503 – What’s a developmental book editor?: Tom interviews Dan Janal

Episode 503 – Dan Janal
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode five hundred and three of Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with Dan Janal and I've known this Dan for, I don't know more years than I care to mention. I don't even know how I originally met him. But but recently we reconnected because his one of his companies PR lead sent me a media connection and and I got quoted in a major online publication like, you know, the next day. So. So that's just one of the great things that Dan does today. He's going to talk to you about writing your book. He's a prolific author and book coach, so we'll get him to talk to you about that and listen to this. Dan Janal, this is a quote from major publication. This is a little bit old, so so give put this in context. Dan Janal is considered one of the founding fathers of internet marketing because he wrote one of the first books in the field way back in 1993. So if he's a founding father, I guess I must be the founding mother or something because I started selling in 1994 when the commercial internet came around, but he was already doing stuff so. So we get him to tell us about all that stuff, especially the book writing and all that.

[00:01:38] Now, how would you like me to send you big checks? Well, if you're in my affiliate program, then you can make anything from eight dollars and fifty cents to which you can blow at Starbucks, so you can make up to $5000 plus for a speaking engagement and everything in between. So if you're interested in that? Send me an email to Tom@Screwthecommute.com and we'll give you details on that. Now, pick up a copy of our automation e-book that we sell this e-book for 27 bucks, but it's yours free for listening to the show. Just one of the tips in the book has saved me seven and a half million keystrokes, and that's not just pulled out of my hat. This is we actually estimated it a couple of years ago, and it allows me to handle up to one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers and sixty five thousand customers without pulling my hair out and ethically steal customers from people too slow to get back to prospects. So you should grab a copy of this book and put it in the play, that's for sure. So grab a copy it. screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And while you're at it, pick up a copy of our podcast app. It's screwthecommute.com/app.

[00:02:55] Now, at this point, I usually tell you all about my school. It's the only licensed, dedicated internet marketing school in the country, probably the world. It's a license to operate by SCHEV the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. Well, you don't have to be in Virginia because it's a distance learning school and we have a pilot project going to help persons with disabilities. You know, I've helped lots of people and lots of little kids feeding homeless kids and rescuing dogs, and I'm proud of all that stuff. But this is a this is something that's going to be my legacy thing where I'm going to change people's lives forever. And and we've got five people. We're going to enroll in the school. We've got three people going so far and we're going to get them trained remotely so they don't have to fight the school system and traveling and all that because they have mobility and sight problems. And then we're going to I'm going to get them hired or get them started in their own business. And then once I prove the concept, I'm going to roll this out really big. I took a grant writing course and I'm going to go for big money to help tons of people with disabilities and and love to have your help in it.

[00:04:06] We have a Go Fund Me campaign. We're going to use some of the money to hire people with disabilities to help run the program. So it's really something I'm really proud of and you could be proud of too if you helped out. So check it out at IMTCVA.org/disabilities and that's of course, will be in the show notes. You don't have to remember that. Check out the Go Fund Me campaign and you'll see one of the updates is by a video with a guy that's got vision of twenty five hundred. He could not even see the camera that he was doing. The video was so inspiring and upbeat, and wow, it's really proud of this program, so check it out.

[00:04:45] All right, let's get to the main event. Dan Janal works with top business leaders as a book coach and ghostwriter, and no matter where you are in the book writing process, Dan can help. He's written more than a dozen books, and as an Award-Winning newspaper reporter, he's interviewed President Gerald Ford and First Lady Barbara Bush and a whole bunch of other luminaries and every entrepreneur should write a book. And so Dan is going to tell you about it. Dan, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:05:18] Oh, I certainly am Tom here. I have. I've worked out of my hope in the last 30 years, right? And it's been great. And I'll tell you how that happened. You know, you wondered, where do we meet? We met a long, long time ago thanks to the National Speakers Association.

[00:05:33] That's probably it. Yeah. Nineteen ninety one I joined.

[00:05:36] Exactly. And you know, the funny thing about speaking is that I started using speaking. I don't know. You can get paid to speak speaking as my marketing tool because I was a high flying PR guy. I did PR for companies like K Pro and Commodore back when they were synonymous with the word computer, so I was pretty well known. And I go to these computer conferences to get business. You know, I speak on the stage. I'd be on panels, I would lead workshops and people come up to me afterwards and they say, Hey, we'd love for you to do our publicity. And I'd say, Great, when do we get started? And they'd say, Well, we'd like to see a proposal. I hate that. You know, so I'd go back to my office and I'd like to do research on the company and do research on the market and think of ideas and write ideas and write programs and all these great things. Sweating hours. You're spending 20, 30, 40 hours to get this client. And I'd send the proposal off to them and then I'd wait. And wait and wait. It was crickets, and I'd call them up and they say, Oh, well, we got proposals for like five other people at the conference to and and we're looking at all of them. So, you know, don't call us, we'll call you. And you know, when I spoke to my friends who were, you know, just like me, we're all gone to good schools.

[00:06:52] We've all had great references. We all had great resumes, just like many people on this call. You know, you might be part of the president's club. You might have won awards for what you've done. You might have advanced degrees. And yet our prospects look at us like commodities. So I said to myself, I got to break out of this. I can't spend all this time writing proposals and getting nothing for it. So I said, What can I do to stand out from everyone else? And I thought, You know, we've all done the same things. All have the same degrees, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. But you know, no one's written a book. So I decided I wrote a book called How to Publicize High Tech Products and Services. It's what I did. So people get to know like and trust me. So I went to the next software publishers meeting and I did my panel and people came up to me afterwards and they said, we'd like you to do our publicity. And I said, Oh, do you want me to write a proposal? They said, No, no, no. You wrote the book. We know you know your stuff. When can you get started? Mm hmm. And that's when I realized that the book made all the difference, and I got to tell you something.

[00:08:05] I self-published that first book, and because I self-published it three years or four years later, when the internet became a big thing and I was doing PR for America online and I knew all about the internet. I sent a book proposal to John Wiley and they said, Hey, we know you can write a book because you wrote your other book, so we're going to give you an advance and you can write this book. And they gave me a five figure advance, which was really, really nice. And I wrote one of the first books about marketing on the internet back in nineteen ninety three. That's when Al Gore and I were. We're the only people online. You know, you were still, yeah, I was accompanying every other media Tom. But I tell you, when that book came out, it led to speaking engagements literally all around the world. I spoke in Beijing, Budapest, all across Canada, the United States, Mexico and even Rio de Janeiro. Can you imagine? They paid me to go to China and speak, and they even hired a driver to take me and my wife. I took my wife to the Great Wall and the Imperial Palace and the Forbidden City, all because I wrote a book. So I'm here to let you know that a book can literally open up the entire world to you. That's why you need to write a book.

[00:09:23] No, I love a person or a guest that walks their talk. And and so, you know, I've known you for many years, and I know you're a big proponent of stories and you just told us some stories that that were perfect. But you you said one of the mistakes that people or a couple of mistakes that people make is they have too few stories. And then another mistake, he said, that they have too many stories. And then you had the story. They have stories, but they don't mean anything. So tell us about how you help people work through that, that process.

[00:09:56] Sure. I'm a book coach and developmental editor, and those are foreign words to everyone listening on this call. I know, so I'm going to explain a little bit about what that means. You know, when you think of editors, you probably think of these people who look for spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes. And, you know, and that's cool. That's sort of like, Well, let me give you an analogy. Have you ever been on television? Well, you've even if you haven't been on television, you've probably seen a movie where someone is sitting in the green room about to go on television and they're sitting in this makeup chair and this person comes by and they put on the foundation and everything that's like your copy editor. They're looking for the grammar mistakes and the spelling mistakes and things that would make you look stupid. And that's fine. And then a few minutes later, right before you're about to go on the air, another person comes by and wipes off the little sweat on your brow and everything. And that's the proofreader. And she's in charge of making sure that all the pages line up and the periods are there and the commas are there and you use the curly quotes instead of the straight quotes. You know, all that mind numbing stuff and then you're ready to go on the air. The producer comes by and says, Two minutes, let's get you on the air and you're about to go into the studio and you see Oprah and you see the bright lights and the camera and your mind freezes and you say, Oh my God, what am I going to talk about? Well, that's what the developmental editor does.

[00:11:13] They work with you at the very, very beginning stages of your manuscript, and they ask you the fundamental. Well, I ask, I do. I probably everyone does it differently. Usually I do it. I make sure we're focused on the big picture. So a lot of people don't ask this question, and this is why they don't write their books. This is why they start to write books and their books gather digital dust. Here's the main question. You have to ask yourself, what do you want the book to do for you? Because that's going to motivate you when you go through the highs and lows of writing a book, and I don't care what you're doing, I don't care if you're learning how to play the guitar or learning a foreign language or going to med school, they're going to be high days, they're going to be low days, they're going to days. And you say, Why am I bothering doing this? No one's going to read my book and you say no, because you're why is going to propel you through? It might be because you want to leave a legacy.

[00:12:02] It might be because you want to make a ton of money. It might be because you want to help the world become a better place. Whatever it is, that's cool. Whatever's going to motivate you is perfect. The second question I ask people is how are your readers going to be transformed now you're giving, now you're in that altruistic mode, now you're in that generosity mode that again, is going to propel you through those days to help you get through to write the book from start to finish. So from there, then we go on to more detailed things. We'll get to that if we need to. But that's the beginning process of what I work with my clients. So the key here is that the developmental ED acts as your best friend to guide you along the way. So if you have too many stories, they'll say, you know you've already proved your point. Don't tell another story that just dilutes your idea, or I've worked with some clients where they tell a story, and it's a good story about gratitude, but it's in the wrong chapter. So it's a good story. Wrong focus. Let's move it here because they thought the story meant one thing and it really meant another.

[00:13:02] You know, a lot of people have so much data, so many stories, so much information. They can't see the forest for the trees. That's where the developmental ed comes in. You know, I was talking to one of my clients the other day. He was an former NFL football player and he was writing a book for student athletes, and now they can compete in the real world. So we were talking and he just let out this story, said, you know, I wish more students would take advantage of the career placement office. I said, What's that said? Oh, every sports department has a career placement office where they teach the kids how to write resumes and how to act on a job interview and how to dress and all those good things. I said, that sounds really fascinating, say it really is. You can really make a big difference in people's lives. And I said, Well, I looked at the outline of your book and you have chapters on character and attitude and perseverance and resilience. I don't see a chapter here on the career placement office. Do you think we should have one? And he said, Oh boy, yeah, how could I miss that? So that's where a development letter comes in and helps you see what you don't see that can add so much more value to your book.

[00:14:11] All right. So let me ask you about something you know I've been involved in for years and will take take us both back. For years and years ago, self-publishing was, you know, everybody looked up their nose at you. If you self-published, you're a nobody. And then and then that kind of, you know, in my opinion, that's changed tremendously over the over the years. And I did have a John Wiley book and they gave me a big advance. But it was the biggest nightmare of my life. I mean, it was 18. It was an internet book also, but it was 18 months before it came out. It was obsolete before I turned to manuscript. And then they nickeled and dimed. Me made me pay for indexing and graphics and all this stuff. So, so tell us how things have changed over the years and whether you promote self-publishing or going for major publishers. How do you help somebody make those decisions?

[00:15:07] Great question. And I know where you're leading with this, and I'm going to ask you a question. Tom I think we'll solidify it in everyone's mind. Who is John Grisham's publisher?

[00:15:17] I have no idea.

[00:15:19] Exactly. He sells more books than you and I ever will, and no one knows whose publishers and no one cares. And 10, 15, 20 years ago, maybe people did look up there knows about self-publishing. But today everyone is self-publishing and it's so easy. It just makes life so much easier for people to have a message to say. So I help people create their manuscripts. Then they go into production, you know, proofreading copy editing layout, page design, cover, design, such like that. And then you upload the book to Amazon and Bingo. You are in business so you can have a book done in, you know, really, I say in a flash, it could be a week to be three or four months, whatever. But if you go to a New York publisher, they'll take 18 months. You're absolutely right. I stopped updating my books for exactly the same reason that you just said there were out of date immediately because the internet changes so fast. And frankly, let's say you're a leadership coach or a real estate entrepreneur or anything else that isn't so crazy like the internet. Well, if your book comes out in 18 months, you're not making money for those 18 months.

[00:16:21] If your book is online, you could be handing your book to people at a networking meeting, at a breakfast at the Rotary Club and start getting new clients right away. So no one cares who your publisher is. They just care that you have a book and your book is the world's best business card. No one ever throws away a book. You know, they'll hold on to their book. They'll put it on their bookshelf and it may be today, tomorrow, maybe two years, but they'll say, you know, I met a guy at that Rotary Club meeting, and he talked about how to refinance your house. And now we're in a business. We're in a position where we need to refinance or we need to do this. And I don't remember his name, but he had a book or something like bookshelf. I think it was a blue cover. There's you there. It is there. He takes it out and he gives you a call. You know, it's the world's best business card.

[00:17:08] Exactly. And you know, you and I both know a lot about scams in the writing world, and we've talked extensively about that. But and of course, people on here know that you wouldn't be on here if you you had anything to do with scams, but tell them some things they need to watch out for because everybody on Earth, you know, I say you can swing a dead cat and run into a book writing coach, you know, so. So tell them the things. Some things to watch out, for sure.

[00:17:37] You know, I call myself a book coach and developmental editor because frankly, I don't know where one stops and the other one begins. But I know there are some people who only do book coaching and other people who only do developmental editing. And that's fine. But it's like you're getting half of the pie. You know, I'm the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup that gives you everything together. So I think one of the first things you need to figure out where you're hiring someone is, what are you actually getting from them and what are you not getting from them? So in my letter of agreement, I don't call it a contract. It's contracts about lawyers and gets all highfalutin stuff. It's a lot of agreement. It basically says, Here's what I will do. Here's where we're when we're going to meet. Here's what I'm going to do. Here's what you're going to do. Here's what I'm not going to do. So they know I'm not going to do the marketing in the PR and the proofreading and the layout, but they know that they're going to get me for an hour every week, for an hour. They can send me material and questions beforehand, so make sure about those things beforehand so you know exactly what you're getting from your book coach. Now, in terms of publishers, I've got to tell you a little dirty secret Tom that even you didn't bring up when I interviewed you on my podcast.

[00:18:43] There are publishing companies that are offshoots of major publishing companies, and I won't mention them here because I'll get sued that do a real bad job. And I've heard horror stories. In fact, you could probably go on Google and type in the names of some of these companies. In fact, you should to make sure that they are legitimate because there are very legitimate publishing companies that do great work for great authors and do a nice job. But then they have offshoot publishing divisions for poor schlubs who have more money. Well, who have money. Let's put it that way and they'll take your money, and they won't give you a damn thing for it. They might give you a book. They might proofread it, but they're not marketing. You think you're getting published by one of these big fancy companies, but you're really not getting their brand name company. You're getting their second tier company. And I just heard horror stories from lots of people. And it's not just one of these companies. There are a couple of them out there. So you better be careful. Also, some of these hybrid companies, there are some great companies really, really, really good companies.

[00:19:48] What tell them what a hybrid means?

[00:19:50] Oh yeah, yeah. Hybrid companies, we gather in New York publishers. You know, those are the true publishing companies. And then you have your self-publishing companies like, you know, publishers like with like Tom. And I would publish our own books and then companies in the middle that will publish a book for you and give you much better rates on commissions and royalties than the New York publishers have. And they'll do some marketing for you. They're all a little bit different. Some will do some marketing, so we'll do some distribution. So again, you need to figure out what's the best fit for you or just do it yourself. But so there are some very legitimate companies that have true bestsellers like Morgan James. They have great books and they do it in a very nice job. And then there are some other companies that I won't mention that do a really bad job that basically take your money and run. They don't do anything for you. They may not even do any copy it in your proofreading. It just just horrible. So definitely Google People's names, Google companies names on to find out if they're legit or not, and the same thing with book coaches and editors and such like that, you know, read their testimonials, go to their websites, and of course, we're going to cherry pick. I'm going to put the names of all of my happy clients, but well, I don't have any unhappy clients, so I'm not hiding anything.

[00:21:05] But of course, we're only going to highlight our good stuff, but check them out if they if they don't have testimonies on their website, if they don't have books that they they help to publish and and talk about those books on their website. That's a red flag. So definitely do your homework and also talk to a couple of people. I always encourage people to actually talk to me, talk to someone else who does what I do, because you might find a better fit. You know you're working with a book coach is like buying a pair of shoes. If it doesn't feel good when you're in the store, it's not going to feel good three months. Later, so I might have a really good fit with someone who say I love to work with this guy might have another person call like this is just not. We just don't have the same personality. There's something rubs me the wrong way. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with me, but just just doesn't feel right. And if that's the case, work with a person who feels right because you're going to be living with them for six months or so, you know, back and forth, and you want to feel comfortable with them and feel that you're on the same wavelength

[00:22:05] And you could type in the company name and the word scam and Tom company name and the word rip off and just see what if there's any bad things people are saying about the companies now? Dan, you have the word flash in the name of your company. And so I know that this is real because I wrote a book in four hours that as of this morning brought in three point sixty five million dollars and still from five to $15000 a month. So I know that this is real and a lot of my books are ebooks because I got so sick. John Wiley stuff. And. And the thing is, is you have a quote that says people like thin books tell them about that. So it is much easier nowadays to write a great business book.

[00:22:56] Yeah, you know, you and I may have a slight disagreement on this Tom one week, but we are probably splitting hairs. But when I give someone a book, I want it to look like a book. So if you're writing a book that's 30 pages or 40 pages and there are some people on the internet who are advocating that, I don't think that impresses people.

[00:23:13] No, I'm totally in agreement with that. That's like a coaster book they call.

[00:23:17] Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Ok, cool. Great. Yeah. Well, I think a book today is about 20000 words about which turns out to be 120 pages, which makes it look like a good book. That looks like a real book. But it doesn't look so big, in fact, that people are intimidated and won't even read it. You know, the first book that I wrote about marketing on the internet, it was three hundred and fifty pages, and I spoke at an NSA conference, you know, National Speakers Association conference in San Francisco. And this woman came up to me, had lunch, and she said, Oh, I loved your seminar, so thank you very much. He said, Oh, in your book, it looks so comprehensive. And I said, Oh, thank you very much. And she said, I just have one question. I said, Oh, ask me anything. And she said, Do I have to read it all? And I tell you, Man, there's another guy at that conference who was doing another session on the internet marketing. Same topic I was, who was selling two cassettes and like eight pages stapled in the middle. You know, it folded and stapled. He outsold me by like a zillion to one. Well, you want easy.

[00:24:23] You may remember that for about 10 years, I had four editions of the book Click the Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing for speakers. And the last version was a thousand and forty two pages. Wow. So that's when I said, you know, I started breaking it down into many e-books on specific topics and they sell like crazy. But it was getting to the point I couldn't even edit the book myself by the time I'd edit one section, some other sections obsolete. So, so yeah, I'm not saying give them crap, but people, you know? And the sad part is Dennis is there. I think it was the governor of Oregon or somebody had a decree just recently, and I saw it within the past month that that to get a high school diploma, you don't have to read, write or be able to do math in their state. Wow. So, yeah, so so you got to keep it, you know, very tightly controlled if you want to sell a lot of stuff because everybody isn't a super intellectual like, Dan said.

[00:25:32] Well, you have to remember two things. You don't have to write the entire encyclopedia about this topic in order to be credible. You have to give them enough information that gets them to know, like and trust you. So and they see you as the person who can lead them for mess to success and make them look like the hero. And I stole that from Donald Miller, who wrote the brand story book, which is a great, great book I highly recommend.

[00:25:56] We'll tell him more about when I ask you earlier about stories how important they are.

[00:26:00] Yeah, stories are real important because people, you know, people remember stories. You know, if you tell people, here are the 10 things you need to be successful, they won't remember them. But if you tell them 10 stories that illustrate each of those points, they'll remember all of them. Like I still remember saw from maybe 20 to 30 years ago, Bob Bly, great copywriter, speaking at the Public Relations Society luncheon in New York, and he talked about how he got this assignment to try to sell a railroad car full of apples that have been damaged by hail. You know, he can't sell them in supermarkets because people want perfect fruit. So. He had to sell these thousands and thousands of pounds of apples with pale marks on them. And he said, You know, these apples are so close to nature that they bear the hallmarks of rainstorms to show that they are so pure. Thirty years later, I still remember the story. That's the power of a story. If he said, look for the unique angle and USP, your unique selling proposition. I probably would have forgotten it in two minutes. But that railroad car story with the apples. I remember to this very day.

[00:27:14] Yeah, and you remembered his name. But I mean, I've gotten hired for speaking engagements when the boss said, Hey, get that guy, that guy that told that story about something, they couldn't remember my name, but they remembered the story and they found found me through that. So yeah, stories are massively important. But I want to take you back a little bit to see how you came up through the the ranks because everybody in an entrepreneurial podcast like we have, you know, some are still in cubicles, some are still going to the dreaded J-O-B. But but what I want, but I want to know is you did an independent study on folklore in Appalachia, your backyard?

[00:27:55] Yeah.

[00:27:56] What was that about?

[00:27:59] Okay. Well, I thought you were going to ask me how I started my business, which I'm happy to go into. Yeah, but when I was in college, I had an internship on a newspaper in Huntington, West Virginia. And that was like three credits. I needed a fourth credit, so I did an independent study and I'd taken a folklore class in English. And you're like, Hey, this is Appalachia. This is this is really great. So I read a lot of books and which a lot of music festivals actually recorded a lot of old-time music on my little cassette player. And that's probably worth a fortune now or not, not in terms of money, but in terms of historical value, if I can. So it was very interesting to to to learn about that.

[00:28:39] So you went to school for journalism up to the master's level, right? Right, right. And so what was the progression that gets you where into your own business?

[00:28:49] Ok, cool. Yeah. So I worked for newspapers and in Florida, that's where I interviewed President Ford and Barbara Bush.

[00:28:59] Was he standing up or had he tripped at that moment?

[00:29:02] Uh, he fell at your feet and was injured, so you interviewed him.

[00:29:10] When we're off camera, I'll tell you a longer story. It's too long for this thing. The funny story. It was a press conference and he was running for president and it was really interesting. And Barbara Bush, when George was running for president. So it was it was an interesting time and I won awards for being a reporter and it was really fun and all that good stuff. And then I transferred to the paper in New York, as Florida is, you know, a little bit slow. So I mean, great sunshine and everything. But you're twenty three years old, you know, everyone there is like 80. Yeah. So so I transferred back to the paper in New York and was became a business newspaper editor there, which was great. And I interviewed a guy who was in PR and he had actually done the PR for, like every scientific development since World War Two. I mean, the first handheld calculator and on and on and on and on. So I wrote a story about him and he offered me a job and I figured like, Well, gee, I could do this or reporting for a while. But USA Today first started and the company I was with was owned by, you know, owned USA Today. And they didn't know if you have such data would be a success or not. So they basically froze our salaries, froze our staff, took our staff members and put them on USA Today's staff, but we had to pay them. So that meant that we had to shrink our news hole.

[00:30:29] So I went to work at 6:00 in the morning and by 6:30 I was done because I had six pages before. Now I had like, you know, two pages. So it's like I went to my boss and I said, You what's going on? He said, Well, for the next five years, we're in a holding pattern. And I said, Well, I can't be in a holding pattern for five years. In twenty seven years old, just pride in my life, I got to make waves. So I called this guy and who offered me a job in PR. Next thing you know, I'm doing PR for high tech companies and and learned a lot about the high tech industry just at the dawn of the computer industry, which was a great place to be. So that was really good. And then I worked for another PR firm and then I got hired by a by a trade publication. And frankly, that was the worst move I made or the best move I made. It was a really, really bad fit. Things just didn't work out. And I'm sure many of the people are listening today that they're now 30 years are now perking up. This is the real crux of the story. All this stuff is like, Who cares? This is what you really care about. I got fired. You know the guys who said, this isn't working out. You're fired. You know, we'll give you a month severance. We'll pay for your expenses.

[00:31:38] Whatever that they owed me for travel and whatever, but you're out of here, and if you're like, Holy cow, what am I going to do? And I had a choice and I could have gone back and work for any PR firm in New York because I had incredibly good credentials or I could start my own business and my mother and my best friend both told me the same thing. They said, Start your own business because if it doesn't work out, you can always get another job. But if it does work out, then you're your own boss. And 30 years later, I don't wake up to an alarm clock. I do what I want to do when I want to do it with whom I want to do it with. I can choose my own clients. If someone's a pain in the butt, I don't work with them. I can look for the people who I do want to work with and and life is really, really good. So I strongly I'm really glad you asked me that question because I've been dying to get this off my chest that, you know, I was playing pickleball the other day with this woman. And after we're done playing, I said, So what do you do? Said, Well, I'm retired, but I used to work as a as a trainer and I said, Oh, were you an NSA or an STD? And she said, What are those National Speakers Association and the Association of Trainers and Development developer trainers and trainers.

[00:32:58] Society of Training and Development.

[00:33:01] There you go. Exactly. Thank you. Everyone knows that she never heard of them. She was a corporate trainer. I said, Oh, well, you know, you got laying off. You could start your own business doing training and start my own business. Gee, that sounds really risky. And I said, risky. You just got laid off from a company.

[00:33:21] Oh, people, I mean, say people have been brainwashed so much over the years, you know, go, you know, and that was the way it was when, you know, my dad and our parents came up to, you know, you get a good job and, you know, retire with a gold watch after 30 years. But now, 30 minutes later, you're laid off. You know, it's not 30 years anymore.

[00:33:42] So, yeah, I guess part of it might be my grandparents owned a hardware store, so I guess they were entrepreneurs, right? We don't call them entrepreneurs. Then they're just small business people. They own the hardware store, the hired people. They worked seven days a week. It was, you know, not a great life. I mean, they did well, but I mean, it was, you know, you're constantly working, you know, the the the business owned them. And my father was a podiatrist. So he, you know, he ran his own business too. So I guess for me, I didn't have that corporate background. So when I worked for corporations, I work for a bunch of jerks. I'm sure everyone who's listening and saying, like, right on brother. Yeah, everyone. They're all jerks. So, yeah. Start your own business. You'll never look back. Yeah. The best the never did.

[00:34:28] And I always yeah. And most people say when they got fired, it was traumatic at the time, but it's the best thing that ever happened to them. And and then I always say about the corporate world, I just can't exist in a world where you've got to have a two week committee meeting to take a leak.

[00:34:44] So or you only get two weeks of vacation a year and they make out that you're grateful for it. Yeah. Right.

[00:34:52] Ok, so tell people what they would find if they decided to go over to writeyourbookinaflash.com?

[00:35:00] Greg, you find lots of great information on how to write your book. You'll find some free downloads on how to overcome the blocks, to writing your book, and you know, things that hold you back like the fear of success. You're a failure and all those other things. And we'll answer questions like, Well, gee, there are five hundred other books on this topic. Why would anyone want to read my book? Well, there is a reason why you'll find great information there. I've done a lot of podcasts where I talk to people just like you who've written books, so you get the inspiration that says, Well, if he wrote a book and she wrote a book, then I can write a book and you might be saying, Well, I have dyslexia. I can't really write that well. Well, I interviewed one woman on my podcast who actually dictated her book while she was stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike. And if she can do it, you can do it too. So lots of inspiration, lots of good information there. And if you're a heart centered professional or you're a conscious, capitalist business owner who wants to make the world a better place and leave a lasting legacy, I'd love to talk with you. Let's talk for 15 minutes. See if this is a good fit. See if on the right book coach for you. I'm sure you'll learn something during our call as well. It's low pressure. It's not a sales call. It's really just to see if it's a good fit and to send you on your way to find the right person. If I'm not the right person. I'm happy to refer you to the person who is the right person because that's the way the world works. That's the way the world should work,

[00:36:19] Rather with good people.

[00:36:21] That's how it works. We help each other. We help each other.

[00:36:23] Exactly how do they get a hold of you?

[00:36:26] Go to writeyourbookinaflash.com. All my contact information is right there. There's a link to my calendar information. So and I like I call date, Alexia. It's like dyslexia with dates, I just I just screw them all up, so if you go to my calendar, you pick a time, it goes to my Google calendar. That way I don't get messed up and we meet on Zoom, so life is good.

[00:36:50] There we go. Well, thanks so much, man, for coming on and enlightening people to. Like I said, I had never even heard of the term developmental ed myself, so I was educated too. So. So folks, you just heard what a really highly a person with high integrity book coach sounds like and does, because there are a lot of people out there. And, you know, like I said, you can swing a dead cat and find somebody that's going to help you write a book that's never been there and done that. So thanks so much for coming on, Dan.

[00:37:24] Well, thanks a lot, Tom. I can end with one little story. Yeah, you know, Ken Blanchard, the guy who wrote the one minute manager and who moved my cheese. He sold like, you know, 20 million books, maybe 30 million books, and he's written 60 books. I saw him at a conference and I said, How come all of your books were co-written? You'll have co-authors, you're a smart guy. You could have written the books yourself. And he said, I learned so much when I work with other people. And I thought, Yeah, wow, that's really humbling that writing a book is not this mythical thing where you you're working alone in a garret and you're sweating blood. It's a group process like everything else. So don't be afraid to work with a book coach and development letter to make your book a book you can be proud of.

[00:38:10] Sounds good, man. All right, everybody, we'll get you on the next episode. Check out writeyourbookinaflash.com. All right. Catch you later.
 
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