Latest / Cookbook Love Podcast / Episode 392: 25 Unexpected Benefits of Writing a Cookbook

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Episode 392: 25 Unexpected Benefits of Writing a Cookbook · Cookbook Love Podcast

0:02
Speaker: You are listening to the Cookbook Love Podcast with
0:04
Speaker: Maggie Greene, episode number three ninety two.
0:10
Speaker: Welcome to the cookbook Love
0:12
Speaker: Podcast, a podcast that
0:14
Speaker: celebrates cookbook readers,
0:16
Speaker: buyers, collectors, writers, and
0:18
Speaker: clubs.
0:19
Speaker: And now your host, cookbook
0:21
Speaker: author, culinary dietitian, and
0:23
Speaker: cookbook writing coach, Maggie
0:24
Speaker: Green.
0:31
Speaker: Hi, everybody.
0:32
Speaker: Welcome back to another episode of the cookbook Love podcast.
0:35
Speaker: How's everybody doing today?
0:38
Speaker: All is going well.
0:39
Speaker: Here I am, three days away from closing the cart for my launch
0:46
Speaker: of Get Paid to Get Published.
0:48
Speaker: By the time you hear this, the cart will actually be closed and
0:52
Speaker: I will have enrolled new students inside my Get Paid to
0:56
Speaker: get published program.
0:57
Speaker: Very exciting.
0:58
Speaker: Had people buy already.
0:59
Speaker: So excited to welcome them in
1:01
Speaker: and help them get their deal
1:04
Speaker: ready, pitch package ready so
1:06
Speaker: that they can become paid
1:08
Speaker: cookbook writers.
1:09
Speaker: And I had this thought as I was
1:12
Speaker: going through building this
1:14
Speaker: launch, which is a series of
1:18
Speaker: multiple moving parts to
1:22
Speaker: enrolling people in a program
1:24
Speaker: and actually enrolling people in
1:26
Speaker: a yes to themselves, a yes to
1:28
Speaker: the dream that they have to
1:29
Speaker: write a cookbook so that I can
1:32
Speaker: offer expert guidance and they
1:34
Speaker: can get support inside a
1:35
Speaker: container or community where we
1:38
Speaker: work on building our platform,
1:40
Speaker: writing our proposal, and
1:42
Speaker: building a package to pitch to a
1:43
Speaker: publisher.
1:44
Speaker: And it came to me and occurred to me about why in our life we
1:50
Speaker: do things like this.
1:52
Speaker: I obviously earn money from my
1:55
Speaker: business and from the books I
1:57
Speaker: write, but.
1:58
Speaker: So this is a this is a job for me, but it's more than that.
2:00
Speaker: And I want to try to explain why.
2:02
Speaker: And I want to connect this also
2:03
Speaker: to things that you all might be
2:05
Speaker: considering.
2:06
Speaker: If you want to write a cookbook or embark on a project that's
2:10
Speaker: not easy to do.
2:12
Speaker: And so being an entrepreneur is a choice for me.
2:17
Speaker: I could, if I wanted to earn
2:18
Speaker: money with a job in the
2:20
Speaker: corporate world, have been
2:21
Speaker: earning money that way, but I
2:24
Speaker: didn't.
2:24
Speaker: I chose this path and I have been leaning into this path of
2:29
Speaker: being an online coach, right?
2:32
Speaker: Helping people write cookbooks, writing cookbooks of my own.
2:36
Speaker: And what that means is I have to learn this whole online
2:41
Speaker: marketing space, which is a hard thing to do.
2:46
Speaker: It's not doesn't come easy.
2:48
Speaker: It's not natural.
2:50
Speaker: It's just like learning steps of a process and knowing what to do
2:53
Speaker: and knowing how to get everything set up.
2:55
Speaker: And it's, it's hard, but I have chosen to do it.
2:58
Speaker: So what I want to talk about
2:59
Speaker: today, before I get too much in
3:01
Speaker: the weeds about this
3:02
Speaker: introduction, is I want to talk
3:03
Speaker: about what really happens when
3:06
Speaker: we decide to write a cookbook or
3:09
Speaker: to build an online business, and
3:11
Speaker: the unexpected benefits
3:13
Speaker: specifically of writing the
3:14
Speaker: cookbook.
3:16
Speaker: So most people think the outcome
3:19
Speaker: of writing a cookbook is the
3:21
Speaker: book.
3:22
Speaker: And of course, that's true.
3:23
Speaker: You get a book, you get a
3:24
Speaker: finished product, and some
3:25
Speaker: people talk about when you can
3:26
Speaker: hold the book and cook from the
3:28
Speaker: book.
3:29
Speaker: What happens when you get to do that and you get to share it?
3:32
Speaker: Well, it's truly amazing.
3:34
Speaker: But I want to tell you,
3:35
Speaker: something much bigger happens
3:38
Speaker: during the process of writing a
3:40
Speaker: cookbook that I have seen happen
3:42
Speaker: over and over again in my
3:44
Speaker: students and people who write
3:46
Speaker: books, and in anyone who embarks
3:50
Speaker: on a hard project by choice,
3:54
Speaker: where change.
3:55
Speaker: And not just in obvious ways.
3:57
Speaker: The most interesting thing is that writing cookbooks and
4:01
Speaker: building online businesses is not a survival task.
4:06
Speaker: Most people who decide to write
4:07
Speaker: a cookbook already have
4:09
Speaker: successful careers.
4:10
Speaker: A lot of my students do.
4:12
Speaker: Their pharmacists.
4:13
Speaker: They've been running coaches,
4:14
Speaker: dietitians, chefs, online
4:16
Speaker: entrepreneurs.
4:17
Speaker: Maybe they're in the second phase of their life.
4:20
Speaker: They've retired, or they're getting ready to retire, or they
4:23
Speaker: want to really package their expertise in a book.
4:26
Speaker: They already have done work that
4:27
Speaker: they care about, and they've
4:29
Speaker: served people in meaningful
4:30
Speaker: ways.
4:31
Speaker: So when they decide to write a cookbook, they're not just doing
4:33
Speaker: it because they have to.
4:34
Speaker: They're doing it because they choose to, and they choose to
4:38
Speaker: take on a project that's creative and challenging in a
4:41
Speaker: project that matters to them.
4:43
Speaker: I think I started thinking about
4:45
Speaker: this after talking to Helen Goh
4:47
Speaker: in our episode last week, about
4:50
Speaker: the meaning of baking in her
4:52
Speaker: life and how baking can be a
4:55
Speaker: meaningful project.
4:57
Speaker: What a lot of people don't realize at the beginning is that
5:00
Speaker: when you choose to do a project like this, that you are
5:02
Speaker: producing more than just a book, you're producing a lot more than
5:06
Speaker: just a book.
5:07
Speaker: And I'm going to wrap this up
5:08
Speaker: with talking about the twenty
5:09
Speaker: five unexpected things that we
5:11
Speaker: produce when we embark on book
5:13
Speaker: writing.
5:14
Speaker: And you don't end up just
5:16
Speaker: creating the book, you have
5:18
Speaker: created something that will live
5:20
Speaker: and benefit your life in
5:22
Speaker: numerous ways, far beyond your
5:24
Speaker: own kitchen.
5:25
Speaker: Now again, we're going to specifically talk about a
5:28
Speaker: cookbook, and the ideas in this episode apply to really any
5:32
Speaker: meaningful creative project.
5:33
Speaker: And of course, they apply to
5:35
Speaker: what I've been doing as I
5:37
Speaker: perfect the process to launch a
5:40
Speaker: product online.
5:42
Speaker: Many of you who are listening,
5:43
Speaker: maybe writing a cookbook, maybe
5:44
Speaker: you're writing other kinds of
5:46
Speaker: books, maybe you're building a
5:47
Speaker: food business, you're teaching
5:49
Speaker: cooking classes.
5:50
Speaker: You're working on documenting family recipes.
5:52
Speaker: Some of you are developing
5:54
Speaker: recipes or sharing your own work
5:56
Speaker: online.
5:57
Speaker: All of these projects require the same thing.
6:00
Speaker: They choose.
6:01
Speaker: They require, first of all, the
6:02
Speaker: choice to do something that's
6:04
Speaker: meaningful.
6:05
Speaker: And the fact that it's going to be hard is just something that
6:08
Speaker: you recognize up front.
6:10
Speaker: I used to think that hard was a story we told ourselves, but
6:15
Speaker: that's not necessarily true.
6:17
Speaker: Hard is hard.
6:19
Speaker: Hard is hard because it's new.
6:21
Speaker: But we can still inject some joy and fun in it all along the way.
6:25
Speaker: I've often told this story, but when I started having children,
6:30
Speaker: I was in my thirties and I knew that raising children.
6:34
Speaker: I've heard people talk about it being hard.
6:36
Speaker: The dominant narrative was, it's
6:37
Speaker: hard and you're going to be
6:38
Speaker: crazy busy.
6:39
Speaker: But I really decided to change the narrative about the way I
6:43
Speaker: thought about raising kids.
6:45
Speaker: And my thought always was,
6:46
Speaker: Maggie, let's just pretend we're
6:48
Speaker: on vacation.
6:50
Speaker: And what that meant to me is
6:51
Speaker: have some fun with the kids and
6:54
Speaker: enjoy them and let them
6:56
Speaker: experience the joy of being
6:58
Speaker: children.
6:59
Speaker: Because my narrative about how I
7:02
Speaker: felt while I was raising kids, I
7:04
Speaker: knew would be the way that I
7:07
Speaker: ended up feeling at the end of
7:09
Speaker: the process.
7:10
Speaker: And it worked.
7:11
Speaker: I, I had great, great times with
7:13
Speaker: them and I had, we injected a
7:17
Speaker: lot of joy into my life and into
7:19
Speaker: theirs.
7:19
Speaker: Things weren't always perfect.
7:21
Speaker: I would never want to teach them to drive again, but it was for
7:25
Speaker: the most part.
7:26
Speaker: When we're looking down the hatch toward the rear, out the
7:30
Speaker: rear view mirror, um, it was a joyful time and we did have a
7:35
Speaker: lot of fun together.
7:37
Speaker: So that's a choice.
7:39
Speaker: So we get to choose to do work like writing books.
7:41
Speaker: We get to choose to do work like creating online programs.
7:44
Speaker: Being an online entrepreneur or the other things that I
7:47
Speaker: mentioned that you guys might be doing, building businesses,
7:50
Speaker: teaching classes, documenting recipes, whatever it is.
7:55
Speaker: Okay, so what we're going to do is explore what really happens
7:58
Speaker: when we decide to do something hard, like write a cookbook.
8:02
Speaker: And why we're choosing work like this can really, truly be one of
8:06
Speaker: the most rewarding things we ever do in life.
8:10
Speaker: So number one.
8:13
Speaker: Most hard things in life that we
8:16
Speaker: have to do, we don't always
8:21
Speaker: choose, um, live in a financial
8:26
Speaker: life and paying bills, um,
8:29
Speaker: caring for family that's elderly
8:32
Speaker: or ill, caring for our own
8:34
Speaker: health.
8:35
Speaker: If we don't have good health, there are just some things in
8:38
Speaker: life that we do not choose that are truly hard to do.
8:43
Speaker: But I want to differentiate this episode between writing a
8:48
Speaker: cookbook because it's different.
8:50
Speaker: It is a chosen challenge.
8:53
Speaker: You don't need to write a cookbook to survive.
8:57
Speaker: I don't need to run an online business to survive.
9:00
Speaker: And I do not need to do any
9:04
Speaker: creative project or you guys to
9:06
Speaker: do any creative project to
9:08
Speaker: survive.
9:09
Speaker: If you're doing this for
9:11
Speaker: survival, it's a whole different
9:12
Speaker: category.
9:13
Speaker: So what I'm talking about is a chosen challenge, one where
9:16
Speaker: something inside you says, I want to do this, this matters,
9:20
Speaker: and this work is worth doing.
9:22
Speaker: So we choose a meaningful, hard thing.
9:25
Speaker: It changes how we experience the work because first of all, it
9:28
Speaker: activates our agency.
9:30
Speaker: We realize that we have chosen this and that we decided to
9:35
Speaker: create something meaningful.
9:38
Speaker: I think that's very, very important because every time I
9:42
Speaker: get in the weeds about how hard writing a cookbook might be or
9:46
Speaker: running an online business might be, I tell myself, Maggie, you
9:50
Speaker: chose to do this.
9:52
Speaker: This was your choice.
9:54
Speaker: No one's holding my feet to the fire.
9:56
Speaker: No one's making me do this.
9:58
Speaker: Same thing for this podcast.
10:00
Speaker: I am here because I chose it and because I want to be here.
10:04
Speaker: And for everything that I have
10:06
Speaker: done that I've been committed to
10:09
Speaker: for a long term, even being
10:10
Speaker: married for over thirty five
10:12
Speaker: years, I choose it and it
10:15
Speaker: activates my agency that is so,
10:18
Speaker: so powerful.
10:20
Speaker: So please, if you get nothing else from this episode, take a
10:24
Speaker: look at the things in your life creatively that you are choosing
10:28
Speaker: to do and activate your agency.
10:31
Speaker: Give yourself some credit.
10:32
Speaker: Yes, you're doing some hard
10:34
Speaker: things maybe that you didn't
10:35
Speaker: choose, but also there's a lot
10:38
Speaker: of joy possibly available to us
10:41
Speaker: if we activate our agency and
10:43
Speaker: choose to do hard things and
10:46
Speaker: become a different person on the
10:48
Speaker: other end, Because that's what
10:50
Speaker: actually happens.
10:51
Speaker: We think the value of writing
10:53
Speaker: the cookbook is the finished
10:54
Speaker: book.
10:55
Speaker: But the real value is what
10:56
Speaker: happens to us while we're doing
10:59
Speaker: the work.
11:00
Speaker: I've had pharmacists write cookbooks in my programs running
11:03
Speaker: coaches, dieticians, passionate home cooks, and people move from
11:09
Speaker: this thing where they say, I have an idea to write a book to.
11:13
Speaker: I actually created the book.
11:15
Speaker: And this identity shift changes how people show up in their work
11:20
Speaker: and in the world.
11:22
Speaker: They get to think of themselves in a whole new way.
11:25
Speaker: They're no longer just a
11:26
Speaker: pharmacist or a running coach or
11:27
Speaker: a dietician.
11:28
Speaker: They're also now a cookbook author.
11:31
Speaker: And hard things become meaningful.
11:33
Speaker: First of all, I think when we
11:35
Speaker: choose to do them with other
11:36
Speaker: people.
11:37
Speaker: This is why people often, if
11:38
Speaker: they set out to run a marathon
11:40
Speaker: and that is a a choice to run a
11:43
Speaker: marathon, a choice to see who
11:47
Speaker: they can become a marathon
11:49
Speaker: runner, and to choose to do it
11:51
Speaker: with a group, they join a
11:53
Speaker: running group inside a
11:55
Speaker: community.
11:55
Speaker: So they're not alone in the day to day hard work of training to
12:01
Speaker: run a marathon.
12:04
Speaker: It's the same thing with people
12:06
Speaker: that are in my cookbook writing
12:07
Speaker: programs.
12:08
Speaker: They're not alone.
12:10
Speaker: They're not working alone.
12:12
Speaker: Writer's work alone a lot.
12:13
Speaker: And people who are writing
12:14
Speaker: cookbooks spend a lot of time by
12:16
Speaker: themselves.
12:17
Speaker: And sometimes that can be isolating.
12:18
Speaker: But if you're trying to do some
12:20
Speaker: creative project and it's new
12:22
Speaker: and it's been hard or it is
12:24
Speaker: hard, gather and get some
12:27
Speaker: community, it can feel shared
12:29
Speaker: energy.
12:30
Speaker: It can be energizing hard work that's shared.
12:33
Speaker: It's like everybody think about a horse pulling a plow.
12:36
Speaker: If there's a single horse,
12:38
Speaker: they've got to pull all the work
12:40
Speaker: by themselves.
12:41
Speaker: But if you put five horses on the plow, it just gets pulled a
12:45
Speaker: whole lot easier.
12:46
Speaker: It's shared, energizing ability
12:49
Speaker: to actually work in community
12:52
Speaker: with somebody.
12:52
Speaker: So, um, I think that we can make the work more meaningful and
12:57
Speaker: make the heart a little bit easier if we join a community.
13:00
Speaker: I'm getting ready to take a printmaking class in.
13:06
Speaker: I think it starts at the end of the month.
13:08
Speaker: It's a four night class.
13:09
Speaker: I've always wanted to learn how
13:11
Speaker: to make prints like linoleum cut
13:13
Speaker: prints.
13:13
Speaker: So I signed up for a class.
13:16
Speaker: I'm going to be in a community.
13:17
Speaker: There's going to be a teacher.
13:18
Speaker: They're going to walk us through the process.
13:20
Speaker: I'm sure it's going to be hard, but I'm choosing to do it.
13:23
Speaker: And I can't wait to get in there and see what I learn and be with
13:28
Speaker: other people who are also learning the same thing.
13:30
Speaker: So, um, community does help.
13:33
Speaker: The other thing that's, uh, I
13:34
Speaker: find valuable is that work for
13:38
Speaker: me, like cooking and writing
13:40
Speaker: have always been meditative for
13:42
Speaker: me.
13:43
Speaker: So I get a lot of joy in my life
13:45
Speaker: from slowing down to do those
13:47
Speaker: things.
13:49
Speaker: And that is part of the work of writing a cookbook.
13:53
Speaker: But I play music in the kitchen.
13:54
Speaker: I'll play podcasts in the kitchen.
13:56
Speaker: I love getting the ingredients on the counter.
13:58
Speaker: I love gathering the ingredients, developing the
14:01
Speaker: recipe at my desk, doing research, remembering where
14:05
Speaker: dishes come from, writing the story behind them, and this
14:09
Speaker: creative work in the kitchen and with writing, connects me to my
14:13
Speaker: senses, connects me to my memory, develops my ability to
14:17
Speaker: pay attention, remember details.
14:19
Speaker: And so the outcome of this, as I'm paying more attention and
14:22
Speaker: being intentional in my own life and slowing down and being
14:27
Speaker: present to the ingredients and to the words.
14:31
Speaker: So the meditative quality of
14:33
Speaker: what we do, and people often say
14:34
Speaker: this is true with things like
14:36
Speaker: needlework.
14:37
Speaker: Maybe it's cross-stitch or
14:38
Speaker: crochet or knitting, um,
14:41
Speaker: journaling things where that
14:44
Speaker: really cause us to have to sit
14:46
Speaker: down and slow down in order to
14:49
Speaker: work.
14:49
Speaker: There's a joyful, meditative quality to that.
14:51
Speaker: So that's wonderful, a wonderful outcome as well.
14:55
Speaker: And then also, if something is hard, we don't have to be
14:58
Speaker: miserable if it's hard work.
15:00
Speaker: I think that is the thing that I have always tried to articulate,
15:06
Speaker: and I wasn't always able to put it into words, but I was able to
15:10
Speaker: try to live it.
15:11
Speaker: Hard work does not have to be miserable, meaning we don't have
15:16
Speaker: to be miserable people just because we're doing hard work.
15:19
Speaker: Hard work that we chose to do.
15:23
Speaker: Let's imagine that we want to have a vegetable garden in our
15:26
Speaker: backyard, and we're going to have to dig up a patch of ground
15:31
Speaker: till the ground get out.
15:32
Speaker: The rock's work the clay work in some topsoil.
15:36
Speaker: Plant the seeds, keep things weeded, keep them watered.
15:40
Speaker: It's a hard project, but if we choose to do it, we can have
15:46
Speaker: some fun and it can be joyful while we're doing it.
15:49
Speaker: And playing music always helps.
15:52
Speaker: Developing new routines helps.
15:54
Speaker: Experimenting with new gardening techniques helps.
16:02
Speaker: And this is the place where we really can truly turn something
16:06
Speaker: new and hard into something that is also a little bit more fun.
16:12
Speaker: And we look at it as a creative
16:14
Speaker: practice in ways that we can add
16:17
Speaker: some joy, joy to it, rather than
16:19
Speaker: just making it a miserable
16:20
Speaker: project.
16:22
Speaker: And then the last thing is, is not the last thing, but the next
16:25
Speaker: thing is, is that I think that sometimes writing a cookbook can
16:30
Speaker: be something that we can use to improve our health.
16:34
Speaker: Another, so that's an unexpected outcome would be how it might
16:38
Speaker: make us healthier.
16:39
Speaker: And I want you to think about this if you're Desiring to write
16:43
Speaker: a cookbook, and you have an area of your life that you need to
16:48
Speaker: improve your health for.
16:51
Speaker: What if you used the project
16:54
Speaker: that you choose to become
16:58
Speaker: healthier while you write the
16:59
Speaker: book?
17:01
Speaker: I did this when I wrote my book, Essential Pantry.
17:05
Speaker: The plant based pantry.
17:07
Speaker: Um, I don't know if I've told this story before, but I think I
17:12
Speaker: have, but in case you haven't heard it, my daughter came home
17:14
Speaker: from high school and said she wanted to be vegan.
17:17
Speaker: And I said, great, um, we can do that, but we're going to do it
17:22
Speaker: the right way and we're going to not eat macaroni and cheese and
17:25
Speaker: dinner rolls all the time.
17:27
Speaker: So I was already working on a
17:29
Speaker: cookbook called The Essential
17:30
Speaker: Pantry.
17:32
Speaker: Um, streamline your ingredients and simplify your meals as a
17:37
Speaker: manuscript for a book.
17:40
Speaker: And then I decided I was going to write a companion book at the
17:43
Speaker: same time, two cookbooks and one was going to be the plant based
17:47
Speaker: pantry, and one was going to be the just regular pantry
17:50
Speaker: contained meat, dairy and eggs in the other book.
17:53
Speaker: And in the course of writing that book, an unintended benefit
17:58
Speaker: was my cholesterol dropped like fifty points because I committed
18:04
Speaker: to eat like she wanted to eat.
18:07
Speaker: We learned things together, and I excluded meat, dairy, and eggs
18:12
Speaker: from my diet.
18:13
Speaker: This is not a prescription.
18:14
Speaker: I'm just telling you a story.
18:16
Speaker: And there was a health benefit to it for me in the midst of
18:20
Speaker: writing that book.
18:23
Speaker: So for this podcast, that got me to thinking, what if an
18:26
Speaker: unintended outcome of writing a cookbook could be for you, that
18:31
Speaker: you use the writing of the book as a way to improve your own
18:36
Speaker: health and write about it, share recipes about it, talk about it,
18:41
Speaker: share the stories of it.
18:43
Speaker: Because our own personal transformation sometimes can
18:46
Speaker: happen as a result of the book we're writing, or be the fuel
18:50
Speaker: for the book we're writing.
18:52
Speaker: Sometimes an unintended side consequence of writing cookbooks
18:55
Speaker: is that people have, uh, a decline in their health.
19:00
Speaker: Maybe if they have to test a
19:02
Speaker: bunch of recipes in a short
19:03
Speaker: period of time, they, they taste
19:05
Speaker: them themselves.
19:06
Speaker: They're spending a lot of time sitting.
19:07
Speaker: They could, uh, experience an increase in blood pressure or
19:12
Speaker: increase in blood lipids.
19:13
Speaker: They could maybe even gain weight.
19:15
Speaker: I've heard of that happening to authors, but a benefit could be
19:18
Speaker: that we use books to actually improve our health for better
19:22
Speaker: health and well-being.
19:23
Speaker: So just think about that.
19:25
Speaker: Um, you could feed yourself and your family and cook more
19:29
Speaker: intentionally, and cooking right together can become a way to
19:32
Speaker: better health and better well-being instead of actually
19:34
Speaker: having it something that's detrimental to your health.
19:38
Speaker: So I hope that you can see that it's not just the book, but
19:43
Speaker: along the way benefits appear.
19:47
Speaker: It's not just the creative project.
19:49
Speaker: Along the way, benefits appear.
19:51
Speaker: So I want to read you my list of twenty five things that I
19:55
Speaker: believe are unexpected benefits of writing the book.
19:59
Speaker: We become more organized with our recipes.
20:02
Speaker: We get to clarify our point of view about food.
20:07
Speaker: We get to see ourselves as an author.
20:11
Speaker: We get to experience finishing a large creative project.
20:16
Speaker: We learn creative discipline.
20:20
Speaker: We lead ourselves as cookbook writers.
20:24
Speaker: We learn how to explain cooking processes clearly.
20:28
Speaker: We discover forgotten food stories.
20:31
Speaker: We cook more intentionally.
20:34
Speaker: We improve our ability to teach others.
20:38
Speaker: We gain confidence by sharing our ideas out in the world.
20:44
Speaker: We build a body of work.
20:47
Speaker: We create a tangible product
20:49
Speaker: that people can hold and cook
20:51
Speaker: from people that we don't even
20:53
Speaker: meet.
20:54
Speaker: We strengthen our professional credibility.
20:57
Speaker: We connect with other cookbook writers.
21:00
Speaker: We develop productive routines.
21:03
Speaker: We work through our doubt.
21:05
Speaker: We discover future ideas for
21:08
Speaker: future books or projects we
21:10
Speaker: create.
21:11
Speaker: Because you want to talk about one way, I'm going to expand on
21:13
Speaker: that one a little bit.
21:14
Speaker: One way to really explode your ideas is to make yourself focus
21:17
Speaker: on one narrow topic for a long period of time.
21:22
Speaker: And one of the things that happens a lot of times with
21:24
Speaker: self-sabotage is then all these other ideas are going to pop up.
21:27
Speaker: But I've learned that if I'm if I'm focusing on one thing and my
21:32
Speaker: brain serves me another idea, the purpose of the idea is not
21:35
Speaker: to derail me.
21:36
Speaker: I just keep a notebook by my computer and I write down what
21:40
Speaker: the idea is.
21:41
Speaker: Happens all the time, even when I'm working.
21:43
Speaker: Like today I sat down and said, okay, I have three things I want
21:46
Speaker: to accomplish today.
21:48
Speaker: It's Friday, kind of my follow up day.
21:50
Speaker: I've got things I want to do.
21:52
Speaker: I immediately started getting
21:53
Speaker: like, you should do this, you
21:54
Speaker: should do this, you should do
21:55
Speaker: this.
21:56
Speaker: And I'm like, nope, I got to do these three things.
21:58
Speaker: But I listened to my brain.
22:00
Speaker: I wrote down the other things.
22:01
Speaker: So they're on a piece of paper.
22:03
Speaker: They're duly noted.
22:04
Speaker: But if you want to really create
22:07
Speaker: a lot of ideas, focus on just a
22:09
Speaker: few things and watch your brain
22:10
Speaker: go to work and try to derail
22:12
Speaker: you.
22:13
Speaker: Um, so I'm done with that little side rail that it happens to me
22:18
Speaker: all the time.
22:19
Speaker: What also happens then is we create intellectual property.
22:22
Speaker: That means that we have a system
22:25
Speaker: or a process or something that
22:26
Speaker: we have developed from our
22:28
Speaker: brain, and that's intellectual
22:30
Speaker: property.
22:30
Speaker: We build a resource for our community, doors open to
22:34
Speaker: speaking and media engagements.
22:36
Speaker: We develop our relationship with
22:38
Speaker: food, we develop a storytelling
22:40
Speaker: voice.
22:41
Speaker: We experience the satisfaction
22:43
Speaker: of completing a project, and we
22:46
Speaker: become someone who turns just
22:49
Speaker: our ideas into real, tangible
22:51
Speaker: things.
22:52
Speaker: So I believe that choosing meaningful, hard, creative
22:56
Speaker: projects to do is very powerful.
22:58
Speaker: Writing a cookbook is one of them.
23:01
Speaker: It's a challenging project.
23:03
Speaker: It's not a survival project.
23:05
Speaker: It is a chosen challenge.
23:07
Speaker: But it's so joyful.
23:08
Speaker: It can be full of fun.
23:10
Speaker: It builds identity, creates
23:12
Speaker: community, and deepens our
23:13
Speaker: relationship with food, writing
23:15
Speaker: and creativity.
23:17
Speaker: And in the end, the cookbook writing process is more than
23:20
Speaker: just creating the book.
23:22
Speaker: It truly becomes a record of who
23:24
Speaker: you became while you were
23:26
Speaker: creating it.
23:27
Speaker: The person who's more organized, who finishes things, who's
23:31
Speaker: connected, who's built the body of work, all those things that I
23:34
Speaker: just mentioned, that's who you become when you write a book.
23:38
Speaker: If you are interested in getting
23:40
Speaker: paid to write a cookbook of your
23:41
Speaker: own.
23:42
Speaker: So there's a free masterclass,
23:44
Speaker: you can head over to w WW
23:47
Speaker: Academy.
23:50
Speaker: Masterclass.
23:51
Speaker: I will put that link in the show notes and you can sign up for
23:55
Speaker: the class, enjoy the free training and get on the waitlist
23:59
Speaker: for our next opening of Get Paid to get published.
24:04
Speaker: So that's it for this episode of the Cookbook Love Podcast.
24:07
Speaker: This is your host, Maggie Green,
24:08
Speaker: and until next time, have a
24:10
Speaker: great day and keep loving your
24:12
Speaker: cookbooks.
24:17
Speaker: Thanks for listening to the Cookbook Love Podcast.
24:20
Speaker: You can find out more information at WW dot.