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Tremendous Leadership & The Power of Books (with Dr. Tracey C. Jones) · The Daily Writer

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you're listening to this episode, you're probably already convinced of the power of books to change your life.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: But what if you could not only write your own books, but also help other people publish theirs?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks so much for joining me on this episode of the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Kent Sanders, and I'm a ghostwriter and professor of communications.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is the show that helps you write amazing content so you can save time, stand out from the competition, and get more leads that turn into customers or clients.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I am absolutely thrilled today to bring you this conversation with Dr.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Tracy Jones, who is the president of Tremendous Leadership.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Tracy is an author, a speaker, a veteran, international leadership expert, a publisher, and host of the Tremendous Leadership Podcast.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Tracy is a passionate lifelong learner, and her career spans top positions in four major industries, from the military to high-tech, to defense contracting, and then publishing.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Tracy is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, a decorated veteran who served in the first Gulf War and also the Bosnian War.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: She earned an MBA in global management and a PhD in leadership studies.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't yet been introduced to Tracy, you might have heard of her father, Charlie Tremendous Jones, who wrote the very well-known book called Life is Tremendous.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: For years, I've used her father's famous quote in many lessons and talks that I've given.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, You will be the same person in five years as you are today, except for two things the people you meet and the books you read.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a real blessing to be able to talk to his daughter, who now leads their company.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this conversation focused on books and the impact they can have on our lives.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And Tracy gives us some insights into her publishing company, tremendous leadership and also her process for writing books and some of her daily habits for writing.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: So trust me, you don't want to miss this episode because it's full of great stuff.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I took a ton of notes and I learned a few things, as I do from all my podcast guests, that I'm going to start applying immediately to my own writing and productivity.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now I have to tell you, this is also a very unique podcast episode because right in the middle of the interview, Tracy spotted a snake.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, I'm talking about a real live snake in her kitchen.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we had to stop the interview for a little bit while her and her husband took care of that.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I've edited all that part out, but just know that this was a uh that this was definitely a unique interview, and that's the first on my on my podcast that I've ever had a guest have a snake.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: So this was a ton of fun.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Tracy is a lot of fun as well, and I know you're gonna love this episode.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get right to it.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Tracy, welcome to the podcast.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so thrilled that we can make time to have this chat.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome to the show.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much, Kent.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's tremendous to be here.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this was a difficult conversation to prepare for because I have so many things that I want to ask you about, and there's so many spheres that you're involved in with your business and with your writing and with book publishing and so many things.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm gonna try my best to keep this focused today and not go three or four hours.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um so so let me start off with this question.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, give us a little background about your dad for those who don't know who your dad was and his love for books and publishing and why that has been such a critical factor in all this.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Kent.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you always got to go back to the to the origins of your DNA and your brand.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that um was from my father, our founder, Charlie Tremendous Jones, who wrote a book uh back in 1967 titled Life is Tremendous.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: The tagline is Enthusiasm makes a difference, and it has never gone out of print in um, you know, 53 years.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's he's a seminal thinker.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Once you reach over 50 years, you're considered in the canon of knowledge.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a real joy.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sold millions and millions of copies, just a little trade paperback about um his love of his family, God, and books and cutting his teeth in the life insurance industry.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So my father left um the life insurance industry in the mid-60s, and that's a whole different podcast for whole different stories.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: But here he found himself on his own with four kids, me on the way, and he had to generate revenue.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So he started speaking, um, sharing his uh knowledge of building a business, and he was also an avid reader.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So my father flunked out of school in the eighth grade.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he grew up in the depression, broken family, um, a lot of bad things that would put people in jail done to him now, and um just but had a voracious appetite of a very resilient nature.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So his mantra was that you're going to be the same person five years from now that you are today, except for two things the people you meet and the books you read.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So he was just a bibliophile of epic proportions.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was, you gotta read, you gotta read.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: People would call him up and say, Charlie, I need your input on this.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, go pick that book up and let's sit down and read it together.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: So he was all in and a living, breathing embodiment of the transformative power books.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: So he starts speaking.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: He can't speak without sharing all the books that have come into his life and made him tremendous.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you act like you did it all, that's completely disingenuous.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: None of us is that good.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So he always gave street props and promoted other people's products, not just his book.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he sold millions of other people's copies of books and just shared with people look, you hang around with great people, but there's all these great books that you can take home and read to continue the growth process.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: So he was um, um, there's a school of psychology called bibliotherapy.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's about, I tell people, um, take two books and call me in the morning.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's about how by reading stuff you actually can begin healing yourself.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So he was way ahead of his time.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: So he started the company, Life Management Services, speaking and promoting books.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's like, Well, why don't I publish too?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've got all these other great speakers.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we've published with um Jim Rohn, um Brian Tracy, Ken Blanchard.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: We published um uh Jim Stoville's The Ultimate Gift, Mark Sandboard's The Fred Factor.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So he was always in this niche of leadership, personal development, and a huge chunk of personal development is reading.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just a beautiful fit.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: So um he went on to glory back in 2008, actually, Friday, last Friday was 12 years ago.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point, I transitioned back and said, you know what?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know nothing about this.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an engineer by trade, but let's check it out.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So there we are today.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was executive books, again, executive books for executive leaders.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: When I came back, I transitioned it to tremendous life books because our books aren't just for executives, and now we're under tremendous leadership because we're we're really doing a lot of our own content now, but still publishing other people's stuff.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Man, that is really an inspiring story.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: I just absolutely love that.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: That that's really, really cool.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Did your dad ever tell you stories about what his process was for writing that first book and how that actually came about?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: He did not.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was too, I didn't get it.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he had he um had a contract with Tyndall, and this is back in '67.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a true contract, you know, not like now where everybody has these self-publishing arms.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But this was when books, when to get published, you had to really, really do this.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um I don't know how he did it, um, but I know every hundred thousandth copy, he'd get this one embossed and he'd sign it, usually to me.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, Tyndall just got it out there, published it, but he was the one.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell that for our aspiring authors out there publishers publish.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: The author is the one that gets it out there.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he was speaking everywhere, he was handing books out.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: He was, he said for every book he gave away for free, he would sell 20.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, and he's like, the more I give away for free books, the more money I make.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So he really um he would give to give.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I don't know how he landed that, but he did.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was just him being out speaking.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if he reached out to them.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: This, these are things I wish I could have asked him, but I didn't know anything about publishing before I came back.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And now I know that that's really a big deal.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so uh his process for writing, I still have boxes and treasure.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I'm still getting to know my father of his notes, his doodles, his dog ears.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'll find things half-written.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how I keep putting out his stuff because he left such a wealth of stuff.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So um, my father, like every true entrepreneur, was not very organized, but man, he was hardworking and he he just um just kept processing in stuff and kept putting it out there and and wrote an awful lot down.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Let me hone in on something you said just a second ago.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've never heard anybody put it this way, but it's so true.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: About for every book you give away, you sell 20.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: That is fascinating, and that goes against so much conventional wisdom that most authors think they're so intent on selling books, they forget about giving books away.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Can you dig into that a little bit?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's really fascinating.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, he really, and and again, we publish our stuff, but we also are book distributors.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we do high volume at a high discount for organizations that want to use book.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, part of it is, you know, a book means nothing to somebody unless if you can crack the cover for them.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And my father would stand up on stage and he would just read a sentence or two.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's like a test drive on an automobile.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or, ladies, when you go to a makeup counter, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: But when they put it on you and you see how beautiful, then it's like, okay, okay, I gotta have some of that.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or I tell people when I go past the jewelry counter, don't put it on me.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Once I see it on me, then I have to buy.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, his was the same thing with books.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So he would just stand up there and just open a couple, and typically then he'd kiss it, you know, go like and he'd hug it.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And people are like, Oh, I gotta have some of that.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I he just he just would drip out.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And my father always said, You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: But you can put salt in his oats and make him thirsty.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that is what he did.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: He just salted Parable the Sowers from the Bible.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: He just uh, you know, shared books, and then people would look at him and go, if that's what books make you become, I want to have it.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So he modeled this love affair with books, and it was it was contagious.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now you're involved in something that that most people would be afraid to take on, and that is a big challenge, and that is running a publishing company.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you have channeled yours and your dad's love of books, not just into reading books and not just into writing your own books, but publishing other people's books as well.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I would love if you could share what you're trying to accomplish with uh the tremendous leadership, of course, your publishing company and what that's all about.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And for anybody who's listening to this, how they can maybe get involved in that and submit books to you for consideration.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my father believed everybody really had a book in them.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he would always maintain that if you went through something, um, and typically we don't want to read about the success stories because then we feel bad, like why can't we be that good?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: But if you are brought through something, and he would say to me, Tracy, if you don't share that with the world, that's incredibly selfish.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: The reason that you are put through something to break you down is so you can get built up, so you can share it with other people that are gonna need your wisdom.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I can do this one-on-one and become incredibly exhausted, or I can write a book and get the word out there and legacy.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: I can read my father's wisdom now, even though he's been in heaven for 12 years.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's one of those things, you know, you typically uh for those authors that are out there doing book tours and speaking, um, we typically start out and we want to speak a million different places.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if it's to one person or to 10 people, I'm doing it.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then we get smart and go, okay, I'm just gonna limit it to this many people and get a better reach.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a seasoning thing.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So books, especially if you have a ministry or a company, um, he would say every um buddy in a company needs to have a book to share with newcom incoming people what the culture of the organization is.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And for your ministry, that's a wonderful thing that you can hand out to people to share what your book is about is a wonderful donor source or just to bring people up to speed on it.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because the key is making people aware of the tremendous work you're doing or the tremendous experiences you have that can help other people.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's just like the Bible, the number one bestseller of all time.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, Jesus was on this earth and he spoke his word, but thank God we got it written down because we have the living word of God when we open it.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: If nobody would have written it down, we just we wouldn't have it, you know.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I always tell people, um, no matter how you learn, um, whether it's uh visually or audibly or kinesthetically, um, books are a tremendous um thing to come alongside you because we uh we all learn in different ways.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important to have a book along with anything that you have, um, that you're speaking should be delivered in book format too.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you think about it, let's fast forward to 100 years from now.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: How is anybody gonna know what you thought, what your experiences were, your life story?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, our our video files, our Facebook post in 100 years, who knows what that stuff's all gonna be.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: But a book, anybody can read a book as long as they can read.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, really, a book is the only surefire way that you can really preserve your knowledge, your wisdom, your story for future generations.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why my father just loved uh biographies and autobiographies.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you look and you can read all the greats from from the dawn of mankind, and what I mean, that is just it's just profound.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, all the answers are out there between the cover of, you know, between inside the the two covers.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's just do we take the time?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just very excited and tremendous leadership because people are like, well, nobody reads anymore.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, lazy or dumb people don't read anymore.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I don't know who you're hanging out with, but I'm hanging out with the movers and shakers.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot be a leader if you're not a reader.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, you just can't.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I just went back for my PhD in leadership.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why wasn't 20 years a hit in my head again?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Haven't I learned everything?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I needed to know what the grounded research says about leadership.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I think when you have a love of learning, um, that's that's who in turn makes the world a better place.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um you know as well as I do, Ken, that is the answer to everything, to poverty, to ignorance, to lack of critical thinking, to um to wars, to I mean, when you read knowledge, I mean all the greats throughout history from Booker T.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Washington to Abraham Lincoln, everybody, everybody have this beautiful love affair with learning.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't happen by sleeping with a book under your pillow.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have this beautiful mechanism in our brains, and uh your mind is a muscle too.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm most excited there that there are just some of the top thinkers out there that are really helping people uh rediscover a love of a love affair with reading and teaching them it's just like every other skill.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: You get better at it the more you do it.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: So yesterday I was uh I've been really impacted by the writing of Ryan Holiday, who's written a lot about stoicism and and other things.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I confess that I had never read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've been reading that lately.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm putting that on the list.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: It just occurred to me yesterday that man, this is amazing.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Here is uh a great Roman emperor from you know 1800 years ago or so.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: He kept a journal that we can now read today, and it's just amazing how his thoughts, his experiences were preserved for us.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so grateful that we have this technology of books.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know that sounds kind of silly because books have been around forever, but but man, there's so much wisdom that you can gain from somebody's life, and they have written it down, and we can consume that in just a few hours.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty amazing when you stop and think about it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: The technology is absolutely brilliant because anybody all over the world, you know, I travel a lot all over the world, even in Africa, everybody has a cell phone in 5G.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: We can pull up anything anything and change our lives or get in touch with you know whatever information we need.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, it's it's pretty powerful.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Can you share a bit?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, go ahead.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what you were saying, truth is timeless.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And some people like, well, I'm not gonna read the old stuff.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, the ego.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the ego to think that the last 30 years you have evolved into something higher than the thousands of millennium before you.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: That just shows how woefully and willfully ignorant you are.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: So and that's part of what's going on with this uh inability to discuss calmly and rationally divergent points of view.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can tell that's from uh um uneducated people.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not a political statement, that's that's anything, you know.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, reading helps you really expose your own biases, assumptions, and blind spot.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we read, you know, so we can unlearn what we thought we knew and relearn it.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, it's the only thing that's gonna save the world.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I just uh am really excited that it seems like people are looking at what has worked in the past 40 to 50 years and going, oh no, we're not getting better as a civilization, we're getting dumber and meaner and stupider.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So what are we gonna do?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: What are we gonna do to change this?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Books, reading, great, and and Mortimer Adler's book.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you something, my dad loved books, and I was always like, Well, I don't love them that much, you know.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: He was like obsessed with them.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I came back to run this company.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I better learn to love them.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can't fake it.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: What and I used to sit around other book lovers and I'm like, man, they really love this stuff.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you can really learn to love books.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I um and I had, I had, I read on a read to know, not a need to grow.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Reading for a need to grow is it's like being in a marriage and and maintaining just being um compliant to the rules of the covenantial relationship of marriage.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can be all in committed.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole different thing.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um Mortimer Adler's book, How to Read a Book.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: I cry every time I read it.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you read that and you really realize it's not just a book.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: What you have in your hands is just uh, and we tell people you don't have to finish it.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: If if it's not, if you're not picking up what it's putting down, this isn't school.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna get quizzed on it.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Put it down.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: I probably have five books I'm reading at any given time, and I'll zip through about two of them and the other three maybe I'll pick up, maybe not.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: But my father always said he probably throughout his lifetime scanned probably 300,000 books, but probably had his same 30 to 40 that he always went back to.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: His grounding literature.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what that's what I tell people to do.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Just um get in there, pick your salient points, and you'll get at least one.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness, you can download books on Kindle, mine too for 99 cents.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: 99 cents.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: There it is.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you just flip there a couple pages, 99 cents.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: People have people have worked for years on books many times.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like when you read the book, you're reading their distilled knowledge.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you're essentially adding years to your life every time you read a good book.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you are.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and expanding your horizons and your mind.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: How much of our brains we don't use?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we go back to the little reptilian piece and want a fight or flight.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, it's just this this is it.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is, you know, and if you're a believer like me, we have the mind of Christ.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So Christ knew everything.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, Tracy, I do want to ask about your new book uh called Spark.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: But before I do that, I would love to dive into your publishing company a little bit.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what are the advantages, the disadvantages, the challenges of running a publishing company that publishes other people's books as opposed to just doing your own stuff?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the advantages are um you get to be known as a publishing house, which is pretty cool.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you also get to build up your canon of knowledge that kind of um draws together when you really find your niche.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I have for my clients then is I get to have a lot more things to offer them other than just my stuff.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know my stuff is tremendous, but there are a lot of other tremendous writers.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I always kind of grew up with nobody, um, you know, it's the old Ken Blanchard, none of us is smart is as smart as all of us.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: So a tremendous life is really about building out a whole, not just reading a book, but the lifelong love of learning.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's given me a great opportunity to um be linked with some of the other great motivational and leadership thought leaders out there and subject matter experts.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the first thing.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: You really get to establish your credibility as somebody that attracts and and um delivers this kind of wonderful um knowledge base to everybody else.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um the um bad side of it is, well, then you have to have all the other associated costs that come with it.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And there are many times when I think, man, if I could just do my own stuff, then all I have to focus on is that.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: What fun is that, Ken?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I love reading other books.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, as much as I say, you know what, I'm gonna stop publishing other people's stuff and just really focus on my boom, here because here comes another great manuscript.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, our our readers are gonna love this.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just the way it happens.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you publish a lot of public domain material.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: We did.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: My dad really, really was ahead of his time with that.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Message of Garcia, Acres of Diamond, As a Man Thinketh.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: So he really, um, The Science of Getting Rich by uh Wallace Waddles.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Great, but he really was um in the in the uh and new common denominator success.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: That is huge.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: We sell tens of thousands of these every year, and they're in one second, let me get them for you.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're in these little booklet format, and so he really started doing these little classics, and like here's patent.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: So he just would get the public domain stuff from Patton.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here's new common denominator success, these little books, Bradford You're fired as public domain, Message of Garcia, you know, book Booker T Washington.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, oh, here's Acres of Diamonds, and so he just and then he has like Milton Hershey, you know, just the greats that he loved, Booker T Washington.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: So um the public domain stuff is just incredible because after a certain amount of years, it becomes public domain.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so you just gotta make sure that it that it's clear to use.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and we love repurposing that, you know, one of my favorite.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Books is um it's it doesn't have an author to it, it's called the kneeling Christian, and you can get the free download PDF and it's by an unknown an unknown author.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it was written, you know, 150 years ago, but it's like, man, this is good.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's there's so much stuff out there that is now public domain that you can take and repurpose a lot of the master key to success stuff, a lot of the personal development stuff.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's what people do with it.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because there is no, there's nothing new under the sun, Kent.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Truth is timeless, it's all just contextualized based on how we how we view it in our in our lingo today.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the principles are always the same.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: So don't shirk the old stuff.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's the foundational stuff from which everything else has been built upon it.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is so true.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't agree more.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, let me ask about your new book because I know you are really excited about that, and I'm excited um that you sent me a copy.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to get my hands on that.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: I love ebooks, I love audio, but there's still something magical about print books, I gotta say.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: But me too, I totally agree.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: So talk about your book, Spark, Five Essentials to Ignite the Greatness Within.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you write this and and how will this benefit readers?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I wrote this, and and for our listeners out there, I'm I'm speaking on um leadership.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, about I looked around about five, seven years ago, and I realized there were a lot of people in the audience that had PhDs.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, if I'm going to be speaking as a leadership expert, I really should have the terminal degree.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I went back to school for it.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I really I love learning, I love leadership, and I have tons of experience, but I really wanted to know the leadership theory.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I like street smarts, but I also like head smarts.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when you really have um, you know, the the how it should work versus, yeah, but this is the reality of where the rubber meets the road, that makes you an incredibly uh well-rounded person that can really see the truth, not just in theory only and not just in application only.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: You understand why it went down the way it why it did or it didn't work.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: So went back and got a PhD in leadership.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um they said PhD stands for piled high and deep.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: But now that I got this phenomenal piece of knowledge where I added one tiny, tiny little iota to the whole sea of knowledge.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't do that just for nothing.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: So what I really did is I I mean, I looked at Henry Cloud and Ken Blanchard, all these people that I love that had PhDs, Nito Cabane.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and here they took um their um set their seminal research theory and they wrote it in layman's terms.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, I mean, I wrote it in PhD speak.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to cite every word and you know, it academic speak is different, but I thought the principles are still sound.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: So Spark um really was the layman's distillation and generalizability of um what every leader can have.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I did have a lot of my research in it because I I think sometimes we think leadership is this touchy-feely, maybe I'm gonna, you know, no, there's there's universals for it, just like the law of physics and thermodynamics.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can take it to the bank that when you do this, this is gonna happen.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, yes, we have people involved, so there's a certain amount of, you know, um the unknown, the unknown there.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, my PhD was on a crisis leadership, um, uh followership, how um followers reacted to their leader in the crisis and the theory of self-efficacy, which is really um personal personal discipline and um self-motivation.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um boy, it came out at a good time, right?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: With it was supposed to be released in March, and then the pandemic hit, and I'm like, oh, the providential timing of it all.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, here I'm talking about crisis leadership, and boom, you know, this whole pandemic and and one thing after another hit.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just thought, yeah, this is a good time.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: People need this.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when it's smooth sailing, everybody's like, yeah, whatever.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Leadership is easy.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like peace.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was in the military.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Peacetime military is easy.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's when the bullets start flying that you really need um to have been reading great books and um having expanded your knowledge base, knowing how to contingency plan, knowing how to pivot, knowing how to deal with the fog and friction of life in general.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's really why I wrote Spark, because um it's all about regardless of the circumstances that are going on outside of you, life is already happening inside you.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's what you bring to the forefront.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's unpacking, unfolding the greatest version of you to respond to whatever happens.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so that's really how Spark was born.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote the PhD and I thought, this is great.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think people are gonna read my 250-page PhD.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I can distill what I've learned into a book that everybody can eat and process and create a little construct around it.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um, there you have it.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if somebody wants to read your dissertation, can they do that?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: They can.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, if you are in an EDU website, you can get on JSTORs or all the different places.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I have I actually have it on our website on Tremendous Leadership.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Also, if you email me, I would be more than happy to email you a free PDF copy of it.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I also have um my chapter five, which are the research implications.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what people really want to get to your findings and implications for organizations.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if you send me an email, get at tremendousleadership.com.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can find it on our website.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can find it.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have uploaded it to Question all the different.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to research it and cite it, it's absolutely out there.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I'd love to send you a copy too.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, Tracy, this is a of course a podcast for writers.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you're a writer yourself.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: You work with a lot of authors.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Your dad was a very successful author.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: What do you feel like the the main two or three habits are that make someone a successful writer?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we hit it on it already.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're already voracious readers.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think, you know, they just have this love of learning and reading makes you a better writer.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I got that PhD.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: I write now at a completely different level than what I did before.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was already had written nine books before.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: So this just it teaches you to process information and write in a way that's just it takes it to a whole new level.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it really is they already love reading, they already understand the transformative power of books.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, most of the greatest uh people that have come to me, they already have this um singularity, this um voice inside them that tell them you went through something and you need to tell the world about it.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there's almost this compulsion, like I have to get it out.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh the other best thing is that's the poetry part.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: The plumbing part is they're very disciplined.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Every day they write, they blog.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I get people that come to me with an ID on the back of a napkin and people that have already self-published their books and everything in between.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I know if they have done their due diligence and really spent the time to get people to review the copies, to get somebody to look at it, I know they're pretty serious about it.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: If I have somebody that'll come to me and say, I want to write a book on this, and I'm like, well, let me see it.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I haven't written it yet.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let me see your blog post.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I haven't written it yet.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, don't waste my time.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're gonna already be writing, and writing is just writing is like going to the gym.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Start 15 minutes a day, 400 words, everybody can write.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: My first book was four years of 400 word each blogs.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: However, it works.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you really have to have it's it's the old good to grade principle.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: What is your message to the world that it's not gonna be like I wrote on, I got a PhD in leadership.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't teach the world anything new, but I just gave one slight piece uh to the body of knowledge.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, so what is that one thing that you've experienced that you can tell in your voice that the world needs to hear?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not what you just want to transmit, but um, you know, 19 out of 20 books that sell are dealing with a pain point.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the world's in a lot of pain.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: People need help trying to figure out solutions.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that easy.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, you know, what is that?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: What is that message to the world?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then number two, are you disciplined enough um to really just um roll up your sleeves and engage in the day to day or week to week or month-to-month habit of writing?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the more you do it, the better you become, the better writer you become.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yesterday I was I spent the afternoon working on a client book and I was sitting there writing and I was thinking exactly what you're talking about.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought, you know, this really isn't that hard.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's just you just have to sit down and do the work.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And writing for many people feels like really, really hard work.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just a matter of did you do the work?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Did you not do the work?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: So many uh writers or people who want to write, they think it's all about the talent or you got to be a great storyteller or all those things.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: But really, it mostly comes down to are you willing to sit your behind in the chair and just do the work.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the biggest thing that took because a lot of people sit down to write and they're not, they're not, nothing's coming out.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: That creativity hasn't started.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: To which time thing I I then say, then go read.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're gonna be reading a book and all of a sudden you go like you've done it, Kent.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden you go like this, huh?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's just like when I sit and I listen to my sermon.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be listening to him, and all of a sudden, the next 30 minutes, I'm writing down my thoughts as a result of what I thought based on what he said.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can start writing based on what you're thinking as a result of what you've read.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then I tell people, tease it out, just like my PhD.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: There are going to be certain common threads in everything you write that bubble up.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's that those are your main legs, you know, the three-legged stool that you kind of build your um your writing on.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is, people have said to me when I was speaking, boy, Tracy, when you spoke on this, I saw I saw your eyes light up.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know it because I was so worried about just not having my pages fall off the stage or stutter.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but that ask friends and say, where do you see me get to get totally jazzed about?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they're going to tell you, and that's probably where you should land.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: I love that idea of getting feedback from others because we can't always see where we're really shining.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're doing things, but we're sometimes not the best objective judge of ourselves.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or we've been living in it so long, it's it's normal to us.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I remember the whole strength finders thing where they're like, I always taught you, you know, you're in the military, you can't have a weak link.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: That always meant be focus on the weakest thing and make it strong.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I I always wanted to be a writer growing up, but I was like, well, no, because I'm a good writer.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to engineering, which is not the best fit for me, but I had enough of the smarts I could do it.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm like, strength find, no, do what you're intrinsically gifted at.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, but of course, you know, I I I should I should have known it.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the good news is the beauty of writing is it doesn't matter your age or stage in life, you can you can start right now.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I love that.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's a good place to wrap up this conversation because no truer words could ever be spoken.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: You just got to get started and do it.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't want to write, record.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Get your little when I would record my interviews with people in my PhD.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't write it all down and I even transcribe it.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's there are systems out there that that you don't want to write, you don't know how to write, just speak.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because the beauty of writing is if you if you write in a conversational tone, those make great books.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be a PhD written thing.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, people love auth uh people that that are conversant and that kind of thing.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Dictation is such a helpful tool.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Just walk around and dictate something.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great way to write a book.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it is.
• 33:23
  unknown: How long are you gonna be?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Tracy, um, how can people get in touch with you and find out more about your publishing company, your books, and all the cool things that you're doing?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they can get in touch with me at www.tremendousleadership.com.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there's um our email, all our social media.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: We even have um write that book.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: We have our books, our new releases, all different kinds of things.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've even written books with my rescue dogs.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've written children's books, so um, you can see all our new releases in there.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um if you if you send an email to me, I always uh send a link back to do just a 30-minute discovery call with you complimentary to talk about you and what you'd like to do.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: And remind people what your email address is.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: T Jones for Tracy Jones at tremendousleadership.com.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you just type in tremendousleadership.com, you email, it'll come right to my world headquarters in South Central Pennsylvania.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Tracy, this has been a blast.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: I love your energy.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: I love how you inspire people to write, not just through your own books, but through a publishing company, which is so awesome.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's really inspirational.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks again.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a blast.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much, Kent, for all you're doing, and happy writing, everybody.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Tracy.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: That was an absolute blast.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Here are my three biggest takeaways from our conversation.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, you have a book in you, and if you don't share it with the world, you're being selfish.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now I know that sounds like a bold statement, but for me it really goes back to the question, why don't we write more?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't we put ourselves out there into the world?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's because of fear.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: But honestly, if we're held back by our fear, that's selfish.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: That means we're thinking more about ourselves than about other people who we could help our book with.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I truly believe if you have a message and you've been wanting to write a book, you have a moral and an ethical obligation to do it.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's hard, I know it's intimidating, I know it's a lot of work, but if you feel like you honestly have a message to share with the world, if you've got a story to share, whether it's your story or a made-up story like fiction, whether it's a business parable, whether it's a non-fiction book, whether it's poetry or whatever it is that you want to share with the world, if you have a burning message inside of you, you have an obligation to get it out there, and to do it in spite of your fear, in spite of your lack of knowledge or experience with the books, because we can help you with all that stuff, but you've got to get it out there.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, takeaway number two, by the way, we can end things right there, and that would that would be enough for almost everybody, I think.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I've got two more takeaways.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, a book should deal with a pain point.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now here I'm mainly talking about nonfiction books.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: So my question to you is if you're working on a nonfiction book, what problem does your book solve?
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a really important question, and that's the reason why you should always put together a book proposal before you write any book.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: No matter if you're using traditional publishing or you're self-publishing.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: When you put together a book proposal, that helps to define what the idea of the book is, who the audience for the book is, what you want to accomplish with it, what the outline of the book is, and so forth.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I always recommend putting together a book proposal because it's definitely going to deal with what what problem is your book going to help solve.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Then finally, takeaway number three is when you have a publishing company, you can help get other people's books out into the world.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something I've thought about the last couple of years.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: I love books, obviously.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can tell by this podcast that I love books and writing.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I have seriously thought about setting up a publishing company.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I already have a publishing company for my own stuff, but I've thought about taking on other people's stuff as I have more time and ability and so forth.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's something I really want to do necessarily, but I've thought about it a lot.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm really intrigued by this idea.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Tracy has been very successful with her tremendous leadership publishing company, and um I think that's a cool that's a cool model to follow.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of good that you can do in the world whenever you can take people's material and you can get that out to the masses, you can get it out there to people who really need those messages.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: So just something to consider.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um most people listening to this probably will will not that's not a goal that you have to set up a publishing company, but I just want to plant that idea in your brain.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I always want to encourage you to think bigger, and that's a good thing.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: And for the vast majority of people, thinking bigger is defined as writing one book.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I want you to think bigger than that.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to think not just writing one book, but writing many books.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then if we want to think even bigger than that, what if we help other people get their books out there?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's thinking pretty big.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to, again, plant that seed into your mind, and I want to continue to think about that myself as well.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that wraps up this episode.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: I want to give a massive thanks to our very special guest, Dr.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: Tracy Jones.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure to give her a shout out on Instagram at Tremendous Leadership, and you can also check out her website at tremendousleadership.com, and be sure and check out her podcast, which is phenomenal.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: I will see you in the next episode.