It doesn't matter if you fail on someone else's scale. As soon as you feel bad about goals you didn't hit, you make your job exponentially more challenging. This is so important. I hope that the intensity of my voice comes through when you see the transcription of this, because this is absolutely critical to your success as an author and an entrepreneur in the long term.
You must attach positive emotions to the act of trying.
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Think Positive
Do whatever it takes to maintain your emotional health.
You have a great deal of understanding now. You know that chopping up a big fixed goal into very small goals and rewarding yourself along the way gives you a continual feeling of success. This process is a tactic. It trains you to attach positive emotions to effort. Now you know the theory behind the tactic.
If you sit down at your computer tomorrow, open up your writing program, and only write one sentence, that is not a failure. You got distracted, and life got in the way. You did not fail because at least you tried.
Trying is the first step on the path to success.
There are certain parts of my life that I wanted to change when I was in my late twenties. I was twenty-seven, and I was desperately lonely. I said, “I have to learn how to talk to women, or I'm going to die alone.”
The first time I went out to a bar with the intention of speaking with a woman, I didn't talk to anyone. I stood there terrified, and I cried. I cried in public, and this is a very emotional thing to say, and it's embarrassing even to tell you the story, but that's how important this idea is to this section that I wanted to open up to you in a very deep way.
I cried, and then I went home I looked in the mirror. I said, "That's one of the bravest things you've ever done because you did something hard and you tried." Because I attached a positive emotion to that moment, I changed the course of my destiny. That one night of abject pain, which 99.99% of the world would consider a failure, is the reason that I'm married to my wife today. It's the reason that I have my amazing kids and live on my paradise island.
The ability to attach positive emotions to trying rather than attaching negative emotions to failure to hit a goal will change your life. You will become capable of quite literally anything.
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Action Steps
Are you constantly chasing that next emotional high? Are you the kid who is always thinking about next Christmas?
When you try and fail, do you focus on the failure or the trying?
How many projects have you quit because of these negative emotions?
Break your big goals into small goals to give yourself a perpetual sense of accomplishment.
Attach positive feelings to the act of trying.
Be aware that social groups are another way negative emotions can slip in.
Develop a plan for fighting these negative emotions. Focus on the goals you accomplished today, look at your list of lifetime successes, and do whatever it takes to keep yourself positive.
Part XXI
Refill Your Creative Energy
Fear, conformity, immorality: these are heavy burdens. They drain us of creative energy. And when we are drained of creative energy, we do not create. We procreate, but we do not create.
- David McCallum
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Flipping the Extrovert Switch
Are you an extrovert or are you an introvert? How do you react to people around you? What types of situation activate your emotional energy? The better you know yourself, the more easily you can activate your energy centers.
If you meet me at a conference or live event, I will look like an extrovert. I go to a conference in Thailand in winter and a conference in San Diego every spring. I usually post about my upcoming trips on my website, so if you want to meet me, it's pretty easy. And when you meet me at an event, I will seem like the most extroverted person you've ever seen.
I'm an excellent networker when I'm on the road; I'm very social and I'm very good at making friends. I'm one of most popular people in my industry because I know exactly what I'm doing. I know how to meet people. I know how to make people feel good, and I've written books and created products on this very concept because I'm so good at networking. (If you want to learn some of my advanced networking tactics, I have loads of additional material on my website.)
I am so technical with networking because I'm naturally an introvert. In my day-to-day life, I talk to very few strangers. I speak to less than one person outside my family per week.
I became extroverted to build my business and my social infrastructure. Now that I have the people I need around me that I can do business with, I no longer have to force myself to be an extrovert.
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I am Introverted
I don't talk to very many people outside my family, not because I'm a loser, but because I'm an introvert. I like to spend time with people in my inner circle and I very rarely expand that.
I could very much spend the rest of my life with just my family and be very happy. I know that's a little bit too insulated, but I'm a very much a person that once I have relationships, I like to go deep and spend a lot of time get to know the people rather than have a lot of “like relationships.” Everyone is different, but knowing the type of personality you have will help you to develop a strategy that lets you be effective.
201
Activation Energy
Knowing how you operate and what type of energy works for you will help you make some important decisions. My introversion affects many of my writing decisions. I don't like writing in public because I'm quite easily distracted. I also don't like talking to people when I'm in the zone. I'd rather get my work done and then spend time having fun. I know this about myself, so I don't waste time writing in places that don't match my energy.
Just watching other people walk by distracts me and can yank me out of the zone. I have a friend who is the exact opposite. He cannot get any work done in his house. He has to be out in the world to get any work done. I have tried to join him but my work on those days is always terrible.
He works in a bar all the time, watching people walk down the road, and somehow gets all of his work done. I can't do that. It’s impossible for me. Is what he's doing wrong? No, it's just different; different things work for different people. He is powered by a different type of energy.
Are you extroverted or introverted? Does just being around people help you or distract you? Some people find more focus in a crowded cafe; they see all the other people working, and that study hall feeling motivates them. When they're around other people working, they feel peer pressure to assimilate.
Everyone has different activational energies. Just because I like to write alone, does not mean that will work for you.
202
Oversight
Cubicles are an effective way of creating this peer pressure effect. You are surrounded by people who are working, so you feel the pressure to work as well. You can't see them, so the distraction level is low. It's also why working in a cubicle feels so soulless.
When we can see other people working, we want to work as well. It's a form of social pressure. The manager understands exactly how this system works. The danger is that when one person stops working, they can pull everyone down. This is why the manager is there and pops around at random times. If you never know when your boss is going to show up, there is a pressure against slacking off. Your manager's main job is as a check on the downside of having people work in groups.
203
Find Your Path
When you write, does your creativity come from routine and structure? I very much preach the power of routine and structure because that works for me, but I want to remind you that testing is paramount. You may discover that creating powerful rituals and a rigid schedule crush your creativity. The structure becomes tedious, and your effectiveness plummets.
More than any one method, the path to success is through experimentation. If you need an external forc
e to keep you motivated, bring some accountability into your life. If that makes you crazy, don't do it.
Every author has their method and their path. Attempting to replicate my writing style is unlikely to work for you. You are the culmination of years of education and conditioning. You are unique and will respond better to your own set of conditions.
You must experiment to find the right balance and the ideal path.
Perhaps you need to write at a different time every day while maintaining your pre-writing ritual.
You might write in the morning, in the afternoon, or in the evening, but you always have your simple ritual of tea and a crumpet before you start. That might be the balance that works for you. And that's OK. It's not going to hurt my feelings. Just test and experiment to find the balance that works for you. This isn't a book about telling you what to do. This is a book about providing the tools and resources that you can test and experiment with to find the perfect solution for your personality, your lifestyle, and your situation.
Some people need a great deal of randomness in their lives to keep them energized. It's the surprises of every day that keep your creative juices flowing, and you need that. I don't want to take that away from you. We simply want to test and see if you become more effective with structure (or not). As long as you're willing to try each idea and test each different process, you will find the process that’s perfect for you.
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My Mix
I'm not a total routine person or a total stimulation person. I like a bit of randomness but within a set structure. I don't want to wake up with no idea what I'll be doing today. That's too far for me. I like to work two or three hours on multiple projects throughout the day. It's hard for me to simply do one thing eight hours straight; that's just too rigid.
Sometimes I have a project that demands total focus for a few days; I can get into the zone and crank through quickly. Sometimes I'm so excited by a new project or idea that it provides enough excitement to keep me going all day. But this is the exception.
I prefer to have multiple projects on the go so that when I get bored by one, I can hop to another. This allows me to keep my total word count high and I avoid getting bogged down by boredom. If I get bored by working on this book, I can work on the next book’s outline. Or start working on the covers for the next two books.
This is part of my process, and it gives me other things I can work on that are still productive while keeping boredom at bay.
Today I worked on a great many things. I had a group coaching call. I had several phone meetings, including with one of my good friends that I'm doing some very exciting things with next year.
I worked on my membership site. I worked on a plan to structure new parts of my business. I sent some important emails. I got a lot of different things done.
I don't want to bore you with a list of what I did today, but I work on a lot of different things that all help my business grow. Having a variety of tasks built into my day keeps my emotional energy levels high. I've replaced watching television when I’m bored with the habit of working on different projects that excite me. This level of excitement is something I can maintain, and it's very effective and allows me to get more done without getting bored, and it comes from finding my perfect balance.
205
Two Books
You may find that you are more effective when working on multiple books at the same time. Many of the authors I coach are passionate about multiple genres.
You work on your nonfiction book, and then when you get a little bit bored, you switch and start working on your fiction book. When you get bored of writing dialog, you switch back to your nonfiction project.
Having multiple projects allows you to get more done while maintaining your emotional energy. Your creativity never runs out. Writing multiple projects is not an excuse to spread yourself too thin. If you try to work on five books at once, you will probably get nothing done.
The best way to work on multiple projects is to stagger then. Do not start two new projects at the same time. There is nothing worse than having two books that are half finished. Instead, start your second book when the first one is about halfway finished. This way you are always close to finishing a project and getting that good feeling of hitting a goal.
206
Sprints and Marathons
It's possible that marathon writing is not for you; sitting still that long is untenable. You can't sit still for three hours.
The exercises are structured in a way to find the perfect writing balance for you. Writing with custom Pomodoro blocks is fine. It might be even easier to maintain multiple projects; you can assign your time blocks for each project at the start of the day.
I'm not a sprinter. I'm not the hare; I am the tortoise. I am slow and methodical as I maintain a steady writing pace for hours on end. I'm like the robot zombie chasing you. I'm not fast, but I never stop. My personal writing strategy is designed around my strengths.
If you are a sprinter, a different approach will be better. It doesn't matter how you split your day into writing and break time. Just write as many words as you can. Writing in blocks doesn't work for me, but it might be perfect for you.
Even writing for short blocks with long breaks is fine if you hit your target numbers. You can write for twenty minutes and take two-hour breaks. If you get five writing blocks in a day and generate ten thousand words, who cares how long your breaks were? The destination is far more important than the journey.
Finding your path will unlock the 20K writer inside of you. I don't take short breaks because they don't recharge me emotionally. It's just not how I'm wired. It's better for me to take a single break for an hour than three breaks for twenty minutes.
It only takes me ten minutes to eat lunch, but I always take at least an hour off. Sometimes my lunch lasts two or three hours. I will take the kids swimming or take the dog for a walk. It helps to stretch my legs a bit.
Sometimes the kids keep me up all night, and I take a nap after lunch. If the kids are going crazy and I can't get back to sleep at two in the morning, I'll just start my work day early. If I had a rigid schedule, it would be very hard to adapt to my young children.
Nobody reading this book actually cares if I wrote it in two-hour or twenty-minute blocks. You only care about the finished product. Structure your day however you need to get your writing done.
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Everything Zen
It's tempting to think that some of this stuff is a little bit too hippie or Far Eastern, but hopefully you can see that my concepts of habit come from reading a great deal of scientific research and working in this area for a long time. I’ve worked in the personal development space for nearly ten years. A lot of my major contracts are in the area of understanding how we form successful habits.
If you build the right habits into your life, becoming a 20K writer will be easy. It will be like breathing. I write five thousand words all the time without even thinking about it. When you structure your life in a way that maintains the balance between physical, mental and emotional energy, you will hit the same numbers every day.
Most books about writing fast skip this part of the process, yet I find that it's the most important. When one area of your life starts to crumble, the others are soon to follow.
Take the time to understand yourself and find the best writing process. The extra time you invest now will pay massive dividends for the rest of your writing career.
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Be Yourself
Your writing pattern will be different from mine. It's impossible for me to clone myself. I wish I could. I would love to have a couple of clones working for me. Then I could accomplish everything I dream of every day.
I would love to finish a new book every day. It's a little too crazy, but that's what I'd like to accomplish. Unfortunately, cloning technology doesn't exist yet.
You are different than me. You’re a different age. You could be a different gender. You have diff
erent life experiences. You have different eye color, different hair color. All the things that make you unique, an amazing and beautiful individual, will also change the way you need to write, and that's OK. Finding the pattern that's custom for you will allow you to hit those big numbers and allow you to become a massively successful writer.
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Action Steps
Where do you fall on the extrovert/introvert scale?
Do you find writing in public motivating or distracting?
Do you crave oversight?
Start designing your custom writing strategy now.
Be willing to experiment and try new ideas as you find your perfect path.
Use your notebook to track each of your writing experiments.
Maintain a healthy writing lifestyle to become a 20K writer.
Part XXII
Dictate Your Book
20K a Day: How to Launch More Books and Make More Money Page 23
