Baby Scorpion we found in our house.

A baby Scorpion we found in our house. The adult ones are scary!

A few weeks ago I asked people in my mastermind group for ideas on business goals I could set for 2015.

But I don’t have a business yet, so I’m still looking for ideas or a path. At this point, I’m trying to find my voice (core message) and build a platform.

Or maybe it’s better to say that while building my platform, I’m finding my voice and core message. It’s not about creating just any business.

It’s about creating a business that complements my preferred lifestyle, personality, strengths, and passions. Some people call this intersection:

  • A vocation.
  • A sweet spot.
  • A professional calling.
  • Living in the Flow

Anyways, back to my story.

So one idea I got from someone in my mastermind was to write a book. As I read her suggestion I could feel my stomach grumble and curl.

Why?

Fear!  After the excitement went away I thought:

  • That’s crazy.
  • I don’t have any experience writing.
  • I have three kids and full time job; I don’t have time to write.
  • Stick with your blog for now.
  • I have to learn how to write first.

These are all true to some extent. But…not exactly. This was FEAR! A different type of fear. I was scared and excited at the same time.  

Fear and resistance gave me a one-two combo straight to the gut. Bam! These two are like twin brothers always hanging around– waiting for the right moment to punch us in the face and back to mediocrity. Their job is to stop us from moving forward whenever we want to do something different or outside of our comfort zone.

But they do it in stealth mode.  And sometimes it’s hard to recognize that they are actually the ones stopping us from moving forward.

Since starting this blog a few months ago, one of things I’ve learned about taking action is that we should do it even when the path is blurry and difficult. If it ends up being the wrong move, we learned something from experience. It’s all learning if we take something away from the experience. Thinking back, a lot of the reasons I had for not starting this blog were actually excuses disguised as reasons

The brain is hardwired to create excuses on why we can’t do things. Seth Godin calls this the “lizard brain.” This is where fear and resistance live. Maybe this is what Eleanor Roosevelt was thinking when she said,

 “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Let’s look at the Pro’s and Con’s of writing a book.

Pro’s:

  1. I can use the book to help me to uncover my unique voice and my core message.
  2. I can blog my way to a book (creating content for the book and new blog posts).
  3. Writing a book will help me right moe betta. (just kidding…) But, seriously, there’s a lot for me to learn about writing.
  4. I can write about something that will help others and maybe have a positive impact.
  5. If the book does well I can earn extra income. (Side-note: I need about $15,000 to take my wife and kids on vacation to Japan.)
  6. The book can lead to other books, income streams, credibility, and opportunities.

Con’s:

  1. I read that only about 2% of the people who want to write a book actually accomplish it.
  2. I only have about 40 minutes per day that I can devote to writing.
  3. I don’t know anything about publishing or self-publishing.
  4. If I do publish a book, what if it is an absolute disaster?
  5. What if the book is so bad that instead of growing my platform it destroys it?
  6. Isn’t it expensive to pay for publishing, book covers, editors, and advisors?
  7. It’s impossible to write a book in one year! Are you crazy!?

I don’t have much to lose except time.  So here’s my big announcement (mostly to myself) and the one other person who reads this blog. (By the way, if you are reading this, please leave me an encouraging message below. 🙂

THE BIG ANNOUCEMENT: (Drum roll, please)

By the end of 2015, I want to have written and published my first book. Not only that, but I want to sell 5,000 copies by December 31!

The idea of writing a book energizes, excites, and scares me to death. That’s why I’m doing it.

Plus, I checked with my wife and she supports this idea. She’s brilliant! If this were a terrible idea, she would be the first person to warn me. This is still crazy of me because I don’t have a:

  • a topic
  • a subject
  • a title
  • or any experience.

I’m starting from scratch. All I have is a general idea.

That’s it!

I feel the fear and resistance coming so it’s time for a motivational quote. It’s brought to us from the Internet Business Mastery podcast (one of my favorite). One of the hosts quotes his grandma all the time. When he was a kid, she would tell him,

“If someone else can do it, you can do it too. And if no one else has done it, you can be first.”

I heard someone say that the richest place on earth is the cemetery. You know why? Because it’s full of so many brilliant ideas that people took with them to the grave.  Many of us choose, let me say it again; CHOOSE to take our greatest gifts, ideas, and passions to the grave. But why? It doesn’t do the world or us any good there. I don’t want to save anything till end. I’m leaving it all behind.

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