and nurtured my existing clients. Now I have time to work with some new people – I love helping others to achieve their dreams. It is so fulfilling and exciting to be involved at such a deep level with clients!
I am going to get my website current and re-release my newsletter. I have neglected this more than long enough. Look for the first issue of my weekly newsletter the last week of January and look for updates to my website almost daily.
Enough talking about taking action – time to do something!
Bye for now…Jack
“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.” ~Jonathan Safran Foer
Muse Part 2
Dec 3rd
“One reason I don’t suffer ‘Writer’s Block’ is that I don’t wait on the muse, I summon it at need.” ~Piers Anthony
Last time I mentioned that I am creating a muse for myself. This time I will begin to go into that process in greater depth. Strap on your safety belts…here we go!
Project: Create the Ideal Muse (Creating a Great Muse in probably good enough for now and I can evolve it over time)
Deadlines: Created by January 1st, 2011; Tested, de-bugged, installed in myself and fully operational by February 1st, 2011.
Resources:
- My memory of great writing sessions and what that felt like.
- My memory of poor writing sessions and what that felt like.
- The readily available information (thanks to the internet) from other famous writers about writer’s block and what they did about it.
- The readily available information from other famous writers about what it was like when they were in a great writing place – what I am going to call for now: a place of connection and flow.
- NLP and my ability to model excellence in other people.
- That fact that I am really fed-up with not being more productive in my writing.
- My compelling vision of how my writing and speaking business life can be once I am writing freely, consistently and well.
Definitions of Success: How will I know that I have successfully achieved my result? How and what will I measure to know that I have a created a great muse for myself?
I’ll talk more about this next piece more next time.
Bye for now…Jack
“For hundreds of years people have talked about artists having inspiration, but often, some persons would say, write us a symphony or write us a song, on commission. The artists would come up with a masterpiece without waiting to have their muse inspire them.” ~Tom Glazer
What Does Your Muse Look Like?
Nov 30th
Muse…Noun: The spirit that is thought to inspire a poet or other artist; a source of genius or inspiration. ~ from Ancient Greek Mythology
I have been spending an every greater part of my business life writing. This is certain to be a permanent change and I have been working diligently, sometimes intelligently, to make myself a better and especially quicker writer. Some days I am great. Some days I would need to improve quite a bit just to be terrible. It is well past time to make the great days much more common and the terrible days mostly a thing of the past.
Over the next few entries I am going to talk about creating an ideal muse…in some NLPish terms, creating the perfect set of nested and related emotional states and beliefs and I am even going to create an artificial entity – an ideal muse. Once I create it, then I will start to use it, to use this newly created muse on a daily basis, and then share my results with you…I expect it to be fun and effective!
For now, read this article from the Washington Post, written by Stephen King, where he talks about his muse…just excellent!
Till next time…Jack
When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, “Why God? Why me?” and the thundering voice of God answered, “There’s just something about you that pisses me off.” ~Stephen King
$100,000 Mistakes in Book Writing
Aug 27th
“A friend accepts us as we are yet helps us to be what we should.” ~Author Unknown
This article assumes that you have some interest in getting a non-fiction book published some day. You might find it interesting even if you don’t have any such desires!
Book Writing Mistakes Cost $100,000
Last time I talked about the mistakes that I made after I decided to write a book. I would guess that those mistakes cost me at least three years – three additional years where I did not have a book working for me to increase my income. Guessing what that has meant to me in lost income from additional speaking engagement fees, increased coaching income and direct book sales to my seminar participants, without out even calculating in any book sales thru Amazon or other sources, I am going estimate that not having a book for those three years cost me at least $100,000 in additional income. (Wow! It even hurts to type that out and read it!)
What will it cost you to add an additional three years onto the book writing/publication/marketing cycle? I don’t know, but I guarantee it will cost you at lot! Depending on your business, it could cost you much more than $100,000!
So what would I do differently if I was starting a book today and wanted to get it done and working for me as quickly and elegantly as possible?
11 Steps to Non-Fiction Publishing Success
- I would completely forget about getting my first book published traditionally and I would immediately start the process of becoming an expert on self-publishing. (I’ll talk about the why of this in future entries, and notice that I said first book.)
- I would find and join or create a non-fiction writer’s group that met weekly and made me read new, not revised, material each and every week. (I’ll talk more about this in future entries as well.)
- I would immediately start blogging, however short the entries, 5 times per week. (More to come here as well.)
- I would immediately hire an email newsletter service and start collecting names of people that like my material. (More coming)
- As quickly as possible, I would start to release a weekly newsletter to those collected names – however short the newsletter! (More coming)
- I would create a Mastermind group of like energy and achievement minded and completely different skills people and we would begin to meet weekly. (Much more about this process later – this is one of my strongest passions!)
- I would decide and commit that I was going to write every single day, no matter what, and I would slowly amp up the volume of that writing. (More coming)
- I would hire a book writing coach, if I could afford one, or join a monthly book writing coaching membership site if I could not afford a personal coach. (More about this to come as well)
- If I wasn’t already a public speaker, I would join Toastmasters and start the process of becoming one! (Yes – you guessed it…more coming)
- I would open a twitter account and start following people that interested me. (More to come!)
- I would start on account on LinkedIn and then dedicate just a bit of time each week here.
I wouldn’t expect to get all of these things done right away. But I would expect to have most of them in place within six weeks and all of them in place and working for me within six month. (In point of fact, I don’t quite have all of them in place myself yet, but I will within a couple of weeks!)
Did I mention yet that I have a non-fiction book coming out in September of 2011? I do! More about that next time as well.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.” ~John Wooden
Avoid These Mistakes When Starting Your Book
Aug 25th
“A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one.” ~Rita Mae Brown
In 2005 I decided that I was going to write a book. As I mentioned in my last entry, this wasn’t a consciously made choice. My unconscious mind decided that it was time to take action and let me know this at the end of a seminar.
I am not sure why I made that decision at that particular time. I had known that I would benefit from a book for years; as a seasoned and in-demand seminar leader, I almost always had the opportunity to sell products at the end of my presentations. Instead I used this time for chatting with attendees and over time, many of these chats ended up becoming coaching or consulting clients. (Although I can successfully coach virtually anyone that speaks a common language with me, I only consult on a handful topics.)
So, these seminars, along with other marketing techniques, kept me with a consistently full coaching practice, commonly with a waiting list, and I was complacent. Not lazy, just complacent.
Use me as a BAD example
Once I had made the decision to become a published non-fiction author, I thought about it virtually every day. And there is the beginning of the first mistake. I thought about it everyday. I invested energy into it every day. I felt bad that I wasn’t writing more – almost every day. What I didn’t do was take action on it every day – that would have taken a different and much wiser decision!
Three Mistakes I Made
Looking back 6 years, I am embarrassed. I should have known better! As an NLP practitioner, I had helped hundreds of people get unstuck and begin taking consistent action from a place of pleasure. From my slightly more enlightened future, I can look back now and see three big mistakes that I made.
- My first mistake was not deciding – not committing to – taking action every single day.
- My second mistake: I was using a pitiful motivation strategy to get myself to take what little action I did take! (I’ve talked about good and bad motivation strategies before and I will again – really useful stuff!)
- Finally I was not accountable to anyone for getting this book done. The only person I was reporting to about it was me and that was just not good enough.
Next time I’ll talk about what I would do differently and what I am doing differently now to write books.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“Choices are the hinges of destiny.” ~Attributed to both Edwin Markham and Pythagoras
I want to be an Author?
Aug 24th
“To be a writer is to sit down at one’s desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone – just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over….” ~John Hersey
I want to be an author? Really?
I remember clearly the day that I decided that I was going to write a book. I had just finished presenting one of my business seminars at the Boulder Colorado Chamber of Commerce and I was standing in the front of the room meeting some of attendees. The seminar had gone well; perhaps 80 people had shown up for the ninety minutes of my presentation.
This was in the early fall of 2005 and I had at this point been writing and presenting business seminars for nearly 10 years. The seminars were fun for me and they made me some money – sometimes a little…sometimes a nice amount. I mostly gave these smaller seminars at various Chambers of Commerce around the country as a part of my marketing for my coaching practice and they worked well then and work still marvelously. I never tried to sell anyone on coaching. I just gave my best, did my absolute best for my audience, and if it was the right time in their lives – we ended up working together.
I had been asked many times if I had a book or audio program and I always responded with something similar to: “I’m a great coach and a speaker, but not an author.” That was my standard response but on this day I startled myself by responding: “I don’t have a book yet or an audio program, but I’m going to.” Wow! Really? What was different about that day? I don’t know, but I know now that it was the true response.
Fast Forward Five Years
It has been nearly five years since that time and although my book is not yet done, I can now see the actual end of the marvelous, frustrating, incredible, time consuming, best ever, worst ever process. My book will be out in 2011 – almost exactly 6 years since that seminar. What took me so long? What did I learn along the way? What can you learn from my experience? Excellent questions and I will answer them soon.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.” ~Gerald Brenan
Learn to Write Like Author Richard Bach
Mar 9th
“The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder.” ~Richard Bach
Last time I wrote about planning and the importance of setting big goals, long term goals that stretch out at least 10 years. I was going to write today about the process of setting these goals and how to create a great attitude that makes this process even easier and even more fun. Well, scratch that bit of learning for a couple of days, wonderful as it would be and will be again and instead let’s go on a little adventure filled side-trip together. Let’s take a trip into the mind of best-selling author and pilot Richard Bach.
Learn to Write Like Richard Bach
I have been reading Richard’s books since early 1970 and after nearly 40 years, his books are still some of my best friends. Just like my human best friends, I enjoy seeing Richard’s books each time and I enjoy spending time with them. Also just like my human friends, Richard Bach’s books are smart and I learn something from them every time we meet. I had the pleasure of finding a short video interview with Richard Bach a couple of days ago and it really had an impact on me. I am including a link to this video here and I encourage you to watch it. For ears that are ready to hear, there are wonderful, bright and beautiful gems of empowering beliefs just waiting to be picked up in this interview. Next time I will talk about some of these beliefs that Richard is gifting us with and how we can use them to make our own writing better and more fun for us and for our readers. The link will autoload and start to play immediately. Link to Richard Bach video interview.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you
Either you’ll find something solid to stand on
Or you’ll be taught how to fly!” ~Richard Bach
There’s Nothing Like the Smell of a New Laptop
Feb 12th
“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” ~St. Francis of Assisi
My new laptop arrived a couple of days ago and I have been immersed in moving my computer life from an older machine to a new machine. This is quite a bit more work than I had imagined, but it will be worth it. I travel quite a bit for speaking and I write for hours each day – pretty much every day, so I got the best laptop that I could find for mixing travel, speaking ( I use my laptop as a prompter while the audience sees the presentation on the screen behind me.) and writing while on the road. I ended up choosing the new Sony Vaio “F” series with the fastest quad processor and lots of ram. I have only been playing with it for 2 days now and I love it. Fast – super fast and Windows 7?- this is a great improvement over Vista. I am sure that Vista had some great features – I just never found them. I had downgraded the 5 computers in my system to XP to avoid the madness of Vista. Anyhow, I love the Sony “F”. I love what I have experienced of Windows 7. And of course, there is nothing like that new laptop smell!
That’s all the time that I have for today. Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette.” ~Henry S. Hoskins