0:07

Hey , leader , and welcome to another episode of the L3

0:09

Leadership Podcast , where we are obsessed with helping

0:12

you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize

0:14

the impact of your leadership . My name is Doug

0:16

Smith and I am your host , and today's episode

0:18

is brought to you by my friends at Beratung Advisors

0:20

. We also recorded this episode live from

0:22

the new returncom studio . If

0:24

you're new to the podcast , welcome . I'm so glad that

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you're here and I hope that you enjoy our content and become

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a subscriber . I know that you can also watch all

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of our episodes over on our YouTube channel , so make sure

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you're subscribed there as well . And , as always

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, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while and it's made

0:37

an impact on your life , it would mean the world to me if

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you would leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts

0:41

or Spotify or whatever app you listen to podcast

0:43

through . That really does help us to grow our audience

0:45

and reach more leaders , so thank you in advance

0:48

for that . Well , leader , in today's

0:50

episode , you're going to hear a personal lesson by me on

0:52

the lessons that I learned from writing my first

0:54

book . Yes , that's right , I completed the

0:56

first draft of my first book . This

0:58

was a dream that I've had for over 20

1:00

years and it finally has been accomplished

1:03

. Now , obviously , I have to do the hard work of figuring

1:05

out how to get it edited and how to actually get it

1:07

published , and those are the next steps that I'm

1:09

taking . But I have a finished first draft

1:11

, which is huge for me , and as

1:13

always , I like to bring you along for the journey

1:15

and share lessons that I've learned . I know that many

1:17

of you that I've talked to have wanted to write

1:20

a book and have struggled with it just like I

1:22

did for 20 years , and I'm hopeful

1:24

that the lessons that I share in today's lesson

1:26

will really fire you up and give

1:28

you the necessary steps for you to

1:30

complete your first draft of your first book , and

1:32

I can't wait till that day happens , and I

1:34

hope that I play a small part in it by sharing the lessons

1:36

that I learned . So get excited for that . But before

1:39

we dive in , just a few announcements . This

1:41

episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored

1:43

by Beratung Advisors . The financial

1:45

advisors at Baratung Advisors help educate

1:47

and empower clients to make informed financial

1:50

decisions . You can find out how Beratung

1:52

Advisors can help you develop a customized financial

1:54

plan for your financial future by visiting

1:57

their website at BeratungAdvisorscom

1:59

. That's B-E-R-A-T-U-N-G-Advisorscom

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. Securities and investment products

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and services offered through LPL Financial

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, member of FINRA and SIPC . Beratung

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Advisors , LPL Financial and L3 Leadership

2:12

are separate entities . I

2:14

also want to thank our sponsor , Henne Jewelers . They're a jewel

2:16

earned by my friend and mentor , John Henne . My

2:18

wife Laura and I got our engagement and wedding rings

2:21

through Henne Jewelers and had an incredible experience

2:23

. And not only do they have great jewelry

2:25

, but they also invest in people . In fact , for every

2:27

couple that comes in engaged , they give them a book to

2:29

help them prepare for marriage , and we just love that . So

2:32

if you're in need of a good jeweler , check out HenneJewelerscom

2:35

. And I also want to thank our new sponsor , reiturn . com

2:37

and Leader . Let me just ask you this have

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circular if you're interested in investing . With

2:57

all that being said , let's dive right in . Here's my lesson

2:59

on the lessons that I learned in writing my first

3:01

book . Enjoy , hey , leader , it

3:05

has been a while since I've done a personal lesson on the

3:07

podcast , but I couldn't be more excited about

3:09

today's lesson , and that's because I have exciting

3:11

news to share with you . And the exciting news is

3:13

I wrote a book . Yes

3:16

, that's right , I wrote a book . And this

3:18

is such huge news because this has

3:20

been a dream in my heart for over 20

3:22

years . Yes , just a few weeks

3:24

ago , on a Saturday morning , I wrote the last word

3:26

in the first draft of my book and

3:28

completed it , and in completion

3:30

, listen to this my final draft has 224

3:33

pages , 77,445

3:37

words and 415,424

3:40

characters . And let

3:42

me just be clear I did write a book , but I have

3:44

not published the book yet , so it's not

3:46

available . But why I'm doing this lesson

3:49

is because I know many of you

3:51

want to write a book . I've talked to many of you for

3:53

years . I've wanted to write a book , and I always

3:55

love when I interview someone that has written a book

3:57

. I love asking them questions about how

3:59

did they actually write it , how did they get it done , what's

4:02

the process . And that's my hope today

4:04

is , if you've ever wanted to write a book , I'm going

4:06

to share with you the lessons that I've learned in the past

4:08

year on how I actually completed

4:10

my first book , and my hope is that it'll

4:13

provide the inspiration , the motivation and

4:16

the actual process that you need to write

4:18

your first book , because I believe everyone

4:20

should have write at least one book in their lifetime , even

4:22

if it's just for their family . You have a message

4:24

that the world and your family needs

4:27

, and so let's dive right into what I

4:29

learned in the process of writing my first book . Before

4:33

I begin with the lessons , though , I want to start with giving you a

4:35

little bit of context about my journey to

4:37

get to this point . I already

4:39

mentioned that it was 20 plus years that I've had

4:41

this dream in my heart of writing a book , and

4:44

in those 20 years I probably had five to 10

4:46

serious attempts to actually

4:49

write a book . Where I got started

4:51

, I made a little bit of progress , but then I would get

4:53

frustrated . I would get overwhelmed

4:55

by how enormous the project seemed to me . I

4:58

had all these questions , and then I would just shut down

5:00

and basically push it aside and

5:02

say , well , hey , maybe one day I'll

5:04

get to it . For years , I've had

5:07

writing a book as a goal in my

5:09

mastermind groups , that I've shared publicly

5:11

with them every single year that

5:13

I want to write a book , and that was going to be the year I

5:15

write one . I've been a part of leadership programs

5:18

where I've also shared publicly that I had a goal

5:20

that specific here to write one and

5:22

I didn't , and sharing with friends

5:24

that I've wanted to write a book . I've had so much encouragement

5:27

of people telling me Doug , you're called to write

5:29

you . You know , the world needs your message , the

5:31

next generation needs this message . Get it

5:33

out there . And what do I have to show

5:35

for all of that ? Nothing

5:38

. I had nothing to show for that in over 20

5:40

years , which was extremely frustrating and

5:42

, honestly , it was a little bit discouraging to me and

5:44

I just thought am I ever going to be able to write a book

5:46

, or is this just something that I'm not ultimately called

5:49

to do ? Well , obviously

5:51

I'm sharing with you the news that I

5:53

wrote it . And so what changed

5:55

? What changed ? Because the reality is

5:57

, for 20 years I had that dream

5:59

to write a book , had nothing to show for it , but

6:01

then , all of a sudden , within one year , I got the

6:03

book done and , honestly , in the actual part

6:05

that I played in it , it only took me two months to

6:07

write the entire book . So what

6:09

changed ? Let me dive into that . Number one

6:11

. I read a book by Dan Sullivan in

6:14

Benjamin Hardy called who , not

6:16

how . Again , the book is called who

6:18

, not how and it is a phenomenal

6:20

book . It's a must read . If you haven't read it yet , go

6:22

buy it on Amazon right now . But the

6:24

whole premise of the book is a principle that Dan Sullivan

6:27

calls who , not how , and he

6:29

basically said if you find yourself with any

6:31

goal asking how am I going to do

6:33

this ? Over and over and over again and you're not

6:35

making any progress , you should stop

6:37

asking how am I going to do this and

6:39

instead ask who can help me do this . Stop

6:42

asking how and start asking who

6:44

, and it's likely that there's probably

6:47

a who out there who could help you

6:49

get what you need to get done with ease

6:51

, because it's something that they're really really good

6:53

at . And so after reading that book

6:55

, I said I've been trying to write a book for 20 years

6:57

and asking how and how , how

6:59

, how , how , over and over again . Maybe

7:01

I need to look for a who . Well

7:03

, funny enough , I decided to look for a who and

7:06

I found one relatively quickly . I

7:08

was scrolling and it was kind of random . I was scrolling on

7:10

LinkedIn one day and I saw this woman

7:12

post a photo of a book . And this woman used

7:14

to intern with us at Light of Life many years ago

7:16

and she was holding a book , a

7:18

book by David Green , the founder of Hobby

7:21

Lobby and I thought , oh , that would be interesting

7:23

, I'll reach out to her . I wonder if she knows David Green . I

7:25

would love to interview him for the podcast . So

7:27

I reached out to her and I said , hey , how do you know David Green ? I'd love

7:29

to interview him . Any chance you could connect us . And

7:31

she said , oh , I actually Ghost

7:34

wrote his book for him . And I said what Like ? You

7:36

wrote his book , you do that . And

7:38

I said you do that for anyone ? And we

7:40

started talking . And then , all of a sudden , we started talking

7:42

about what it would look like to work together and

7:44

for her to help me write my first book

7:46

and Shazam . We decided , hey

7:49

, let's move forward and working together , and

7:52

six months later I had

7:54

my first book , and so deciding

7:56

to look for a who , instead of asking how

7:58

, literally expedited

8:00

the process more than 10x

8:03

, 100x , and that was absolutely

8:05

huge . So I just want to encourage you if you've

8:07

been asking how , whether it's writing a book or some other

8:09

goal that you have over and over and over again . Maybe

8:11

you need to stop asking how and start looking for

8:14

a who . So what did I learn

8:16

in working with a who ? Well , I started working

8:18

with her names Annika and Annika , if you're listening

8:20

to this . Thank you , thank you , thank you . I

8:22

would not have finished this book without you . You

8:25

are awesome and I loved every minute of working with

8:27

you , and if any of you are looking for someone

8:29

to work with , I'd love to connect with Annika . I'll

8:31

include her contact info in the show

8:33

notes as well , but in working with her

8:35

, how we actually work together is one

8:37

. Up front , we agreed on the length of the

8:40

book , which I'll talk about in a second . Two

8:43

. I made it clear to her that she

8:45

wouldn't have to work from scratch . I'll

8:47

get to this point later , but I've been creating content

8:49

for over 20 years , so in a lot of ways

8:51

, I feel like I had the content necessary to

8:54

actually put a book together . I just needed someone

8:56

to take it and organize it . So that was really helpful

8:59

in us working together . And

9:01

then I obviously paid her for her work , and

9:03

again , that's part of the who . Yes , I invested

9:05

in that , but had I not made that investment in

9:07

Antica , I wouldn't have a book today . So you

9:10

may have to make an investment in yourself

9:12

and in a who to help you achieve your

9:14

goal , but I'm here to tell you it was worth every

9:16

single penny . So how did

9:18

it play out working with Antica ? Well

9:21

, the first thing is she organized , she

9:23

outlined and she provided structure for

9:25

my book , and this was absolutely

9:28

huge and , looking back , for me

9:30

personally , this was the biggest thing

9:32

that I needed . The biggest thing that held me back for 20

9:35

years is the way I'm

9:37

wired . I could not , for the life of

9:39

me , organize and outline and

9:41

provide structure that I needed for the book

9:43

, and so when Antica did that , that changed

9:45

everything for me , and then Antica

9:47

actually started writing the book . So we

9:49

put together an outline and she started writing

9:51

, and I think she wrote , you know , about 10 to 15

9:54

chapters , and then I would go in

9:56

and actually read it , rewrite

9:58

it , make suggestions , et cetera . Well , what

10:01

I ended up finding in the process is one I'm a control

10:03

freak , and so I unfortunately ended

10:05

up rewriting most of the book to

10:07

sound I wanted it to sound more like me

10:09

. Antica did a phenomenal job . I'm just a

10:11

weird control freak , but again , in

10:14

rewriting it , what I found was , again

10:16

, I just needed someone to provide the structure

10:18

, the outline and organize

10:20

all of my thoughts , and Antica did that . So

10:22

, moving forward , in the future , if I write multiple

10:24

books , I'm not going to pay someone to actually write a

10:26

book for me , because I found out that I

10:29

actually do have the capability of doing that

10:31

, but I do need someone to

10:33

help me on the front end put all the structure

10:35

and everything together . That was absolutely

10:38

huge , and so that's how I ended

10:40

up working with Antica . It was so

10:42

great . And so , again , look for who be

10:45

willing to invest in a who . That could be just

10:47

the thing that you need to get over the hump with

10:49

your goal . So a few other lessons

10:51

. I learned that I needed to write daily

10:54

. I needed to write daily

10:56

and , as many of you know , I'm a John

10:58

Maxwell fan and I remember hearing John

11:01

say to people all the time . He said people

11:03

come up to me all the time and say John , how do I , how

11:05

can I write a book ? And he said

11:07

I always ask them the same question Well , have

11:10

you started writing ? And he

11:12

said 99% of the time , their answers no , I haven't started

11:14

writing . And he said well , chances are , if you haven't

11:16

started writing , then whatever you want to write

11:18

will never be written , just start

11:21

. And then he said he's very quick to encourage

11:23

them that in the beginning they won't be very good and

11:25

that's OK , just start writing

11:28

. And for me , I realized that if

11:30

I'm ever going to actually make this happen , I actually need

11:32

to make the commitment to write every day . So for me , what

11:34

that looked like is I chose five to

11:36

six am every single day to write , and

11:39

that was the sacrifice that I made . That's usually

11:42

the time where I read for an

11:44

hour . I read books and just spend time with God

11:46

. And for a season and I heard Mark Batterson

11:48

talk about this Mark Batterson's a published author

11:50

. He's published many books . He said if you're

11:52

an author , there's going to be seasons that are writing

11:54

seasons in your life and you have to make

11:57

some changes to your daily routine . And he does the

11:59

same thing he does not read during

12:01

his writing season . So I committed five

12:03

to six am every day to start writing

12:06

, and at first it was a little bit challenging

12:08

. But what was beautiful about it ? And this is

12:10

the way that so many disciplines are is

12:12

once I started seeing a little momentum and traction

12:15

. Then it became really , really easy

12:17

. In fact , by the toward the end of

12:19

the book I could not wait , like I was waking

12:21

up at four or four thirty every morning

12:23

with an anticipation and an excitement to

12:25

write , because I could not wait to let my

12:27

feet hit the floor and my fingers hit the keyboard

12:29

, because I was so excited because I started

12:31

seeing momentum and for me I had my table

12:33

of contents and

12:35

anytime I would finish a chapter I would just put

12:38

in parentheses next to that chapter Doug dash

12:40

done and seeing that once

12:42

it once I saw that happen with one chapter and

12:45

another chapter and another chapter . That momentum

12:47

got me so fired up . And now I

12:49

would say , even though I finished the book , I'm

12:51

still waking up and writing content every day , which

12:54

is beautiful , and so that's going to really help

12:56

me in the future . And this is the same with

12:58

all daily disciplines . You all know probably , and

13:00

have heard on the podcast . My favorite quote of all time is

13:03

from my high school football coach , jim Rankin , who said

13:05

day to day intensity , week

13:07

to week consistency builds

13:09

champions . And that's what I found with writing . It's

13:12

day to day intensity , waking up and committing

13:14

to writing every day , week to week consistency

13:16

. That will ultimately get you a book

13:18

. And so for me , it took day to day intensity

13:20

and week to week to consistency for two

13:23

months and for me to get my

13:25

book done , but that's what it took . So

13:27

make a commitment to write every day and

13:29

let me just say this not everything you write has to be

13:31

published , right , you could just write

13:33

to write , you can write in your journal , you could just write on

13:35

a notepad , but just get in the habit

13:37

of writing every day . The

13:39

next lesson and I alluded to this earlier but

13:42

Creating content

13:44

consistently matters . And

13:47

again I mentioned , even though I just started

13:49

writing my book a few months ago , I've been

13:51

writing content for over 20

13:53

years . I mean , I try to write a

13:55

social media post five to seven days a

13:57

week , so I'm creating content almost

13:59

every day . I do a weekly podcast with

14:01

personal lessons and so I can take all

14:04

those podcasts and actually transcribe them and

14:06

have a ton of content there . When I go speak

14:08

places or speak in churches , I'm writing

14:10

lessons . So I'm always writing content

14:12

and make sure that when you write content , you

14:14

save it and organize it in a place that

14:16

you can actually find what you're looking for , and so

14:19

, when I started working with Annika to write this

14:21

book , I literally had

14:23

probably two to 300 files

14:25

worth of content on the different subjects

14:27

that I thought would fit into the book

14:29

, and so being able to take all of that and look through

14:32

what I've already written made writing a book so

14:34

much easier , and so I'd

14:36

really encourage you if you're not in the

14:38

consistent habit of writing content , find

14:41

a way to do that . Maybe you're not a pastor

14:43

and you don't have to write a sermon every week , but find some

14:45

way that motivates you to create content

14:47

consistently . It's huge . The

14:50

next lesson would be keeping your why in

14:52

front of you matters . Keeping

14:55

your why in front of you matters . Now

14:57

, if you wanna write a book , or really if you have any goal , you

14:59

have to determine why do you actually want that ? You

15:02

know , if you wanna write a book , do you wanna become famous , do you

15:04

wanna get rich , or do you just wanna make a difference ? And

15:06

I'm not here to tell you what your goal should be or your

15:08

why should be , but you need to know your why up front

15:10

. For me , I had two specific whys

15:13

that I kept in front of me while writing this book

15:15

. The first why was my children . I

15:17

heard Mark Batterson say a long time ago when it

15:19

comes to writing books . He said everyone

15:22

should write at least one book , if for nothing else

15:24

for their children . And for

15:26

me , as I was writing this book , I

15:28

just thought when my kids are older I have

15:30

four kids under seven right now when

15:32

they're older , if I could sit down and give them a book

15:34

that I think would help them build a foundation for their

15:36

life like this would be the book . In

15:39

fact , without going into details

15:41

of what my book is completely about , when

15:43

I was 30 and I did a decade review , god

15:45

spoke to my heart , not in an audible voice , but just

15:48

inside , and I just felt like he said Doug , in

15:50

your 20s I gave you a foundation to build

15:52

your life on . In your 30s I'm

15:54

gonna give you something to say , and in your 40s

15:57

I'm gonna give you the platform to say it . And

15:59

for me , this book that I wrote , this first

16:01

book , is the foundation that

16:03

God gave me in my 20s . And

16:05

I get invited to coffee a lot

16:08

of times with young leaders asking me

16:10

hey , how do I build a great life , how

16:12

do I turn my life around ? And if I were

16:14

to have coffee with 10,000 of those people like , this

16:16

is the book that I would give them . This is the

16:18

book that I would give my children to build a great life

16:20

. And so that was my why , and I kept that in front of

16:22

me and I visualized my kids reading this book . I visualized

16:25

and that's my second point my second why

16:27

was I

16:29

wrote it for the person that I used to be . This

16:32

was huge . I wrote it for the person that I used to

16:34

be , and so I heard I think

16:36

it was Rory Vaden say this recently . He said we're most

16:38

equipped to reach the person that we used to be

16:40

. I think that is so powerful . And

16:42

as I wrote this book , I thought what

16:45

book do I wish I would have had handed

16:47

to me when I was 17 years old , on

16:49

my way to becoming a drug addict , on my way to becoming

16:51

an alcoholic , had no direction in life

16:53

. What would I wish someone would have gave

16:55

me to read ? And this is the book . So those are

16:57

the two whys that I had in mind my children

17:00

, next generation , and the person

17:02

that I used to be , keeping that in

17:04

front of me really helped motivate me to keep writing

17:06

every day . The next

17:08

lesson is just encouragement matters . This should come

17:10

as no surprise , but you need to surround yourself

17:12

with people who are gonna encourage you and that cause

17:15

you to dream big and go for it . And

17:17

I had so many friends encourage me along the way . I remember

17:20

having coffee with Matt Geppert , my friend for the

17:22

first time , and I didn't even say anything

17:24

but he said , doug , your call to write , you

17:26

need to write a book , the next generation needs

17:29

your book , and he's told me that pretty much in every

17:31

meeting that we've had since . I had another

17:33

friend , jenny , who was constantly saying did you start writing

17:36

yet ? Start writing , start writing , the world needs your

17:38

book . I had another friend , chris Murasca

17:40

, who literally handed me an envelope and I opened

17:42

it and had a check made out to me for $20

17:44

, saying that I wanna buy the first copy of

17:47

your book . My wife has been encouraging

17:49

me daily , having people around you

17:51

to continually tell you get it out , there's something

17:53

in you . The world needs what you have . Having

17:55

that encouragement made an enormous difference

17:57

in the journey of getting there . The

18:00

next thing I would tell you and the lesson that I learned

18:02

is it was time . It

18:04

was time and I'd be lying to you if timing

18:06

didn't play into this . And what's

18:08

interesting is I've mentioned 20

18:11

plus years I've been dreaming of doing

18:13

this and I remember about 10 years ago I

18:15

was in a leadership program and

18:17

one of my mentors , rick Wellock , was there and

18:19

I had shared with the group hey , I'm gonna write a

18:21

book , that's my goal this year . And

18:23

Rick pulled me aside . He said , doug , you're already

18:26

writing your book . So what do

18:28

you mean ? I'm already writing my book . Like I

18:30

hadn't started writing it yet . He said

18:32

you're already writing your book . And that's all he said to me and

18:34

I didn't necessarily understand what he meant

18:36

at that time . But now , looking back , I do know what

18:38

he meant . He said you're living out

18:40

the principles that one day you'll

18:42

share in the book that's worth actually

18:45

reading . And

18:47

what I found is that we live in a world where everyone

18:49

wants a platform , everyone wants to write a book , everyone so

18:51

to be a YouTube star , but nobody actually has

18:53

much to say . And

18:56

I think if I would have wrote this book

18:58

at any other time or earlier in my life , I

19:00

wouldn't have had enough credibility or

19:02

enough life experience To actually

19:04

write this book , to make it a meaningful book

19:06

and to make it a book worth reading . But

19:09

because I've been living these principles that I'm sharing

19:11

in this book for the past 20 years . Writing

19:13

it was easy , and I believe I have something

19:15

Significant to say for the

19:17

audience that I'm intending to reach through this

19:20

book . And so timing played a huge part

19:22

in this , and so I would also encourage you , especially

19:25

if you're a person of faith , trust God for his timing

19:27

. You know , it was great . I had

19:29

a dream for 20 years , but maybe God didn't want me to write

19:31

a book for 20 years . Maybe there's a specific reason

19:33

. Now is the time that he wanted me to write this . So

19:36

, and and I would just say this , when it is

19:38

time , it was easy and light

19:40

. Right there , I told you , I tried five or

19:42

ten times Throughout that

19:44

20 years of actually starting to write a book , and

19:46

it just seemed hard , it seemed uphill , but

19:49

this time , this time when I wrote it

19:51

, it was easy and light . It

19:53

doesn't mean it wasn't challenging . It doesn't mean it wasn't hard work

19:55

it was , but there was something about

19:57

the timing of it in the piece and the

19:59

ease of which it came out of my heart that

20:02

I just feel like sharing . It was time for

20:04

this book . I thought that was worth sharing

20:06

with you and and just pray about hey , is

20:08

it time for you to do whatever's in your

20:10

heart , whether that's write a book , start a podcast , etc . And

20:13

if you feel like it's time , then go for it . And

20:16

the last piece of advice I'd share is , specifically

20:18

, if you want to write books , is , have a vision for writing multiple

20:21

books . Have a vision

20:23

for writing multiple books . I was

20:25

listening to one of the top literary agents in

20:27

the world recently on a podcast and

20:29

she said you know now , when people publish books , publishing

20:31

a book is basically creating a business in and of

20:34

itself . And what we're looking for in authors

20:36

, we're looking for authors who want to write multiple

20:38

books and and basically create a business

20:40

of Writing books every couple of years and

20:42

getting them out there . And I've always

20:44

and again , inspired by John Maxwell , I've wanted

20:46

to write dozens of books throughout my my

20:49

lifetime and having that vision

20:51

made me realize very , very quickly to not

20:53

get so caught up in being a perfectionist . I

20:55

just need to get the first book out . Again I

20:58

alluded to , or I said it earlier . John Maxwell said

21:00

in the beginning , you're not very good , but

21:02

if you never write your first book , you're never gonna

21:04

get to your second book . If you never write your first

21:06

book , you're never gonna get to the fourth , fifth book . And Maybe

21:09

the first book is great and it's awesome , but maybe it's not

21:11

, even if it's not . Your third or fourth

21:13

book may be Phenomenal and it may

21:15

be the very book that God wants to use to reach

21:17

the world , but if you never write the first

21:19

book , you're never gonna get to the fourth book . So have

21:22

a vision for many books . Don't get so caught

21:24

up in perfectionism world , that you think

21:26

this book's the only book that you'll ever write . Hey

21:28

, get it out there . And hey , even if it's the only

21:30

book you ever write . That's why they also have

21:32

second editions and third editions . You could always

21:35

go back and add to it and change it later

21:37

, but have a vision for multiple books . That'll

21:39

make it easier for you to get over Worrying

21:41

about this book being perfect , because

21:43

it's not gonna be perfect , it's gonna be imperfect , but

21:46

get it out there . Be willing and courageous

21:48

enough to ship something into the

21:50

world that you wrote . And so

21:52

those are the big things that really helped me

21:54

write my first draft from my book that

21:57

I wanted to share with you today . So what's

21:59

next for me ? Well , I'm

22:01

really gonna be taking time to research and

22:03

actually pray about what are the next steps for me

22:05

with this book . Should I go the self publishing

22:07

route ? Should I look for an agent

22:10

and try to get a traditional publisher and go

22:12

that route ? So that's what's next for me

22:14

and , as always , once I go through that

22:16

process any lessons that I learned I'll eventually

22:18

do another podcast of Saying

22:20

, hey , lessons that I learned in publishing and editing

22:23

and getting my book out into the world . And

22:25

if any of you are listening to this and you are an agent

22:27

or publishing house or published books and you

22:29

have any advice for me , I would appreciate

22:31

you reaching out . You can just email me at Doug Smith

22:33

at L3 leadershiporg

22:35

or find me on social media . I'm

22:37

not very hard to find , but I'd love to talk to you

22:39

and I would love any advice that you have . So

22:42

I want to end the the

22:44

episode by just encouraging you . If you

22:46

listen to this and you have a dream to write a book , write

22:48

it . I'm here to tell you . The world needs your message

22:51

. Your family needs your message . Everyone

22:53

around you needs the message that God has

22:55

put in your heart . So just go for it and hopefully

22:57

today you were encouraged that you can do it

22:59

and maybe you got a step

23:01

or two that was practical for

23:03

you to actually get it done . So

23:07

that's all I have . I'll talk to you next episode . Go

23:09

write your book . You can do it . If I can do it , anyone

23:11

can do it . I promise you . I'll talk to you next episode . Well

23:14

, leader , thank you so much for listening to my lesson on

23:16

the lessons that I learned in writing my first book . I

23:18

hope it added value to you and that you enjoyed it . You

23:21

can find links to everything that I discussed within the

23:23

lesson at l3leadershiporg forward slash

23:25

390 . And , as always , leader , I want to

23:27

challenge you that if you want to 10X your growth this year , then

23:29

you need to either launch or join an L3 leadership

23:31

mastermind group . Mastermind groups are simply

23:33

groups of six to 12 leaders that meet together on

23:35

a consistent basis for at least one year in

23:38

order to help each other grow , hold each other accountable

23:40

and to do life together . For me personally , mastermind

23:42

groups have been the greatest source of growth in my life over

23:44

the last eight years . So if you're interested in

23:46

learning more about launching or joining a group , go to

23:48

l3leadershiporg , forward , slash masterminds

23:51

or email me at dugsmithl3leadershiporg

23:54

. And , as always , I like to end every

23:56

episode with a quote , and I'll quote Craig Groeschel today

23:58

, who said this . He said you can have control

24:01

or you can have growth , but

24:03

you cannot have both . That's

24:06

a challenge for all of us leaders . Well , hey , I hope

24:08

you enjoyed the episode . Know that my wife Lauren

24:10

, I love you , we believe in you and

24:12

I say it every episode . But don't quit , keep

24:14

leading . The world desperately needs

24:16

your leadership .