Jeff Goins's Blog, page 39

How to Overcome the Fear of Rejection with Jia Jiang

For many years, I suppressed my dream of being a writer. I made every excuse imaginable to stay in my comfort zone. Before I could break through my self-imposed limitations, I had to listen to my life to know exactly what I was fighting.

The fear of rejection is an enemy I have to regularly stare down and fight. And it’s a common enemy faced by nearly every writer I know.

“What if people don’t like what I have to say?” “What if no one thinks my writing is any good?” “What if someone leaves a scathing review online?” These are common questions that can plague the thoughts of any writer. And if we allow them to, these endless “what if” questions can have the power to imprison us in an open cell of fear.

But hear me when I say this: The fear you feel is normal. What I’ve learned from writers and my own experience is that you never stop feeling fear. You just have to learn how to move on in spite of it.

This week on The Portfolio Life, Jia Jiang and I discuss how intentionally seeking out rejection for 100 days helped him to overcome the fear of rejection. Jia had a dream of becoming an entrepreneur, but he was on the verge of throwing in the towel after being rejected by a potential investor. Thankfully for Jia, the rejection he experienced led him to listen to his life, face his fear of rejection and move forward through the crippling fear he felt in pursuit of his dream.

Listen in as Jia shares stories and the lessons he learned from seeking out rejection. Since rejection comes with the territory of being a writer, I encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity to learn from someone who’s having success overcoming their fears.

Listen to the podcast

To listen to the show, click the player below. (If you’re reading this via email or RSS, please click here.)

Show highlights

In this episode, Jia and I discuss:

The three things Jia learned from pursuing rejection.
One small thing you can do to overcome big fears.
What successful people do not do after being rejected.
Why we need to push through our personal comfort zones for personal growth.
Jia’s decision to no longer (literally) run away from rejection.
Why the fear of rejection is all about perspective.
How succumbing to the fear of rejection will lead you to miss opportunities.
Why rejecting ourselves is the worst kind of rejection.

Quotes and takeaways

Rejecting ourselves is the worst kind of rejection.
“Avoiding rejection is worse than receiving it.” —Jia Jiang.
Taking a small step out of your comfort zone can lead to big strides of courage.

Resources

Rejection Proof , by Jia Jiang.
Jia Jiang’s website, Fearbuster.com.
Surprising Lessons From 100 Days of Rejection, Jia Jiang’s TEDx talk.

What is one small step you can take today to help move you towards overcoming your fear of rejection? Share in the comments.

The Surprising Secret to Becoming a Great Writer

How do you become great at something, maybe anything? One of the biggest myths I see people, especially writers, believe about growing in their craft is that it’s all about practice. Sorry, but that’s just not true. There’s more to it than that.

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As I’ve written before, practice is essential to getting better at any skill—especially writing. But how this is done is often a mystery to many people. Becoming great at a particular skill is not just about what you do or how you do it. It’s also about who you learn from.

I’ll say that again to emphasize how important this really is. Any fool can practice. But to master any skill, you must find the right teacher.

How Hemingway became better, then became great

Ernest Hemingway moved to Paris in the 1920s to become a writer. And what was the first thing he did? He sought out the greatest writers he could find, many of whom happened to be living there at the time.

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This was not a coincidence. Since coming home from serving with the Red Cross in WWI, he was determined to become a great writer. He began with journalism, living and working in Toronto for a year. But he soon realized this was not enough for him. He needed to be around the writing teachers he never had.

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So he moved home to Chicago and sought out Sherwood Anderson, a popular novelist at the time. Hemingway asked Anderson what he should do, and Anderson told him to move to Paris, where “the most interesting people in the world lived.”

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What happened next is what resulted in a young journalist becoming the most famous author of the 20th Century. I’m not overstating my case here. Mention the name Hemingway to anyone familiar with the English language, and they will nod in recognition of the name, even if they’ve never read anything by him.

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But how did Ernest—the unknown writer—transition to Papa, the legendary writer history won’t soon forget? And how did it all happen in seven short years? The difference wasn’t any innate talent of Hemingway’s. It was the education he received in Paris and the people he learned from there.

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Hemingway became better by practicing. There’s no question about that. He had incredible discipline and dedication, but he didn’t learn these things on his own. No one does. In Paris, he had the right mentors who guided him in his journey towards greatness, and that’s everything.

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Take Hemingway out of Paris, and you don’t get Hemingway. And there’s a lesson in there for all of us.

Greatness begins with learning from the greats

The first step towards greatness is to get around the right people. Fortunately, you don’t have to move overseas to do this. But you can’t get great on your own. You will need help. And the good news is help is all around us. We just need to recognize it.

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I call this an Accidental Apprenticeship.

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In the Middle Ages, people became professionals by studying for years under a master. They often worked for free in exchange for free living quarters and invaluable experience. Most apprenticeships lasted seven years before the apprentice went to work on his own. Incidentally, this is precisely how long Hemingway lived in Paris.

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Today, most professions lack a formal apprenticeship process. There are still a few vocations that require it, but for many of us—especially those working in the arts—the best apprenticeship we may have is a summer internship fetching donuts for our boss each morning, which will not lead us to greatness.

So what can we do? Are we lost to squander our time here on earth, unable to reach our potential because we lack the right guides and teachers? Not at all.

Note: If you want to join me for a free book study this summer, you can join here for free. Each week, we’ll read a chapter of my best-selling book, The Art of Work, and I’ll do a live video answering any questions you may have. Click here to watch last week’s session.What we have is a network of mentors all around us—in books, blogs, and even in our everyday conversations. The hard part, then, is to recognize these people while they’re in front of us so that we can make the most of the opportunity.

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The truth is life is your apprenticeship, and the more you embrace this reality, the more you will learn. And the more you learn, the better you get. So if you want to become better at what you do, you can’t just sit in a room and practice for eight hours a day. You have to learn from the greats, which begins with a very important but scary choice.

You won’t have just one mentor

Most of us will not have one lifelong mentor who changes everything for us. We will have a multitude of mentors, some of which come in and out of our lives without our even noticing it until they are already gone.

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But as I said before, the better you get about recognizing these people, the more you will grow. How do you recognize a mentor? Simple. A mentor is anyone you can learn anything from. In other words, anyone can be a mentor.

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The way you find the right teachers, though, is you learn to ask the right questions. And let’s begin with the wrong questions to ask. Here are the things you should avoid:

Can I pick your brain?
Can I ask a favor?
Will you mentor me?

That’s right. These are practically the worst things you could say to a prospective mentor.

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Why?

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Because picking a person’s brain does not honor their time and experience. Instead, ask to buy their lunch and come with specific questions about why they made this choice or that and how it led to their success.

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Because asking for favors is not something you do the first or second time you meet someone. It happens long after you’ve established trust with that person.

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Because asking someone to mentor you is the worst way to find a mentor. The best way is to build the relationship organically and give a name to it later. Most mentors, though not all, operate this way. They want to invest in you and see if you are teachable before formalizing the relationship with titles that neither of you may necessarily be able to live up to.

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But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. If you can learn from practically anyone and they’re just an email away, how do you find them? Well, that’s the scary part: you have to reach out to people who might reject you. And most people do this the wrong way.

How to get an influencer on your side

People often ask me how I met Michael Hyatt, a popular blogger, and author who has been instrumental in my success. There’s no doubt that if I hadn’t met him, I would be much further behind in my career.

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What people don’t realize is that I intentionally sought out Michael, spending the greater part of a year getting to know him. We met for coffee when it was convenient for him. (The first time we did this, I waited two months just for something to open up on his calendar.)

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Then we exchanged over 50 emails (I went back and counted them) over the course of seven months before I asked him to do anything. What was I doing in those 25 emails I sent him that he replied to? Asking for small pieces of advice on my blog and in my writing career.

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I learned this from my first boss and mentor Seth Barnes, who taught me that any time a person of influence gives you their time, you must take notes and then tell them how you put into action whatever advice you gave them.

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This is so rare. I often tell people when I meet with them that if they do this, it almost guarantees I will help them in some way. Still, most people don’t do it. The way you get a mentor to invest in you is to honor their influence.

Three practical steps you can take to make this work

What does that look like practically? Put their advice into action. It’s just that simple. You don’t even need to meet them in person to do this. Here’s how it works:

1. Stalk your mentor

Yes, you heard me. Read everything they’ve written. Buy their books. Listen to their podcasts. Almost every leader has a digital footprint these days, so find it and use it to study this person. Become very familiar with their work before you reach out to them. No, this is not creepy. It’s how you honor people who have spent years developing a body of work.

2. Put the mentor’s advice into action

For example, I tell people if they want to write, they first should start calling themselves a writer. So when people tell me that my book helped them to call themselves a writer, an artist, or whatever, I love hearing that and often want to help share that story. My friend Bryan calls this the Poster Boy Formula. It works because you’re making the influencer look good.

3. Reach out to the mentor

After you’ve done all of this, your next step is to reach out to your prospective mentor and engage them. Like I mentioned above, this will take time and patience. But if you do this right, you will win this person over.

All you want to do in the first few emails is let them know how you’re applying what you’re learning from them (without them having to expend any extra energy teaching you one-on-one). Because it’s one thing to be a person’s fan. It’s another to prove their stuff works. (Incidentally, this works for authors of fiction, too; you just want to demonstrate that their words have influenced you in some way.)

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If you do this, as Hemingway did, you will attract the attention of many mentors who want to help you succeed. They will find you irresistible. Why? Because a teachable spirit is rare.

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Allow me to illustrate with an example.

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Recently, I hired an editor who spent months seeking me out, offering to help me. I wasn’t sure what she was looking for. Was she just trying to do something so that I would owe her? Unfortunately, a lot of people take this approach, so many influencers can be skeptical.

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But the more I interacted with this person on social media, the more I realized she had been reading and studying my work for years. How did I know? Because she would randomly reference my worst-selling book or recall some random detail about my life that I had blogged about years ago.

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Did I feel creeped out by this? Not at all. I was humbled, honored even. Because this is why I do what I do—I want to connect with people.

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Every writer secretly fears no one cares about their work. So when you, the apprentice, reach out to the master and tell them, “Yes, I’ve been paying attention and putting it all into action,” how do you not want to spend more time with that person, and help her in some way?

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Like I said, hard to resist.

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So there you go—a simple formula for getting influencers to pay attention to you and maybe even mentor you. Stalk. Apply. Ask. It’s that simple and that hard.

If you’re interested in learning more about finding a mentor, then join me and others this Wednesday for a discussion on this topic based upon my book The Art of Work. This is a free book study, and you don’t have to buy the book to join the conversation.

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What have you learned about mentoring and getting in front of influential people? Do you have any experiences of doing this right or wrong? Share in the comments.

Are You Ready to Quit? Ask These Three Questions First

Note: This is a guest post by Nicki Koziarz. Nicki is an author and speaker with Proverbs 31 Ministries. Visit 5habitsbook.com to learn more about her best-selling book, 5 Habits of a Woman Who Doesn’t Quit.

Hi, I’m Nicki, and I’m an expert quitter! You read that right. I’ve quit pretty much everything at some point in my life. From dreams to workout programs, the list is endless.

And if you need to know how to quit something, come see me. I can help you find the perfect way out.

Eventually, though, I got sick of being “her,” a woman who gave up so easily. Because who wants to be known as a quitter?

So, I’ve done a lot of self-reflection the past few years. And I found out I wasn’t the only one quitting. After taking a poll of my blog readers, I discovered a common thread. My readers said their number one struggle was falling into the same cycle of defeat over and over.

This isn’t something only my blog readers struggle with. Andy Stanley once said that 90% of people who feel led to do “something significant” may start it but never see it all the way through to completion. Whether we want to admit it or not, quitting is something our culture is struggling with.

Tools to help you keep on going

There’s no perfect rhythm or formula for overcoming this constant opposition in our lives, but I’ve found some helpful tools to keep me going. And today I want to share three questions that are helping me overcome giving in to the temptation to give up.

1. Is it time to quit this or is it time to finish it?

There’s a difference between quitting something and finishing something. We should quit things like unhealthy relationships, bad habits or things that are not making our souls well. But maybe the desire to give up on an assignment is more of a need to finish it?

Evaluate whether your assignment has a finish line or if it’s something you’re going to have to keep working through. Also, seeking a trusted friend’s opinion on your decision and perspective can be incredibly helpful.

2. Am I looking for an easy button?

I have found most people want to give up because it just gets hard. And I totally get this. I’ve often wondered why it’s so hard and complicated to fulfill the things we were created to do. Shouldn’t it be easy?

Well, one of the things I love about the Bible is that it never tells us this life will be easy, but it does say with God, all things are possible (Matt. 19:26).

I don’t fully understand the strength of God, but I know it meets me when I feel the weakest. So sometimes it means I have to let my soul go through some hard places. And hard places aren’t fun, but they are the places our character has the most potential to develop.

3. Is there one more step?

A wise scholar once defined perseverance as, “A long obedience in the same direction.” Maybe there’s one more step in the right direction you need to take before you follow through with your desire to take a detour.

What if it’s just one more workout to push you past the plateau or one more time to pitch your book idea? I don’t want to be laying in a bed of “what if’s” at the end of my life. So consider if you’ve exhausted every option before you throw in the towel.

You are not defined by what you quit

Quitting isn’t really my story or yours. It’s a blog post, it’s a chapter in a book, but it’s not who we are. Within each of us is a spirit of perseverance. We want to finish. Some of us just may need to dust that spirit off a little more than others. And if that’s where you find yourself today, it’s ok. Me too.

But let’s not stay there. Let’s mix our footwork with our faith and see these mountains in our lives start to move.

Keep these three questions close by and the next time you’re ready to give “it” up, take a moment to ask them and consider their answer.

What is something you have recently given up on but believe you shouldn’t have quit? How can you get back on track? Share in the comments.

How to Figure Out What You’re Meant to do With Your Life

This is the second lesson of an eight-week book study I’m hosting live on The Art of Work. Be sure to join the book study so that you don’t miss next week’s lesson, and join the conversation live! Also, if you don’t have a Facebook account, we will post the replays here the day after.
Part 1

Part 2

Book study highlights

In this week’s lesson, I talk about:

How you can find your purpose when your plans fall apart
The first step in the process of finding your calling
How to get into your happiest state
Why what you do flows from who you are
What you can learn from your past
Why finding your dream is more of an act of recovery versus discovery
The importance of community in discovering your calling
Identifying the intersection of your passion, skill, and demand
Why you will receive clarity as you take the next step toward discovering your calling

Resources

Download The Art of Work workbook for free

I hope you’ll join me live next week for The Art of Work book study where we will discuss why you need a team of mentors to find your calling and why finding them is easier than you think.

If you want to move down the proven path to discovering what you were meant to do, then I encourage you to pick up a copy of The Art of Work.

Don’t forget to join the conversation going on at Facebook with myself and others. Go here to get started.

106: The Key to Getting Paid for What You Know with Dov Gordon

Many people I talk to ask me how they can make a living doing the work they love to do. They are enthusiastic, skilled at their craft, and passionate about what they do. So they’re normally surprised when I tell them they need more than passion and skills to succeed.

Your passion and skills are something that belongs to you. But if you want to make money doing what you love to do, then you need to provide something people need. In other words, don’t only do what you want to do. Do something for other people that they don’t know how to do or don’t have the time to do it. This is the key to getting paid for what you love and know.

This week on The Portfolio Life, Dov Gordon and I talk about simple strategies you can use to get paid for what you know. Dov provides a unique perspective in this conversation. He began as an entrepreneur without a college degree, and a loan from a family member helped him to pay for his way into a coach training school. Today, Dov works with consultants and coaches to help them create a consistent flow of new clients.

Listen in as Dov shares lessons you can learn and apply today to find new clients, and get paid for what you know.

Listen to the podcast

To listen to the show, click the player below (If you are reading this via email or RSS, please click here).

Show highlights

In this episode, Dov and I discuss:

Why you have to work differently today.
How you get started in getting paid for what you know.
Gaining confidence in conveying what you know.
The three questions your ideal client is going to ask.
How you can get someone to pay attention to what you have to offer.
Why everything you do needs to be geared towards helping your ideal client.
Where you need to focus your efforts to find your ideal clients.
How to best position what you know for the benefit of others.
The power of empathy in marketing your services.

Quotes and takeaways

You cannot follow the steps someone else took and expect to get the same results.
Every tactic can work, but every tactic can fail.
Help people where they’re at to get to where they want to be.
Sales is leadership. Leadership is helping someone make the right decision for themselves. It’s about overlapping your interest with theirs.

Resources

Dov Gordon’s recording on The Five Steps to a Consistent Flow of Clients.
Million Dollar Habits , by Robert Ringer.
Heat , by Bill Buford.
Book Yourself Solid , by Michael Port.

What problems can you help solve? Who has these problems, and how can you help them? Share in the comments.

The One Habit You Must Cultivate If You Don’t Want to Waste Your Life

“Become who you are. It happens once in a lifetime.”

–Switchfoot

Last week, while speaking on finding your purpose at a conference for young accountants, someone asked me an important question.

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I know. When you think Jeff Goins, the first word that comes to mind is accounting. I get that a lot.

The Painful Practice of Putting Your Art Out There

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Amy Crumpton—wife, mom, counselor, coach, coffee gal, wine pal, purpose liver, hope giver, Jesus lover, and rediscover-er of all things messy and meaningful at Purpose Dweller.

After years of blogging for a small email list, I’d finally slipped through a door at The Huffington Post with a story about discovering my purpose. In it, I offered a free trial for a course I’d created to help others discover their own callings.

I was excited like a kid at Christmas until I saw the first comment:

“As I read your article, I found myself entertaining hope again. Then I got to the end and saw you were just trying to sell me something. I want to judge you but God says I am supposed to forgive you. I don’t know if I can, but I hope God will.”

Shame rose up in me like steam from a whistling teapot as I turned the comment over and over in my head.

The blistering effects of criticism

Criticism can blister us like a red burner. The wound will heal, but it’s unnerving to keep working so near the hot stove.

I thought The Huffington Post door would open the door to a lot more opportunities. But as they expanded their blogger platform, readership dwindled and became divided.

I continued to post there, but I focused primarily on my own list. I blogged steadily, asked for feedback, invited comments, ramped up social sharing, and offered free stuff. I did everything I knew to do.

But the feedback was fleeting. Shares were rare. Free stuff just sat there. I heard nothing but crickets.

When nobody cares

Crickets are even worse than criticism. We persistently pour our hearts into our art as the silence screams, “Nobody gives a crap! Why do you keep trying?”

I threatened to quit almost every week, but timely encouragement from a reader would give me just enough gas to keep going.

I was whining one day, and my friend asked, “Are people unsubscribing?”

“No,” I replied.

“So at least you aren’t going backward,” she said, and she encouraged me to look again at the posts that did have feedback.

I took her advice and saw that readers had responded to my personal stories more than to my “how-to” articles.

Suddenly, I felt hopeful. Then immediately terrified (like that dream when you’re suddenly on stage in your undies, unable to figure out how you got there and why you can’t find your clothes).

To play it safe, I decided to start a new blog, separate from my old one. On it, I said things other counselors won’t and “good” Christians don’t. The list grew at a faster pace; readers commented. I was finally getting the feedback I craved.

I felt validated.

I was (almost) ready to abandon the original course I’d poured my time and savings into and chase the taste of an active tribe.

There was just one more thing…

I had a call with Jeff Goins scheduled. I’d been one of the first 10 people to sign up for Tribe Writers Premium on a webinar and had received this bonus.

I forwarded links to both blogs beforehand and asked for advice. Jeff’s advice? “I would put all my eggs in the Purpose Dweller basket. Say what you need to say on that blog and keep stretching. You just need more traffic. You will get there.”

I realized Jeff was encouraging me to share my voice right where I was with my first blog. I felt strangely certain he was right, yet I knew why I hadn’t. I was afraid my readers (and especially my loved ones) would reject the real me.

It was one of those pivots Jeff writes about in The Art of Work. A shift we must make when answering our call. So, with butterflies and shallow breathing, I began to write more authentically for my original audience.

And then the “unsubscribes” began.

Battling through the discouragement of unsubscribes

Each time I posted, people dropped off my list like flies. Publishing to my blog was painful, like getting stung by a thousand bees twice a week.

Unsubscribes are even worse than silence. It feels like people are saying, “I don’t like you anymore, but you don’t get to know why.”

Over a few months, my list stabilized. It wasn’t blowing up, but it wasn’t bottoming out, either. And I was getting more comfortable with my voice. Through authenticity came connection—emails from readers saying my stories gave them courage. Their stories were giving me courage as well.

I eventually stopped thinking so much about quitting and took the stronger stance of committing. Old-fashioned perseverance is where the “dream” morphs into the real call.

Finding hope in painful practice

So if you’ve been thinking about quitting because it’s painful, I totally get it.

But here’s the thing Jeff says about painful practice in The Art of Work:

“Not until you find something you can do to the point of exhaustion, to the extent that you almost hate it but can return to it tomorrow, have you found something worth pursuing.”

This brings tears to my eyes the way truth does when your heart hears it. Not because I hate making art sometimes, but because the painful practice comes in letting the art go—again and again—never knowing how or if it will return.

Yes, it can be painful. But you’re not alone on this journey. We are all in this together at Goins, Writer.

So, pretty please, let’s make a pact: Let’s promise each other we won’t let the painful practice of putting our art out in the world stop us from living in our calling.

Deal?

Now, take one action to put your art out there today! You can do this!

What is the one action you plan on taking today? Share in the comments

3 Surprising Lessons About Finding Your Calling

This is the first lesson of an eight-week book study I’m hosting live on The Art of Work. Be sure to join the book study so that you don’t miss next week’s lesson, and join the conversation live! Also, if you don’t have a Facebook account, we will post the replays here the day after.

Book study highlights

In this week’s lesson, I talk about:

How you can transition into working full-time for yourself
Why discovering your calling is more of an art than a science
What it practically looks like to find your purpose
Identifying where you’re at in living out your calling
Reasons why you can’t control your outcomes
Why purpose is the thing you cling to when your plans don’t work
How you can find purpose in what you’re doing right now

I hope you’ll join me live next week for The Art of Work book study where we will discuss why listening to your life is where to begin the search for your calling.

If you want to move down the proven path to discovering what you were meant to do, then I encourage you to pick up a copy of The Art of Work.

104: The Secrets to a Successful Podcast with Jeff Brown

Do you have a message you want to share with people? Then podcasting is arguably one of the best ways you can personally connect with your audience. Today, there are many podcasts vying for the ears of listeners. But there are practical things you can do to help your podcast stand out among the crowded airways.

Podcasts have been steadily growing in number, listeners, and influence over the years. Not only has the widespread usage of smartphones paved the way for podcasts, but the reduction in costs of equipment has made podcasting more accessibility.

Recently on The Portfolio Life, we celebrated a huge milestone: The 100th episode. Prior to recording that show, I approached Andy Traub, my co-host, about making changes. We decided to reach out to Jeff Brown, an award-winning podcaster and 26-year veteran of the broadcast industry, to help us improve the show.

This week on The Portfolio Life, I share Jeff’s critique of the podcast as a way for you to not only hear our desire to improve, but also to provide you with tips on how to make your current or future podcast successful.

Listen in as Jeff provides honest and helpful tips on ways we—and you—can improve our podcast.

Listen to the podcast

To listen to the show, click the player below (If you are reading this via email or RSS, please click here).

Show highlights

In this episode, Jeff Brown and I discuss:

Areas we need to improve on The Portfolio Life
What we learned from a recent listener survey
How you can best prepare for every podcast episode
Whether you should consider writing out your interview questions ahead of time
Tips on how to best ask interviewees questions
Why it’s important to get the basics of podcasting down
Ways to improve your transitions between segments
How to help your listener feel as if they are a part of your interview
Why you should strive to make your guests feel understood

Quotes and takeaways

Implementing certain techniques won’t guarantee your success any more than not doing them will guarantee your failure
It’s always important that you talk to one person
Conducting a great interview is 90% about confidence.
Don’t be afraid to ask any question
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”—Leonard DaVinci

Resources

Jeff Brown’s podcast, Read to Lead
Starve the Doubts, podcast by Jared Easley
The ONE Thing , by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
Download the full interview transcript here

Can You Relaunch an Old Book?

A year ago, I published my best book yet, The Art of Work, and it immediately hit several best sellers lists: The Washington Post, Publisher’s Weekly (two weeks in a row), and USATODAY. But the most gratifying part of writing this book has been the countless stories from readers whose lives have been changed by it.

Like Rachel who told me the message of the book gave her the courage to continue working in the nonprofit she started. In fact, it helped her to understand why some things weren’t working and how to respond to failure, which is an important theme of the book.

Or Dan, who said: “Your book, The Art of Work, is the catalyst that is helping me transform here and now. Thank you for the courage you took to decide to write full-time. Thank you for the courage to build that book. Thank you to the many people who shared their story and inspired you to build content and meaning behind their life story thus far.”

The book continues to sell well and reach new readers. But I want to help more people discover the work they were meant to do. So for the next month, I am focusing fully on relaunching this book.

Can you relaunch a book?

I’m often asked by writers if you can relaunch a book and sell a significant number of copies to new readers. I believe it’s never too late for someone to discover a good book. Books, when we find them, are new to us, no matter how old they may be. Besides, many of your readers may have no idea about your book. This is why I’m going to relaunch The Art of Work.

But this begs the question, “Can you relaunch a book?” Well, that’s what we’re going to find out!

If you’d like to follow along, here’s what we’re going to do:

In the next month, I am going to do everything I can to try to sell 10,000 new copies of my not-so-new book, The Art of Work. I’ll take every guest post, interview, and promo opportunity I can.
I’ll update you throughout the process (if you want) for free with occasional email updates and videos, sharing what I’m learning along the way.
At the end, I’ll share a detailed post-mortem of what went right, what went wrong, and what I learned. And in the end, we’ll get to see if you actually can relaunch something.
This Wednesday, I’m going to start a free eight-week book study on The Art of Work you don’t want to miss.

If you’d like to join me in this process, click here to sign up for occasional email updates.

I’ll notify you once a week of the progress in my weekly newsletter and may occasionally invite you to something else I think would be helpful, like a webinar.

Maybe this will inspire you to consider relaunching an old project you thought was lost or beyond hope. Or maybe it’ll just be fun to follow along. And of course, if you’d like to support me by picking up a copy of the book for yourself or a friend, that is, of course, much appreciated. You can do that here.

Have you ever tried to relaunch an old, and possibly even failed, project? What were the results? Share in the comments