10 things writing my 4th book taught me.
I’m in the middle of writing a new book right now.
And there are 10 things I’ve learned that have helped make the experience a lot more awesome:
Categories
Quitter
I need to clear up a rumor about me.
It seems there’s been some confusion. Someone just sent me this image and I can see what the problem is. The Quitter Conference will not help you find your dream cat. Nobody will be getting a free cat at the conference. If you signed up with that expectation, please accept my apology. If you signed up with the expectation of learning everything you need to know in order to chase your dream, not your dream cat, you’re in the right place. Go ahead and order new business cards, not cat toys. See you in September!
You’re going to need new business cards.
Don’t believe me?
Ask Clint.
When you sign up for the Quitter Conference, September 21-22, go ahead and order some new business cards while you’re at it.
You’re going to need them.
Clint did.
How to be a rock star.
It’s easy. Here’s all it takes.
Spend more time practicing your dream than you do promoting your dream.
That’s it.
The Internet has made it ridiculously easy to promote your dream, your craft, your passion, your whatever. As someone who writes books and throws events, that is awesome. But that ease comes with a consequence.
The temptation is to spend more time on promoting what you’re doing instead of practicing what you’re doing. Honing your skills, putting in the hours to improve, working hard while no one is watching. Promoting makes people think you’re great. Practicing actually makes you great. There’s a huge difference between those two things.
Fear and time.
Fear always tells you two things about time:
1. It’s too late.
2. Do it later.
The first destroys you with regret.
The second delays you with laziness.
They’re both lies.
Wage war against them.
Right now is the best time to get started because it’s the only time we’re guaranteed to have.
The two resources your dream needs. (And how I can help with one)
The truth is, my wife and I didn’t have “chase a dream” as a line item in our household budget.
We didn’t have money earmarked for that. Some people are that smart perhaps, we were not. So when we started to talk about doing something different with our lives, when we started to have big “what if” discussions, money was an issue.
I remember my wife and I going back and forth about whether we should pay to have someone redesign and redevelop the Stuff Christians Like blog. We didn’t have a “blog development” line item in our budget and had to be really careful. We had to McGuyver things together with the limited resources we had.
That’s why it was important to me to give you a money back guarantee for the next Quitter Conference.
I think you’ll love the conference.
You are going to learn a ton, laugh a ton, and dream a ton.
You are going to meet hundreds of people who will encourage you to never give up on your dream.
You are going to be blown away by the surprises we’ve planned for this one that we’ve never been able to pull off before.
But more importantly you are going to feel like the ticket price was worth every dollar you spent because I don’t take those dollars for granted.
I’ve been in the trenches of dream chasing, I know that every dollar counts. I know that the two resources that are in the highest demand are your time and your money.
So if you come to the Quitter Conference in Nashville on September 21 and 22 and don’t LOVE it, I’ll refund the price of your ticket. No questions asked.
The last one sold out and we had a waiting list. Please don’t miss your chance to go to this one. To get the early bird ticket price of $99 before that ends on May 24, sign up today!
Snakes don’t think your dream is too weird. Neither do rats.
Fear is incredibly talkative. The minute you start working on something that matters, it will talk your ear off if you’re not careful. One of the things it always says is:
The only alarm clock you desperately need.
This is a picture I took of my alarm clock two weeks ago in Indianapolis.
I wasn’t there to work out for the Colts, but that’s a pretty good assumption.
I spoke in Grant County, Indiana on a Friday night. Then rode 95 miles back to Indianapolis and checked into the hotel at 12:30AM. Roughly 3 hours later I was up for a flight to San Antonio.
Before I took my dream job, I didn’t expect so many 4 AM alarm clocks. I bought into the myth that when you find your passion or calling or dream, things will be easy. Life will flow like a gentle river of fresca, passing banks of candy cane grass. La. La. La.
I was wrong. Here’s the truth:
Sometimes you have to dunk.
Why do I write dozens of tweets during the Grammy’s?
Steven Pressfield, one of my favorite authors, answers that question in his brilliant book, The War of Art
Chase a dream, not a number.
There’s a bed they sell that let’s you set a “sleep number.” You get to determine the stiffness or softness you want with a dial and then enjoy a restful night of customized comfort. I forget the name of the manufacturer, but if they want to sponsor my blog, I would Google that on the quick and write it in bold. (The kids need new shoes! Keens specifically, because wow, those things stink after a season of backyard romping.)
The commercials they run about this bed have people talking about their “sleep number.” I think it’s an interesting concept, but what’s even more fascinating to me is that most people have a “success number.”