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Your Books Will Outlive You · The Daily Writer

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey my friend, welcome to the Daily Writer, where we help writers become authors of their own lives.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have a copy of the book Meditations by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: It sits on my desk here in my office every day, and I read a page out of it every morning, and his insights are absolutely amazing.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: They really, truly are.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you've never read Meditations, I highly recommend it.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the funny thing is that I doubt if Marcus Aurelius knew that his writings would be studied nearly 2,000 years after he compiled his thoughts into a journal that was supposed to stay private.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of the ultimate irony.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Here's this private journal that an emperor compiled just his own thoughts for his own meditations.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And here we are, all these millennia later, and people are still reading them.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I would say they are actually more popular than ever.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying that your book is going to be read by people in 2,000 years, but your writing certainly has the potential to outlive you, perhaps far outlive you.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: My grandmother Louise, for example, she was a poet.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: She was actually quite a good poet.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: She died in 1977 when I was only three years old.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't actually have any personal memories of her, although I do have some pictures and home movies that my grandfather took way back in the 70s of me with my grandmother.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: One of my most prized possessions is her original handwritten notebook that's filled with her poems.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And her writing has outlived her at this point by almost 50 years, and I'll pass on my prized possession of her poetry notebook to my son one day in the future.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now imagine what can happen with your writing.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you take the time and effort to put down your thoughts in physical form through books, the potential is nearly limitless.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And with the printing and distribution capabilities that we have today, the sky is really the limit.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's why I am so bullish about the power of books, especially print books.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Aside from all the business opportunities that you have as a writer of books, you have the very best way to ensure that your thinking and your story and your legacy all stay alive for future generations.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, it's easy to get caught up in the moment and to be consumed by all the things that we have to do today, but I want to help cast a vision for not just the near future, but the distant future.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because you have a really cool opportunity to create some things in the form of books that can potentially far outlive you.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to plant that seed in your mind today.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Your books can far outlive you.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, as always, thanks for listening.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Keep writing and keep showing up, and I'll see you tomorrow.