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Building the Fort with Chris Heivly · Author Hour

• speaker-0: I failed freshman English in college. And I failed on my writing, not on the grammar tests. And the professor said, Why do you always write about sports? And I said, Did you tell me I needed to write about different things? He said, No, I left it up to you. Well then I wrote about sports. I mean, I'm seventeen years old and this is what I know. But he failed me, literally like flunked the class. I had to retake it, you know, later. So I always had this thing that said, You can't write, you can't write. So when I talk about the challenge, you can't have a worse challenge than me. You've been told publicly that you're a failure with writing. You told all through college and high school I couldn't write. But when I grad school, my professor said, Just vomit on the page and edit it later. Like just write. speaker-1: Chris Hively, it's an honor to have you. Thank you. speaker-0: Thanks, Eric, for having me. speaker-1: Before we like get to the book, can we establish some background? Just give us the the broad strokes of Chris. speaker-0: Yeah, well, you know, it's always easy to start kind of chronologically, but I'm gonna start with the end. Someone introduced me at a a talk I did recently and as a serial instigator. And I kind of love that. I'm like, I'm taking that. Sorry. But you know, from building forts as a kid to was a geographer, undergraduate and a graduate degree in geography, which is probably the only geographer you'll have ever meet, maybe. I don't know. That turned into, you know, MapQuest and Rand McNally, which you have to be over 40 to know what Ray McNally is. You know, so cut my chops in in the mapping industry. And then, you know, with the success of MapQuest, became an investor, ran a corporate venture fund. This is that I could tell people I have career ADD. Yeah. You know, three to five years. The last 10 years just trying to help entrepreneurs and mostly folks on ⁓ startup communities and how great communities foster great entrepreneurs and great entrepreneurs help create great communities and what that kind of is and kind of become an expert in that over the last ten years and now mostly retired and speak and write. So that's it. That's awesome. That was the thirty second version. speaker-1: I love the count you know, what are you gonna do with a geography degree? ⁓ build a billion dollar company. That's what I'm gonna do with it. Well speaker-0: I can tell you, I as if my dad was sitting here right here. I remember the day I said I'm gonna be a geography major and he was just like, What the hell are you gonna do with that? I like, I don't know, but I really like this shit. So we're doing it. speaker-1: Yeah, that ⁓ that was a flyer class I took in college actually. I really, really enjoyed it. It is like one of those fascinating things. And I imagine the history that I've read on on ⁓ geography, these things seem they seem boring once they're figured out, but the the problem that they present to people who had to figure them out and the creativity it took, or courage in the case of like all the physical adventures, is unbelievable. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. And I mean I got a wall behind me out behind that stuff of, you know, antique maps and atlases and I still love that stuff and there's history in there and boundary changes, but yeah. I I have one of my own that I love that's sitting behind me. It's a map of Europe. It's probably circuit like 1835. And you know by that at that point it's all hand like hand written for drawn. Hand drawn. That's probably a good but the level of detail, Eric, it's so you're just like, how the f did they do this at this time period? Even, you know, most maps are made from other maps, by the way. So how did he incorporate probably he, you know, a cartographer do all that. You know what, I'll take a picture of it and send it to you and you can see, you know, i even like a a mountain profile, you know, a three D mountain profile that's just like, ⁓ it's just along the side. It's an afterthought. Yeah. So that's my favorite. I can stare at that for, you know, an hour. speaker-1: It's awesome. Yeah. Please please send me a picture. I think the I think those the map those historical maps and the stories around them are really fascinating. speaker-0: And then try to understand how they got to the actually the end product, right? I mean, that's you know, maybe that's in the you know, I'm sort of worried both of us saying, like, okay, so how the hell did you get to this place, right? speaker-1: Yeah, and the snapshot that it represents. What ⁓ the favorite the one I have hanging in my office is the the Salviati map, which I think is like late fifteen hundreds, early sixteen hundreds, and it's like Europe and Africa are well fleshed out, and it's only the east coast of North and South America and nothing past it. Nothing but they remarkably they just left the white space. Right. And so speaker-0: But have but they have a blob, right? They kind of have the outlines of kind of the west coast, but it's just like I don't know what's going on. speaker-1: And it's like there'd be monsters. Like you know, but the white space is this sort of call to action of like we gotta fix we gotta finish this map. Like sh show me what's over there. Get you know, go go west. Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. speaker-0: Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Well, another w area where we're connected. I love I love the maps. Maps tell a story, man. They really tell a story. Yeah. speaker-1: Okay, so that brings us you said you're now you're r retired, authoring, speaking. W when did when did books sort of become a part of your career path? speaker-0: Yeah, I don't think my story's too too much different from anybody else. I you know, if I if I kind of really peeled it back, I'd probably find my dad is an av was an avid reader, probably read four to five books a week. ⁓ I enjoy reading. So, you know, I think books were always an important part in our family. I don't I didn't start writing my first book. ⁓ Scribe helped me with my second book, but till after he had passed. So maybe in some weird way I kind of wrote it for him. I don't think so. I think like a lot of people, I just knew that I wanted to say something in a form that I hadn't, you know, that wasn't a thirty minute speech or a or a five hundred word blog post, right? And I will also say I love the challenge of doing something that scares me. And so I mean it really was scary to go, can I really write a book? I I don't know. So that's kind of what the book thing did. Obviously as a speaker, it's I always knew like tactically it's good to have a book, right? So ⁓ maybe all those things combined, but I don't think I wrote it for money or, you know, consulting or like a lot of people do. I wrote it kind of for me. speaker-1: Just to yeah, just to have written it. Yeah. Yeah. How did it stack up? I mean, you you've ⁓ you've climbed many mountains in your career and you were so you say like intimidated by this in in some way. How did it now looking back, how did it stack up against the difficulty of, you know, building a company or a portfolio or a community? speaker-0: Yeah, I think you're gonna smile when I say this. You know, whenever we start a company, we're like, I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. And, you know, what what are we gonna do? And then there's all that fear and doubt that kind of creeps in and the voices in your head, you know, this was no different. So how does it play out? You just sit down and say, The hell with it, I'm gonna do it. And and for me, the comfort, which I've now done on two and soon a third, is that ⁓ I heard someone say that there's ⁓ planners and panters as writers. I'm definitely not a pantster, probably because of that lack of confidence I still have in writing. So the way that I can do you know, go against that is to plan and write an outline. And so to me, for me, all the work is in the outline. And once I saw that outline, I'm like, Yeah, that's some pretty good stuff. And I know all about those things. And I've organized it a little bit. So that's good enough. speaker-1: Yes, check checking boxes. You know, literally finishes answering the questions kind of inherent in it. Yeah, the the Panthers nomenclature comes from writing by the seat of your pants. You're just sort of figuring out what comes as you write, which is like very common in fiction. And you can kind of tell who the Panthers and the Planners are by who lands their series. You know, like Patrick Patrick Rothfuss, we're still waiting on book three for you know ten years and he's a Panzer, or is JK Rowling knocks him out every two years and she's a meticulous planner. So speaker-0: Checking. speaker-1: Yeah, to each their own, but ⁓ And to give you a pretty good to know yourself. speaker-0: Yeah, good to give you perspective. I know we're going to talk about, you know, the two business books that we did that I did ⁓ one with you. ⁓ I'm writing my first novel, even more scary than a business book, right? And that outline is 157 pages long. It's every scene, who's in the scene, what's going to happen in the scene. That makes to me, that gives me the freedom or the confidence that I ⁓ I can write about that. That's just a story. Tell that little story in there. I got speaker-1: Holy smokes. speaker-0: Who's in it? What their what their motivations are, what their goals are. So, you know, it took me six weeks to write the outline. So speaker-1: Yeah. What's the novel about? speaker-0: About a founder and a super angel and their relationship over an 18 month period as the company does one of these. And and you know, you I don't know if your parents still around? Yeah. So both my parents have passed. They never understood what the hell I ever did, right? So I think part of this is kind of like I want to share with people what the founder journey feels like because you can't really understand it. speaker-1: One of them. speaker-0: just watching it. You have to be in it. And so I'm I'm trying to share that journey, the ups and downs in every hour, right, of the day. And then how this super angel who's got his own he's got his own demons kind of come in and out of the out of that relationship. speaker-1: I that ⁓ the novel approach to that because you know, either a biography or an autobiography, ⁓ you sort of read it knowing that it's a happy ending. You know, no nobody really writes a biography about ⁓ disastrous career. And so there's the selection bias, there's you read the whole thing knowing it worked out, and so the the drama's not really visceral. And I think the only non-fiction book that captured the terror of the seat is the hard thing about hard things. Yeah. And it's really Yeah, if you if you can write an empathy creation device I I you know, I think it'll be a little bit easier to understand what founders go through, what leaders go through, you know, why why CEOs get paid a little a little bit more than, you know, you might expect. Right. speaker-0: And you know, I I also love for me at the part is like not just the empathy across the desk, but what you need to do to actually receive empathy and compassion and how do you bake that into your daily journey and and being really self aware. So obviously my character goes through some of those questions. So yeah, it's what we've lived for years. That's all. speaker-1: Okay, so so let's d do Build the Fort is is the book that you wrote. This this was the second book. speaker-0: You said yeah. So yeah. I wrote a book called Build the Fort and then a subtitle. And then I wrote this book, which I called Build the Fort. The idea is that Build a Fort's kind of the series. ⁓ though as you might see behind me, they look completely what the first one is more for founders. It's kind of how to start anything is my kind of subline for it. The second one is that I did with Scribe is basically for economic development folks, all the people in a community. speaker-1: Two covers of Build the Fort. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: And what roles they could play to help drive their community forward, whether it's Traverse City or Detroit or Kansas City or Raleigh Durham. speaker-1: Like this has been an area of focus for a really long time. Actually, my I mean, my very first internship was in with his with an economic development and an incubator in Lansing, Michigan. And like it's a really fascinating thing. And it was kind of at that peak of like TEDx, Ignite. I mean, it was startup weekends. Yeah. Stars was was really like growing and Everybody all, you know, kind of all over the the country and the world was trying to figure out how do we build these startup communities, how do we support entrepreneurs or recruit entrepreneurs, support small businesses and you know, recognizing them as innovators and job creators and risk takers that lift up the whole city. speaker-0: Yeah. And the thing that I found, and you know, is that over the last ten years, that change you just talked about that it's become important regardless almost of the size of your city, is that we're moving up from an economic development model that was let's recruit the new Motorola plant into our place and that will be good for our economy. And that just doesn't happen anymore, right? So the you know, the focus has to be on organic kind of entrepreneurship writ large, and yet most people have no idea how to do that. So I've spent the last kind of ten, twelve years not only doing it in my community, but figuring out what the drivers are and then now I get to go around and wax poetic about how smart I am. speaker-1: And yeah, be be the community builder of community builders. Right. speaker-0: Right, right. ⁓ I like that. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ speaker-1: Right it's right after serial instigator. There you go, add it to your body. speaker-0: So it's that two liner. Yeah. So you guys were, you know, really great enough to to work with me on that book and I'm probably more proud of that than just about anything I've done. ⁓ you know, really had a great experience getting it out. Here we are three years later. It's still very relevant. People still buy in bulk. I go speak on it, you know, so all the things you want. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, so th let's let's talk about that kind of the aspirations and the reality of it. What what did you hope that that book would would do for you when you set off on writing it or or set off on publishing it? speaker-0: ⁓ just basic, you know, number one New York Times bestseller list, million copies sold, ⁓ invited to the original Ted, not the TEDx. You know, just the basic goals and aspirations. Yeah. speaker-1: What whatever sane and balanced, you know, self speaker-0: Yeah, the shit you think about at night when no one's around and you're just you in your head. You know, I had a very realistic view. I knew this was a niche audience, but I I knew it needed to be done. I knew that I could promote it and get it into places. I knew it would be a talking vehicle for me. So my my ask I I when I kind of hybrid published my first book, the woman is a was a very well known New York agent. And she told me early on, she said, Well, just so you know, like, and I don't know what the real number was, but like ninety eight percent of all books on Amazon sell less than five hundred copies. ⁓ I'm sure you have some similar data point that you share, but Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, it's pretty well known. The the median is a few hundred and the average is not much higher than that. speaker-0: Yeah. So, you know, but so I had ⁓ you know, and I didn't think I'd get famous or, you know, 'cause this is niche stuff, right? So I think my ex expectations of course there's always that little piece of you that says, God, what if this took off? What if this went viral? Right. But that's just you kind of laugh at those things. speaker-1: Well, it's a it's a good example. I like I think this is a good example of a book that makes you famous in a room. Like pi pi picture your room where your community is. Yeah. And like if that if this book, this project makes you famous in that room and recognized and respected and appreciated and everyone sort of knows who you are and what you stand for and what it's like to work with you and understands the depth of your expertise, then like that book did its job and and your, you know, career and your place in that community is very different than it used to be. speaker-0: Very well said. I'm going to steal parts of that, you know, starting with the in the room. Yeah. And that's exactly what it did for me. And I'll say even more so. I mean, there's a lot of books about maybe how you start something, aka my first book. The second one is super niche, but by the way, still unknown to most people in the world about how do startup communities form and how do they flourish and grow and what were the dynamics? And they're completely 180 degrees different than the way most people think it should work. So my point to get out there was kind of to take a big steel bat, you know, and pop people over the head and say, Stop. It's this isn't the same thing. This isn't like running, you know, your government office. This isn't like raising money for your new performing arts center. It's completely different. And yet most people kind of start with those those kind of models. And so I I just know it it needed to be said and it needed to be said my way, which is stupid simple. Right? Like Like I'm not going to be the, you know, the smartest talker or writer, but I'm going to make sure it's very accessible. So let's let me get it out. speaker-1: Yeah, legibility is an underrated goal. It really frustrates me when people with with unique expertise y seem to go out of their way, which is most of the academic packaging, to like make the ideas inaccessible or difficult to understand. speaker-0: And I think they think they they're making themselves look smarter or better, but it's actually the opposite. I think it's I mean, and you being in this there's that old like Hemingway thing that's like, if you want me to write a quick book, great, but a shorter book takes more time or something along those right, however. speaker-1: Yeah, I would have written a a shorter letter, but I didn't have enough time. Yeah. It's is is kind of I the one liner. speaker-0: I mean, so like everything I try to do is it's gotta be accessible. It's gotta be I'm gonna explain this to my parents, right? Like here's why I do things. And so by the way, how many entrepreneurs you see that pitch and just pitch with too many four syllable words and I don't and acronyms they don't understand and you know, that's not helpful. So anyway. Yeah. That's my approach. speaker-1: And this is another the I think this book and in your authorship of it is another good example of like writing the book only you can write. You know, there's very few people that have had the experience ⁓ kind of at multiple levels of this game that can speak to the, you know, the entrepreneur, the investor, the community builder, and the community builder of community builders ⁓ level. And, you know, if you can make a unique contribution to the, you know, the canon, you know, it's almost an obligation to do so. speaker-0: You know, I again well said. I think I think I felt that. I think that was a driver. Like I need to get this out there. I can have hundreds of conversations in a year or two, but maybe this can actually get this in front of thousands, right? speaker-1: Yeah. How how does the you know, you you're a sought after speaker and and clearly, you know, this is ⁓ this book is sort of an entree into working more closely with the humans. So I zoom us out from the book and how does the book fit into, you know, the the speaking aspect of your career? I I don't even know if you do you do consulting, do you do engagements with with specific communities or is it kind of an informal mentorship? Like what what is the what surrounds the book in your life? speaker-0: Great question. So I do write a weekly blog and I have for years. It's now more focused, a little less on entrepreneurship and help for founders. It's more help communities, which is including founders. So there's little bits of that for everyone. That's certainly been my jam the last three or five years. And so the book and the blog help support that. So, you know, you can bite it in little bites or you can bite it in a bigger bite. You know, I do a lot of kind of just pre mentorship. So if you're in peak of Kansas or let's pick some obscure European city, you know, Itri It Italy, which I think I'm gonna go speak at in November, by the way. ⁓ outside of Rome. You know, there's there's five to ten people thinking, how can we make our community, you know, a a better environment for entrepreneurs to be more successful? And so, you know, I get inbound calls everything I do is inbound. I do nothing really because I don't want that much more work more work. ⁓ So if you're inbound, you're already like motivated. You know what I mean? You've already kind of crossed the threat. I don't need to sell you anything. This is what I do. But I do a lot of that. And that's just, you know, I have open office hours. You can schedule on my website and I'll talk to anybody about anything. And and so that's really cool because you get kind of the flavors of not just entrepreneurs, but they're the community builders all over the country. And it keeps me current. That's kind of the kind of the the soup that I that I kind of, you know. I haven't done any video yet. I've been thinking about it off and on. It sounds like too much work. I don't know if you know like this dig AI digital twin stuff. Have you kind of dabbled with any of that or speaker-1: I haven't dabbled with it, but I'm curious about the the AI creation suite in general. Yeah. speaker-0: I went really deep on where, you know, I could put both books. I got probably seven hundred and fifty blog posts. I have speeches, audio, video, you know, PowerPoint presentations. I kind of throw it all in and it's basically kind of gets trained just on you. And then I could provide a chat service to others to say, Hey Chris, I what I'm here in Topeka and I'm here's what you know. I got pretty close and then said, that's feels a little egotistical or something. I don't know what it kind of felt a little ⁓ but I'm I'm Always kind of looking for ways to find different vehicles to get my message out is I guess the long winded answer to your question. speaker-1: Interesting. Great. That's I mean, yeah, twist twist my arm, go speak in, you know, i i the Italian countryside in October. speaker-0: ⁓ darn. Yeah. And we just got back two weeks ago from Istanbul. First time I've been there, you know. And the thing is you meet our tribe looks the same everywhere, right? So yeah, sign me up. speaker-1: Yeah, I've I've heard Istanbul is an incredible destination, actually. Yeah. Actually still it's it used to be Constantinople, right? Yeah. No, no, I just I l I lament ⁓ you know, most most renamings you're kind of like, Yeah, that makes sense. But I Constantinople is just such an unbelievable historical panache to it. And yeah, and yeah, I just I I miss it. speaker-0: I I I know we'll be back. I really wish it was still Yeah. That's a that's a map reference, by the way. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, th they call back, yeah, I'm aware. I I I tried to repress ⁓ but they come out anyway. What is your favorite unexpected good thing that has happened as a result of these books being out in the world for you? speaker-0: Yes. Well speaker-1: Constantinople visits aside. speaker-0: Yeah. You know, it's the same thing when you speak, when you write, when someone emails you or comes up to you and says, Man, that really did it for me. Like I'm now clear about what I want to do or what I can do. Like when you I know you're trying to empower people, but when you actually see the empowerment and they come back to you and give you that feedback, it's like I mean, every time I get a feedback on anything I write, I it's always like Thanks for the feedback. It's whatever writer wants. Right. And so, and I'm still surprised when people go like, Hey, I really loved your book. I've like ripped out pages or, you know, whatever. And I've given it to five people. And, you know, you c you go, all right, I did all right. So, you know, unexpected is I kind of maybe you write it for yourself. I know you're trying to write it for others, but when others go cool, you're like, wow. Maybe you're, you know, I don't know. So that makes speaker-1: ⁓ Yeah. I I I think authors with reasonable expectations are sometimes just surprised to find people reading the book at all. speaker-0: Totally. Don't want to read it again, I know that much, right? speaker-1: I don't know Yeah, I did I did my time. ⁓ yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, so that's that still feels good. No matter how many times you get it, no matter where it comes from, that's and it's unexpected. speaker-1: Yeah. You had a pretty I I think Brad Feld Bradfeld is an amazing figure in the startup community space and ⁓ he's been on the my other podcast actually. I I ⁓ respect and appreciate him a lot. You got him to write the foreword and I'm curious if there's a a backstory there. I'm I'm always interested in ⁓ I get a lot of questions in all as well about, you know, for words and how much they matter and who should write them and how to decide and how to approach people. What w was there a story to this one? speaker-0: Well, yeah, it's a big story. The big story goes back ten years ago or more when I met him and I was thinking about doing an accelerator and Raleigh Durham. And he and David Cohen said of Techstars said, Here's our whole playbook. Go at it and keep in touch. And so they kind of set my mental I think I was wired that way anyway, but that whole kind of give first and just we're all in this together, no zero sum game. But I stayed in touch with them for a while and focused my efforts on my Tech Stars inspired accelerator and a lot of community building efforts that I was doing filling gaps. And then around twenty seventeen we shut down our accelerator, our gr our area had grown up and it's time ADD a time for me to do something else. And kicked in again. And the next thing I'm sitting with Brad and David out in Boulder and we decided to start a consulting company inside Techstars to help other communities do what we had done in Boulder. And and so I got to work pretty closely with Brad and and the rest of the Tech Stars team. And and in fact my book and he and a guy named Ian Hathaway, who came to work for me, wrote another book and pretty much it within the same year. It was going to be a one book and we had kind of played around with that and did some work and then it was too big. It was too much. Yeah. And so and I think perfectly by the way, though I was disappointed not to have a book with Brad, which would have been cool, but we split the book into kind of they took a more kind of mindset mental science approach to startup communities called the Startup Community Way. And then I went where I'm most best, which is I'm gonna go down to the street, right? And talk about tactics and you know, all the squishy stuff. They're gonna be the smart guys, I'm gonna be the hack, the filly hack. And so I think the two books ended up complementing each other quite well. So then to answer your question, to ask him, say, Hey, would you write the forward and kind of be that bridge between our two books? And of course it was a no-brainer. By the way, he was also my reference to scribe. speaker-1: ⁓ well, you you front ran my next question, which was how did you find your way to us? Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. So Brad said, you know, co go I've talked to these guys. I don't I don't know if he did a book with you all. Obviously it would have been years and years ago. Yeah. ⁓ but you know, he he and I we still talk a lot about publishing. ⁓ he's writing his first novel, by the way, a little more science fiction. And so we've been sharing writing notes and the ups and downs of being a fiction writer and tools and all those kinds of things. So yeah, it's just great to have him write the f you know, yeah, I felt lucky and you know, I don't know what the right word is. I felt good that he would he would do that for me because he's the dude, right? speaker-1: Yeah, I mean th the the the probably the godfather of the space or the biggest name in it. And, you know, just going back to your goals for the book and what you're hoping to achieve with it, like that that is a huge thing. And I suspected that it was not, you know, a co Brad's a super open guy, but I still expected it was not a cold email to book forward conversion pipeline, which, you know, a lot of people start thinking about their foreword when they're like about to publish their book and the manuscript is done and they're like, I'd really love to get Oprah. And it's like, what's if you'd How's how's that relationship been developing? Yeah. speaker-0: email her Oprah at Oprah dot com. speaker-1: It's probably something sneakier like ⁓ you know? speaker-0: ⁓ I'll also tell you though, having Brad write the forward also I think probably made it easier to have Steve Case write a testimonial, Richard Florida to write a testimonial. I mean, those are also huge names and you know, all around our space. And so, you know, I felt, you know, like it or not, people like to be among their peers. So speaker-1: Yeah. And it's hard, you the d climbing that staircase of kind of social proof. You know, everybody knows i it's an often shared number. There's, you know, two or three million books published every year. And gaining this sort of social credibility or proof points of success, usefulness for the book and the author is is work. And you know, you there's no such thing as like a a better mousetrap kind of solution in this space for sure. So giving some thought to the The context of your book and the credibility that you can give it is really important. speaker-0: No shortcuts. And by the way, and you have to make the ask. Willie? I don't know, but he won't if you don't ask. So he or she, right? So make the speaker-1: Yeah. Shooters gotta shoot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What advice do you have for authors who are ⁓ I don't know what the right number is for you, six years, five years kind of further up the road considering a book, think it might, you know, benefit them or or start to have that itch of like I I think I I think I have something unique to contribute or I think I have something that's you know that I really want to put down and share with the world. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, I I love the question. And I've actually, you know, probably have had fifteen to twenty conversations with people saying, So you, you know, I you know, you're a hack, you did it. I I think I can do it. I'm like, yes, you can. Yeah, I think it's a compliment. I don't know. It's it's like the classic, you know, how do you eat an elephant? You know, one one bite at a time. You know, the the the hole seems much the whole of the mountain seems much bigger than the actual and speaker-1: For the insult? speaker-0: I I think as an entrepreneur, we're used to breaking things down into pieces. So for me, being a planner, writing that outline, I think the book, the outline for that book that we worked on together was probably eight to ten pages, maybe twelve, I don't remember. That's gives me then I can break it down into smaller chunks and I could write that. So I I would say write, you know, and if you are nervous about maybe how your skills would translate, then write an outline. Like Get that's easy, right? It's only eight pages. Anybody can do that. It's a it's a science project or right. It's an English paper. So, you know, it's one of those things where all of a sudden you turn around and you're like, Hey, I I I just finished that. How'd I do that? Right. I w I'll ask you the question. How long does it take most people to write a book? Especially in like a nonfiction, what we're talking about. speaker-1: I mean, ⁓ I've heard I've heard people go to a cabin and crank it out in a week and I've heard people spend five to ten years. You know, it's it's wildly dependent on the person and their habits and their their scope and how they work. And, you know, to some people writing a book is is reaching fifty thousand words for the first time and everything else is edit editing it afterwards and you know, some people edit once and some people edit ten times. And so th there's a really I don't think there's a right or wrong answer there. speaker-0: Probably in months, right? Probably in the six to nine months, maybe I speaker-1: Yeah. I mean I I our the scribe process, if you come to us with an idea and just say, like, hey, help me write a book, it takes about six months. To go from zero to manuscript. When you've got a professional helping you, pulling things out and you stay on schedule and you show up to your meetings and stuff like that. Yeah, it's it's six to nine months to kind of get that get that manuscript really dialed. But that's also, you know, multiple people contributing hours to that. speaker-0: Yeah. Well, I'll tell you from a personal point of view, which I've now figured out really works for me, is I actually adjusted my whole sleep so that I like to not send an alarm so I want to wake up naturally, but I shifted my sleep to wake up at like five or five thirty and I would go down, you know, I'd do a little bit of treadmill, eat some breakfast, and then sit down before the family's up, before the sun's up, and in a locked room, and I'd try to crank out, you know, a couple thousand words, right? Yeah. And, you know, strung that together, first book probably more like four to five months. Second book probably more like three to four. But I had a much thicker outline on the second one. So, you know, and then that there's a a little bit of discipline in that. But like most things, you know, what am I willing to sacrifice to make this happen? If I think it's just going to magically happen at three, you know, today I'm going to write at three. Tomorrow I'm going to write at ten. Like I don't think that's every writer you, you know, I still think this is one of my favorite books of all time. Stephen King's own writing. And it's like, you know, and ⁓ and I saw a gr John Grisham interview in November that got me started my novel. He starts writing on January first every year and has for twenty years. He starts a new book on January first every year. It's usually done first draft by June, May June, and then the rest of the year just trying to get that out and and then he starts over again. So I think a little bit of discipline can help new writers is you know, make it fit your schedule, but You know, crank out leave an hour a day to at least do something. speaker-1: Yeah. I like that a lot. And I think the the schedule that you have, which is like a first thing in the morning, high energy writing block that is and protected, you're fresh, there's no interruptions. That's the highest odds of success thing that w that we see at Scrap over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people writing books is like if you can get that you know, that protected time in the morning and just have discipline. And it's so ⁓ you know, make it a game. Like it when especially when it's generative, when you're just racking up the word count and you're like, all right, I gotta get to forty or fifty or sixty thousand words, whatever your target is, you know, and you're putting up a thousand or two a day and you can just kinda like X off that day on the calendar and build a streak. Like it's very fun. Yeah. speaker-0: 'Cause it is. And like the next thing you know, you're like, Well, I got twenty thousand words and I've been at it for two months or whatever. Like, I'm on my way. I think I can do this. speaker-1: And and the editing's no picnic, but like once it's there, you know, ⁓ especially if you're if you're working with a team or or an editor like like Scribe or or anybody else, you know, you've once you're that conveyor belt, you're like, All this thing's gonna come out. Now it's just a matter of like how good is it gonna be, how much effort do we put into it. Yep. Which is ⁓ yeah, a very it gives you a sense of peace of the speaker-0: I'll share with you a little story that I tell. I failed freshman English in college. And I failed on my writing, not on the grammar tests. And the professor said, Why do you always write about sports? And I said, Did you tell me I needed to write about different things? He said, No, I left it up to you. Well then I wrote about sports. I mean, I'm seventeen years old and this is what I know. But he failed me, literally like flunked the class. I had to retake it, you know, later. So I always had this thing that said, You can't write, you can't write. So when I talk about the challenge, you can't have a worse challenge than me. You've been told publicly that you're a failure with writing. You told all through college and high school I couldn't write. But I went to grad school, my professor said, Just vomit on the page and edit it later. Like just write. speaker-1: Well yeah, the the moral of that story to me isn't you can't write, it's that guy can't teach. speaker-0: Yeah. Completely. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. Well what's the most famous writing advice there is? Write what you know. speaker-0: Yeah, and by the way, you know, I don't think this guy ever saw a sport in his life, you know, he's a wannabe you know, I don't know, I'll stop. speaker-1: Is it is it is a tweed. These are the symptoms of ⁓ d institutional decline and academic mistrust. It all started with this guy. Yeah. And his speaker-0: I got a book. I'm sure he's long past, but I feel like gone I got a book for you. I know where you can put it too. speaker-1: Well, this is not the segue, but I did find it very enjoyable to send I had I had a few English teachers that I like particularly loved and sending my first book to them w was very rewarding. ⁓ just just to kind of close the loop. I imagine teachers just have decades and decades of of open loops where they're kinda like, I wonder I wonder what that person's doing. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I've sent the first one, which is a little bit half biography, half kind of lessons, and I've sent it to all the my mentors in my life and it said you guys had a part of this. And that feels really good, by the way, if that's the only, you know, good thing you do in this book world. speaker-1: Yeah. It doesn't take a lot of it doesn't take a big number to have a rewarding experience writing a book. Over and over and over again. That's what I hear authors kind of the stories that they tell are are these like heartwarming moments of relationships that almost always alre already exist or are ⁓ strengthened, you know, through the the learning that happens in a book. speaker-0: Yeah. And a reminder that we're one of many people in this big old world and those connections matter. speaker-1: It doesn and and that you know, we are all where we are, you know, we we we've learned from generations upon generations that took the time to write their write their things down. And you know, we're we're you know, books are a very long term medium. And I this is no ⁓ you know, I'm a digital creator, I do lots of podcasts and Twitter and blogs, but like there's something about books, the longevity of them and the timelessness of them that we're contributing to future generations of, you know, yeah, gesture at the shelves behind you. speaker-0: The shells behind me. They're important. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. You know, yeah, we'll we'll never you know, we're planting seeds of trees we'll never sleep under, but but somebody will. And you know, this is the the writing version of that. Chris, this has been ⁓ a a really fun and amazing conversation. I wish it was longer. I hope we have many more. Is there anything else that is top of mind that you wish I I feel like I I I would hit minesweepers of stories and now I'm paranoid that I'm missing a a nugget a golden nugget somewhere. speaker-0: Well, I got lots of stories. I don't know how many of them are golden. But ⁓ you know, one of the things I'd say, you know, I hold these open office hours. I have a I have a website at my last name, Hively H E I V L Y dot com. I have a blog there that if you care about entrepreneurs or your city or how you support entrepreneurship, that's weekly. I they're all three to five hundred words, so you're in and out really quick. And then I'll give you my email address for anybody who wants to chat. Chris at buildthefort.com. Or you go to the website and sign up for office hours, 20 minutes virtual. They're my favorite part of the day. Been doing them for twelve years. And so we can talk about whatever you want to talk about. We're going to talk about books. We can talk about Traverse City, whatever it is. speaker-1: That's super fun. I love it. Well, maybe I'll see you in office hours. Thank you very much for for taking the time. Thank you for speaking. Appreciate you writing and and sharing everything that you do. speaker-0: Thanks, Eric. Thanks for having me.