hello believe nation I started the
making it series to try to look at
people who’ve had a lot of success in a
particular field or industry and try to
learn from them so that if you have the
same aspirations the same goals to be
successful in that market you will be
able to learn from some of the best so
today we’re going to learn about making
it as a writer tip number 10 is my
personal favorite and make sure to stick
around all the way to the end for some
special bonus clips and as always if you
hear something that is motivational
inspirational leaves an impact on you
please leave it in the comments below
and put quotes around it so other people
can enjoy as well I often get asked by
younger readers what I would advise if
you want to be a writer this is the way
I did it so that’s the only advice I can
give you’ve got to read as much as you
possibly can because that’s the best way
to recognize good writing and to learn
what makes bad writing and those are
very good things you’ll probably go
through a phase where you imitate your
favorite writers that’s perfectly okay
that’s another learning process you
resign yourself to writing lots and lots
of rubbish you just got to write that
out of your system and sooner or later
you’ll hit what what you know you really
should be doing and what is your genre
and perseverance you’ve got to persevere
because it is a it’s a career with a lot
of knock backs but the rewards are huge
I don’t mean in the sense that if that’s
what you really want to do to be able to
do it life long is the best thing in the
world very rewarding but it’s not a
career for people who are easily
discouraged that’s for sure and to their
parents don’t tell them it’s unrealistic
never to never say that because even if
they’re not published writing well
writing is the passion of my life so
it’s an important thing to do the best
description of writing a novel that I
ever heard it’s actually in Thomas
Williams this book the hair of Harold
drew which is about a novelist trying to
write a novel and it just covers like
one or two days in this process and a
lot of things happen too it’s a fabulous
book but he says that writing a novel is
like building a little campfire
an empty dark plane and one by one these
characters come out of the dark and each
one has a little pile of wood and they
put it on the fire and if you’re very
lucky before the fire goes out it’s this
big bonfire and all the characters stand
around it and warm themselves and that’s
the way it’s always been for me I have a
good friend over in Vermont
John Irving and John says that he always
begins a novel by writing the last line
and to me that’s like eating your
dessert before you eat the meal and I
don’t I everybody works a different way
and God bless John and he’s done some
wonderful work in his lifetime and he’ll
probably do some more but I could never
write a book that way the way that I
think of it you know is that fire I love
that particular image but I’ve also
always thought of it in terms of there’s
a little thread a little red thread that
goes into a hole in the baseboard and
you just start to pull it out and you
see what’s on the other end of it and
sooner or later you get there for me the
fun of writing novels isn’t in the
finished product which I don’t care
about that much there’s a guy who’s
looking at my shelf over there all the
books are on the shelf and to me those
are like dead skin the things that are
that are done but I love the process my
my personal legend was always to be a
writer and and finding your personal
agent does not mean fulfilling your
personal legend because being a writer
means writing books I cannot just sit
and say okay I’m a writer so you write a
first book
it makes me or not be successful then
there’s the next one there is a third
one and all of a sudden I realized that
you know your book your books are doing
very well and you fear success you have
this moment that you think oh my god
should I write the next book do I need
to be judged again by the critics etc
and then you realize that your personal
legend is about moving on go if you if
you give
the dream of becoming a writer write
books don’t be paralyzed by either
success or failure so I’m in the process
I’m on the journey of my personal legend
not to fulfill it but to live it as full
as intensely as I can my strategy has
always been you can’t you have to very
consciously differentiate yourself from
where you think your professional peer
group is going so the to the extent that
people are might extend to people
migrate to things that are accessible
online I feel I should migrate to things
that are inaccessible online so the
value or to extend to people stop
reading books and read I feel like I
need to read more books
so I bench what I’ve been trying to do
is to kind of it’s why I spend a lot of
time in actual physical libraries
reading things in a hardcopy
because there’s a kind of a serendipity
that you get when you this is not anyway
man does it criticism by the way of
search engine is for example which are
incredibly useful but they are but they
you know they also have limitations they
reward a certain kind of serendipity and
they punish another kind of serendipity
right and if you really want to if
you’re interested in serendipitous
learning as I am much of what I uncover
is uncovered serendipitously you have to
be a student of all of the different
mechanisms of chance encounters with the
unusual and the insightful and so that
means that not only do I spend a lot of
time screwing around online on databases
but I also very very consciously make
sure that I go to physical libraries and
walk through the stacks and even
something as simple as you’re interested
in one book and then you go and you just
look at all of the books that surround
it right and the connections are not
always the connections are there’s their
connections between them but it’s a
different kind of connection than they
would be connected online it’s not a
keyword connection right it’s a thematic
connection or it’s a so as always sort
of you have to be a student of these
kinds of
of the the different ways in which ideas
cluster and so that and I’ve been I
thought a lot about that in recent years
as a way of distinguishing myself from
other journalists I had done the
Fantastic Four and the x-men and my
publisher said hey they do and well do
another one so I came up with spider-man
and I said to him I got this great idea
I want to quote spider-man and he’s a
teenager
so I gave him the idea and he said stand
that is the worst idea I have ever heard
he said first of all people hate spiders
you can’t call it hero spider-man
secondly he said he can’t be a teenager
teenagers are only sidekicks and finally
he can’t have personal problems don’t
you know what a superhero is so he
wouldn’t let me do it one day we had a
book we were going to kill called
amazing fantasy when you’re going to do
the last issue nobody cares where you
put in it just to get it out of my
system I put spider-man in the book and
we sold it and it was a best-seller so
my publisher called me in a couple weeks
later to stand you remember that
character spider-man that you and I
liked so much why don’t you do a series
of it
that’s how Spidey was born with
creativity even my failures the stakes
are so low you know I mean this is the
thing that I’m always trying to tell
people about artistic endeavor the
stakes are so low the stakes are so low
like very rarely is somebody going to
die or have their heart broken or have
their life upturned because a poem that
you wrote didn’t work you know or an
essay that you tried to write didn’t
work if I write a book and people don’t
like it they’re not going to come to my
house and shoot me you know what I mean
I mean it’s and be exaggerating but it’s
I think sometimes we in the world realm
of creativity to blow the stakes up to
something so much higher than they
possibly are I’ve heard a lot of comics
say that the fantastic thing about doing
stand-up which i think is the scariest
of all art forms is to bomb and then to
walk offstage and you’re like I
oh that didn’t work and I’m still here
that’s amazing the worst possible thing
that could happen happened and nothing
happened you know I’m still intact I’m
still in one piece so so my creative
failures have that feeling to them where
it’s like wow that totally didn’t work
and I’m totally fine we’re all going to
live it’s totally fine first even though
I’m not a fiction writer at this point
who knows maybe I’ll try that and make a
mess of things but bird by bird first
for all the psychological trials and
tribulations bird by bird is the book
that I read when I feel like I’m going
into the abyss or having a complete
meltdown it’s a wonderful book for
getting out of that but I also would say
like when you’re stuck when you’re not
sure what to write tell a story so you
like show and don’t describe it show it
so if you’re like oh how should I
describe this point do this do that like
bullet point this bullet point that give
an example give a story and just so
what’s an example of how you did that in
the 4-hour workweek uh well anytime I I
hit a sticking point which was very very
very often I would there are a couple
things that I would I would ask myself
who whose story can I tell like who
embody is this point or this principle I
mean Jack obviously is a master of this
style of storytelling and secondly Poe
Bronson who’s a great writer and has
written many many good books at one
point I heard him on a panel and
somebody in the crowd asked him about
writer’s block and and you said well
when I get writer’s block I think about
what makes me really really angry and I
read about that and it’s actually
fantastic advice if you write about what
most frustrates you why it frustrates
you and then like what you did about it
uh you usually come up with something
good and I would also emphasize so I
have a lot of thoughts on this but like
the book is the most important thing you
need to bake the product the market
heading into a good book like that’s
that for me that is almost all of it and
then the rest a lot of it takes care of
itself but what I would say is make your
quota really small so
two crappy pages a day that’s your quota
for me that’s the only way I can slog
through a bush I could not happy pages a
day this idea of two is is I think we’re
hitting the number two yeah all right
yeah I cannot think of a book or I’ll
just want to like cry into my pillow and
go to sleep I can’t do it for many years
before I wrote the power of now and he
became successful I was basically a
failure in the eyes of the world so he’s
already almost 50 and what has he
achieved my mum said you have thrown
away your life you had so many
possibilities in your life you walked
out of graduate school in Cambridge why
did you walk out of there you my mum and
many other people said this person has
failed in life he has no job he has no
insurance policies nothing
no pension plan just almost nothing in
the bank failure and then a few years
later people bought the path now and
became a best-seller Oh a big success
okay if I had arrived my identity at
that time from what the world was
telling me or my mind would have told me
if I have been listening to my mind I
would have been very unhappy and I
didn’t know I was fine because my
density wasn’t derived from that anymore
and fortunately even when in the eyes of
the world I suddenly became a success I
don’t want to derive my identity from
that it’s it’s a cheap substitute for
who I really am so I’m not I don’t see I
don’t arrive but the satisfaction it
comes is the satisfaction that the work
that’s happening the teaching that’s
happening is transforming people’s lives
that’s very satisfying I don’t get any
personal satisfaction though because
it’s not I don’t feel it as this
separate me produced it I want you to
get over this notion that I find so
annoying that so many people have that
success and power in life is dependent
on something like genetics
like some people are born with a larger
brain or they have wealthy parents who
are able to send them to the right
school or or it’s all a matter of luck
what really makes people successful and
powerful in life and it’s not just me
saying this I read hundreds of books on
the subject what makes people successful
is their degree of motivation ok I could
repeat it a hundred times but it’s true
every time I say it when you are
motivated when you feel yourself
emotionally engaged in the subject you
learn faster you learn what could take
somebody 10 years to learn you can learn
in two years when you feel emotionally
engaged with something you’re able to
push past ops all the obstacles the
sense that it’s genetics or the size of
our brain or our parents money you can’t
control any of that obviously and they
could become kind of crutches for some
people but the amount of motivation you
feel the emotional connection you have
to what you’re studying or doing that is
something within your control that is
something you can choose to take and it
is you’re going to find people giving
you all kinds of great advice about your
careers about where you should go you
know for your MBA etc but if there’s one
piece of advice that I think is more
important than that is that is it is
this idea of following this these
natural inclinations and creating your
own career path and finding a way to
engage the deepest motivating parts of
your psyche if you’re feeling
particularly at a creative low point
where you get your inspiration from to
come up with such amazing tales and
amazing subject matter to write stories
about um what you’ve actually done there
is asked the question that must not be
asked of righties you’ve rephrased ever
so slightly but what you fundamentally
does say where do you get your ideas and
writers are awful to people who ask us
where we get our ideas we we get mean we
don’t just get mean we get mean in a
right tree way which means we’ll make
fun of you and and we do that not afraid
and the reason we do that is because we
don’t really know and we terrified the
ideas will go away
so every writer I know has a funny
answer and and you know Harlan Ellison
used to say that he got them from a
little idea shop in Schenectady and your
writer who when asked would say he gets
them from the idea of the Month Club and
people go really here’s all you every
month they send you an idea
the truth is I think um for me
inspiration comes through a bunch of
places
desperation deadlines a lot of times
ideas will turn up while you’re doing
something else
and most of all I think ideas come from
confluence they come from two things
flowing together they come from
essentially from daydreaming it’s that
point and I suspect there’s something
that every human being does writers aim
to train themselves to notice when
they’ve had an idea it’s not that they
have any more ideas or get inspired more
than anything else we just we just
notice when it happens a little bit more
but you’re just thinking you you go wow
you know everybody knows that if you get
bitten by a werewolf
when the moon is full you will turn into
a wolf you know that
there’s that moment where you sitting
thinking so what happens if a werewolf
bites a goldfish
and or that moment where you start
thinking well actually what happens if a
werewolf sinks its fangs into a chair
and what if you’re sitting in that chair
and the moonlight touches it and slowly
it starts feeling more and more wolfish
and then it growls and and you know and
then what about the oh my god then then
you’d have to set it in the winter
because you’d need the snow for people
to try and figure out why you’ve got
chair leg marks in the snow by the body
that’s that it’s throat ripped out and
suddenly you have a story so that’s so
it’s a lot of it is daydreaming I wish
there was something I always feel I’m in
some ways disappointing people when they
ask where do you get your inspiration
because what they really always want is
the answer they want you to be able to
say well what you do is 11:58 at night
you go down to the cellar you roll the
goat bones
there’ll be a banging on the door it
will open this thing will fly in it will
explode you’ll have a something like a
chocolate you eat it you have an idea
I don’t know you make him out out of
your head
thank you guys so much for watching I’d
love to know what do you think of the
video do you like this series is making
it series should we continue it is there
another field that we should do next
I’d love to get your feedback and from
this video in particular which clip did
you love the most that resonate with you
the most what did you take from it that
you’re going to apply to your business
to your life somehow leave all of that
in the comments below I’m going to join
in the discussion thank you again for
watching I believe in you I hope you
continue to believe in yourself and
whatever your one word is much love I’ll
see you soon
I’m a firm believer that everyone should
write and self publish their own books
and there are many reasons I’ll give a
few of the reasons first off I’ve
written 18 books I published with
traditional publishers on 6 or 7 of them
and I published self-published
through Amazon the rest about 12 of them
11 or 12 of them my self-published books
have made me a lot more money than my
traditionally published books why is
that for one thing I can write and
upload them much more quickly when you
work with a traditional publisher takes
a year and a half from beginning to end
to write and publish your book but I can
write a book you know over the next few
months
upload it to Amazon and once you upload
it to Amazon its published and then you
get 70% of the revenues as opposed to
let’s say 10 to 12% of the revenues with
a traditional publisher so just in
general you make more money with a
self-published book and by the way one
of my books choose yourself which I
encourage you to read I’m self promoting
here but choose yourself probably has
sold and made me more money than all of
my other books combined and that was a
self-published book the other thing is
for finally in our society the
gatekeepers are going away and I think
the publishing industry is the best
example of that I mean I’ve been writing
and trying to publish books since
probably the mid 90s and I wasn’t very
good at first I published my first book
with a traditional publisher in 2004 and
then I started self-publishing when the
stigma started to remove itself from
self-publishing around let’s say 2009
and 2010 around the same time at Amazon
launched their self-publishing program
and by the way I have nothing to do with
Amazon I’m not trying to sell any
self-publishing services but I just love
this so much and I love writing and I
also think now is the first time in
history that you can publish a book and
actually uh you know not you’re not you
don’t have to wait for some publishing
company to say yes or no to you which
publishing companies have many reasons
why they say no very few of those
reasons have anything to do with the
quality of your writing or what you’re
saying so by all means if you have
something to say a story to tell
values you want to express then write a
book and self publish it all it takes is
the book of course and hopefully you
write a good book making the cover
getting a book edited and then you
upload to Amazon and it’s done what’s
another reason what you why you might
want to self publish well for better for
worse it’s one thing if you have a
business card to show people but if you
hand people oh and here’s my book on the
topic people are going to say oh my gosh
this guy sat down and wrote an entire
book on this topic that’s incredible so
it gives you this air of more validity
more legitimacy and that can lead to
speaking engagements consulting other
opportunities other career opportunities
I can tell you it’s led to all of these
things for me it can lead to other books
that you might want to write on the
topic once you see how readers respond
to you I also want to add a lot of books
and stories that went on to become so
I’ve been talking about nonfiction
primarily but a lot of books and stories
that have been very successful in the
fiction world started out as
self-published books the Martian it’s an
oscar-nominated movie and originally
Andy weir the author who’s been on my
podcast he self-published it and then I
forgot which publisher picked it up but
then it became picked up by a major
publisher but only after he sold several
hundred thousand copies of it while
self-published another example whether
you like the book or not was one of the
most successful books in the past 50
years Fifty Shades of Grey was
originally a self-published book after
it sold several hundred thousand copies
I think Random House picked it up and it
became published a lot of books that you
read now that are very important for
entrepreneurs or personal improvement
and personal development originally
started as self-published books or still
are self-published books many successful
authors have moved into the
self-publishing arena because they get
to be in charge now of marketing they
get to be in charge of design packaging
they get to be in charge of how they
price the book they have more control
over when the books released so a lot of
professional authors have moved from
mainstream publishing to self-publishing
just because they’re simple it’s easier
and they’re more successful at it and
they make more money at it
so again if you have something to say
and for me
always wanted to write and publish a
book a bet but many people have and
sometimes it’s not always the most
commercial thing so publishers are not
going to agree to it but by all means
self-published now you have it in your
hand you could hand it to business
associates you can hand it to friends
you can share with your family and who
knows it might become a huge
best-selling book as well which we’ve
seen in many cases so by all means
finally the opportunity is here to self
publish I read a lot about this please
check out what I’ve written about please
check out my podcast on the topic I have
no I’m not trying to sell you anything
with this I have no affiliation with
Amazon or any self publisher but I know
it’s worked for me and I really want to
share this success with you guys every
pursuit no matter how glamorous it may
seem no matter how exciting you are it
feels to you no matter how much you feel
like you were born to do it
comes with a sandwich and so the
question is not what do I love the
question is what do I love so much that
I don’t mind eating the sandwich
that comes along with that thing so for
me in my life writing is the thing that
I love and the sandwich was the 7
years that I was not getting published
and that I was coming home from my job
as a diner waitress as a bartender as an
au pair as a somebody who worked in flea
markets as a cook and I was coming home
tired and smelling like other people’s
french fries and sitting down and doing
my real job which was to write and then
to go to the mailbox the next day and
get another rejection letter and then
say do I still want to do this cuz this
so much sucks you know and I did
still want to do it and now even as
somebody who makes their living as a
writer there’s no end to the
sandwiches it’s like um oh hello
horrible review in prominent newspaper
um that’s your sandwich today was
you still want to do this work yeah yeah
I still do still worth it
like Hello um awful comment on social
media from somebody who thinks you’re a
pile of talk you know it just has
like chosen every possible way that they
can just cannot get it out of their
system fast enough
how much disregard they have for your
entire life yeah still want to do this
thing yeah I still want to do it you
know so that’s the question because if
the first time you encounter this
sandwich you’re like well this
this isn’t worth it then that’s not the
thing you’re supposed to be doing yes um
and there are plenty of things in life
that that I have run into the ship
sandwich I’ve been like so not worth it
so not worth it like this is not I don’t
want to do this like whatever the bed
alleged benefits of this thing yes might
be know what down for SoulCycle no you
know like I know it’s probably really
good for me but I feel like throwing up
right now is too hard no um
you’ll not be seeing me here again you
know like I’m and I love my sisters at
SoulCycle I just don’t like feeling like
I’m going to throw up when I exercise so
it’s not for me you know and and so
that’s the question so if you go into
this thing thinking if I follow my bliss
and I live my dream and I stand in my
truth then everything will be great it
doesn’t mean everything will be great
it just means at the end of the day when
you check in with yourself and you go in
the end on the balance is this still
better than not doing it and the answer
is still yeah this thing is still better
than not doing it then you’re on the
right path when you start out on a
career in the arts you have no idea what
you’re doing this is great people who
know what they’re doing know the rules
and they know what is possible and what
is impossible you do not and you should
not the rules on what is possible and
impossible in the arts were made by
people who had not tested the bounds of
the possible by going beyond them and
you can if you don’t know it’s
impossible it’s easier to do and because
nobody’s done it before they haven’t
made up rules to stop anyone doing that
particular thing again
making it series to try to look at
people who’ve had a lot of success in a
particular field or industry and try to
learn from them so that if you have the
same aspirations the same goals to be
successful in that market you will be
able to learn from some of the best so
today we’re going to learn about making
it as a writer tip number 10 is my
personal favorite and make sure to stick
around all the way to the end for some
special bonus clips and as always if you
hear something that is motivational
inspirational leaves an impact on you
please leave it in the comments below
and put quotes around it so other people
can enjoy as well I often get asked by
younger readers what I would advise if
you want to be a writer this is the way
I did it so that’s the only advice I can
give you’ve got to read as much as you
possibly can because that’s the best way
to recognize good writing and to learn
what makes bad writing and those are
very good things you’ll probably go
through a phase where you imitate your
favorite writers that’s perfectly okay
that’s another learning process you
resign yourself to writing lots and lots
of rubbish you just got to write that
out of your system and sooner or later
you’ll hit what what you know you really
should be doing and what is your genre
and perseverance you’ve got to persevere
because it is a it’s a career with a lot
of knock backs but the rewards are huge
I don’t mean in the sense that if that’s
what you really want to do to be able to
do it life long is the best thing in the
world very rewarding but it’s not a
career for people who are easily
discouraged that’s for sure and to their
parents don’t tell them it’s unrealistic
never to never say that because even if
they’re not published writing well
writing is the passion of my life so
it’s an important thing to do the best
description of writing a novel that I
ever heard it’s actually in Thomas
Williams this book the hair of Harold
drew which is about a novelist trying to
write a novel and it just covers like
one or two days in this process and a
lot of things happen too it’s a fabulous
book but he says that writing a novel is
like building a little campfire
an empty dark plane and one by one these
characters come out of the dark and each
one has a little pile of wood and they
put it on the fire and if you’re very
lucky before the fire goes out it’s this
big bonfire and all the characters stand
around it and warm themselves and that’s
the way it’s always been for me I have a
good friend over in Vermont
John Irving and John says that he always
begins a novel by writing the last line
and to me that’s like eating your
dessert before you eat the meal and I
don’t I everybody works a different way
and God bless John and he’s done some
wonderful work in his lifetime and he’ll
probably do some more but I could never
write a book that way the way that I
think of it you know is that fire I love
that particular image but I’ve also
always thought of it in terms of there’s
a little thread a little red thread that
goes into a hole in the baseboard and
you just start to pull it out and you
see what’s on the other end of it and
sooner or later you get there for me the
fun of writing novels isn’t in the
finished product which I don’t care
about that much there’s a guy who’s
looking at my shelf over there all the
books are on the shelf and to me those
are like dead skin the things that are
that are done but I love the process my
my personal legend was always to be a
writer and and finding your personal
agent does not mean fulfilling your
personal legend because being a writer
means writing books I cannot just sit
and say okay I’m a writer so you write a
first book
it makes me or not be successful then
there’s the next one there is a third
one and all of a sudden I realized that
you know your book your books are doing
very well and you fear success you have
this moment that you think oh my god
should I write the next book do I need
to be judged again by the critics etc
and then you realize that your personal
legend is about moving on go if you if
you give
the dream of becoming a writer write
books don’t be paralyzed by either
success or failure so I’m in the process
I’m on the journey of my personal legend
not to fulfill it but to live it as full
as intensely as I can my strategy has
always been you can’t you have to very
consciously differentiate yourself from
where you think your professional peer
group is going so the to the extent that
people are might extend to people
migrate to things that are accessible
online I feel I should migrate to things
that are inaccessible online so the
value or to extend to people stop
reading books and read I feel like I
need to read more books
so I bench what I’ve been trying to do
is to kind of it’s why I spend a lot of
time in actual physical libraries
reading things in a hardcopy
because there’s a kind of a serendipity
that you get when you this is not anyway
man does it criticism by the way of
search engine is for example which are
incredibly useful but they are but they
you know they also have limitations they
reward a certain kind of serendipity and
they punish another kind of serendipity
right and if you really want to if
you’re interested in serendipitous
learning as I am much of what I uncover
is uncovered serendipitously you have to
be a student of all of the different
mechanisms of chance encounters with the
unusual and the insightful and so that
means that not only do I spend a lot of
time screwing around online on databases
but I also very very consciously make
sure that I go to physical libraries and
walk through the stacks and even
something as simple as you’re interested
in one book and then you go and you just
look at all of the books that surround
it right and the connections are not
always the connections are there’s their
connections between them but it’s a
different kind of connection than they
would be connected online it’s not a
keyword connection right it’s a thematic
connection or it’s a so as always sort
of you have to be a student of these
kinds of
of the the different ways in which ideas
cluster and so that and I’ve been I
thought a lot about that in recent years
as a way of distinguishing myself from
other journalists I had done the
Fantastic Four and the x-men and my
publisher said hey they do and well do
another one so I came up with spider-man
and I said to him I got this great idea
I want to quote spider-man and he’s a
teenager
so I gave him the idea and he said stand
that is the worst idea I have ever heard
he said first of all people hate spiders
you can’t call it hero spider-man
secondly he said he can’t be a teenager
teenagers are only sidekicks and finally
he can’t have personal problems don’t
you know what a superhero is so he
wouldn’t let me do it one day we had a
book we were going to kill called
amazing fantasy when you’re going to do
the last issue nobody cares where you
put in it just to get it out of my
system I put spider-man in the book and
we sold it and it was a best-seller so
my publisher called me in a couple weeks
later to stand you remember that
character spider-man that you and I
liked so much why don’t you do a series
of it
that’s how Spidey was born with
creativity even my failures the stakes
are so low you know I mean this is the
thing that I’m always trying to tell
people about artistic endeavor the
stakes are so low the stakes are so low
like very rarely is somebody going to
die or have their heart broken or have
their life upturned because a poem that
you wrote didn’t work you know or an
essay that you tried to write didn’t
work if I write a book and people don’t
like it they’re not going to come to my
house and shoot me you know what I mean
I mean it’s and be exaggerating but it’s
I think sometimes we in the world realm
of creativity to blow the stakes up to
something so much higher than they
possibly are I’ve heard a lot of comics
say that the fantastic thing about doing
stand-up which i think is the scariest
of all art forms is to bomb and then to
walk offstage and you’re like I
oh that didn’t work and I’m still here
that’s amazing the worst possible thing
that could happen happened and nothing
happened you know I’m still intact I’m
still in one piece so so my creative
failures have that feeling to them where
it’s like wow that totally didn’t work
and I’m totally fine we’re all going to
live it’s totally fine first even though
I’m not a fiction writer at this point
who knows maybe I’ll try that and make a
mess of things but bird by bird first
for all the psychological trials and
tribulations bird by bird is the book
that I read when I feel like I’m going
into the abyss or having a complete
meltdown it’s a wonderful book for
getting out of that but I also would say
like when you’re stuck when you’re not
sure what to write tell a story so you
like show and don’t describe it show it
so if you’re like oh how should I
describe this point do this do that like
bullet point this bullet point that give
an example give a story and just so
what’s an example of how you did that in
the 4-hour workweek uh well anytime I I
hit a sticking point which was very very
very often I would there are a couple
things that I would I would ask myself
who whose story can I tell like who
embody is this point or this principle I
mean Jack obviously is a master of this
style of storytelling and secondly Poe
Bronson who’s a great writer and has
written many many good books at one
point I heard him on a panel and
somebody in the crowd asked him about
writer’s block and and you said well
when I get writer’s block I think about
what makes me really really angry and I
read about that and it’s actually
fantastic advice if you write about what
most frustrates you why it frustrates
you and then like what you did about it
uh you usually come up with something
good and I would also emphasize so I
have a lot of thoughts on this but like
the book is the most important thing you
need to bake the product the market
heading into a good book like that’s
that for me that is almost all of it and
then the rest a lot of it takes care of
itself but what I would say is make your
quota really small so
two crappy pages a day that’s your quota
for me that’s the only way I can slog
through a bush I could not happy pages a
day this idea of two is is I think we’re
hitting the number two yeah all right
yeah I cannot think of a book or I’ll
just want to like cry into my pillow and
go to sleep I can’t do it for many years
before I wrote the power of now and he
became successful I was basically a
failure in the eyes of the world so he’s
already almost 50 and what has he
achieved my mum said you have thrown
away your life you had so many
possibilities in your life you walked
out of graduate school in Cambridge why
did you walk out of there you my mum and
many other people said this person has
failed in life he has no job he has no
insurance policies nothing
no pension plan just almost nothing in
the bank failure and then a few years
later people bought the path now and
became a best-seller Oh a big success
okay if I had arrived my identity at
that time from what the world was
telling me or my mind would have told me
if I have been listening to my mind I
would have been very unhappy and I
didn’t know I was fine because my
density wasn’t derived from that anymore
and fortunately even when in the eyes of
the world I suddenly became a success I
don’t want to derive my identity from
that it’s it’s a cheap substitute for
who I really am so I’m not I don’t see I
don’t arrive but the satisfaction it
comes is the satisfaction that the work
that’s happening the teaching that’s
happening is transforming people’s lives
that’s very satisfying I don’t get any
personal satisfaction though because
it’s not I don’t feel it as this
separate me produced it I want you to
get over this notion that I find so
annoying that so many people have that
success and power in life is dependent
on something like genetics
like some people are born with a larger
brain or they have wealthy parents who
are able to send them to the right
school or or it’s all a matter of luck
what really makes people successful and
powerful in life and it’s not just me
saying this I read hundreds of books on
the subject what makes people successful
is their degree of motivation ok I could
repeat it a hundred times but it’s true
every time I say it when you are
motivated when you feel yourself
emotionally engaged in the subject you
learn faster you learn what could take
somebody 10 years to learn you can learn
in two years when you feel emotionally
engaged with something you’re able to
push past ops all the obstacles the
sense that it’s genetics or the size of
our brain or our parents money you can’t
control any of that obviously and they
could become kind of crutches for some
people but the amount of motivation you
feel the emotional connection you have
to what you’re studying or doing that is
something within your control that is
something you can choose to take and it
is you’re going to find people giving
you all kinds of great advice about your
careers about where you should go you
know for your MBA etc but if there’s one
piece of advice that I think is more
important than that is that is it is
this idea of following this these
natural inclinations and creating your
own career path and finding a way to
engage the deepest motivating parts of
your psyche if you’re feeling
particularly at a creative low point
where you get your inspiration from to
come up with such amazing tales and
amazing subject matter to write stories
about um what you’ve actually done there
is asked the question that must not be
asked of righties you’ve rephrased ever
so slightly but what you fundamentally
does say where do you get your ideas and
writers are awful to people who ask us
where we get our ideas we we get mean we
don’t just get mean we get mean in a
right tree way which means we’ll make
fun of you and and we do that not afraid
and the reason we do that is because we
don’t really know and we terrified the
ideas will go away
so every writer I know has a funny
answer and and you know Harlan Ellison
used to say that he got them from a
little idea shop in Schenectady and your
writer who when asked would say he gets
them from the idea of the Month Club and
people go really here’s all you every
month they send you an idea
the truth is I think um for me
inspiration comes through a bunch of
places
desperation deadlines a lot of times
ideas will turn up while you’re doing
something else
and most of all I think ideas come from
confluence they come from two things
flowing together they come from
essentially from daydreaming it’s that
point and I suspect there’s something
that every human being does writers aim
to train themselves to notice when
they’ve had an idea it’s not that they
have any more ideas or get inspired more
than anything else we just we just
notice when it happens a little bit more
but you’re just thinking you you go wow
you know everybody knows that if you get
bitten by a werewolf
when the moon is full you will turn into
a wolf you know that
there’s that moment where you sitting
thinking so what happens if a werewolf
bites a goldfish
and or that moment where you start
thinking well actually what happens if a
werewolf sinks its fangs into a chair
and what if you’re sitting in that chair
and the moonlight touches it and slowly
it starts feeling more and more wolfish
and then it growls and and you know and
then what about the oh my god then then
you’d have to set it in the winter
because you’d need the snow for people
to try and figure out why you’ve got
chair leg marks in the snow by the body
that’s that it’s throat ripped out and
suddenly you have a story so that’s so
it’s a lot of it is daydreaming I wish
there was something I always feel I’m in
some ways disappointing people when they
ask where do you get your inspiration
because what they really always want is
the answer they want you to be able to
say well what you do is 11:58 at night
you go down to the cellar you roll the
goat bones
there’ll be a banging on the door it
will open this thing will fly in it will
explode you’ll have a something like a
chocolate you eat it you have an idea
I don’t know you make him out out of
your head
thank you guys so much for watching I’d
love to know what do you think of the
video do you like this series is making
it series should we continue it is there
another field that we should do next
I’d love to get your feedback and from
this video in particular which clip did
you love the most that resonate with you
the most what did you take from it that
you’re going to apply to your business
to your life somehow leave all of that
in the comments below I’m going to join
in the discussion thank you again for
watching I believe in you I hope you
continue to believe in yourself and
whatever your one word is much love I’ll
see you soon
I’m a firm believer that everyone should
write and self publish their own books
and there are many reasons I’ll give a
few of the reasons first off I’ve
written 18 books I published with
traditional publishers on 6 or 7 of them
and I published self-published
through Amazon the rest about 12 of them
11 or 12 of them my self-published books
have made me a lot more money than my
traditionally published books why is
that for one thing I can write and
upload them much more quickly when you
work with a traditional publisher takes
a year and a half from beginning to end
to write and publish your book but I can
write a book you know over the next few
months
upload it to Amazon and once you upload
it to Amazon its published and then you
get 70% of the revenues as opposed to
let’s say 10 to 12% of the revenues with
a traditional publisher so just in
general you make more money with a
self-published book and by the way one
of my books choose yourself which I
encourage you to read I’m self promoting
here but choose yourself probably has
sold and made me more money than all of
my other books combined and that was a
self-published book the other thing is
for finally in our society the
gatekeepers are going away and I think
the publishing industry is the best
example of that I mean I’ve been writing
and trying to publish books since
probably the mid 90s and I wasn’t very
good at first I published my first book
with a traditional publisher in 2004 and
then I started self-publishing when the
stigma started to remove itself from
self-publishing around let’s say 2009
and 2010 around the same time at Amazon
launched their self-publishing program
and by the way I have nothing to do with
Amazon I’m not trying to sell any
self-publishing services but I just love
this so much and I love writing and I
also think now is the first time in
history that you can publish a book and
actually uh you know not you’re not you
don’t have to wait for some publishing
company to say yes or no to you which
publishing companies have many reasons
why they say no very few of those
reasons have anything to do with the
quality of your writing or what you’re
saying so by all means if you have
something to say a story to tell
values you want to express then write a
book and self publish it all it takes is
the book of course and hopefully you
write a good book making the cover
getting a book edited and then you
upload to Amazon and it’s done what’s
another reason what you why you might
want to self publish well for better for
worse it’s one thing if you have a
business card to show people but if you
hand people oh and here’s my book on the
topic people are going to say oh my gosh
this guy sat down and wrote an entire
book on this topic that’s incredible so
it gives you this air of more validity
more legitimacy and that can lead to
speaking engagements consulting other
opportunities other career opportunities
I can tell you it’s led to all of these
things for me it can lead to other books
that you might want to write on the
topic once you see how readers respond
to you I also want to add a lot of books
and stories that went on to become so
I’ve been talking about nonfiction
primarily but a lot of books and stories
that have been very successful in the
fiction world started out as
self-published books the Martian it’s an
oscar-nominated movie and originally
Andy weir the author who’s been on my
podcast he self-published it and then I
forgot which publisher picked it up but
then it became picked up by a major
publisher but only after he sold several
hundred thousand copies of it while
self-published another example whether
you like the book or not was one of the
most successful books in the past 50
years Fifty Shades of Grey was
originally a self-published book after
it sold several hundred thousand copies
I think Random House picked it up and it
became published a lot of books that you
read now that are very important for
entrepreneurs or personal improvement
and personal development originally
started as self-published books or still
are self-published books many successful
authors have moved into the
self-publishing arena because they get
to be in charge now of marketing they
get to be in charge of design packaging
they get to be in charge of how they
price the book they have more control
over when the books released so a lot of
professional authors have moved from
mainstream publishing to self-publishing
just because they’re simple it’s easier
and they’re more successful at it and
they make more money at it
so again if you have something to say
and for me
always wanted to write and publish a
book a bet but many people have and
sometimes it’s not always the most
commercial thing so publishers are not
going to agree to it but by all means
self-published now you have it in your
hand you could hand it to business
associates you can hand it to friends
you can share with your family and who
knows it might become a huge
best-selling book as well which we’ve
seen in many cases so by all means
finally the opportunity is here to self
publish I read a lot about this please
check out what I’ve written about please
check out my podcast on the topic I have
no I’m not trying to sell you anything
with this I have no affiliation with
Amazon or any self publisher but I know
it’s worked for me and I really want to
share this success with you guys every
pursuit no matter how glamorous it may
seem no matter how exciting you are it
feels to you no matter how much you feel
like you were born to do it
comes with a sandwich and so the
question is not what do I love the
question is what do I love so much that
I don’t mind eating the sandwich
that comes along with that thing so for
me in my life writing is the thing that
I love and the sandwich was the 7
years that I was not getting published
and that I was coming home from my job
as a diner waitress as a bartender as an
au pair as a somebody who worked in flea
markets as a cook and I was coming home
tired and smelling like other people’s
french fries and sitting down and doing
my real job which was to write and then
to go to the mailbox the next day and
get another rejection letter and then
say do I still want to do this cuz this
so much sucks you know and I did
still want to do it and now even as
somebody who makes their living as a
writer there’s no end to the
sandwiches it’s like um oh hello
horrible review in prominent newspaper
um that’s your sandwich today was
you still want to do this work yeah yeah
I still do still worth it
like Hello um awful comment on social
media from somebody who thinks you’re a
pile of talk you know it just has
like chosen every possible way that they
can just cannot get it out of their
system fast enough
how much disregard they have for your
entire life yeah still want to do this
thing yeah I still want to do it you
know so that’s the question because if
the first time you encounter this
sandwich you’re like well this
this isn’t worth it then that’s not the
thing you’re supposed to be doing yes um
and there are plenty of things in life
that that I have run into the ship
sandwich I’ve been like so not worth it
so not worth it like this is not I don’t
want to do this like whatever the bed
alleged benefits of this thing yes might
be know what down for SoulCycle no you
know like I know it’s probably really
good for me but I feel like throwing up
right now is too hard no um
you’ll not be seeing me here again you
know like I’m and I love my sisters at
SoulCycle I just don’t like feeling like
I’m going to throw up when I exercise so
it’s not for me you know and and so
that’s the question so if you go into
this thing thinking if I follow my bliss
and I live my dream and I stand in my
truth then everything will be great it
doesn’t mean everything will be great
it just means at the end of the day when
you check in with yourself and you go in
the end on the balance is this still
better than not doing it and the answer
is still yeah this thing is still better
than not doing it then you’re on the
right path when you start out on a
career in the arts you have no idea what
you’re doing this is great people who
know what they’re doing know the rules
and they know what is possible and what
is impossible you do not and you should
not the rules on what is possible and
impossible in the arts were made by
people who had not tested the bounds of
the possible by going beyond them and
you can if you don’t know it’s
impossible it’s easier to do and because
nobody’s done it before they haven’t
made up rules to stop anyone doing that
particular thing again
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