Latest / The Daily Writer / August 2021, Business Update

Transcript

August 2021, Business Update · The Daily Writer

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Rider.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers and teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my friends, welcome again to another monthly business update.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've committed to doing these monthly updates on business through the end of the year just to see how it goes.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd be curious to hear if you enjoy these and whether you find these kinds of episodes helpful.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the reason I do these monthly business updates is so you can get a glimpse into the life of a real working writer.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now keep in mind that I'm a ghostwriter, so I don't spend all my time working on my own stuff, obviously.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: A pretty good chunk of it is spent on other people's material, such as books, articles, and other kinds of things.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: So of course, your situation might be different.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the most interesting things that I've learned from doing ghostwriting the last year or two is that I learned things from client projects that I can then apply to my own books and vice versa.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like my learning is really accelerated because every client that I'm writing for is basically a different situation.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a different business context.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I take what I learned from each context and client and I apply it to other contexts and clients as well.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I apply it to myself, which is a lot of fun.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like instead of just kind of writing for one situation or just writing for myself, I'm writing for really six or seven or eight different contexts at any given time.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I can take what I learned from one thing and apply it to something else, and everybody benefits from that kind of learning.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in to this episode.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm going to do is break this up basically into three parts.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to talk about ghostwriting, and that's probably going to be the bulk of what I talk about.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I also want to talk about the Daily Writer, which is the other side of my business where I'm serving writers.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then I want to finish up by giving you a couple of personal updates.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So let's kick this off talking about ghostwriting.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought what I would do this month is I want to share with you a list of the current projects I'm working on, just to kind of give you some info about the kinds of things that I write and some things that I'm learning about each of those.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then I want to do some reflecting on what I've learned from a couple of recent client experiences.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you don't do any client work, I think there will be some important lessons for you here.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just going to label these project one, project two, etc.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I'm not going to talk about who my clients are because the nature of ghostwriting is that it's confidential, but um the names don't actually make any difference in terms of what I'm going to tell you and what I'm learning from these things.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that's no problem anyway.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so let's dive in here.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've got how many projects do I want to talk about?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about seven different projects that I have going right now in my ghostwriting business.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Project one is a journal project, and this is a journal for a book that I wrote last year.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The journal is about 120 pages, and there's lots of space to write in this uh in this journal.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not like it's 120 pages of text.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I would say, well, actually, let me think about when I finished the draft of this, how many words was it?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was about 10,000 words or so.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in fact, let me push pause on this and check real quick.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I went back to my files and looked, and the text of this journal was about 11,500 words.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So not a massive amount of text by any stretch.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it definitely did take some time to put that together.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I would say, all in all, I've devoted probably I'm gonna say like four, maybe five total workdays, probably a complete week to this journal, spread out over really a couple months as I've worked with our editor and graphic designer, and of course, um wrote a draft of it and then did some revisions and so forth.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: This project was a lot of fun, actually.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very easy project in terms of uh, you know, I didn't have to reinvent the wheel.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: This was based on a book that I already wrote.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially what I did is I took the same structure of the book and then I just wrote a bunch of uh a bunch of discussion questions and exercises to go along with each chapter.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: So this was not a difficult project by any stretch, but it was a lot of fun.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I got to work with our graphic designer again, which I always enjoy.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that was just a simple, easy project that that honestly is profitable to me because I don't have to spend a huge amount of time on it, but obviously I'm still getting paid for it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I like those because I feel like things like journals and workbooks, they represent a kind of a triple win.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a win for the client because for a fraction of the cost of what they paid me to write a complete book, they get another product that's based on the previous book.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so it's definitely a win for them.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's also a win for their readers and for their audience because now they get something where they can put into practice the principles that they are reading in the book.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, it's a win for me and my business, which is nice, as well as for the editor and graphic designer.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I love these, these uh kind of adjacent products to full ghostwritten books.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do any client work, particularly if you do ghostwriting, I would really encourage you to seriously pitch these to your clients because it's an easy win.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to charge a lot of money for these.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can knock these out fairly quickly because you're not, again, you're not reinventing the wheel, you're not coming up with a whole new concept and all that stuff.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of like um, sort of like a no-brainer win for everybody.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't do client work, but you have your own books, if you have a nonfiction book already or you're working on one, I would very, very strongly suggest that you consider putting together something like a journal or a workbook that accompanies your nonfiction book.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because, well, it again, it's a it's a second product, but also it helps your readers to have something that allows them to put the principles into practice.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's good to have some reflection and discussion questions at the end of chapters in a nonfiction book, but it's it's way better if you can have a separate product where they can work through those things that are really helping them to apply and put into practice what they have learned.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that's project number one, a journal.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh actually, I'm done with my part of that.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I've still got to hear back from the client that they have approved the final um edits and the final um the final graphic design, and so we can get ready for Amazon upload and all that stuff.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So basically that project is done.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Project number two is a personal development book that I've been working on for, I'd say about three, three and a half months or so.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a situation recently where the client came to me, and this is this has been, I think, about three weeks ago, and basically they said, Hey, I've got some serious uh situations going on with my family.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I can continue at our current pace.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And really, um, they weren't sure if they even want to continue with the book.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this does happen sometimes whenever you are doing client work where uh you have someone that you're working with and they have some serious things come up in their life, and they're wondering if they should continue with it or if they want to continue with it.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And all of us have been there, honestly.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've been there before, I'm sure you've been there where you've got this project that you've invested a lot of time and energy into, and it's important to you, but then you have these other developments in your in your life that that kind of want make you want to put the brakes on that project.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the way that I handled this, and maybe this is a good learning point for you if you do client work, um, or if just for your own projects personally, is that what I suggested is that I continue work on the book, uh, and the client would not have to.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I basically had all the stuff that I needed from her to go ahead and finish the first draft of the project, uh, and that she could get back to it whenever it was a good time for her.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So this allowed me to finish what I had started, which was really important to me because I love this project.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's really important to me because I really, I really like this client.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're a blast to work with.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned a ton from them.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, you know what, what if I if I start something, I just want to finish it.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and also there's an element in this as well, what in which sometimes as a as a ghostwriter or someone doing any kind of client work, and this isn't necessarily even with ghostwriting, you can see the end vision for for a product or for the project that the client is not able to see because there's they're in the middle of a lot of they're in the middle of a whirlwind in their personal life.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: But because you have experience in the area, you can see how much they're gonna be blessed by the book, you can see how much they're gonna love the end result and so forth.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of have to decide how much do you want to push.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do you do you want to honor the client's, not honor, honor isn't the right word.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to go with the client's emotions in that moment, or do you want to kind of gently guide them toward finishing, but doing it in a way that that honors their momentary situation and so forth?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's a tough call.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, obviously it's all gonna depend on the specifics of the situation.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: In my case, what I did was I tried to gently guide her toward allowing me to finish the book because I I I just feel very strongly that when the book is done, she's gonna be very happy with it.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be a huge blessing to a lot of people because she has an amazing message that is really, really cool.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I just know it's gonna bless a lot of people.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just know that in my heart.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I kind of I didn't press too hard, but I really wanted to guide her toward just allowing me to finish the book uh because I think it's a really important book to get out there into the world.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the direction that we went.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to encourage you, as you're working through uh things in your own life, as you're working through things if you're doing if you're doing client work, is you have to kind of find a way to honor people's wishes and respect what they want to do, while sometimes also helping helping them to kind of retain the original vision for the project.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if you feel very confident that the project is gonna bless them, they're really gonna love it when it's done, and so forth.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a way that you can do both things.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is what I try to do in this situation is I basically again said, let me continue working on it and you can come back to it when you want.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna finish up a draft and then we'll whenever the time is right, let's come back to this together and we'll we'll finish up the book.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: So in this case, I think that will work out really well.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I think part of doing client work is you, you know, this is a people business when it comes right down to it.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is not, we're not robots, and the people that we serve are not robots.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Our readers are not robots.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So again, this is a people-oriented business.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if if you don't really care about people and their success, if you don't care about people and their personal situations, then you're probably in the wrong business.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: You probably shouldn't be in any business if you don't care about people.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So uh this is ultimately all about people, and uh I think this is where my background as a pastor has really helped me in these situations because I've had a lot of experience over the years just dealing with uh dealing with situations that are difficult and tough.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so I'm grateful for that kind of background in my own life.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I wanted to share uh kind of that situation and and just encourage you to just uh just really love people, just really care about people, care about your clients and the people that you work with and do what's do what's right.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes doing the right thing means um, you know, honoring their emotions in the moment, but then also trying to gently guide them toward finishing what's been started because you know they're really gonna love it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go on to project number three.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is a book that I started about uh six weeks ago.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is for a very successful sales professional.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um, he came to me, he was actually referred to me by a mutual friend of ours, and he came to me and said, I have this idea for this book that's kind of in the field of business and sales.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, he gave me a lot of uh interviews that he had done with some friends of his and other very highly successful business people.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then he, we also had several calls, and of course, I record everything, and so I have transcripts of those.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the challenge of this project was taking all that information and trying to synthesize it into a coherent book outline.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to be honest with you, this was the most complex book that I've ever worked on in my whole life.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there were a lot of things that I had to kind of pull together, things that didn't seem related to each other, but I wanted to really create an amazing book uh for this gentleman because I like him a lot and I love the idea of the book.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I personally am excited about this book and what I'm going to learn from it, as well as how it's going to impact people.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I spent more time on this book outline than I have spent on any book outline ever.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm really, really happy with the results.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I did is I um you know obviously did the outline, sent it to him, and he loved it and has been sending it around to some other people as well to get some feedback.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the lesson that I want to take away from this and that I want to highlight is that sometimes when you're working on a book, it's very easy to get frustrated when you feel like you're not quite cracking the book structure.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I have this experience frequently whenever I start a project where you sit down and you think, okay, it's gonna be kind of this way, but then once you dig into it, it needs to be something else.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to encourage you, as you're working on your own books or if you're doing client work, I want to encourage you to stick with it until you feel like you have cracked it.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what did it for me.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is gonna sound very silly, I understand, but sometimes it's the little things that seem insignificant in the moment that really kind of crack opened a book outline for you.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I had been working on this book outline for hours and hours and hours all last week.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was at my dad's house most of last week because he recently had a major surgery.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I was helping him with some recovery.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just really frustrated with myself most of the week because I just couldn't crack this book outline.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't figure out how to actually bring these elements together into something uh that would really make sense to me.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that I work with client books is I have to emotionally find my way into the project.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying get emotionally, you know, involved in a book that's in an inappropriate way or that you're caring about a book or a project in a way that's not professional.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying at all.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: What I am saying is that I spend a lot of time and energy on my client books, and it is important to me to not just want to care about it as a writer and as a business person, but I need to be personally invested in the book, meaning that I need to find my way into the project emotionally.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have to find a hook in the project that speaks to me or that I'm interested in, or I have to find an angle that really kind of catches me and piques my own personal interest.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, it's just kind of like another writing project.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I could do that, but I just don't want to be a writer who just writes to make money.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: That seems like such a dull existence to me, to be honest with you.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do work that I really care about, and I want to work with clients who I personally like and who I get along with and who uh I'm interested in their business and who I want to learn from.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I suppose there are ghostwriters out there and there are people who do client work who just kind of do it for the money and they crank it out and they're not really emotionally involved in it.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I just don't want to operate that way.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, there comes a point at which you can, I guess, cross a line emotionally and and and you erase that professional distance that maybe should be there.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the bottom line for me is that I want to care about the projects and I want to get excited about them personally.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and in this case, I had not cracked that nut, so to speak, where I had really kind of found my way into it.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what happened, and I think this is kind of an interesting story.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'd I had had the smallest of seeds of an idea for how I would structure this book in terms of part one, two, and three.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I was kind of agitated with myself that I hadn't yet sort of solved the problem.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I went out to mow my lawn last Saturday, and I don't know about you, but I find oftentimes that doing things like yard work or manual labor or kind of mindless activities that are repetitive, I find that doing those things it keeps my body busy so that my mind is kind of free to go off and do its own thing a little bit.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I found that when I was in my backyard, and I remember when this happened, as weird as it was, I remember the spot I was in my backyard.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was mowing along, and I remember that a word came into my mind that unlocked the whole structure of the book for me.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I was looking for a specific metaphor or a specific image or something that would represent a theme or a symbol that would kind of unlock the structure of this book for me.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And a word came to me, and that word unlocked the whole thing.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not gonna tell you what the word is or the theme or anything like that, because that's um that that'll be reserved for the client to share that if they if they want to at some point.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, for whenever the book comes out.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but be that as it may, this one word really unlocked the whole thing for me.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to encourage you as you're working on yours or client's material, that you keep chipping away at it until you feel like you have it cracked, until you feel like you really have the puzzle pieces in place.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it takes a while.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: It sometimes takes me a while, but if you keep working at it, keep chipping away, I think you will eventually get it.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can't get it, then go for a run, go for a bike ride, mow your lawn, work in the garden, clean out your closet, do dishes, do something that occupies your mind.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think oftentimes you'll find that the answer comes in some really interesting ways.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's go on to project number four.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is a uh sort of a memoir that I'm writing for a Marine.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he is a uh veteran who fought, um, I'm gonna say 10 to 15 years ago, did a couple of tours in Afghanistan, and we're telling his story as well and communicating some teaching principles from his story.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the only book that I am doing currently through a ghostwriting agency.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to tell you, overall, it's been a pretty good experience.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: The downside of agency work is that you make less per book because the agency is taking a cut of it.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, they're taking a pretty significant cut of it, but I still wanted to do this project because I have a real soft spot for military-themed projects.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: My dad is a Vietnam veteran.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've always had a soft spot for anything to do with the military, particularly people who want to tell their stories.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that was attractive to me about ghostwriting was that I was hoping that at some point I would get to do something that was a military or veteran-themed kind of project.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this project fits fits that very, very well.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have learned a ton from this uh gentleman as we have worked really closely together.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I will say that it's been a um it has gone a little slower than I was anticipating because uh this is obviously this this gentleman's first time doing a book, and uh it's through the agency, which does slow things down a little bit, but it is honestly just taken some time for me to to learn his voice and to really capture the way that he works.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's taken some time for us to to really develop kind of a good system for doing drafts and editing drafts and so forth, because there's not just me and him that's involved in the draft, it's also the editor at the agency as well, which actually um has definitely helped.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's nice to have another set of eyes on a draft, to be honest with you.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it slows things down a little bit, but I feel like the the end result is going to be really, really good.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we've just finished the book introduction.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is, if I do say so myself, of course.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think it is stellar.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really good.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the back and forth that this gentleman and I have had.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the way it kind of works in this situation is I write a draft, it goes to the editor, she makes some suggestions and comments, I incorporate those, then I send those to the client, and then he adds information.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he puts questions in it, like, should we do this or this?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: He'll add in details.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we do two or three rounds of that for every chapter, and it's been working really, really well.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's been a lot of fun.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, project number five is a developmental editing project that I'm working on right now.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is for an entrepreneur, very successful entrepreneur who I've known for a couple of years, and I've really gotten to know fairly well, I think, the last uh particular, particularly the last year and a half or so.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he is working on a book that I think will be kind of his signature book.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he has developed a great structure.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful message.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I personally 100% buy into what he's talking about in the book, and it's going to be phenomenal, if I do say so myself.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's a great storyteller, and I am helping out with essentially some book structure, some accountability.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: We talk every couple weeks.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're also developing some uh adjacent products like a journal, workbook, maybe some other things uh a little bit down the road.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: But this has been really fun.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not doing the writing, but I am doing a first editing pass and obviously providing some accountability and um and coaching with the book and and some help with book structure and we'll be working directly with the editor and cover designer and layout artist and all that stuff.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I really enjoy those projects because they're not nearly as time consuming as me actually writing the book myself, which is very time consuming.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I can just kind of sit back and essentially they do the writing and I come in and do some polishes and provide coaching and so forth.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I really, really enjoyed that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, project number six that I have going on currently is very similar to this one, except this is actually for a pastor.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm again I'm doing kind of an initial round of editing with him, and I'm also doing coaching.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: We talk every couple of weeks.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this is very easy and fun.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is a gentleman I have known literally for decades.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh actually one of my uh former college professors.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been really, really fun to get to encourage him to pursue his writing goals and to get to work with him on this.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a, I'm just kind of being up front with you.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is a pro bono project.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm not getting paid to do this.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: I actually approached him and said, hey, I know that you want to want to do a book.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think this would be a lot of fun.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Would you be open to working with me on this, just as a pro bono thing?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm basically providing coaching, some editing, um, and we'll be also working with the cover designer, layout artist, um, the professional editor, and so forth.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's been uh a lot of fun, and I'm learning uh from that as well.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then project number seven, I know you're probably thinking, when are these projects going to end and how does he work on these all at once?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is that you don't know two weeks in ghostwriting are the same, at least in my experience.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh some weeks are more intense, some we other weeks are a little less intense.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm it's not like I'm writing for you know 40 hours on any given week, not not even close, honestly.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um things have an ebb and flow to them that allow you to work on, you know, five or six or seven projects at a time.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: So project number seven is for a actually this company that produces resources for church leaders and pastors, and I am on a retainer agreement with them, so I write a couple of articles every month for them.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's going very well, and it's fun because I get to use my experience from being a Christian college professor and a pastor in my field of ghostwriting, which is really fun for one thing, but also it makes me feel like I'm a part of a team.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: They have a wonderful team there, and I love working with them.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're awesome.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just it's just kind of fun to be a part of a team.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: That is something that I miss already from stepping away from from my job as a college professor.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's nice to be a part of like a company.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I'm just a contractor, I really have enjoyed working with them so far.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, those are the projects I'm working on currently.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I also want to um just share a couple items of interest related to ghostwriting.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you may be interested in these, you may not, but I just want to put these out there as things that have been on my mind the last few weeks.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing is that I have reworked my process for developing a book outline.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh initially I had something that was a little less detailed, but now I have totally reworked it and I've actually integrated the book outline process from three or four different uh ghostwriting agencies or ghostwriters, and I have kind of combined them into my own system that consists of several other things, but things I've also added myself.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I have to tell you, I'm extremely happy with this.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's not something I'm going to post anywhere online because this is part of my business.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I will share this probably in a course that I may be developing, uh, or rather a group coaching program kind of a thing uh for writers.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll see about that.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to encourage you, if you do client work, to really hone down on the process that you use for developing your book outlines.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's important to have something that is systematic that you use where you're walking clients through the same process every time because it kind of keeps things simple, it keeps things predictable for you.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the more that you can approach client work a little bit like an assembly line where you have these different things that they move through and it's all it's not systematized, but it's all systematic and it's very organized.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think that helps you and it helps them as well.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: So take some time to really work on your systems.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: The more that you do, I think it's going to save you a lot of time in the long run.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the other thing that I want to share with you that's just kind of an item of interest, and this is um, you know, I I've said before in this podcast, I'm I always have committed to being as honest with you as I possibly can about my wins, my losses, my struggles, my, you know, at times my insecurities.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have no interest in coming onto this podcast and being like the writing guru or the guy who has everything figured out.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I can't stand those kind of people.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: They really, really annoy the heck out of me.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when I perceive that somebody feels like they have everything figured out, I I immediately just want to shut them off because I know the truth.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that nobody has everything figured out.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has insecurities, everybody screws up, everybody does some things well, everybody does some things really, really badly.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate people just being honest.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: So all that is kind of a preface to me telling you that something I'm really struggling with right now.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now that I've gotten established as a ghostwriter, I'm doing this full time in my business.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Some something that I'm wrestling with is how do I help people who I know they have a great idea for a book?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: They have maybe they've started working on their book and they've showed me their book outline.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe um they have a passion for a certain area.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if they had a great book, I I know for sure it would help a lot of people.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: How do I help those people when they can't afford my services?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: That is something honestly I'm really kind of wrestling with.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I understand, you know, we have yes, I have a business and I have certain rates, and and my rate for um full top-to-bottom ghostwriting is most people are going to look at that and and think that that is crazy expensive.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Truthfully, I'm very middle of the road with ghostwriting.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, be that as it may, there are a lot of people who would benefit from a great book, but I simply, you know, I'm not going to do it for free because it's my business and I want to honor and respect what I feel like I'm bringing in terms of value and experience to it.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yet there are people who I know need help.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I wrestle with that and trying to figure out how can I help those people who I know a book would bless them, but but they can't afford it.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to figure out some solutions to that.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I've got something that I'm going to start offering, which I'll talk about here in a few minutes.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's something I'm wrestling with, and maybe you have wrestled with that also, whether in your business or if you do client work.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the idea of you you are worth X amount, but there are really good people who you you would love to help, but they just can't afford um your services.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: So one way that I am addressing that is like what uh the project I mentioned before, which is this pro bono project I'm doing for a pastor, I think I've decided that I'm gonna do one or two pro bono projects like that per year.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not where I'm fully ghostwriting the book because that takes way too much time for me to do for free, but some book development things where they're doing the writing and I'm doing some coaching or something like that.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we'll see how all that shakes out.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I just want to tell you coming from the worlds of education and church ministry, it is still very much my impulse.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is my desire to help and to serve people.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yet at the same time, I also want to be paid what I'm worth because I I know that I'm very, very good at what I do, particularly with book outlines and writing.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'm at the place where I've been doing this for a little while.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think I have proven skills and I do want to make what I'm worth.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yet how do I help people who can't afford this and who would benefit from it?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Those are kind of the eternal questions that I think many of us wrestle with.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, those are some updates related to ghostwriting, and that section of this episode went on way too long, but I hope that those are interesting to you, particularly if you do client work.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me share for a few minutes about the daily writer, because as you probably know, I have two sides to my business.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I have the ghostwriting business.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm sorry, the ghostwriting side, which is client work essentially.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then I have the side that I'm just calling the daily writer, where I have the membership community.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm probably going to offer a group coaching program very soon, which I'll talk about in a second.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: I write books, uh, I have this podcast.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all part of the Daily Writer.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I have kind of two sides of those.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Really, all of this is about serving authors and serving writers, whether it's writing books for them or helping them write their books or providing free resources like this podcast that you're listening to right now.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's all really about helping authors.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just, but I do look at those two things as kind of two separate businesses because they sort of are.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I think the reason I look at it that way is because the the clients that I typically um write books for are really not connected with anything related to the Daily Rider.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Many times they come from referrals and they kind of come from worlds that are not connected to my daily writer world, if that makes sense.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of look at those as two different things altogether.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: So here are a few updates uh of things that have been happening recently with the Daily Rider.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I mentioned this on the last business update, but if I didn't, I just want to share with you that I've hired an amazing assistant.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, her name is Rajan, and she's excellent with social media.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: She does podcast editing, she does the show notes for the podcast.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: She's also starting to do our Daily Writer Instagram account, and you can find that at Daily Writer Life on Instagram.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna ask you to go to Instagram and follow that account.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: She's posting there every day with some really cool image, uh, quote images.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm posting a couple times a week as well, there with um some thoughts, some pictures, some fun stuff and things like that.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we're we're still trying to kind of figure things out with the Instagram account for Daily Writer, but she has been an immense help.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I could not have done this without her help, truly, particularly when it comes to the graphics and the posting schedule and all those kinds of things.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I share that with you, number one, to encourage you to go um, you know, follow the Daily Writer Life on Instagram, but also to encourage you to hire out things that you're not good at and that you don't want to do, but that are important for your business.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: This has been um one of the most important investments I've ever made.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm, you know, obviously paying her every month to do this.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And wow, it's been such an enormous help.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, Rajan, if you're listening to this, thank you so much for all the amazing help that uh that you're doing for the Daily Rider.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I truly, truly appreciate it.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, uh that is kind of something new for the Daily Rider, and I'm continuing to do this daily podcast, which which represents uh a fair amount of work every week.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the cool thing about the podcast, though, is that I'm repurposing most of the content that you hear into other formats.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: For example, and I think I've mentioned this before, the daily episodes, I'm sorry, the weekday episodes, Monday through Friday, those are going into a book that'll be coming out next October, so October 2022, called The Daily Writer.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the Sunday episodes starting next week, kind of more of the teaching episodes every week, those are primarily going to be that's going to be material that I'm going to funnel into little short books called, tentatively called 60-minute guides for writers.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: And these will be little short paperbacks that address a specific problem that writers deal with.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there will be a whole series of those.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'll talk about those in just a minute.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to share before I get into that about a program that I'm considering.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are interested in this program, I would really love to hear from you.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not totally sure that I'm going to do it.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: It just depends on the interest.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: But let me give you kind of a super quick synopsis of what this is.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I have discovered that there is a need for writers to have a highly structured program that takes them from a book idea all the way to having a completed self-published book that is available on Amazon.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's a huge market for that, I believe, and there's a huge need for that and a huge desire for people to have that kind of structure.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: So currently I have, and I mentioned this a minute ago, I have two sides to my business.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have the ghostwriting side, where basically I write the books for clients or I help with developmental editing.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the problem is that for most people, that's really expensive, and not everybody can afford that or wants to do that.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of people who want to write their own books, but they they just don't, they struggle with finding the time and knowing what the next steps are.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: They feel stuck.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they've written, you know, a few dozen pages or a few chapters, but they just don't know where to go from here.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: They've kind of lost the motivation, and they would really benefit from structure and accountability and and some some training and some help with that.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now on the other side, there is the the daily writer community, which obviously I think that's very, very valuable, but that's not a structured program.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is a community where we do calls every week, we do writing sprints, uh, but there's really no kind of progressive structure to that group.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is it's very much a community, it's not a structured program.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, based on all that, I am strongly considering offering a program tentatively titled Zero to Published, which would be a six-month group coaching program for writers.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the target market is people who have a great book idea or they may have written some material for their book, but they're just stuck.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: And they need some structure, some accountability, and some uh help to get them to the finish line for their book.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea is that this would be a six-month program.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: We'd meet twice a month on Zoom, and I'm basically going to coach you along with uh a cohort group to get your book done.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna talk about writing habits, we're gonna talk about cover design and editing, we're gonna talk about who's your ideal audience.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about how to structure your book, and I'm going to personally help you with your book outline.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially, I'm walking with you and a small group of people from the starting point all the way to the finish line.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm making the promise, if we do this group, that I would get you there.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of six months, you would have a manuscript ready for editing and cover design and ready for Amazon upload.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: And really, once you get to that point, that's the easy stuff.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the the cover design and and all that stuff, um, those are not difficult steps typically, uh, especially when you're working with professionals.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: But getting to that point of having that manuscript that's ready to go, uh, to be edited, to be formatted, to be uploaded on Amazon and all that stuff, uh, that is the part where people really struggle with.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's sort of what I'm thinking.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're interested in that program, I don't have the pricing totally set for that.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're interested in that, um, reach out to me and let me know because I would really love to talk to you about that.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I would love to have you consider being a part of that group.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, that is called Zero to Published tentatively.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you can reach out to me on Facebook or you can shoot me an email, which is Kent at DailyWriterLife.com.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: So let me know if you're interested in that.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me start to wind this down.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this episode has gone on actually way too long.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I guess I had more to say than I thought I did, which is not unusual for a former college professor, let's be honest.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let me talk for a second about upcoming books that I am currently working on.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually four books that I'm that are kind of in process right now, or getting ready to be in process.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: One is the Daily Writer book, which I've already mentioned, that comes out next October.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's a draft of that that's about halfway done.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've written about, I'm going to guesstimate, I've written about 200 of the daily reflections that will go into that book.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: And again, these are just the Monday through Friday episodes of the podcast.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm just going to repurpose those in the book.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I'm going to edit those and all that.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: But that's that's a very that's been a very convenient way to write that book as I've gone along.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that'll come out next October.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that's gonna be obviously a large book.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of effort and time is gonna be going into that.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's another book that I'm working on called Kickstart Your Creativity, and I think I've talked about this before here on the podcast.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: This will be the first in a series of books.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is a 30-day challenge to essentially Kickstart Your Creative Life.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: This will be a fun, short little book that obviously you can buzz through in 30 days.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: It'll take about 10 minutes a day, probably, to get through the material, and it's going to be a lot of fun.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also working on a lead magnet for the dailywriterlife.com website, which will also be, and this lead magnet will also be the first in a series of books called 60 Minute Guides for Writers, or something to that effect.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this first book will be called How to Build a Writing Habit.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: So this podcast in the Daily Writer as a whole is all about helping people be successful with habits, rituals, routines, and mindset to help them be successful with writing.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole concept of what I'm doing with the Daily Writer is that the marketing, the business stuff with writing, uh, the self-publishing stuff, none of that stuff matters if you don't actually get the writing done.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm here to help people get the writing done so that they can enjoy the writing success that they deserve.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what the Daily Writer is all about.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this first little short book is designed to address the very specific topic of how do you build a writing habit?
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's going to be a lot of fun.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be out in a month or two or something like that.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't exactly know the pub date, but it'll be a short little book, and that will be a free download on the DailyWriterLife.com website.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: It'll also be on Amazon and it will be an audiobook uh as well.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: So keep your eyes peeled for that.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I'll let you know here on the podcast when that's ready to go.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Then the final book, uh, book number four that I'm working on personally, is a secret project that will come out next uh late next spring.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not late next spring, it'll be mid-spring next year.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you more about that when it releases because it is a secret project, and there will only be uh probably the cover designer will be the only person, uh, and the editor will be the only two people who even know that this book exists.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I take that back.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've told one or two other people about it uh just in passing, but this is a top secret project that I'm not um there will be no like pre-sales, there will be no announcement about it before it comes out.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: It'll just be something that comes out.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when when you hear me talk about it here on the podcast or on social media, you'll understand why.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very, very unique type of a project.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's kind of like a once-in-a-lifetime thing, to be honest with you, um, that I have one opportunity to do, and uh, I just thought I'm gonna write a book to commemorate this special event.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, this will be a lot of fun, and you'll hear more about that next year.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me close out this episode with uh a couple of personal updates.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that is a very important part of what I'm doing right now is that I'm training for a half marathon.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: This half marathon happens the first Sunday in October, and I'm just I'm just running, I'm training for the sucker, trying to get in shape and um trying to follow Hal Higdon's half marathon training plan and all that stuff.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you know the the funny thing about training for a race, and I've done a few races and trained for several races at this point.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: The funny thing about it is that I think people make the whole thing way more complicated than it needs to be.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of reminds me of riding.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I think there's a lot of similarities between riding and running.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe someday I'll write a book about that.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: But there are a lot of similarities between those two things.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, the thing about training is it's really not complicated.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: You just follow the plan.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've got to do your warmups, you need some good shoes, you know, stay hydrated, um, have somewhere safe to run, have some comfortable clothes.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Other than that, you know, those are kind of like the basics of training.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's so interesting because so many times in life we have these goals and we make them so stinking complicated.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: We make them so complicated, and we develop these big complex plans, and you know, we have the planners and we have the systems and the blah, blah, blah.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we make everything so stinking complicated.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what I really respect and admire about people who train for races is that basically you have your schedule, and as long as you keep the schedule and you do what you're supposed to do, then you're gonna get there.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be ready for it.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I just find that's that's a pretty cool thing that it's just so doggone simple.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I have learned a lot from that, and I love running because I feel so much better when I'm running.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: I feel so much, I have so much more energy and I sleep better.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I have more self-confidence.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: And man, there's just so many benefits to doing that.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've never thought about doing a race, I really encourage you to do it.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: Really, it'll change your life because when even if you just do a short 5K race, when you train a little bit for it and you do the race, even if you just walk the race and you don't train at all, you just like go walk the race, and you're the last person you know to cross the finish line, it doesn't matter because the point of it is that you went there, you did it, and you achieved something that the vast majority of people will never get off the couch to do.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it just has this very empowering kind of effect on you whenever you train for something and you cross that finish line.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it sounds silly, but when they give you that medal, it's a really, really good feeling.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I I get why people get addicted to running, and I get why people train for these races and they get all in into the running culture and stuff.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: I totally get it because it works and it's very, very empowering.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to share that with you.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then the last thing I want to share before I wrap.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is kind of the uh the ongoing saga of the co-working space.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you've heard me talk about this before on the last business update.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like this is such a stupid thing to be kind of repeatedly talking about.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the reality.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm, you know, again, these these monthly updates are just for me to kind of tell you what's going on with my life and what I'm wrestling through it, decisions I'm making and why I'm doing things, or where I'm screwing up and how I can do things better.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one thing that I'm I'm just really thinking about still is renting a co-working space.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that the co-working, the co-working space here in my town, St.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Peter's, Missouri, the the space that I want to rent or that I want to be involved in is 450 bucks a month.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if it was 300, I would, I would totally do it.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: But 450 to me is really expensive for just a small like broom closet type of a space.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: I just I'm having trouble pulling the trigger on that.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that I don't have it, it's just that it's still like 450 bucks is still 450 bucks.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can work from home, I would rather have a co-working space, but I'm just struggling with spending that amount of money every month.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: It just because it's a lot of money, you know.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, 450 bucks is nothing to sneeze at.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can do a lot of things with that money, especially over a year's time.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something I'm still considering.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't totally decided.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Probably I will do it eventually, or I will do some other co-working space in the area that's maybe a little cheaper.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't totally decided.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing that I do know is that I miss the routine of going somewhere to work.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: That is one thing that I miss about working at uh the school that I just left, is I even though I was really, you know, by the end of my tenure there, I was just really agitated by having to drive a half hour to work each way and wasting an hour of my day.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Especially because in Florescent and in St.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Louis, where my college is, uh in North County St.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Louis, they have been doing construction for like a year.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just you're driving through all this construction and it slows down traffic and blah, blah, blah.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I just got really annoyed with it.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the reality of it is that I still miss having that schedule of someplace to go.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think whenever you go out of your house and you go somewhere to work, you get into that mental zone of, hey, I'm at work now, I'm doing work things.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you get in your car and you come back home, it's like, okay, I'm home now, I'm doing home things.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the that division of spaces I think is mentally really crucial.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I haven't really figured that out for myself.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I need to do a much better job of figuring that out for myself really soon because I know I can be more productive.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I may just end up setting an office up in my basement.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I hear about people who work from home, so they go get a coffee in the morning or they they do something, they put on their work clothes, they they go for a drive around the block or something, and then they come back home and they're in they go in the basement and they're in work mode.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I may try that for a while.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not really that I'm a cheapskate, I just I don't want to spend money unnecessarily.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: I would rather invest it or save it or something else if I can, but I'm not opposed to spending the money if I can truly be more productive if I rent a co-working space.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, that's probably far more than you wanted to know about all that stuff.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just sort of rambling at this point.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um overall, I have to tell you that I love having my own business.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love the freedom of it.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: I I loved the freedom last week of getting to go spend a few days with my dad and not having to ask anybody's permission.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the cool thing about having your own business, especially one like I have, is that you can do the job from literally anywhere where you have an internet connection.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I love what I'm doing, I love the opportunities that I'm getting.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the fact that now being fully self-employed, this is all on me.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's really motivated me to start to think about things like this group coaching program and and and some income generating activities that I had not really considered before and things that I would not have considered if I was still working in a day job.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, those are some thoughts.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I hope that you enjoy these kind of updates.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like they're very rambly.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you're getting any value out of these, but it does help me to think through each month some things that I'm working on, and hopefully you're getting some value out of this as well.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, thanks so much for listening.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening to this show for any length of time, you know that one of the four practices of a great writer is creativity.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to stay creative, you've got to have great input.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where writing prompts come in.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: A writing prompt is a sentence or two that helps you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Writing prompts are an awesome creative tool for journaling, storytelling, creative writing, stress relief, social media posts, and so much more.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the great news is that you don't have to create these yourself.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've put together an amazing package of 365 daily writing prompts.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: So every day for the next year, you can have a shot of inspiration delivered straight to your inbox.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can check it out at dailywriterlife.comslash writing prompts.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.