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The Bezos Letters (with Steve & Karen Anderson) · The Daily Writer

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: What if you could sit down with the world's richest man and learn the principles that helped his business become so successful?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that might not be possible, but on today's episode, we're going to do the next best thing.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: You'll learn from two authors who have written an amazing book about those principles and how to use them to grow your business.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello, my friend.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kent Sanders from Inquell Ghostwriting.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to this episode of the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is the show that helps you grow your business, amplify your authority, and increase your impact through the power of writing.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining me today, as always.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as I mentioned, today we're going to be learning business principles from the world's richest man, who is currently Jeff Bezos.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm sure you already know, he's the founder and CEO of Amazon.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thrilled to have two authors on the show today who can help us pick the brain of this incredibly successful business leader.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Their names are Steve and Karen Anderson, and they have written a very fun and insightful book called The Bezos Letters 14 Principles to Grow Your Business Like Amazon.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Steve and Karen also happen to be husband and wife.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Steve is an expert in strategic risk and business growth, and Karen is a strategic book coach and associate publisher of Morgan James Publishing.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Steve and Kairn are going to share some lessons from Amazon on risk, innovation, failure, and much more.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: You'll also learn some lessons from their experience in writing and marketing the book.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: They have done a fantastic job, not just with the marketing, but also with the writing of the book and with its promotion.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a lot to learn from them about writing, business, and marketing and promotion.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So without further ado, let's get right to the conversation.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Stephen Karen, thank you so much for making time to be on the show today.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited about this interview, and I've got about 643 questions to ask, but we probably won't get to all those.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: But regardless, thank you so much for being on the show.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Our pleasure.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really happy to be here.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Ken.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the first thing that I want to say is congratulations on writing and and I'm also going to say producing an amazing book because there's so much more that goes into creating an awesome book than just the writing.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was looking through the Bezos letters the other day, I was just amazed because it's not only well written, it's just a nice book to look at, a nice book to hold.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that sounds crazy, but I know that you both are book people.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: It actually doesn't sound crazy because actually we worked a lot on the interior design uh of the book.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: And most most people don't recognize that, you know, like you do.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: But um, yeah, there was a lot of intentionality there and a lot of work.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know if if if uh you guys feel this way, but do you ever pick up a book and you go, you know, that font really isn't that good?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: The space, the line spacing, the the margins, they just the headings they don't match.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's a I don't know what's going on personality-wise with me, but I always notice that stuff, so it's important.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would say, um, I mean, I've been in the book business forever, but I would say Steve's one admonition to me was he didn't want to have a crappy book.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell people this frequently.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: The good news is that Amazon has lowered the bar so anyone can write a book.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: The bad news is that Amazon has lowered the bar.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I think the thing that, you know, if you really look at those, the fine, the finer points, I think it makes a difference in terms of people's response.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, your message can be good, but if it's delivered in a subpar way, I think it gets it gets dismissed.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it does.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's start with the obvious question.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why a book about Jeff Bezos and Amazon that's probably is it, I don't know if it's the world's biggest company, but I imagine it's competing in the certainly at the top, uh you know, cup, you know, two, three, or four at least.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, you know, I'll take that one um because it really started with me uh and and my background.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I've been involved with the insurance industry, you know, virtually my entire career.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: The last 20 years of that, I've been working with technology, so new emerging technologies and how insurance agents and brokers can use it in their organization most effectively.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: And as I was working through all of that, really about the last five years, started looking at uh what I came to call the changing nature of risk, meaning, you know, insurance is all about mitigating risk and reducing it, but technology was developing so rapidly that that became, in my view, a risk to business.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I I posited this question is the biggest risk a business face not actually taking enough risk?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_03: And that led me to start researching what other companies had done uh well and which ones had not done well.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and that brought me to Amazon as a company who is you know recognized as uh forward-thinking, leading, I call it inventive and innovative.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I came across the shareholder letters and read a few um and then realized there was a lot of good information in there.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh literally sat down over several days and read all at that time 20 letters.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: And reading that them as a narrative as opposed to kind of each year, I realized one, there were themes that went through the letters, and that there were principles that Bezos talked about that any business could use.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: So that's the germ of what started.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and actually my first iteration was uh an ebook where I took every letter, did a one-page uh what I called executive summary, right?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: Kind of key points, things that were I thought important, put that together in an e-book that I was going to give away, you know, as a lead gen for my you know, consulting business.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: And uh fortunately, my lovely wife Karen and uh actually the founder of Morgan James, who ended up publishing the book, uh, I had sent it both to them, and they both came back immediately and said, This is a book, not an e-book or a PDF or a lead gen or anything.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so that started uh, oh my gosh, what does that mean?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: Journey.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and just FYI.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: So Steve, um, given his focus on risk, was writing a book on risk.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it was uh it was called the risk, the first iteration was called the risk dilemma.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, is your business taking um too much risk or not enough?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he put it together, and um, I can't even begin to tell you how boring it was.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that that really makes you feel like a winner when you hear that.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, well, you know what?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh if people ask me all the time, how in the world can you write a book with your wife?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: And there is a reason, and it is I absolutely completely trust her when it comes to books, because if she said it was boring, it wasn't boring.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, yeah, it actually really was.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: I have to admit, it was not great.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was not.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: But then that led to something better, which was which was a good thing.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: It did.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so part of what happened was, and I'm trying to, if you don't mind, I'm gonna try to weave in a little bit of the story of writing the book and how the book came about with you know the content of the book that Steve really told me.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we had a um um, I would call it one of those pivotal marital moments, like um where you know, he had his manuscript and and we we had that, but Steve had he pretty much gave me, you know, for the book, this very very um left brain linear chronological analysis of the shareholder letters.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and so he had all the content there.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so he basically analyzed the 97 letter and the 98 letter and the 99 letter and the 2000 letter on infinitum.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I remember looking at it and and the this one night, and actually I was sitting in the chair I'm sitting in now.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: He was sitting on the couch, and I just looked at him and said, It doesn't work.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like we've got all the information, but it doesn't work.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And he he looked at me um a bit aghast, wouldn't you say Steve?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um he looked at me and I said, here's the deal.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody cares.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody cares what happened in 97, nobody cares what happens in 98.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a way that you can go through the letters and take the principles out?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because they'll care about principles, they'll care about what happened.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: They don't necessarily, necessarily, the primary focus isn't when it happened.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: I said, so feel free, like if you if you have a principle, say, and he he revealed this in the 97 letter or the 2004 letter or whatever, give it context, but you really you really need to rethink how you're positioning the book.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I will give him a lot of credit.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: He had a deer and they had lights look like um well, I I had a you know, I had been working months on getting it to that point.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: And it really for me was oh, I have to start all over again.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, but that's how it felt.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: And it was kind again, I I, you know, trust Kieran, and you know, so I said uh still dear in the headlights, but I said, okay, let me let me think about this a bit, let me see what I can do.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: And what was great uh ended up being uh is I was able over the next few days to actually start pulling out what had what became the 14 principles.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, we went back and forth on which they should be and write a lot of work there, um, but such a better framework uh to communicate uh Bezos mindset and and how he used those growth principles to actually grow Amazon.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll give Steve a lot of credit here because um having been an author, you know, been in that world for a long time, you know, your book's your baby, and you have a certain way that you want to present your material.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if somebody's coming up and says your baby's ugly, um, it's it's hard, it's hard to hear that sometimes.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um that must be a real challenge though, Karen, because and actually I was gonna take just a little side road here.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you can share a little bit about what your role is with Morgan James and your background in publishing, I'll I'll do some of that in the introduction to this episode, which I'll record later.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm also curious how in this particular project you balance the role of being a supportive spouse, but also coming at this from the co-writer perspective, but also a publishing perspective, you're balancing several different and maybe conflicting emotional roles with this.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Which I think is so fascinating.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, it let me start by saying it was a it was a crazy time.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so let me, you know, just let me tell you a little bit of my story, if that's okay.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so Steve, um he's been in the insurance world forever.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: He got into the insurance world uh through my dad.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: My dad had an insurance agency, um, but he really excelled in the tech and the analytical and the um, you know, and I would say his gift was really taking geek speak and making it so that people could understand it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he's been really well with that.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um my background is, you know, my first career as a marriage and family therapist.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so my my whole, you know, part of what I did was I helped people communicate better.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And a million years ago, um, I was closing out a private practice and I ended up taking a marketing training by a man named Jay Abraham.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and it was really about marketing and direct response marketing and compelling people to take action and helping people to communicate clearly and and and well.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh wait, I know how to do that.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so at that time, it was really a lot of it in those early days was direct mail.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so you really, it was expensive, and so you really had to be clear in your communication.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's kind of always what I've I've loved to do.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I was doing copywriting and a lot of editing and doing a lot of marketing, and I loved direct response marketing.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then I had a friend who was in the publishing business, and so he said, Hey, I've got somebody who needs a a co-author in a book.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Would you be willing to do that?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, sure, why not?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up doing kind of um co-author ghostwriting.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that was probably in the 90s, and then I ended up um self-publishing uh my first book when it was very expensive to do that.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like it is now, it was very expensive.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then my my book got picked up by a big publisher.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I kind of did both sides.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I did, you know, I was one of those people that had self-published a book and then I got kicked up by a big publisher.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so then I so I did both sides.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I knew the frustrations of working with a big publisher and I knew the frustrations of being self-published because I had done both.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then um, I don't know, for eight or nine years, something like that, I ended up working for a traditional publisher and and loved it.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I did special projects and did all sorts of things, but you know, kind of went from the self-publishing side, the being a published author side, to the being a publisher side and in a traditional, in a traditional house.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh the real story is that I took a number of years off to do family caregiving.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: We we were just of that age, and I we lost my mom and Steve's mom and sister, you know, somebody just has to do it.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I and and I'm trying to make this this short, but it'll it'll make sense.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then about five or six years ago, um uh there was a direct marketing conference that went on.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was called Titans of Direct Marketing, and all my old friends were gonna be there, and all the all the people that I had known for years and years, and I wasn't working and I wasn't doing anything, I didn't know what to do with my life.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I called a girlfriend in tears and said, I really want to go see everybody.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And she said to me, Karen, you know better than than most.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Life is short.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Get up there.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I went up, um, I was introduced to a young man named Ryan Levesque.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um and it's like it's an interesting story for another time.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: But Ryan and I met and I ended up ghostwriting his book called Ask.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great book.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sitting on my bookshelf just a few feet away.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I hadn't really planned to do that, but I really loved, I loved Ryan's message.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: And because part of what he said is that you don't just shotgun, here's everything I've got, buffet, you know, here's everything that I've got, you know, pick out what you want.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: He really came up with an idea on how to help figure out what people wanted.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so the premise was very much, you know, people want to, they want something, they just may not know what they want and how you can figure help figure out what they want.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I loved that.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so that book, um, that book has done pretty well.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, but I was burned out.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if this has ever happened to you or anybody that that you just you just you give it all you got and then you're done.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm done.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm never, and I'm like, I'm done with books.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what I said to God.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm done with books, never doing a book again over books, you know.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I like no.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it was probably, I don't know, a week later that I was um at Dan Miller's, who's a friend, he wrote a book called 48 Days to the Work You Love.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was a written at Dan's, and um ran into this man named David Hancock, who was the founder of Morgan James Publishing.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And Morgan James is a hybrid, and what that means to me, what that means is a hybrid publisher like Morgan James is the best of both worlds.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you um when you sign with a traditional publisher, you you sign over your distribution rights and your intellectual property rights.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: So they basically own your material and your book.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: David had a serious similar experience to me with frustration with traditional and frustration with self-publishing.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so in Morgan James, we have the distribution component of it.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we can get in any bookstore, anywhere in the world, anytime.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you the author keeps their intellectual property.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I met David, I was like, oh my gosh.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and David had been trained in marketing by a man named Jay Conrad Levitson, who had done the gorilla marketing books.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we actually came at it from a different perspective, because I would say we're pretty much our our our hearts and our brains and our you know, our intent is really to use a book um for the power of the message and for marketing.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so publishing is our conduit to help people get their message out.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I met David, I was like, you know, I met him on a Saturday night and I signed Monday morning.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I'm I was like, okay, because I didn't sleep.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm not gonna do this, I'm not gonna do this, I didn't sleep for two nights and went, I'm gonna do this.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was probably about four and a half years ago.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And now um I'm associate publisher for Morgan James.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: I do acquisitions and um and I do some strategic book coaching.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so part of what that that means is I kind of bring that 30,000-foot picture um to looking at at what an author is doing.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: So it's I I really don't know quite how to describe it, um, except that it's just experience and gut, if that makes sense.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: So when I I look at a book, I can look at a book like Steve's and go, you know what, I love you.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I really do love this man.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: We've been married, if we make it to August, almost 44 years.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but you know, I'm not gonna let him out the door with a boring book.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like that you you have to really be able to assess that.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so part of what happened was I had been working on another book.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I've written an Enneagram book, um, and the Enneagram in Marriage.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was ghostwriting that book kind of on the side, and then got Steve's book and had one of those, I think it's one of those marital things where you when I just get like, just give it to me.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Just let me do it.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and so um, and I I think I think that one of the questions that you had sent over beforehand was um, you know, kind of how did you, how did the two of you work together?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I appreciated that Steve trusted me to do it.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciated that he had fabulous content.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was just boring.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I love you, honey, but it was boring.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so the the challenge was really, you know, can we can we do what will make this a phenomenal book, which means you rebalance, you balance story and you balance information.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you think about it, so the Bezos letters were 20-ish letters that Bezos wrote to shareholders, it's kind of hard to get more boring than that.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like and do a book about it.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's impactful.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is that when we looked at what Bezos had to share, it was phenomenal.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: There were so many stories, there were so many lessons, there were so many principles, there were so many things that people can take away, um, that it ended up being a really, really fun book.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'll tell you, and I guess I'll call this humble brag.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my my, you know, the things that make me happy as a writer are people saying things like, I could, it's a business book.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: They're writing in and saying things like I couldn't put it down.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was a page turner.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: I had one lady um uh um send me a note and she's like, I've never cried at the back of a business book before.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I got to the end and I was just, I was like moved to tears.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was just inspired.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so um it it would it ended up being a fun book to write because Steve had great content, there was great construct there.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Bezos actually is a fabulous writer.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we've debated when we looked at the letters, you know, did he have, did he have a team of writers that that craft it?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And he may have now have people that draft it, but he he's a really good, he's a bright person and a really good writer.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: So the it was really saying, how can we take this and take those principles and and make them in such a way that people will be inspired as well as informed?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm I'll stop to draw breath now.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, it's hard to say what there's so many things that that I have taken away from the book.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things, and and I just have to tell you from kind of an emotional perspective, you know, you mentioned it's a page turner, and it truly is, which is unusual for a business type of a book, honestly.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Most business books, you read them because you want to get something out of it and kind of move on to the next thing.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I knew this was a really legit book whenever I think it was in chapter one, uh the chapter on Encourage Successful Failure, where you talked about NASA and Jeff Bezos's obsession with NASA and the connection between NASA and Amazon.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a long section.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, not like excessively long.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: But it's more than just a couple of paragraphs.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you have this whole narrative about NASA and and things that went on in the space program in the sixties.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been a student of that my whole life, and I'm reading this and going, okay, this is really legit because like they've taken a lot of time and effort to get this right and get the facts right.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And have this narrative and then weaving it into Amazon, which you which is a whole nother skill set.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I loved that.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to explore that for just a second.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: What is the connection for those who haven't read your book yet, but who will, obviously, what's the connection between Amazon and NASA?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are some important connections there that I had never thought about before, but you draw those out and they're really, really great.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Steve, you want to take that one?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so one of the core uh ideas, mindsets at Amazon is experimentation.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: And what really struck me, and um, and actually, this was a piece that was taken from the original book, The Risk Dilemma, where when you look at risk taking, the whole idea of successful failure is really counterintuitive.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: You don't normally hear a phrase with those two words in it together.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: And as I was studying Bezos and his upbringing and his mindset and all of those kinds of things, I realized, you know, space for him is a lifelong passion.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and again, we can that that's why we put in Blue Origin, the space company he founded, and because actually I think, and actually he said several times that Blue Origin is the most important work he's doing.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's not Amazon.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: Amazon's funding what he's doing there.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: So space has always been a part of that, and that culture is experimentation.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you read about the early space program, even before Mercury and the you know, satellites and all of that.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, failure after failure after failure, how did they keep going?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they realized that every failure was a success if they learned from it.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_03: And what really, I mean, that phrase actually comes from, uh, and we talk about this in the book, but actually from the end of Ron Howard's movie called Apollo 13.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, you know, amazing accomplishment.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: Apollo 12 went back to the moon, Apollo 13 was going back again.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, by that time it had become more routine uh to go to the moon.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh obviously, until the oxygen tank exploded in the service module, and all of a sudden it wasn't routine anymore.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: But at the end of Ron Howard's movie, uh Tom Hanks, playing Jim Lovell, the commander, is stepping off the helicopter as they were landing on the Iwo Jima uh aircraft carrier after uh splashing down.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: And he says, This our mission, Apollo 13, became known as NASA's most successful failure.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_03: And that phrase just continued to catch my attention.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I because what because well, again, because at when I examined Amazon.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, I'm sorry, because what they were saying was um that it was a successful failure because the failure was is that they didn't complete the mission.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: The mission was to land on the moon, and they didn't, it was a failure, but the success was that the guy they got the guys back alive.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so they basically looked at, they didn't just say it was a failure, they said it was a successful failure because of all the things that they did, created, innovated, invented in order to get the guys back, and they got them back alive.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and we make the uh, and I think it's really important comparison or or point that Apollo 1, where the three astronauts were killed in the fire, is the reason, in my opinion, and others, that Apollo 13 was a success by getting those astronauts back.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: So read the book for the details and how we uh put that together.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: But um, and then you just, you know, you kind of go through that whole mindset of uh experimentation, invention, innovation, you know, are such a key mindset and culture at Amazon, and the reason that they continue, even as they grow to a huge company, to be nimble and quick.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think that that lesson applies to let's say small business owners today?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we're recording this.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um today's March the 31st, if I if my calendar is correct on my Mac, I think it is.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so this will come out in a few weeks.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of chaos in the culture right now.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, things will return back to some sort of normalcy at some point, hopefully.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: But for those who are listening who they have a solopreneur thing, they're they have a small business, maybe they're a ghostwriter, maybe they're a freelancer copywriter, maybe they they work at a church and they're doing communications and writing for those organizations.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: How does that principle of a successful failure apply to what they're doing?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Are there certain attitudes, a certain kind of mindset that would help that person in a small business setting who's writing, who's communicating, to be more nimble and to be more successful amidst all this crazy chaos?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I think there are, and I think that's some of the lessons that can be be taken away.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_03: I think first it's understanding that you're experimenting.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we're all experimenting right now, right?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: We're working from home, we're trying new ways of communication, we're and you know what, they're not all going to work well.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna have mistakes, we're gonna have kids in the background, we're gonna, I mean, all of those kinds of things.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: But if we have a mindset that if we make one more step forward, learn from what we have have experienced, you know, then apply that as we go forward, then we can start and continue to be making progress, even in a world that's that's upside down the way it is right now.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things that uh that Bezos did just a couple of weeks ago is sent a letter to all their employees.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um and we actually, uh Karen and I uh co-wrote an article kind of examining that letter for some principles that we saw in there of how to communicate for uh and with employees, for example.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I won't go through all the points of that, but uh it's on LinkedIn, it's in it's in a couple of places if you're interested in in looking at that.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_03: But again, one of the things that I think is interesting with Amazon right now is how fast they're making adjustments.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and you think about a company with 700,000 employees worldwide, you typically don't think of a company like that making fast adjustments.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: And even, you know, one of the things I remind people all the time, Jeff Bezos started on his hands and knees putting books in packages with one or two employees.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: So when you talk about solopreneurs and you know, small business, and that's where they started.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, now there were some unique things at the time.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not saying you'll be another Amazon.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: But what I am saying is those same principles that allowed them to grow can apply.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, you've got to have a mindset of, you know, we will make progress, we will make mistakes, we will learn from that, and try something else and iterate and move forward.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that is such a hard thing to do sometimes because we get locked into our systems and our ways of doing things.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then we've got to end up changing them.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: But but don't you think that's any successful business on some level is the willingness to change and adjust and uh tweak things, yep, ditch things as needed, embrace new things as they're needed.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: That's and and it's especially hard.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh one of the phrases I use is that the biggest risk a business faces is being successful.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: Because uh being successful means I've done something well to get us here.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_03: And the mindset starts creeping in of we better protect that, uh, not look at how do we destroy what got us here so we can do something better in the future when things change.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that has always impressed me about Amazon is just from the perspective of a self-published author, is their amazing customer service.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I know there's a lot of a lot of writers who sort of poo-poo on Amazon because they are the big dog in the room and it's easy to hate on the big dog.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: But man, I've always just been impressed with their customer service.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm and I think, and of course, you you all would know much better than I do, but this this idea of customer obsession and wanting to please customers and do right by them and make things right, it's just even that lesson alone is so critical for any business or any organization.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that that whole idea of obsession, uh, and and that's Bezos' words.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: He used it uh in the very first shareholder letter in 1997, that a core principle at Amazon will be customer obsession.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so many businesses talk about customers in a lot of different ways: customer service, customer journey, customer experience, right?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh lots of different words, but obsession has such a different connotation to it.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: It does, doesn't it?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, even today, as as Amazon grows, and and as you said, lots of criticism, and you know, that and that's okay.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they they need to be looked at and questioned.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_03: But if you go back to that core obsession, if it's better for the customer, it will ultimately be better for Amazon and our shareholders.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_03: And a and a phrase Bezos uses throughout the letters, this has been consistent over now 21 years, is we invent on behalf of the customer.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, business owners, what are you doing right today to invent on behalf of your customers?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: You know, again, lots of chaos going on.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: We're we're all not sure what's going to happen.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: But you can be a voice for your customers in in looking at what their needs are, not just what has made you successful in the past, but okay, how do we need to pivot?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: What do our customers need from us?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe they don't even know it yet, but can we invent on behalf of them so that we will be able to deliver value to them?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most fascinating parts of your book actually is not part of the book, it's the bonuses and all the follow-up stuff that happens you know these days when you really launch a major book.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk a bit about how you figured out what your bonuses are, what those bonuses are, the website you developed to go along with the book?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a whole nother, it's almost like a whole nother book's worth of stuff there, which I'm really fascinated by.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that that point of launching a book and figuring out all that stuff, the bonuses and other kinds of things to take your reader on a journey, that is a big point of stress among authors that I sense.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: So can you both talk a little bit about how you develop those, what those items are, the journey that you want the reader to go on after they finish the book and those kinds of things?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: So so let me start and then I'll let Karen jump in.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um in the writing of the book, we always had the book launch in mind.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_03: So we would be talking about content, maybe content that didn't make it in the book, or but we would be asking the question could this be bonus material?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and how can we repackage it, or how can we put it into a format or a framework that would be helpful uh to the reader?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: And and for Kieran, both Kieran and I, fortunately, that's where our you know direct response, their marketing kind of mindset came in.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I think too many authors are are, and I I say appropriately so, but are so focused on the book and getting that done, they're not thinking at the same time, how am I going to get my message out?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so that was just a part for us of the whole writing process.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: And frankly, once the manuscript was final and sent to Morgan James, we continued looking at and developing, you know, then, you know, get the website together, what goes on the website, what how do we get bonus material, how do we capture names, right?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: So we can follow up.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: And that's now becoming pretty important as people are looking for help and information on what to do next.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's part of a whole process, not just writing the book, but making sure you can get the message out to help people.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the whole point of doing it in the first place.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um my perspective, you know, and doing a book again, coming from a marketing perspective, and I tell this to authors all the time.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I've I've met authors that say, yeah, I'll I'm gonna put, I'm gonna put the basics in the book, but then I really want them, um, I'm gonna save the really good stuff for the website or the bonus or whatever, because I really want them, that's really what how I want to get them.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I I challenge that because I don't I don't believe in that as a philosophy.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because what I believe is you give everything that you can to your reader in the book.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you give them a hundred percent complete package.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: They can, if it's a nonfiction book, you they can do it on their own.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Everything that's most valuable to you, um, you put in the book.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's really self-contained uh for the reader.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you only have for the most part 200 pages, 40 to 60,000 words.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're gonna have to to cherry pick what your best stuff is.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: But the rest of the stuff is really good.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if a person feels like you've given them everything that that they they that you can, then they're either gonna say, that's great, I want more, and they're gonna come to you, or they're gonna say, I love this, don't have the time um or energy to do it myself.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Will you do it for me?
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what else can I, what else can I buy from you?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um it they will be drawn to you because you've given them so much in that book.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is, I mean, Steve's been, he's been a consultant for um 30 years.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: He can't put everything in 200 pages.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, everything that he knows about, you know, uh uh uh Bezos or, you know, whatever.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: So in that overflow, that overflow compels them, and you have to give have some kind of call to action at the back where you can say, you know, I've got I've got more.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then when they come and you give them more, then you also give them your best stuff.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then you basically build a relationship with that reader.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, if you know what we're trying to do, which I think most, I I hope most authors are gonna do, is to have a relationship with their readers and so that they can communicate, they can get more, they can do more.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: And just that opportunity by the bonuses of you offer something that they want, then they'll come over and say, I trust you enough to give you my email.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, and then you communicate with them, and then if they say you're not right for me, then that's okay.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, but the the you know, your 20% are gonna be the people that you go, okay, and what else do you have?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so you really can impact lives that way.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I think for me, um, the idea of the bonus is not just um is not just, oh yeah, just we just want to capture that name, but how can you continue to that serve that person who's resonated with their message for a long period of time and you both profit from it?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: What has most surprised you about the the reception of the book after you've launched it?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: You want to go first, Steve?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: I can.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um how would I I I that's an interesting question because um I I think of several things, but I I I think the um I'm I'm I can't get the phrase I want to use.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um you can edit this out as my stumbling here.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: I I think it's the way the principles resonate with people.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_03: So um, you know, when we were working through the principles, uh, and actually the graphics, just the graphics in the books themselves, we we spent a lot of time figuring that out and tweaking and making, excuse me, making sure they're they're the way we wanted them.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_03: But I think what's most surprising is how that structure of the principles and the four cycles.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_03: So there are four growth cycles test, build, accelerate, scale, and then the 14 principles are categorized or included in in one of those four cycles.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it gave people such a clear idea of the principles, and 14's a lot.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so helping them see that the the principles and starting to be able to go, okay, I think I can apply this, or this resonates with me, or uh I really like this.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, as I've I as I've talked to people uh about the book, I mean, I think that's what comes out.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: You know, this principle, boy, that really resonated with me, or that principle, that that I really it it captured me.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: And they're different.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's not just one, two, or three principles.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: It just depends on where you are in your own business and and journey.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's great.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: I would say for me, um, two things.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: One is um, and and so, and I want to make this really, really, really clear to people.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that is, I mean, yeah, hopefully, you know, it's a good book that people love.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, as a writer, you know, that's what's, you know, you really want to do a great book.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we're not unaware that part of the success of the book is because it's on Amazon.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, like if we had done a book, you know, if we had done that first book um and done it, it wouldn't have been the same.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're not unaware that part of the response is really looking at um is that people know it's Amazon and they they want to know about Bezos and they want to know how Amazon grew.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, that works.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: That said, you know, if it were, if it were just that and it it didn't compel people to take action, I would have been really disappointed.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm really, I'm really, oh, what's the right word?
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um encouraged by the response that people's had because um, you know, you you you really look at how you communicate through a book, and part of it is is that is there an emotional component to it?
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so if there's not, then it's a manual.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and how many people love to read manuals?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that that has really surprised me that people have connected well to the book.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: And given that, the other thing that's happened is that it's done really well internationally.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so, I mean, I just think of Bezos as an American company, but the reality is it's a worldwide company.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so the foreign rights market has been really uh very responsive to the book.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so we've already we've gotten before the whole corona thing, it I think we've gotten five, we've got five versions that came out in Korean, and we've got Korea, Japan.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, trying to look on the shelf to see what we have.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, it's been Korea, Japan, Taiwan, uh Russia and India.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, are the the ones that we actually already published.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: And and there are eight other countries, you know, in the queue.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I so um again, this is gonna sound a little weird, but you always hope that your book is gonna have impact, and you always kind of hope it has worldwide impact, but um it's really weird.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have no idea.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: It really is, you know.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and so I think I think that's the most surprising thing of the book is the the worldwide interest in it, in the topic.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: That that's a perfect lead into one of my final questions here this morning.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: That is for those who are thinking about writing a book and they haven't done it, they're they're maybe overwhelmed with even the concept of writing a book.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: What has what has this book done for you in your business and in your ability to connect with people that it has not done otherwise?
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I saw a picture you one or both of you posted a while back, I forget where this was or what the context was, but it was one or both of you with Walter Isaacson, who's one of my favorite writers.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, me too.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh just a really, really wonderful writer.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's an opportunity that you know, you just don't walk up to somebody uh of that stature and just start to say, hi, you know, there's something that has to get you in that circle.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, what what kinds of things can a book do for you that you cannot do otherwise?
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'll start and then I'll let Karen um add to it.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um so uh one of my my goals for writing the book was to uh you know pivot uh my business and my consulting and speaking and writing to a a broader audience than just the insurance niche that I was uh that I have been in for, you know.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Again, many, many years.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_03: And there is no question that having a book and a successful book.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: Having a book, absolutely having a successful book, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, it just catches people's attention.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so very practically, it has increased my speaking fees significantly.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: Now, again, we're in the midst of kind of chaos right now.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: So that we are looking at pivoting because that, you know, in-person events uh aren't going to probably be around here for at least the next uh you know, till the end of this year at least.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: So, what does that mean for us going forward?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_03: But it's given uh me and us opportunities and uh connection with people that uh I wouldn't have had with without the book.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_03: I will say I gotta say, I gotta I gotta say this story.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_03: So Walter Isaacson, we were at a convention, an insurance convention, and he was one of the keynote speakers, and we because of my relationships, had literally a front row seats.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and I have never I don't I can't remember the last time I have seen my wife tongue-tied because she is such a fan.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and he was so gracious.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and we were able to put a copy of the book in his hands.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that's amazing.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, and then again, we we've done, I mean, they I don't know that basis is who we are.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: We know who he is, but um, but you know, so we were talking to him and he was like, Yeah, I was talking to Jeff about because he did Steve Jobs biography.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Yeah, I was talking to Jeff about doing his, and then things happened, and I'm like, oh my gosh, he was, you know, like he was talking to, so it's like that, you know, how many people removed.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it it's been um, it's been a it's been fun to be able to be in, you know, to be able to have a book have impact.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and and it's it's I don't know, the word is just fun.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's been really fun.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know this is way too soon to ask this, but should you do some sort of a follow-up book that's that's like an analysis of some type of modern leader?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: Are there one or two other other leaders that if given the opportunity and the inclination that that you would like to do an analysis of their business in the same way that you have Jeff Bezos?
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's an interesting question.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: We we just kind of started off a conversation about you know whether our marriage would survive or not.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I can see that.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_03: One book, maybe, I don't know about two.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, I uh and I've been asked that question actually quite a bit.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, is there a you know series now of you know these kinds of analysis?
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_03: And certainly some names come to mind.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Warren Buffett has written, I think, over 40 now letters to shareholders, and and I have read you know a handful of those.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_03: I I would say the the one uh that's in my mind to at least start looking at is uh Bill Gates.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_03: I am I'm probably more impressed with Bill Gates now than I ever have been, and sort of it and it would be uh probably a little different, but his transition from obviously founding Microsoft and running it for many years to now into the uh philanthropy that he's doing.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and again, just a extremely bright person.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh I'm just sort of intrigued with that and and maybe there's something there.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I definitely want to encourage you to.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I definitely want to want to encourage you to uh to definitely consider that.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: Not that you want to dive into another multi-year book project immediately, but but I think that that would be fascinating because I love your approach uh in the Bezos letters.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: I just love the analysis and the storytelling.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I finally felt like I had somewhat of a handle.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, more than somewhat of a handle.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I finally understood the philosophy behind Amazon and that someone had taken it and looked at it holistically and boiled it down to an understandable, understandable way for people like me who are not uh I'm not a natural business person.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: So so thank you both for putting the time and effort into this book.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's great.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I also want to encourage people to connect with you, which is actually my final question is how can people connect with you and find out more about the book and what you both do?
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: So the book website is the Bezosletters.com.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_03: And there they can still find bonus materials if uh if you know when they buy the book to again help them be able to get in uh a little more um kind of practical or help them actually apply the principles.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the tools we we talked, I didn't get to mention a bit earlier, but one of the tools we put together is an assessment that helps them understand what their risk mindset profile is and in relation to the principles, uh so provides an idea of where they can start in their own business.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_03: And all of that's available on the Bezosletters.com.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you both so much for doing this interview today.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: We ran a lot longer than I anticipated, but you know, it's hard to it's hard to stay on time when you're talking to two fascinating people.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we can it's thank you so much.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, this was a pleasure.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'll, you know, I'll I'll give you the you know the the first on this one.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is the first um that Steve and I have done together.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so um he's been both, he's done a lot of podcasts, and um, but this is the first we've done together.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for that opportunity to um, you know, to let me speak into you know what it was like to be a co-author and how we work together.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: That was a privilege for me.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, totally my pleasure.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you all uh both so much again, and uh we really appreciate it.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Steve and Karen Anderson.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: Here are my three biggest takeaways from this conversation.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is customer obsession.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon's perspective is that they invent on behalf of the customer, and I love this.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the major challenges that we face as writers is that we tend to think our writing is all about us when actually it's all about the reader.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this is tough because if you're an artist or a creative at heart, you have probably gone most of your life believing that your art is really about self-expression.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whether you're a musician or an actor or uh a writer, whatever it is that you do creatively, it's easy to think that it's all about expressing what's inside of you.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: But really, especially when it comes to writing, it's not about you.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's really about the reader.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: Every time we craft a book, regardless of whether it's in this niche or that niche or whether it's fiction or nonfiction, business, fantasy, young, young adult, whatever the book is, it's always all about the reader.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's going to be some self-expression in it.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we're our personality is going to shine through in the book, but ultimately it's about the reader and what their experience is.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: The very best fiction writers keep this in mind all the time.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: They write for their audience and they structure stories for maximum enjoyment.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: Movies do this, TV shows do this.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime that we're crafting something for an audience or for a reader or a listener, we always have to keep them in mind.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: We have to be customer obsessed, so to speak.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Takeaway number two is don't hold anything back in your book.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's tempting when you're writing a book to hold stuff back for the next one, but Stephen Karen made a great point and they said don't hold anything back in the book that you're writing.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: They put in all the good stuff into the Bezos letters.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, when you write a book, you're probably always going to have extra material, and you can use that stuff for bonus giveaways and for lead magnets and for workshops and podcasts and all kinds of other things.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is put all the good stuff into the book and give the reader the very best that you've got.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: Takeaway number three is the impact that a book can have on your business.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: Steve mentioned that the book has significantly increased his speaking fees, which is pretty cool, by the way.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty awesome.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's because a book can show that you're an authority on a topic.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: A book will go places that you cannot go, and it will reach people in really fun and interesting ways.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly why I got into ghostwriting.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love to help people put together a book that can build their business and reach more people.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when they have that book, that helps position them with greater authority and credibility in their niche or in their business.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a very fun process, and that's why I'm constantly encouraging people to write a book.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as you write that book, man, that's gonna elevate you to another level because now you're gonna you're gonna have a book out there.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: And because so many people don't go to the trouble of writing a book, you're automatically gonna stand out because you have written a book on whatever your topic or business is.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, as I say on almost every episode, you gotta write that book, you gotta get it done.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I just strongly encourage you to write that book because it can have a massive impact on your credibility, your authority, and also your business.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my friends, that's it for this episode.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: This was a blast.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: I loved this interview with Stephen Caring.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: They are amazing guests, and I really want to encourage you to grab that book, The Bezos Letters.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is not only really, really well researched, it's very thoughtful, and it is really, really interesting and tons of fun.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure and grab that book.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's great.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I also want to encourage you to visit their website, which is the Bezosletters.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I'm out of here.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, remember that you can find lots more resources for writers at KentSanders.net.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: I will see you in the next episode.