Valuetainment - 20 Keys to Writing a No. 1 Wall Street Journal Best-Selling Book

00:00:00.000 So every single year, roughly 1 million new books are published, and out of these 1 million

00:00:03.480 new books that are published, on average, they sell 250 total copies for the life of

00:00:08.160 the book, okay?

00:00:08.800 So today I want to share with you some of the mistakes I've made selling a book, and

00:00:13.180 out of these 1 million books that are published, Wall Street Journal chooses 52 of the business

00:00:18.540 books that end up being the number one bestseller, and I had a chance to do that with your next

00:00:23.820 five moves.

00:00:24.340 I'm going to talk to you about the mistakes I made in the past and things we did right

00:00:27.380 with us that can help you out as well.

00:00:30.000 So many years ago, I had a mentor I was sitting down with in Sherman Oaks, and he told me,

00:00:36.420 he says, Pat, this is a rich Jewish man, older man.

00:00:39.100 He says, Pat, there's three things every man needs to do.

00:00:42.700 I said, what is it?

00:00:43.360 He says, number one, every man needs to have a son.

00:00:46.980 I said, have a son?

00:00:47.740 He says, because it continues your last name.

00:00:50.540 Every man needs to plant a tree, because it continues past your lifetime, and every man 0.98

00:00:56.360 needs to write a book, because when you're dead, this outlives you.

00:01:01.360 Pretty interesting, right when he said this.

00:01:02.940 Now, when he said that, I started thinking about it.

00:01:05.200 I said, it'd be pretty interesting if I write a book.

00:01:06.820 One day, my kids, what they like to do is they like to grab paper.

00:01:09.540 Dylan especially, he goes and makes books.

00:01:11.440 Dad, look at this book.

00:01:12.220 This morning, 7 o'clock, he showed me a new book he just wrote.

00:01:14.660 He's got like 20 books.

00:01:15.660 And he says, this book, I'm going to sell for $50.

00:01:18.400 This book, I'm going to sell for $100.

00:01:20.120 But Dad, this book, I will never sell, because this book is ours.

00:01:23.500 So why should you and I consider writing a book?

00:01:26.240 There's different reasons why people write a nonfiction book.

00:01:29.240 One of them is to be seen as an expert in the marketplace.

00:01:31.940 The other one is to make money.

00:01:33.280 The other one is to document what you know or expertise and share what you learn.

00:01:37.060 For example, Guy Kawasaki wrote a book of what it was to work with Steve Jobs.

00:01:43.280 That is sharing his experiences, what he did, right?

00:01:46.300 Steven Schwarzman writes a book about how he built a multi-billion dollar company that

00:01:51.220 people are going through.

00:01:52.160 Bob Iger talked about how he went from being a regular employee at ABC to eventually being

00:01:57.500 the CEO of Disney for 15 years.

00:01:59.700 These are things that you document and you share with other people, and we read it and

00:02:03.300 we learn from it, right?

00:02:04.720 Fourth one is legacy for your kids.

00:02:06.440 One day, your kids are going to read the book that you wrote.

00:02:08.600 And the last one is to create a new audience.

00:02:10.400 When they write a book and it's being sold different places and it's on different lists,

00:02:15.460 people are able to get the book in their hands that they never followed.

00:02:18.160 And all of a sudden they say, wow, I like this book.

00:02:19.920 I like this guy.

00:02:21.040 That's officially a new audience you have, new customer, new market you entered, right?

00:02:25.100 Now, here's the thing.

00:02:26.000 Out of all of these reasons, the one thing that cannot be at the top of the list for

00:02:30.440 writing a book is to make money.

00:02:32.140 If that's the reason you're writing a book to make money, you're not going to make a lot

00:02:36.180 of money writing books at first.

00:02:37.420 It's got to be bigger than just writing money.

00:02:39.380 This is, again, my opinion.

00:02:40.560 Now, for a lot of you guys that ask me questions before I share with you 20 keys to writing

00:02:44.980 a best-selling book, there's a couple of things you need to know about me, how I read books.

00:02:51.300 You know, I've written five books in my lifetime.

00:02:53.680 The first book I wrote was called Doing the Impossible.

00:02:56.060 I wrote that like 10 years ago, 2010 or 2011.

00:02:59.480 Ended up selling 150,000 copies, self-published.

00:03:02.440 And it wasn't a complicated book.

00:03:03.840 It was simply 25 Laws and it was a self-published book.

00:03:06.220 The second book I wrote was a niche specific for the insurance industry.

00:03:10.140 And that was more for people to understand what my philosophy was in insurance.

00:03:14.340 And so it was a way of saying, you want to know what I think is going to happen with the

00:03:17.520 insurance industry?

00:03:18.540 Read this book.

00:03:19.180 And we went from 66 agents to now 17,000 agents nationwide.

00:03:22.960 My entire vision of what I saw we could build was written in that book.

00:03:26.820 That's a niche book.

00:03:27.860 That's a complete different kind of a book.

00:03:29.420 A book like that may not be a New York Times bestseller or a Wall Street Journal bestseller,

00:03:32.940 right?

00:03:33.060 So that's a complete different kind of a book.

00:03:34.880 Third book I wrote, we winged it.

00:03:36.540 It was called Life of an Entrepreneur in 90 Pages.

00:03:39.100 And the fourth one was Drop Out and Get Schooled.

00:03:41.000 It was almost like a blog turned into a book.

00:03:43.700 And I don't recommend doing that.

00:03:45.340 We did it just to do it, to document it and see what could happen.

00:03:48.340 My friend Tom said, let's write this together.

00:03:50.020 He took the time to write it.

00:03:51.540 We collaborated and that came out.

00:03:52.960 But the fifth one that we wrote with Your Next Five Moves, I put a lot more time into it.

00:03:59.760 This took me five years to write.

00:04:01.080 This was not a one-year ride.

00:04:03.040 Doing the impossible took me 30 days.

00:04:05.020 Your Next Perfect Storm took me 30 days.

00:04:07.440 Life of an Entrepreneur in 90 Pages took us less than four weeks.

00:04:10.660 Drop Out and Get Schooled maybe took us two weeks.

00:04:12.880 This took me five years.

00:04:14.200 None of those became bestsellers.

00:04:15.880 This became a bestseller.

00:04:16.920 So why is that?

00:04:17.500 Let me kind of unpack it so you can learn from my mistakes on how this thing took place.

00:04:20.860 So how I choose a book to read.

00:04:22.640 I went back before I wrote this book and I asked myself, how do you read books?

00:04:29.460 How do you read books, Pat?

00:04:31.560 I've read 1,500 books and I've listened to 500 audio tapes.

00:04:35.700 And for some of you guys that are saying, well, Pat, for me to write a book, what do you mean?

00:04:38.580 I'm not a writer.

00:04:39.500 I shouldn't be writing a book.

00:04:40.580 Just so everybody knows, full disclosure, I've never taken English 101 in college.

00:04:44.660 Never.

00:04:45.500 It was always ESL.

00:04:46.660 English as a second language.

00:04:48.140 English as my fifth language.

00:04:49.620 My first language, my mother's language, Armenian.

00:04:52.500 Then Assyrian.

00:04:53.700 Then I lived in Iran, Farsi.

00:04:55.080 Then I lived in Germany for two years.

00:04:56.520 So German. 0.59

00:04:57.020 And my fifth language is English.

00:04:58.340 So you have to realize I'm EFL, English as a fifth language.

00:05:01.700 And I was never a good writer.

00:05:03.640 First book I ever finished in my life that I read cover to cover, I was 21 years old.

00:05:07.200 So I want to give that there for you to know where I was at with books.

00:05:11.000 Then I decided to read books.

00:05:13.220 And then it turned to what it is today where I can't stop reading, right?

00:05:15.860 But this is my format on how I choose to read a book.

00:05:18.860 Number one, I don't just read books.

00:05:21.000 I study topics.

00:05:22.040 So I'll choose a topic to study.

00:05:23.820 Strategy.

00:05:24.240 I'll go read everything on strategy on Amazon with 300 plus reviews.

00:05:27.880 I'll buy all of them.

00:05:28.620 If a book has 300, 400 plus reviews on a topic of strategy, I'll buy all of them and

00:05:33.300 I'll go through all of them together.

00:05:34.560 If I want to study a topic on Lincoln, I'll buy all the books on Lincoln, 300 plus reviews.

00:05:38.940 I'll go read all the books on Lincoln.

00:05:40.540 That's my formatting.

00:05:41.520 I study topics.

00:05:42.600 I don't just read books.

00:05:43.480 Number two, I consider where recommendation is coming from before reading and meaning.

00:05:49.380 People will send me books.

00:05:50.220 Pat, read this book.

00:05:51.080 Read that book.

00:05:51.600 Read this book.

00:05:52.800 I have, how many books do I have that I haven't read that's being sent to me all the time?

00:05:56.740 Hundreds of books that come here.

00:05:58.120 Guys, I don't read any of it.

00:05:59.300 I just want you to, I don't read any of it.

00:06:01.160 Because for me, my time, I got three kids.

00:06:03.340 I run two companies.

00:06:04.160 I have employees, attorneys, legal, accounting, finance, health, all of this, the creating content,

00:06:09.340 podcasts, all of this stuff, I don't have time to just have somebody send me a book and say,

00:06:13.760 read it.

00:06:14.580 Now, somebody I admire, if they say, read this book, who I know, we have a relationship together,

00:06:20.640 I read it.

00:06:21.500 If an advisor of mine who knows me very well says, this is a book to read, I read it.

00:06:26.640 If somebody I know closely who knows what kind of books I read and knows what will, and their

00:06:31.720 credibility score with me is high because they've always recommended me good books, I read it.

00:06:35.740 But outside of that, I don't just read any book because somebody recommended it.

00:06:39.280 Number three, I research authors, meaning if I'm looking at this book, your next five

00:06:44.960 moves, the first thing I would do is say, your next five moves, oh, interesting title,

00:06:47.260 Master of the Art of Business Strategy.

00:06:48.420 Okay.

00:06:49.180 I like what he's doing.

00:06:50.140 Arthur, Ray Dalio, what do you say about him?

00:06:51.540 Patrick's one of the most exciting thinkers I've had a chance to converse with.

00:06:54.000 Ray Dalio, I respect him.

00:06:55.480 Kevin Hart, Patrick's one of the most driven, goal-oriented individuals that I've ever met.

00:06:59.080 What he has done has inspired so many individuals, including myself.

00:07:01.960 I'm not only a friend, I'm a fan.

00:07:03.240 Robert Greene, Steve Wozniak, Robert Kiyosaki, Brian Tracy, who is this guy, Patrick Bay David?

00:07:07.640 Then I go Google him, Patrick Bay David.

00:07:09.160 Then I go on YouTube, I see who he is.

00:07:10.920 Then I said, okay, this guy is a businessman.

00:07:13.820 He has done some stuff.

00:07:15.080 He's not just a person that created something.

00:07:17.580 Then I buy the book.

00:07:18.920 So this is how I do it.

00:07:20.180 So I'm saying it to you because if you want the right kind of readers to read your book,

00:07:24.740 you have to know that's what they're doing as well.

00:07:26.840 Number four, I read trifectas.

00:07:29.240 Meaning, there are authors who write a book because they have theories that they read from

00:07:35.960 other people, but they never apply to it.

00:07:37.620 They're writing from things that they learn, like scholars, professors, you know, people

00:07:42.400 who've done case studies, things like that, but not themselves.

00:07:45.180 I know if I'm reading a book from somebody that's just a scholar or professor, the weight

00:07:49.920 for me, I know this may offend some people, it's not at the highest level for me.

00:07:53.480 I don't put a lot of weight behind somebody having a college degree for me to go read their

00:07:57.220 books.

00:07:57.700 I want to know you were in the trenches doing something.

00:08:01.140 Number two is witness.

00:08:02.720 I like reading books from people that witness somebody.

00:08:05.300 I mean, if you look at Guy Kawasaki, he witnessed Steve Jobs.

00:08:09.260 So some of his books that he wrote back in the day's Rules for Revolutionaries, I read

00:08:12.920 the book.

00:08:13.320 I like to read books that there's somebody that witnessed somebody else doing something,

00:08:16.740 right?

00:08:17.400 The whole movie of American Gangster is about Frank Lucas witnessing a boss, then he becomes

00:08:22.620 a boss.

00:08:23.160 But the highest level for me is application.

00:08:26.260 This is why I'll go through reading a story on Bob Iger.

00:08:30.920 This is why I enjoy reading a book on Ted Turner, and he writes it.

00:08:33.800 This is why I'll read Kurt Kikorian.

00:08:35.900 This is why I'll go through Steve Jobs.

00:08:37.980 This is why I'll read through Benjamin Franklin.

00:08:39.780 This is why I'll read through, because they did it.

00:08:41.880 Ray Dalio, they did it.

00:08:43.040 They're sharing with you and I what they did themselves.

00:08:46.120 So now, if you're listening to this, and you're saying this book is about how to write a best-selling

00:08:50.320 book, I just shared with you reasons why people write a book.

00:08:54.040 Did any one of these things connect with you?

00:08:55.700 You may say, yes, I do want to leave a legacy.

00:08:58.060 I just shared with you how people like me, who have read 1,500 books and 500 audibles,

00:09:02.840 how I choose a book.

00:09:04.180 Do you qualify for any of these?

00:09:05.680 Because I didn't in the past before.

00:09:07.480 You may say, I don't yet.

00:09:08.660 Well, then, perfect.

00:09:09.280 Now, let's talk about what to do for you to eventually write a best-selling book.

00:09:12.740 Fair enough.

00:09:13.160 So let's get right into it.

00:09:13.980 Number one, choose an industry or niche to become an expert in.

00:09:17.260 It doesn't matter what it is, meaning you're going to say, I want to be the best marketer

00:09:22.280 in the world.

00:09:22.840 Great.

00:09:23.460 Go study that.

00:09:24.840 I want to be the best in real estate.

00:09:27.120 I want to be the best negotiator.

00:09:29.240 I want to be the best on sales.

00:09:31.960 I want to be the best in coding.

00:09:34.320 Whatever it is, choose one, not five, one industry, niche, or skill set to go along.

00:09:40.780 Number two, study every single expert in that field.

00:09:43.960 You see, when I watch LeBron, even though I'm not a big LeBron fan myself, but he plays

00:09:48.260 for the Lakers, and I like the way how he's a historian, meaning he'll quote and say, you

00:09:54.480 know me, you know, Rachel, I'm a historian.

00:09:56.740 I've studied the game.

00:09:57.480 I remember when this happened, that happened, this happened.

00:09:59.260 I go to where he goes to, I'm like, this is a guy that chose an industry, and he became

00:10:04.180 a historian of his business.

00:10:05.440 Same was Kobe.

00:10:06.380 Same was Michael.

00:10:07.680 Same are a lot of people in that field that become who they become.

00:10:10.920 You go study the history of it.

00:10:12.480 Who was the best in my game?

00:10:14.300 Who was the best in real estate?

00:10:15.860 Who were the top 10 ever to do real estate?

00:10:18.080 Who were the top 10 best investors that ever did what they did?

00:10:20.700 That's how Warren Buffett became who he became.

00:10:22.940 He studied every single great investor until he said, I'll take a little bit of this.

00:10:28.320 I don't know about this, but I like this from this person.

00:10:31.500 I like that from this person, but not the other 19 things.

00:10:34.340 I love the six things from this person.

00:10:36.580 And then they put it together and filtered out five things.

00:10:39.600 That's their philosophy, right?

00:10:40.640 So, number one, choose an industry.

00:10:42.320 Number two, study every expert in a field.

00:10:44.180 Number three, become one of the best in the industry.

00:10:45.980 So, for me, I chose business.

00:10:48.740 I chose insurance.

00:10:50.480 I went specific finance.

00:10:52.760 I'm a Series 7, 66, 31, 26, life and health.

00:10:55.580 All of these guys.

00:10:56.320 31, 6, 63, life and health, 26.

00:10:58.920 All these licenses.

00:11:00.080 I can sell stocks, bonds, mutual funds.

00:11:01.560 All of these things I could sell.

00:11:03.500 I went, boom, insurance was me.

00:11:06.220 Right?

00:11:06.740 All this stuff.

00:11:07.420 Oh, my gosh.

00:11:08.240 Skillsets I can learn.

00:11:10.220 Sales negotiation.

00:11:11.600 I went here.

00:11:12.640 Okay, what am I going to be doing?

00:11:13.680 Content, blah, blah, blah.

00:11:14.420 Entrepreneurship.

00:11:15.440 Entrepreneurship, boom.

00:11:16.080 I'm going to go here.

00:11:16.840 This became my niche.

00:11:18.980 Then I studied everything on this for 20 years.

00:11:22.140 I know it's a long time.

00:11:22.960 I'm just telling you what I did.

00:11:24.460 20 years.

00:11:25.500 Then next, get nationally recognized for you.

00:11:28.680 This doesn't happen overnight, but you get nationally recognized.

00:11:31.100 The more people are starting to see and listen to you, and they say, this guy knows what

00:11:34.000 he's talking about.

00:11:34.600 This is what happens.

00:11:35.940 Interesting.

00:11:36.460 I like what this guy has to say.

00:11:37.720 Bob, what do you think about what this guy?

00:11:38.900 Go to minute six and see what he says.

00:11:40.220 I like what he said.

00:11:41.280 Bob, oh, wow.

00:11:42.060 This guy, watch what this guy just says here.

00:11:43.780 I mean, I said, I agree with him.

00:11:45.160 I agree with him.

00:11:46.120 Can I get the link to that?

00:11:47.040 I'll text it to you.

00:11:47.700 Boom.

00:11:48.220 Hey, babe, look what this guy says on minute six.

00:11:50.140 You don't know this is happening, but that's what's happening behind closed doors.

00:11:54.000 You become nationally recognized.

00:11:55.320 Number five, have differing opinions than the usual suspects.

00:11:58.680 A lot of people come to Valuetainment, and they'll say, I absolutely disagree with you, Pat.

00:12:03.180 Pat, awesome.

00:12:04.160 I'm okay with that.

00:12:05.560 I totally disagree with what you have to say.

00:12:08.040 I'm not trying to create content to get everybody to believe what I have to say.

00:12:11.800 I do have some differing opinion than the usual suspects.

00:12:14.560 I do have some different ways that I think things need to be done.

00:12:17.360 Some people say, you should never talk about politics on your channel.

00:12:22.000 That's a mistake PBD made.

00:12:24.080 Great.

00:12:24.640 I'm not trying to be like everybody else.

00:12:27.460 I'm not trying to be a usual suspect.

00:12:29.460 I'm going a different angle.

00:12:31.280 I'm going to go a different direction.

00:12:33.580 Anybody that wants to get this kind of attention, you can't be vanilla like everybody else.

00:12:37.640 You've got to have your own set of different opinions.

00:12:39.940 Number six, share with the world what you know.

00:12:44.140 Podcast, blog, video.

00:12:45.260 Choose one of those three platforms.

00:12:46.680 Podcast, blog, video.

00:12:47.480 If you're right or right, if you're a speaker, speak.

00:12:49.600 If you like video, get in front of the camera, create some content.

00:12:52.320 Eventually, people are going to see you talking about this morning.

00:12:54.360 They're going to say, he makes sense.

00:12:55.280 She makes sense.

00:12:55.940 I like that.

00:12:56.780 I understand what he's saying.

00:12:57.640 Number seven, win over an audience plus influencers, meaning win over a niche audience.

00:13:03.060 Not, let me try to win over everybody.

00:13:05.360 Niche, niche.

00:13:06.100 I won over the entrepreneur audience.

00:13:08.720 I won over that audience.

00:13:10.380 There's an audience you've got to win over, right?

00:13:12.880 Then, all of a sudden, when you're kind of coming up, then influencers say, I like who

00:13:17.560 this guy is.

00:13:18.240 Hey, can we go have a cup of coffee?

00:13:19.880 Hey, can we go lunch?

00:13:20.840 All of a sudden, you've got five, ten influencers that are now your friends.

00:13:23.860 So, influencers work with each other, and they help each other out.

00:13:26.840 Hey, Pat, I've got a book coming out.

00:13:28.760 Can you do an interview with me?

00:13:29.940 Lewis House, come on down.

00:13:30.940 We'll promote you.

00:13:31.540 Hey, Pat, I want to have you on my show.

00:13:33.820 I go to Lewis.

00:13:34.600 I fly in, and we do an interview.

00:13:36.520 It does good.

00:13:37.420 Hey, you know, Jay Shetty, I want to have you.

00:13:40.080 Okay, great.

00:13:40.520 Hey, Jay, whatever you need, come down here with the great collaboration.

00:13:44.040 This kind of stuff starts taking place, and you're collaborating with other people, right?

00:13:47.280 That's kind of the influencers you start creating.

00:13:49.420 Next, number eight, create a voice on the topic you're an expert, and become a voice.

00:13:52.780 I mean, obviously, the more you do this, you eventually become a voice.

00:13:54.740 Number nine, build a loyal audience of true believers that share everything you do or say.

00:14:00.420 This is not going to be everybody, meaning if you've got 100,000 people, maybe you have

00:14:04.520 100 or 500 true, true believers that are going to share everything with you.

00:14:08.720 It's not a big number, but you need those anyways.

00:14:11.240 These are folks that are true believers.

00:14:12.780 We've got true believers, viettainers, who you go around. 0.99

00:14:15.340 I'll see them at the mall.

00:14:16.140 They've got a viettainment hat.

00:14:17.120 They've got a viettainment shirt.

00:14:19.200 They speak the viettainment language.

00:14:20.940 It's a completely different thing.

00:14:22.000 When I see them at the Valk Conference, when they come over here, when I see them at the

00:14:25.260 airport, these are true, true believers that are obsessed.

00:14:29.220 It's a very small community.

00:14:30.680 You know who you are.

00:14:31.300 Many of you guys and I have spoken together.

00:14:33.360 Next, number 10, gather, collect their info, email, and text.

00:14:38.940 So whatever context you have, as you're creating this audience for yourself, gather email, gather

00:14:44.920 text, so they're staying close to you, so you can share with them other products that's

00:14:49.580 coming up.

00:14:50.000 Number 11, journal, gather your social capital.

00:14:53.740 Let me explain.

00:14:54.380 So when I say journal, your social capital is make a list of all your personal stories.

00:14:59.780 That's the one that nobody can take away from you.

00:15:01.400 This is yours, that's your fingerprint, right?

00:15:03.940 You look different than everybody else in the world, right?

00:15:07.100 Your stories that you've experienced, nobody can take that away from you.

00:15:10.440 That's yours.

00:15:11.200 I lived at a refugee camp, and I went and got the Super Nintendo at the swimming pool with

00:15:15.740 a girl that was Czechoslovakian.

00:15:17.220 That's my story, right?

00:15:18.600 That is my story.

00:15:19.960 I lived in Iran.

00:15:20.980 My dad's crossing the bridge.

00:15:22.320 My mom's sitting in the white Renault.

00:15:23.860 My sister's in the back.

00:15:25.420 A big red flash in the back comes out.

00:15:27.880 My dad says, don't look behind us.

00:15:29.280 We look behind the bridge 50 yards behind us.

00:15:32.160 It's coming up because we got bombed from Iraq.

00:15:33.820 That's my story.

00:15:35.200 I'm in the Army, 101st Airborne Division.

00:15:37.920 I'm digging a 6x6x3 foxhole, and I'm doing four of them because I wanted to impress my

00:15:44.200 drill sergeant.

00:15:44.920 And after I'm digging them and digging them and digging them, I don't drink any water

00:15:48.760 because I'm in South Carolina.

00:15:50.220 My temperature is 104 degrees.

00:15:51.860 I get hospitalized for two days.

00:15:53.720 I lose 16 pounds in two days.

00:15:55.340 That's my story.

00:15:56.960 You can't take that story away from me.

00:15:58.960 So you got to make a list of your stories.

00:16:01.220 This is not five stories.

00:16:02.620 These are not 10 stories.

00:16:03.960 This could be 100 stories, but it's your stories.

00:16:06.420 The next one is your personal philosophies, your own philosophy where you say, this is

00:16:09.680 what I believe in.

00:16:10.160 This is what I believe in.

00:16:10.740 Here's what it takes to be great in sales.

00:16:11.940 Here's what it takes to be great coder, great negotiator, great in real estate.

00:16:15.420 Whatever your personal philosophies are, that could be 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 of them.

00:16:19.840 Next, other people that have influenced you through their books or what other books influenced

00:16:24.740 you in this area.

00:16:25.560 Quotes that you really like, like quotes for me is, history can be, will be kind to me for

00:16:30.080 I intend to write it by Churchill.

00:16:31.680 I know it's got a lot of different meanings to it, but to me, it's got a meaning that influenced

00:16:35.400 me.

00:16:35.620 Another one is, be careful what you joke about or be sarcastic about because your spirit

00:16:41.040 stops having faith in the words that come out of your mouth.

00:16:44.260 These are quotes that stuck with me.

00:16:46.000 So you make a list of that, right?

00:16:47.620 You're documenting stories, philosophies, books, quotes, right?

00:16:50.900 Next, create an outline.

00:16:53.440 And I call this a three by five or five by three or five by five or three by eight.

00:16:57.700 Let me explain what I mean by this.

00:16:59.800 For example, this book, okay, this book, it's got five moves, right?

00:17:05.580 Your next five moves.

00:17:06.920 Move number one, when you read it in table of content, says master knowing yourself.

00:17:12.140 Move number two is master the ability to reason.

00:17:14.580 Master building the right team.

00:17:15.800 Master strategy to skill.

00:17:18.580 Master power place.

00:17:20.180 That's five.

00:17:21.240 Under each, got three chapters.

00:17:23.800 Move number one has three.

00:17:24.740 Move number two has two.

00:17:26.220 Move number three has three.

00:17:27.360 Move number four has four.

00:17:29.060 And move number five has three.

00:17:31.140 And then there's the conclusion, right?

00:17:32.580 So it's, you break it down into sections and then you add the chapters that are relative,

00:17:38.240 that relate to that point that you're trying to make.

00:17:40.280 My first book I wrote, Doing the Impossible, was a similar format, three by ten, eight, six.

00:17:45.960 Let me explain.

00:17:46.500 First chapter was recreate yourself, right?

00:17:49.300 So what is recreate yourself?

00:17:50.360 I have ten chapters there.

00:17:51.640 Number two is identify your cause.

00:17:53.460 Eight chapters there.

00:17:54.180 Number three is go make history.

00:17:55.900 Six chapters there.

00:17:56.680 And number five was the last move.

00:17:58.460 Make a bold move.

00:17:59.160 That's 25, but it was a three breakdowns.

00:18:01.820 So take the points that you have as you're trying to write this nonfiction book and unpack

00:18:05.800 them into sections.

00:18:06.760 Your brain will be able to see it much better because then you'll start matching the stories

00:18:10.640 to the points and the sections that you have.

00:18:12.920 So number 13 is research a literary agent that believes in you.

00:18:16.440 So don't just go to somebody that everybody uses.

00:18:19.160 Go to somebody that believes in you.

00:18:20.300 I'm doing a lot of people that are reaching out to me right now.

00:18:22.880 So I'm doing a lot of interviews of other literary agents and they're saying, hey, we'd

00:18:26.660 love to have you and we've seen what you've done and all this other

00:18:28.980 stuff.

00:18:29.240 I've not been approached by this many people.

00:18:31.220 All of a sudden, everybody's contacting.

00:18:32.960 So I sit there in the last five years.

00:18:34.360 I'm like, who do I like?

00:18:35.460 Who do I go with?

00:18:36.140 Who believes in what I'm doing?

00:18:37.540 Once you find somebody that believes in you, then the next point is you go to a publisher

00:18:41.720 that matches you.

00:18:44.820 That publisher's got to be a match.

00:18:46.420 You can't go to a publisher that doesn't match what you're doing.

00:18:49.740 If you're somebody that's an atheist, you don't go publish your book with Thomas Nelson.

00:18:54.040 I don't even think if that would take you anyways.

00:18:55.640 But you've got to go with a publisher that matches what you're trying to do.

00:18:59.560 Next, team up with a co-writer.

00:19:01.280 Not a co-author, but a co-writer.

00:19:02.940 Meaning, some hire ghostwriters and they want to say that they wrote it.

00:19:07.420 Some do co-writers and some do co-authors.

00:19:10.860 The difference between a co-writer and a co-author is this.

00:19:14.240 I wrote the book with Greg Dinkin.

00:19:16.680 He's not a co-author.

00:19:18.080 But he helped me write the book.

00:19:19.840 So the book is written from me sharing it with you.

00:19:22.960 But he and I co-wrote it, not co-authored.

00:19:26.360 It's everything I'm sharing with you, but he's a writer.

00:19:28.620 I don't want him to be a ghost.

00:19:30.060 I want him to get credit because if I do more books with him, he knows exactly that he is

00:19:35.220 a writer.

00:19:35.680 We worked on this project together.

00:19:37.300 That's my style.

00:19:38.880 I like going that direction.

00:19:40.000 You can go a different direction.

00:19:41.140 I like getting a co-writer that knows how to match my voice.

00:19:43.900 By the way, just so everybody knows, Greg Dinkin probably spent a total of 100 hours around

00:19:49.880 me before we wrote the book together.

00:19:51.660 Just so you know, he's been in negotiation.

00:19:53.680 He's seen me lose it.

00:19:54.700 He's seen me do everything.

00:19:56.260 He's seen me in the sales meetings.

00:19:57.720 He's seen me at conventions.

00:19:59.440 When we did a convention with President Bush, the late Kobe Bryant, Jordan Peterson, he was,

00:20:03.380 if I went to my suite, he was in my suite.

00:20:05.300 If I was speaking, he was sitting behind watching me.

00:20:07.820 If I'm backstage, he's with me.

00:20:09.020 If I'm talking to President Bush, if I'm talking, he's next to me pretty much the entire

00:20:12.780 time, he did that in board meetings.

00:20:14.620 He did that at the office.

00:20:15.720 He did that in vault conference.

00:20:17.340 He did that everywhere before we wrote together because he finally got my voice.

00:20:20.940 So that's the right way of doing it.

00:20:22.420 Again, I'm telling you, it takes a long time.

00:20:24.580 So it's not an easy thing to do.

00:20:25.780 This takes a long time.

00:20:27.320 Then after that, we have a, write a killer book.

00:20:29.860 To me, that's one of the most important ones.

00:20:31.340 I fully believe in this book because I believe in this book.

00:20:37.460 I sell it easily.

00:20:39.200 If you go watch the 1,400 videos that we have on Valuetainment, watch how many videos

00:20:45.560 I've actually ever sold any of my other four books in.

00:20:49.100 You're watching and you say, man, maybe three of them out of 1,400, but I believe in this

00:20:53.240 book.

00:20:53.740 This is a unique book I wrote that I know can change somebody's life.

00:20:56.580 I'm not selling it.

00:20:57.440 I believe it.

00:20:58.300 I know it.

00:20:59.140 We put a lot of time into this, right?

00:21:01.140 So the more you produce a better product, the more you, the better you sell it.

00:21:05.180 And then eventually you will know if it's a real book or not when the book is selling

00:21:10.420 five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now.

00:21:14.220 I talked to the agent of Stephen Covey and she talked about how, you know, the first book

00:21:19.920 he did was Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, sold 50 million copies till today.

00:21:26.120 He sold them nearly 150 million copies.

00:21:29.960 She published Tony Robbins' first book when she was 25, he was 26.

00:21:34.880 And from there on, boom, he sold 75 million copies of books since the last 40 years or

00:21:40.280 whatever, 33 years, 34 years.

00:21:42.140 Because as the books create momentum and you're creating a catalog, great books sell forever.

00:21:48.460 You want to write a great book, not just a book that's good because you want to be seen

00:21:52.140 as an expert for three months or six months.

00:21:54.220 That was the second book I wrote.

00:21:55.860 This is a book that's going to last a lifetime, right?

00:21:57.840 So that's that book.

00:21:58.640 Write a great book.

00:21:59.580 Next, 17, marketing campaign.

00:22:02.240 You've got to have a marketing campaign in place and exactly knowing timeline, six months

00:22:06.240 out, 12 months out, how are you going to launch it?

00:22:08.640 When are you going to launch it?

00:22:09.980 What's the timeline from the moment you say the book is coming out?

00:22:12.660 Do you put it out for three months, four months?

00:22:14.280 What do you do?

00:22:15.240 These are a lot of things that you've got to spend a lot of time getting clear with with

00:22:18.240 the marketing campaign, videos, collaborators, interviews, articles, you know, all of those

00:22:23.140 things.

00:22:23.800 Number 18 is don't hurry writing a book.

00:22:26.860 Don't hurry writing a great book.

00:22:28.140 It's like, I've got to get a book out.

00:22:29.560 Nope.

00:22:30.000 Don't hurry.

00:22:30.600 Take your time.

00:22:31.700 You know, great things take time.

00:22:32.860 You don't need to hurry it up.

00:22:33.780 Look, whatever you do, it takes 40 weeks to have a baby being born.

00:22:36.860 You know, some cases comes faster, but it takes 40 weeks, right?

00:22:39.740 There are certain things you can't hurry.

00:22:41.080 You cannot hurry a great book into making.

00:22:44.260 Number 19, outreach to the influencers that you had.

00:22:47.180 And last but not least, focus on messaging, not on being the number one Wall Street Journal

00:22:52.720 bestseller.

00:22:53.420 They just sent me a message saying, Simon & Schuster is now on the top, putting number

00:22:57.580 one Wall Street Journal bestseller.

00:22:58.900 This is now, in the first month of being out, it is now being translated in Mandarin.

00:23:04.900 It's now one of the biggest publishers in China, just picked it up, China.

00:23:08.820 It is being, give me the other ones, Portuguese, Spanish.

00:23:12.660 Spanish, it's like seven or eight, Romanian, Russian, it's like seven or eight language in

00:23:18.800 the first month.

00:23:19.460 Within the next couple of years, this is going to be 50, 60 different languages that's being

00:23:22.880 translated in.

00:23:23.880 But the focus is on messaging, not on being number one.

00:23:26.960 I was in a meeting while we're doing our annual virtual convention with 15,000 agents,

00:23:31.480 and I'm sitting over there with Matt Sopala and Ricky, when all of a sudden I get an email

00:23:35.480 from Simon & Schuster saying, guess what?

00:23:37.340 You are the number one Wall Street Journal bestseller.

00:23:40.100 I said, what?

00:23:40.800 Number one.

00:23:41.380 There's only 52 books a year they choose out of business books to be a number one Wall

00:23:46.700 Street Journal bestseller, and it made it on that.

00:23:49.140 But that's because there was a lot of time put in the past, and I screwed things up a

00:23:52.760 lot in the past that helped me be able to write a book like this.

00:23:55.920 So a couple things here.

00:23:56.800 Number one, if you want to get all the notes today that was shared with you, I have these

00:24:01.600 notes for you for new, on a website that you can go get.

00:24:05.100 It's a couple ways you can get the link told.

00:24:07.320 It's not going to be PDF, but you'll get all the notes.

00:24:09.040 You can actually look at it, print it, and look over it so you can put your strategy

00:24:12.160 in place.

00:24:12.860 If you want to get the link to this, text the word BOOK to 310-340-1132.

00:24:19.620 Again, text the word BOOK to 310-340-1132.

00:24:24.460 We'll send you the link.

00:24:25.840 And if you're international, if you go below and you subscribe to the newsletter, we send

00:24:29.500 you the link to that as well.

00:24:30.960 Where to go and find all the points that we have here.

00:24:33.020 On top of that, I've got two other videos I want you to watch that have to do with this

00:24:36.780 topic.

00:24:37.140 One of them is how to create content.

00:24:39.600 Some people don't know how to create content.

00:24:41.340 There are rules to creating content.

00:24:43.480 I explained it in this video.

00:24:44.660 It's very vivid.

00:24:45.440 It's very clear.

00:24:46.160 It's very crystal.

00:24:46.780 If you've never seen it, click over here to watch that video.

00:24:48.940 And the other one is how to research.

00:24:50.720 One of the things we talk about is researching.

00:24:52.500 Most people don't know how to research.

00:24:55.040 Go watch this video on how to research any topic.

00:24:57.260 I think I did this video out of Ball Harbor in Miami.

00:24:59.820 If you've not seen that, watch it.

00:25:01.160 Click over here.

00:25:01.720 If you've not seen this one, click over here.

00:25:03.340 And if you've not subscribed to the channel, do so.

00:25:05.140 Thanks for watching, everybody.

00:25:05.940 Take care.

00:25:06.540 Bye-bye.

Valuetainment - October 06, 2020

20 Keys to Writing a No. 1 Wall Street Journal Best-Selling Book

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