Latest / The Daily Writer / 10 Lessons I Learned About Life, Writing, and Business in 2023

Transcript

10 Lessons I Learned About Life, Writing, and Business in 2023 · The Daily Writer

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, welcome back to the Profitable Writer Podcast.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new here, my name is Kent Sanders.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an author and ghostwriter, and this is the show that helps you grow your impact and income as a writer.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the most important habits that you can ever develop is the habit of reflection.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: The pace of life today is pretty fast, and it's really easy to just keep going, going and going all the time.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: But when you stop and you think about where you've been, I think it's a lot easier to figure out where you're going.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So in the spirit of reflection, I'm really excited to share 10 lessons that I've learned about life, writing, and business over the last 12 months.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, upon reflection, though, speaking of reflection, maybe learned isn't quite the right word because I'm still in the process of learning many of these things.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: But we're just going to go with this theme of I've learned these lessons for now, kind of with the understanding that life is a process and we're always growing and we're always learning and changing and developing.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So these 10 lessons are not in any particular order.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: I just have kind of written these as I've thought about them.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, to be honest with you, in true writer fashion, this actually started out as a list of 23 lessons.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I probably could have done much more than that because this has really been an eventful year, and I've learned a lot and I've grown a lot and have been challenged a lot.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: But for the sake of brevity, I boiled this down to 10 lessons, with of course two bonus lessons thrown in here at the end.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Again, these are in no particular order, and I hope that some of these will strike a chord with you as you think about your past year and as you think about your upcoming year and what things might be helpful for you.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, here we go.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number one it's really fun to thank people for the work that they create.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I've gotten into a habit the last couple of years of trying to track down the person who created something that I just enjoyed so that I could thank them.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's really surprising how easy it is to connect with almost anybody through their website or email address or even their LinkedIn profile.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: For example, in the past few weeks I watched a couple of really good documentaries.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: One is called Reinventing Elvis.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: It came out just a few months ago, and that documentary, it's all about the creation of Elvis' 68 comeback special.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Another documentary that I watched came out in 2017, and it's called Becoming Cary Grant.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about Cary Grant's life and how he how he grew into this huge, larger-than-life Hollywood star decades and decades ago.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So what I did is after I finished both of these, I actually tracked down both of the directors, and it wasn't hard to do at all, and I wrote them to say thanks.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So in both cases, it was actually really easy to find their email address.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, one of those, uh the director of Becoming Cary Grant, he's on LinkedIn, so I just sent him a LinkedIn message.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And re with reinventing Elvis, I just Googled the name of the director and they had a contact email address on their website, and I just sent him an email.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes we think it's so difficult to contact people who are like Hollywood types and musicians and these kinds of things, but in most cases it's not difficult at all.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to put in about 15 seconds of work and you can find people really easy.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So in both cases, though, it was really cool because I wrote each of them a message and I said, Hey, I really, really liked this thing that you created.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I I loved it.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was great.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I enjoyed about it.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for creating it for people like me to enjoy.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in both cases, these guys wrote back within one of them actually wrote back within 15 minutes, uh, the other one replied back the next day, and they really seem to appreciate just somebody touching base with them and saying, I really enjoyed what you created.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, just because like something that you enjoy, and in this case documentaries, just because it's like on Showtime or HBO Max or some big streaming service, we think that these people are untouchable and that that they don't want to hear from people who enjoy their work, but it's not true at all.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: The the vast majority of time, whenever you take the time to reach out to somebody like this, they really truly appreciate it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, am I going to be able to like send Tom Cruise an email?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea how to contact Tom Cruise, and you know, he's like at that tier of movie stardom where he's pretty much untouchable, and I would have no idea how to contact him, and and that wouldn't mean much to him anyway, because he hears from people constantly.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's a huge movie star and has been for decades.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: But for people who are not necessarily in the limelight every single moment, I think they really do appreciate hearing from people.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the lesson here is that no matter how high up you go in your career, you always love hearing from people who enjoy your work.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So the next time that you watch a documentary or a movie, or you read a great book, or you listen to a great podcast, reach out to the person who created it and tell them thank you.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: You might really be surprised at how fast they reply back and how much they appreciate it.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's lesson number one.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number two is this.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is a business lesson, and it is you have to make the offer if you want to make the sale.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of my good writer friends recently put together an author coaching package, and she was pleasantly surprised when the prospective client accepted the proposal.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really a great reminder that people only pay you for something if you actually create a package or a product and you offer it for sale.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know this sounds crazy, but maybe you can relate to this.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm I'm not a business person at heart.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: I am an artist and a writer at heart.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh sometimes I really get sort of in my head about the the creative stuff, and I love the creative process and I love making art.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually started out as a musician.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I was a worship worship pastor for a long time.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I led our college music program for many years.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, junior high, I was a drummer and played other instruments, and I was in theater and choir and all that stuff.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't come into business as somebody who's like always been a business person.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, sometimes things are not always obvious to me.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, as my wife likes to remind me, she's like, you know, you you're you're she calls it you're mooking, which is man, it's her shorthand for man looking, which means sometimes something is right in front of me and it's really obvious, but I just can't see it.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I can sort of relate to this idea of you make something and you wonder why people aren't buying it, but the reason is that sometimes we don't actually offer it for sale.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the lesson here is that you have to offer something for sale, you have to package it in a way that's appealing to people in order for them to give you money.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're thinking about your business right now and you're wondering, man, how come I'm not making the money that I want to make, or people aren't buying from me, or clients aren't signing contracts and that sort of a thing, just make sure and ask yourself have you actually packaged the thing together and offered it in a way that's compelling to people?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not just client work, it's also books and courses and other kinds of things.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm willing to bet, in fact, that you have a half-finished book or two, or a half-finished book or course that you put together sitting on your computer hard drive.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And my encouragement to you is to finish that sucker and publish it and make it available so that people can buy it and enjoy it and go through it.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't do any good sitting and languishing on your computer.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes, you know, we get in our heads about this creative stuff.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: We we're like, man, I've been working so hard and I've been creating all these things.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: How come people aren't buying from me?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the very simple answer is that we haven't actually offered it for sale.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds really very elementary and maybe even a little bit juvenile, but that's the reality that we get into sometimes as creative people is we work really hard on things, but then we don't finish them and we wonder why people aren't paying them for us.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, we haven't put it up on our website, or we haven't put a buy button on our website, and we haven't told people that it's available.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to actually finish something and publish it and make it available for sale and connect with the potential buyers in order for them to give you money for it.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds simple, but sometimes the simplest things are the most effective things.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, here is lesson number three.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can relate to this one.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number three is it's time to stop playing defense and it's time to start playing offense.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let me explain what I mean by this.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's no denying that the pandemic had an impact on everybody.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: There was virtually nobody in the world, probably, who was not affected in some way by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: We all know that, of course, and I don't want to minimize anybody's suffering or their particular situation because a lot of people really suffered badly in the pandemic, and some people still continue to suffer in different ways.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to make an observation here, and this might be a little controversial, but I want to go ahead and make it anyway because I think it's true.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like since the beginning of the pandemic, and here we are, you know, we've had three full years of the pandemic.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: It lasted all of 2020, 20, well, actually four years.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: All of almost all of 2020, 2021, 2022, and here we are at the tail end of 2023.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really been like four, almost four complete full years of dealing with pandemic stuff and lots of political and cultural chaos and all kinds of other wars and all kinds of other things in the world.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like for the past three or four years, a lot of people have been playing this game of what I call let's emotionally hibernate and set our dreams aside until all of this is resolved, kind of a game.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you have noticed this in culture, but a lot of people just have sort of put their life on pause for a while.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: They've put their dreams on pause.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think collectively the whole culture has sort of been like, well, let's just kind of go down and let's go down into our hibernation mode and let's just kind of wait till all this is over.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to share with you something that I think is true, but that maybe you need to hear, and that is it's never going to be quote unquote over.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's always going to be cultural chaos, there's always going to be sickness, there's always going to be crises, and a hundred other reasons that make it easy for you to put your life on pause.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think now is the best time ever to start playing offense with your dreams.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I really do.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's time for you to get assertive.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's time for you to wake up from this long slumber that maybe you've been in.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because most other people have just kind of checked out of life.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: But you and I, we're different though, right?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: We are writers who have dreams, we have goals, and we want to accomplish things.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: We want to freaking get things done.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in you, you've got this.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you, here at the end of the tail end of this year, the beginning of 2024, to wake up, get assertive, and start playing offense in your life, and stop hibernating and playing defense mode.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's lesson number three.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: For some of you, you can stop this right here because that's all that you needed to hear, and that's your main takeaway from this episode.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: But we've got a few more lessons.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Number four is don't let anybody else define success for you.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the most challenging parts of being an entrepreneur or running an online business is that there are so many ways to make a living.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody seems to have their own definition of what success means.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a specific income number?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is it having a certain number of podcast downloads or book sales?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is it getting on the New York Times bestseller list?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what does success actually mean for writers?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're not careful, you can start to compare yourself to other people's external measurements of success.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's really easy to look at what other people are doing or what they claim to be doing, and then to start feeling bad about yourself.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want that to happen to you.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to define what success means for you.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for you in your situation?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody else can do that for you.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Your spouse can't do it, your kids or your parents, or your writer friends, or YouTube personalities, or podcasters, or authors, or whatever.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody can do that for you except yourself.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: But let me give you a little hint, though.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think success is making continual progress toward a meaningful goal.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's to that is to me what success is.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it doesn't go as fast as we think, sometimes it goes faster than we thought it would go.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: But success is if you are continually progressing toward a goal that's important to you.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: That is success.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let anybody else tell you otherwise.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's lesson number four.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to number five.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very simple one, which is an easy way to become more profitable is by reducing your expenses.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is the Profitable Rider Podcast.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're not all about money here, but money is a big part of the equation.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty hard to live in today's world without money.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't live in ancient times where we're exchanging beads or pottery or ceramics or uh, you know, swapping blacksmith skills for somebody's sheep.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe maybe some people do that.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I wouldn't even know where to get a sheep if I had to, if I had to get one.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: So money is pretty important.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had no idea I was going to be talking about sheep and blacksmithing on this episode, but you never know what's going to happen when you get in front of a mic.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Money is pretty important to us these days, right?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: You got to have money to exist in this world.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever you hear about how somebody makes money as a writer, 99% of the time it's about increasing your income.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's what people always talk about.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: How to make more money, how to have more book sales, how to raise your rates, how to get more client work.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: But as Dave Ramsey, you know, and it as Dave Ramsey says, sometimes you need a bigger shovel.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you just need more income.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also important to look at the other side of the equation, which is your expenses.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: What's the money coming in?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's your income, and what's the money going out, those are your expenses.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a great time here at the end of the year to do a detailed look at your expenses for the year.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically, are there services, subscriptions, or recurring expenses that you don't need to spend money on anymore?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you can cut those things out of your budget, you are increasing your income without doing any extra work.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I recently terminated the lease for the office that I've been renting for the last year.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I discovered that it really wasn't really helping me be more productive.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's nice to have.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes you have those things you're paying for that they're nice to have, but they're not really essential.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided to go ahead and get out of my lease early.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now I had to pay a penalty, a pretty stiff penalty for that.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay because I was saving money over the long term.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually am going to set up a really cool office in my basement in my house that uh my wife, who does who is a designer, she's gonna help me do that.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the end result is gonna be actually way cooler than what I enjoy now.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I bet that you can find similar expenses in your monthly budget that you can cut.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that we have to live in poverty and you know, not have nice things and that kind of stuff, but I am saying that there's no need to spend money on things that you don't need or don't want.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: That to me seems irresponsible and silly.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um Then again, I'm from the Midwest.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in kind of a frugal situation.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's probably my inclination, but I just think it makes sense that um, you know, look at your budget, see what you're spending money on that you don't want to spend anymore or that you don't need to spend, and save yourself some money by cutting out expenses that you don't need to have.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number six, and this is a tough one, but I'm just getting real with you.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number six is nobody is coming to save you.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let me explain what I mean by that.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's coming to save you.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for many years I was a college professor, and I got paid every month, and I felt pretty secure that my paycheck was going to continue forever.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, fortunately, I left the college the year before it permanently closed.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So my dreams of continuing in that job forever were not gonna happen regardless of whether I stayed employed there or or or what.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're an employee somewhere, it's really easy to get lulled into the fantasy that somebody's always going to take care of you.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: The truth, though, is that it's up to you to create the life and the income that you want.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that becomes apparent pretty fast when you quit your job and you start a business.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the sooner that you understand that your fate is in your hands, the sooner you I think that you can have a more successful business, and the sooner you can just be at peace about the whole thing.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: So remember that there's nobody coming to rescue you from this, especially when you have your own business.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's up to you to make this work.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when you go into business for yourself, you know, when you're self-employed or when you're an entrepreneur, that's the reality, and you have to be okay with that.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Some people don't they get very uncomfortable with that kind of a situation, but I have gotten used to it, and in fact, I much prefer this.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think at this point I'm probably kind of unemployable because I like my freedom too much.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: I love the idea that I can raise my own income by offering more things for sale, by creating new packages, by raising my rates, by creating more value for readers or for members or for clients or whatever.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I love this life, I really do.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: But to do this, you also have to accept that there's nobody who's going to rescue you.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: It your fate is in your hands and it's up to you.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're willing to embrace that perspective, then I think you can be very successful at this.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the reality, though, even if you're an employee somewhere, nobody's coming to save you because they can fire you at any time.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: So your fate is always in your hands, regardless of whether you're self-employed or you work for somebody else.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I figure if your fate's going to be in your own hands anyway, you may as well just own your own business and work to quit your job so you have more freedom and more income in your life.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's lesson number six.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go on to lesson number seven, which is you must let go of the good in order to make room for the best.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: This past year I made the difficult decision to pivot my daily writer brand to the profitable writer.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I had invested three years of my life to building a podcast, of writing a large book, and running a membership group around that topic.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: However, when it became clear to me that I needed to focus on helping writers build their businesses, I started to make that transition.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the daily writer thing is not dead.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's really just now part of the profitable writer.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, next October, the Daily Writer book comes out.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be really my major book release for the year.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've got several other books coming out, but that'll kind of be the big kahuna that comes out next October.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: You'll be hearing much more about that as time goes by.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the thing the thing that's holding you back is not something that's bad or negative, probably.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Probably the thing that's holding you back is something that's good or even enjoyable.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes you need to let go of the good and enjoyable things in order to make room for the really, really wonderful things.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to consider what things do you enjoy in your life and what things are good that you might need to think about letting go of so you can make room for even better ones.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just a thought.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go on to lesson number eight, which is this is a very quick one.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's still magical power in being an author.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in spite of all the ways that you can build an audience today, there's still great power in having written a book.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: When you're an author, you can command higher speaking fees, you can you have more respect from people, and your credibility as a leader in your field goes way up.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think podcasting's great, newsletters are great, YouTube and social media, all those things are wonderful and they're and they can be important components in your business.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: But nothing is ever gonna top that aha moment that somebody experiences when you hand them a copy of a print book that's well written, it has an awesome cover, and it's nicely packaged.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing that can top that in the world, I promise you.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: There is still magical power in being an author, which is why if you haven't yet written that book, you've got to get that sucker done.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Make that your number one goal for 2024.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to get that book out there.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you it can change your life.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number nine is this.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: You never know where a referral might come from.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is for those of you doing client work.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: You never know where a referral might come from.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Quick story.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: A few years ago, I spoke at a writing workshop that was about a three or a four-hour drive away.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And a friend of mine had put the workshop together, which is why I agreed to do it in the first place.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: They had no budget, they had no money to pay me, and so they actually paid me in Chinese food uh from a local Chinese takeout place, which I actually loved.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I remember driving home late at night eating egg rolls in my car.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was actually really fun because I love Chinese food.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like obsessed with Chinese food.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not obsessed, but doggone and I really, really like good Chinese food.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I went to this workshop, they paid me in Chinese food, and while I was there doing this workshop, I met a woman who had written a couple books, and she was a junior high math teacher of all things.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we kind of kept in touch and we became friends.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this was actually before I got into ghostwriting.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the next year after I had done this workshop, I decided to focus on ghostwriting as my main business.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was still a college professor at the time, but I wanted to transition into ghostwriting.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I assumed that whenever I got into ghostwriting, that probably my first client would come through somebody who was like well established in publishing or in business or something like that.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: But lo and behold, my first client actually came through this junior high math teacher that I met at this tiny writing workshop where there was literally literally there were seven people at this workshop, including myself.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I would have never in a million years guessed that my first ghostwriting client would have come through this woman.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, come to find out, she was connected with somebody who had done really well in network marketing, and that person became my first ghostwriting client.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that project was a blast, and it was.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not have happened without that math teacher's generosity and connections.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes what we do in life is we encounter people and we kind of put people into boxes.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: We think, oh, this person's really worth knowing, and in this person, uh, I shouldn't invest too much energy into this relationship because they don't seem like they're connected and they don't seem to have it together or whatever the case is.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know what we do as humans.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: We always kind of make assumptions about people based on little bits of information we have about them.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing is that oftentimes those assumptions are completely wrong.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, and this is again for those of us who are doing client work, sometimes you meet somebody and you think they're going to be a great referral source and they're not.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Other times you meet somebody and you don't assume any referrals are going to come through them and they do.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you just never ever know.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: The point of the story here being that we should treat everybody like they're the source of golden referrals.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: We should treat everybody with the utmost respect and um and never make assumptions about people based on uh what we think that we know about them, because you never know where a good referral might come from.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number 10 here, and then I've got a couple of quick bonus lessons to share with you.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Also, if that's okay.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number 10 is that podcasting remains my favorite way to connect with new people.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I started podcasting all the way back in 2013, 10 years ago, and podcasting was a newish thing back then.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't brand new, but it wasn't nearly as ubiquitous as it is now.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, these days everybody and their dog seems to have a podcast.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a good reason for that, though.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's because podcasting is an incredible way to connect with people and share your message.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've done hundreds of interviews over the years on various iterations of this podcast, and these conversations have literally changed my life.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've made tons of friends and I've learned a great deal about business and writing through these interviews.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: They've opened up a lot of doors for me.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's it's I think it's fair to say that I would not have a ghostwriting career without the relationships and the conversations that I have had because of my podcast.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've thought about doing a podcast, I encourage you to really strongly consider it because those conversations can be really, really life-changing.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me give you two quick bonus lessons here.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this started out as a longer list, so I've cut this down, but I do want to share these other two things with you.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Here's bonus number one, and this is for those of you who are thinking about ghostwriting specifically.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: This lesson is that successful ghostwriting is not just about writing words, it's also about being a trusted advisor.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to be a ghostwriter very long to realize that when you're in this field, people tell you things that they would never have told anybody else.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the midst of working on a book together, you spend a lot of time with that client.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And especially if the book that you're doing entails their personal story or if it's a memoir of some kind, you're gonna be privy to deeply personal information.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to become a good ghostwriter, you obviously need to have great writing and storytelling skills.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's assumed.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I just assume if you're gonna be a ghostwriter, you've got to have good chops as far as writing and storytelling.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: But just as important, you need to play the role of a trusted advisor in the life of your client.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to play the role of somebody who can keep secrets and of somebody who can also recommend people and resources to improve that client's life and business.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're not just a writer.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Writing happens to be the thing that you do, but you are the main role that you're playing as a ghostwriter is a trusted advisor who is a resource to that person.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're a confidant, you're a support to them.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: You are there to make their life and their business more successful and easier.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Don't ever forget that's what the role, that's what the real role of a ghostwriter is.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you will have those those assignments occasionally where the the dynamic of the relationship is that you're the hired rider, you do the thing, and you move on.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: But increasingly over time, I really don't prefer that kind of relationship.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: I really prefer a kind of relationship that is much broader and deeper than that, where I am a trusted advisor to my clients.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like in The Godfather, where the character Tom Hagin, he is the trusted advisor to the Godfather.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, we're not in mafia work, we're not hopefully doing anything illegal in our businesses, but we do want to play that role of an advisor to our clients.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's bonus lesson number one.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Bonus lesson number two, and this is the final one before we get into our sponsors for the day.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: The final lesson here is make it your goal to build multiple streams of income.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've been working hard over the last few years to build a few streams of income as opposed to just one or two.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, ghostwriting is still my primary income source, but several other income streams are growing and they're going to equal my ghostwriting income at some point.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think having multiple income streams is really super helpful because it reduces the risk of losing any one source of income.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you have one employer or one main client or one type of income, losing that one source can throw your whole life into disarray really fast.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want that to happen to you.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: So make it your goal over time to build several streams of income so that if you lose one of those, it doesn't throw your whole life into complete chaos.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there you have it.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Those are 10 lessons plus a couple of bonus lessons that I have learned, or maybe I should say I'm still learning this past year.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I would love to hear which of these lessons strike a chord with you and what you have learned over the past year.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, before I wrap up this episode, I want to give a huge thanks to today's sponsors.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is Plotter.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Plotter is the number one visual book planning software for writers that helps you plan books in the same way that you think.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Plotter has this really cool intuitive visual interface that lets plotting be the creative process that it's supposed to be.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just for fiction writers either.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Plotter is a great tool for nonfiction authors, podcasters, speakers, and anybody creating content to organize their material and their story points.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're ready to outline faster, get organized, and save loads of time in your writing, go to plotter.com, that's P L O T T R.com, to start your free 14-day trial.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: I also want to give a huge shout out and thanks to today's other sponsor, The Word Wizard.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: You might have written a great book, but it's not ready for publication until it's been in the hands of a master editor.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why my good friend Karen Hunsinger, also known as The Word Wizard, is the perfect partner to help you craft the highest quality book possible.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a great editor doesn't just correct grammar and spelling, they also correct wordiness, shifts in tone and voice, overuse of particular words, and they also enhance transitions, clarity, and accuracy.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked with Karen a lot of times on various book projects, and she, I guarantee, is your secret weapon for crafting an amazing book.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to Karen Hunsinger.com for a free sample edit.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hey my friend, as always, thanks for listening.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a really fun episode, and I hope that there are one or two, or maybe three or four lessons that really resonate with you.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Most importantly, I hope that you don't just hear these, but that you actually do something about them and put them into practice in your life, your writing, and your business.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: As always, thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.