Andrea Liebross: Welcome to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Liebross. Each week, I focus on the systems, strategy, and big thinking you need to CEO your business and life to the next level. Are you ready? Let's go.
Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the podcast. How are you in this mid-August time frame? What's happening? Well, if you're like me, you might be gearing up for the beginning of school. Can you believe it? Kids are already getting ready to go back to school. This is often a time when we, as adults, reconsider what we're doing. What's going to be our school this year? What are we going to work on? What are we going to learn?
I think it's very timely that today, I have Nicole Gebhardt of Niche Pressworks who is my publisher of my book that is coming out next month on to talk to us about what it takes to write a book and what that process looks like. I'm going to share with you a little bit about what my journey has looked like in writing a book.
But before we dive in, I want to encourage you to head over to shethinksbigthebook.com and sign up to become a Think Big Insider so that you can receive all the info about the book launch that is happening at the end of September, about how to obtain discounted pricing, get a free ticket to my She Thinks Big: From Action to Extraordinary Masterclass that's going to happen right around book launch time, to get some inside looks at what it's like and some inside tips from the book, all as becoming part of the Think Big Movement and being a Think Big Insider.
So shethinksbigthebook.com. If you have not gone there yet and put your email address in, even if you're already on my email list, I encourage you to do just that. You're going to be amazed at what arrives in your inbox. Without further ado, I want you to sit down, buckle up, and listen into my conversation with Nicole.
I don't love listening to my own podcast, I gotta be honest, but I did go back and listen to this one because I am still in amazement that I have written a book and published a book that you are all going to be able to get your hands on in the coming weeks. It's not something that was ever on my bucket list but man, after I've done it, there's something about it that I can't really put words into how it all feels. Maybe you can gather how it feels just by listening to this conversation. Here we go, Nicole and Andrea on writing a book.
Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm excited today to talk about all things books and publishing books. I'm on the verge of publishing my book. Probably when you guys are listening to this, we've got some copies, they're probably live out there, but I also have not just my copies but I have my publisher with me today, Nicole Gebhardt of Niche Pressworks.
She is going to share with us, we're going to have a discussion really, about what it takes to write the right book. Before we get started though, Nicole, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us who you are and what you do, why you do it. Tell us all the things.
Nicole Gebhardt: All the things, absolutely. Thank you. The first thing I think I overcome when I talk to people and I hear that I'm a publisher is the bucket that they traditionally put publishers in. We're uniquely different from that so I like to tell people, “Throw out what you think you know about the publishing world because that's not us, we don't do that.”
What's unique about me is my background is in communication strategy. I worked at Caterpillar, and Public Affairs, and employee communications for 12 years and I got to sit at the executive table for years. I was the girl that not only took the notes but would plan the communication strategy once we walked out of the room. I sat in the room with vice presidents that were making directional decisions.
I learned strategy from them. I was fortunate to be mentored by six different vice presidents in that role. No matter what we're doing, I'm always looking at it from a strategic eye. Where are we now? What are we trying to achieve? What assets do we need to help you get there?
I am fundamentally a business and marketing strategist and I created a publishing company. Because when I work with someone like you, the number one thing I discovered that I could help you create is the right book for your goals. All the decisions then are based from that strategy perspective like what do we need and what else do we need?
Because it's not just about the book that you need, it's how is the book going to be used inside of all of your other processes, your systems, your objectives, your marketing but also even as an asset to pre-qualify and pre-educate clients and then for them when they're working with you to have as a reference tool. There's so many things that go into the right book that you got to get this right.
When I work with a client like you, I prefer to start from scratch. We'll get into this but I always say about four out of five people who come to me are writing the wrong book before they start.
Andrea Liebross: If someone said to me what was the hardest part, it was figuring out what book to write. That definitely was the hardest part. I think it took us probably like a good six months to figure out if I count all the outlining time that I went down the wrong path in, it took a while. What is your process? I know the process now since I've done it but where do you start or did I start in the wrong place? I don't know. What do we think?
Nicole Gebhardt: Well, one of the things that's interesting, because I'm working on my book right now as well, is it's all about systems and processes. We really have been working on that, even tightening that up. But it's all about understanding what I now call the nine key decisions that you need to make before you start writing the book.
What took us a while in this process, and don't scare everybody with six months, that was like literally the outlining as well and you had some major events going on, and we had a bit of a go big or go home.
Andrea Liebross: This whole like last 18 months, it's go big or go home. That's why the word big had to be in the title of the book I guess, I don't know. But yes, everything was happening and colliding all at once.
But I think we had our initial conversation, maybe it was in April and at that point, I think I said to you, “I don't want to start anything until July,” but I was thinking about it. Then we started in and we had numerous discussions about those nine steps, where this book was going to lead me, and its purpose really in my business. What do you see authors struggle with there?
Nicole Gebhardt: Yeah, it's funny because as we record this today, it's the end of June and you literally started the end of June one year ago and you crushed it. So 97% of our authors get their book written and published in one year or less and you did that. But it's so much more than that like the growth that's happened, I can't wait to dig in for you and the transformation.
But we spent a lot of time clarifying who is your ideal client. What's your vision for your business moving forward? Where do you want to be? This is all great because it's in your book as well. Physician, heal thyself. You're really great at coaching somebody else. We all are. We can help anybody else but we come to do it for ourselves, we need somebody else that's guiding you through this process and that's what you got to do. But we got clear, really clear on where do you want to head moving from here. That's not an easy thing for a lot of people to articulate.
Andrea Liebross: No, it's not. I think I was stuck in what I was doing and not necessarily where I wanted to go, although I thought I knew where I wanted to go. But I think in writing the book, I even kicked it up another notch. It's not as if I couldn't access the future, like I could, but I had to even think almost like future 2.0, the next future.
Where did I want to be in another year? Where did I want to be in three years? Where do I really want to be in 10 years is what I had to really think about and you pushed me even more to do that than I was doing on my own. So thank you for doing that.
Nicole Gebhardt: You’re welcome.
Andrea Liebross: Because that's who the book is written for, it's for the person, my ideal client today but also in the future. I think that's what happened in the book too. The book is an evolution of someone's growth. That's how it happens. That mirrors my own growth and I think it mirrors the growth of most of my clients.
Nicole Gebhardt: Well, this is juicy because this is what I tell people about the value of working with, in particular me and what we do in this first phase which is most authors make the mistake of writing a loan and they write from where they've been and who they've been.
In fact, a lot of people have a book idea that they brew on for two years before they sit down to write it, then they take two years to write, and by the time it comes out, it's literally a five-year-old brand, and a five-year-old idea. When you do that, it becomes an anchor to your previous life and your previous person. Your book comes out and then you get this elevated status of being an author, a best-selling author to a book that's based on the old you and it's like this dead weight anchor.
That's where a lot of people then come out and three months after their book is out, they’re like, “Well, now what do I do with it? Because it's kind of useless.” So they move and they look on for the next thing. But what we're doing in this process with all the coaches and experts that we bring in this journey, we'll talk about it, we're trying to identify who's the you of the future, which by the way, you talk about in your book, who is the you of the future and how can we help you get there faster?
We're elevating the way you think about your ideal clients, how you talk, your systems and processes have to elevate because all of that, we're growing into. Then I like to say we're bending time because as your book comes out now and then you start moving into it, the amount of acceleration that you'll have starting from one year ago today until one year from now is just exponential. It's really a cool thing if you do it right.
Andrea Liebross: Yeah. There are just so many things happening simultaneously. You're writing this book but then you're also looking at the back end of your business and thinking, “Okay, if this book does what I want it to do,” I've been really thinking about what do I want the book to do, I continue to think about it, we have to think about it on day one but I continue to think about it, “I would love my book to create what I call the big thinking movement or having more big thinkers out there in the world.”
If that's what's going to happen, then they're all going to want to grow themselves and their businesses and that may lead me to more clients working with more people making a bigger impact in the world. Is the back end of my business ready for that? I've been trying to figure that out too and to make changes to accommodate that at the same time. I think that's like the bending of time. It's a lot.
Nicole Gebhardt: Yeah, and that's part of the nine questions, the nine key questions that we answer in that planning phase before you start writing the book which is “What does success look like to you?” Personally and professionally, do you want to work three days a week? Do you want to work five days a week? What does it look like? Who is your ideal audience then?
Then the next question we ask is “What are the offers that you need to have?” Then we can look across and we're like, “Well, wait a minute, you said you want to work two days a week and yet you've got five mastermind groups, three podcasts, and then you've got four different audiences. Does that really work for you?”
The way we lay it out and we have this vision board, we start to see the disconnects, then you can step back and go, “Oh, that would create a business I don't really want.” Before I start in on creating this book, let me begin to think about what do I really want.
Andrea Liebross: Yeah. I think that was one of the most exciting parts of this whole process was thinking about what do I really want. It also was scary too but it was exciting. I think that's a lot of what I help my clients do but yet you are helping me do it for myself, which when you're in your own peanut butter jar, you can't read the label so you need someone to help you do that.
But I came to you not really even knowing what I wanted to write about. I wasn't one of these people that said, “Oh, I've been wanting to write this specific book for the last two years.” Once I figured out where I want my business to go, then we had to figure out what is this book actually about. That was a challenge. I know what I did next but in your technical world, what's the next thing we did?
Nicole Gebhardt: Yeah. Well, it was a while that we figured out the articulating the bold promise of the book like what result were you getting a reader and then what was the hook. That was a big chunk of that because there are over 40 million books on Amazon and that means a lot of the titles that we considered were already not only taken but taken multiple times. That was the interesting challenge.
Once we knew the theme of what your ideal audience is struggling with, then we had to find how do you wrap that into a title. Then we move into the process. There are always a couple of really interesting steps. I'm not the only expert that I want in the process helping our clients elevate the game. You got to meet with our mindset coach, which you two do the same work but you did meet with her.
That's one of the first stops because again, we're elevating your thinking constantly and helping challenge you on how you've thought in the past versus how you want to think in the future. Then you met with Michael. Michael is our Hollywood storytelling expert and so you got to work with Michael Hague, and he'd be so proud of your opening story, I can't wait I'm going to share that with him.
Michael, just for the audience's information, has worked with many Hollywood movie experts. He's worked with Will Smith and Jada, literally, was working with them for seven years on contract helping them. He's part of our process and you got to work with Michael in this process. Then your editor. Do you want to talk about all the people in the food chain and how that experience was to you?
Andrea Liebross: It was fun working with Dina who was the mindset coach because yeah, we do similar work. But again, the sign of a good coach is someone who can ask you good questions. She asked me some really good questions and I walked away I think even thinking bigger or more futuristic, what's her phrase? Why am I blanking on this?
Nicole Gebhardt: Greatness.
Andrea Liebross: Greatness, yes, stepping into my greatness, she had helped me do that. Then Michael Hague was so interesting learning from him how to tell a good story and was I telling the right story in the beginning. What was interesting about that is I spent a lot of time on that story. I sat in the [Carmel Public Library] and wrote it for a couple days and then what I realized was once I talked to him, I had spent maybe I'll call it two-thirds of the real estate of the story talking about the past story, too much of the past and not really enough of what I wanted to communicate.
I had tried to put all of what I wanted to really communicate into one sentence at the end. He called me out on that and then I rewrote the story to share more and to really communicate how I got to where I am today. Then we got into the actual outlining of the book, which was very interesting for me because I really struggled there.
Because what I do isn't necessarily in a straight line. It is not a nice little sixth grade outline with Roman numeral I, II, and III, something like that. That was really hard for me and I think once I started talking to Melanie, who was my editor, she was able to point out to me that the outline didn't sound like me, which I agreed with her. Because she said, “I listened to a couple of your podcasts. This doesn't sound like you.” I was like, “I agree with you.”
She recognized that no, my thinking doesn't necessarily go in some nice numeric line. Then we created more of a developmental outline, which was really what got me going. That's when I was like, “Okay, I think I know what's happening. I'm feeling way better about this.” She asked me tons of questions really and we almost wrote a very rough draft of the book in the form of an outline. That's how that happened. She was a miracle worker I would call it.
Nicole Gebhardt: Yeah. It literally is exploring. When it comes to that part, I can outline really quickly and it's funny because you are a process girl and a systems girl. It struck me as odd like we kept coming up against this and I'm like, “I don't understand. You know how to do processes and systems inside and out but that process was not working for you in this table of content.”
That's where I call Melanie and I'm talking to her and Melanie goes, “Oh, wait, I think I know what.” So we ended up saying, “Alright, let's move this process over to working with Melanie.” She had an alternative way that really worked for you.
Andrea Liebross: It did. It did work on me because I love processes and systems. I am a total process systems girl. But I think the interesting part of it is when I work with my clients, they're not all coming in at the same point. Yes, I could say I walk my clients through a process but I don't walk them through it necessarily in the same order or we don't start at the exact same point because they are at different stages of their business. Not necessarily even stages of their business but their own personal development, their own thinking.
There's the mindset piece and then there's the systems and processes piece. They've got to correlate in order for you to move forward. If someone said to me, “Explain your process,” I have to say, “Well, wait a second, where are they in the mindset piece or where are they in the process piece and then where do they meet?” Then I'll start.
But you can't be like, “But what's your process?” But I can't explain it because it's not always exactly the same. Melanie was able to figure that out with me. That was helpful.
Nicole Gebhardt: Well, as a coach, the coaching side of you is very intuitive and working. But as we look at your business and what I was challenging you with is look, you can't scale and begin to step out of your business unless there is a journey map. What excites me so much about your finished book now is you identified, you built it, you've got it figured out now.
That's the game changer. That's what people don't do. When authors work alone and they're not working with somebody who pushes them to do these things, the book comes out and they can't scale their business because they haven't done the hard things that you've now done. Now, you were free to run and that's what's really good.
Andrea Liebross: Yeah. We really built the process inside the book and that was very, very exciting to me and I'm excited what I'm going to do with the book like how this is all going to change things.
Nicole Gebhardt: Yeah. We've got some really neat frameworks inside of there, just the parking lot analogy is really fun without giving away all the juicy stuff about the book.
Andrea Liebross: But that tells you, in the beginning of the book, when you all read it, you'll see that I start out asking which parking lot are you in and then that really gives us a launching point to figure out what to do next. I don't want to tell you what the parking lots are so you have to go read the book to find out.
But I think that's something that really has to do with what your thinking is about, where you are, where your mindset is, what you're ready to tackle, and what you're not ready to tackle.
Nicole Gebhardt: Yeah. It's really good. There are just several sections in there that are really good snippets of your new process. Even if it's not like step A, 1, 2, 3, it's no matter what, have we accomplished the clarity on these 12 things for these things? Then you have the chapters in there where you walk them through, “Okay, this is how you identify this. This is how you work through this. This is how you think about it,” and you help them sort their thoughts. These were all things you're doing intuitively with clients. But when you got to put it in a book, it's a whole new game.
Andrea Liebross: It's a whole new game. I think something that was interesting to me is that I do tons of writing and content creating but it's mostly short form versus this book which is long form. I was not used to writing 45,000 words in one sitting. That was hard to organize my thoughts into a longer format. I had lots of different short-form things but putting them all together was the challenge.
I think once we came up with the “There's going to be 3 parts to the book and then within those 3 parts, there's going to be 12 chapters,” how that all played out and then figuring out what the theme or what's the main point you want to get across in each chapter, determining what that was, and then what were going to be my backup details to support that main point that I wanted to get across in that chapter, it was very systematic.
It was interesting because writing this book is really like a microcosm of what I coach on, that you need a system but you also need the right thinking. I think that's why I don't think anyone can do this on their own because you've got to have someone coaching you along to keep you in the right mindset and you've got to have a system or process in which to follow.
I can see why people say, “It took me five years to write this book,” “I wrote the wrong book,” or “I wrote a book and then I published it and two people bought it.” I get all that now and I don't think I necessarily got it all in the end. I'm just someone in the beginning. I'm a better person if I have a support system which is one of the chapters that I talked about in one of the chapters in the book. That's really why I was like, “I can't write a book by myself.”
Nicole Gebhardt: Yeah. There's one more gem from the book I want to talk about and then I would love to talk about the future and what you're headed to. It was something you and I talked about and it was relating to this idea of priority versus goals. I just love that section. I know we've talked about it before. Do you want to expand on that a little bit? Because I just think that's really good gold from you.
Andrea Liebross: Yeah. I think that a lot of people, a lot of women especially, freak out with goals. They're like, “I don't like to set goals because if I don't reach them, it's going to make me feel horrible,” “I don't want to set a goal and then not reach it. What will other people think?” or “I never reach them anyway so it's a waste of time to even think about it.”
If you love to set goals and love that word, then great, I'm in and I'm okay with it, but if that's something that really stresses you out but yet you feel like you're in, I call it a Fred Flintstone car, your feet are moving really fast but you're not going anywhere if you think about Fred Flintstone, then flip the switch and start thinking about what are your priorities.
You can use that word priorities as a replacement for goals. But you actually really even need to think bigger than that and thinking about where are you or what are the most important things in your life in the moment. I talk about in the book the seven facets of life in business. That's even a bigger picture, more of a 30,000-foot view because your priorities/goals, we can use them interchangeably, should really align with where you are and what your level of satisfaction is with these seven facets of life, health, wellness, financial, spiritual, that kind of stuff.
It's a layered look at goals in a sense. Then I encourage the reader to go deeper even and start to think about, “Okay, now what do you want to focus on in order to reach the goal or in order to fulfill the priority?” We talk about from a quarterly viewpoint, “Okay, what's your focus going to be for the next 90 days?” and then we can break it down even further.
We don't have to use that word goals if it's scary but I think we all are better people when we know what direction we're moving in. We all want to move towards something. Usually, we're trying to move towards something and simultaneously moving away from something else. Unless we know what we're moving towards, we're probably not making progress, we're just in our Fred Flintstone car with our feet moving fast but going nowhere.
That's a really fun part of the book. It's in the middle of the book. It's in the big plans section where I go a little deeper into that and try to make it more, I don't want to say manageable but more usable for the reader.
Nicole Gebhardt: Well, the reason I wanted you to discuss this was something that I had been geeking out about over a year ago was I am not a goals person but I'm a problem solver. At the end of the day, that's what I love. The priorities angle and that language is just wonderful because it's literally like, “No, it's a priority for me to solve this, to achieve this, to take care of this, to resolve this whatever it is, and then once I'm done, I'm really happy.” That's why I just love the language that you had in there about it. I thought it was great.
It also speaks to this thing that you and I share which is this huge love for systems and processes all day long because when you have systems and processes in your coaching model inside your own business like for you on our journey, it allows you to stay focused on what's important now. The person we haven't talked about yet is Kim, your project manager as well.
On our end, there are 10 members of my team that come along and support you on this journey. Not all of them get to meet you personally or recognized but the designer is another one that's been really instrumental in this. Kim's role goal is to keep you focused in the process where you are right now so you don't worry about all the other things, they'll take care of themselves later. Her job is to keep you focused on what matters most right now and nothing else. That's the value again of having great systems and processes and clear priorities.
Andrea Liebross: Yeah. I think what Kim does is my brain can go to worrying about six months from now and Kim's like, “Let's just worry about today, Andrea.” Part of taking even that goals, priorities, focus thing a step further, and you being like, “Let's solve the problem,” it's really also about what decisions do I need to make right now.
There's a whole part of the book too about making decisions and how important that is. We're building a house simultaneously so my brain is on overload with house decisions, well, this book was a whole bunch of, I didn't even think of it as that to be honest. On day one, if you said to me, “Describe what's going to happen,” I don't think I would have put the word decision into the paragraph but really what it was also was a whole big series of decisions about where I want my business to go, about what I want to focus on, even about nitty-gritty things in the book too.
Even before we started recording this podcast, Nicole’s like, “I just want to ask you about this one sentence, is this really what you want to say here?” I was like, “No, actually it's not what I want to say. I've been thinking about that but I didn't change it.” Anyway, we've decided now we're going to change it. But it's really a series of decisions. I think you need a system or a process, and that's what you guys have provided to help me make decisions along the way too.
Nicole Gebhardt: Yeah. Well, I'm ridiculously excited so let's talk about thinking big. First, let's celebrate the number of endorsements that you already have including a big one that we put on a bucket list that I remember you going, “Oh, I could never.”
Andrea Liebross: I know.
Nicole Gebhardt: You want to talk about that one? I love that one.
Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Nicole started talking about, “Okay, we need to think about endorsements for the book. Is there going to be one on the cover? Is there going to be some on the inside?” I kept thinking like, “I don't know. I don't know who I would get endorsements from.” Probably, since I couldn't decide on who or how to ask, I probably avoided it for too long. But finally, when I got my act together…
Nicole Gebhardt: Hold on, and that decision, it's one of the nine key things we talked about literally.
Andrea Liebross: Oh, yeah, we talked about it like on day one.
Nicole Gebhardt: Yeah. Again, that's the thing most authors wait until the end. Why I want to bring that here is because there was a strategy behind it of course.
Andrea Liebross: There was. It was brewing, it was simmering in my brain from the first day we met because you pulled out all here the nine parts. Then I created a little bit of a bucket list of who I might want an endorsement from. One was someone from the Full Focus or Michael Hyatt Organization, they keep changing their name, because I'm a big proponent of thinking in the way that the Full Focus Planner is organized and I became a Full Focus Certified Pro and yada-yada.
But I was like, “Well, if I could get someone to endorse me from there, that would be awesome. How am I going to do that?” Then I thought, “Okay, well, I was on their podcast,” I think I was on their podcast before you and I started talking, I had been on their podcast. The podcast producer was really the one that was orchestrating all of that.
I was like, “I think I still have his email.” So I went, “Hmm, let me email him.” I emailed him and then I thought, “Huh, well, I don't really want an endorsement from the podcast producer,” I mean that would have been okay but “Let me see if I can get Megan Hyatt Miller, who is the CEO, on my podcast to help her promote her book because what comes around goes around.”
The podcast producer connected me to the right person for that and then she came on my podcast and before we got off with the recording of that, I asked her if she would endorse my book and she said, “Sure, but we have so much corporate compliance, I don't know. I can't say yes or no.”
But here's an email of another person to email so I did that and I actually sent an advanced reader copy or snippet of the book. I didn't even know what that was so I learned what that was and I guess Nadia, another person from Nicole's team, helped put that together and then I sent that over. I also put together, “Here are some suggested endorsements just to make it easy.”
Actually, Nicole, the one she came back with wasn't one of my suggestions, she wrote her own, but they did come back and they said, “Sure, here's the endorsement.” That was big. I was like, “Holy moly.” That was so fun and I got to talk to her. This podcast is going to air before Megan’s will on Time to Level Up, but stay tuned for that.
Nicole Gebhardt: Really cool. Incredible endorsements at the beginning.
Andrea Liebross: I do. That was just one that was harder in my brain to get or to ask for, not even to get, just to ask for.
Nicole Gebhardt: It's a thinking big moment for you.
Andrea Liebross: It was, yeah.
Nicole Gebhardt: It was huge. Darn it when you have to walk the talk.
Andrea Liebross: I know. Geez.
Nicole Gebhardt: Let’s do that because if you look at the Michael Hauge story model, then you have now done all the hard things, and you have transformed significantly in this past year, you've challenged yourself in a lot of new ways, in ways that a year ago you're like, “I don't think I want to do that, need to do that,” and then you have done it, looking back, how are you different?
Andrea Liebross: How am I different? I think a couple of things. I think I've learned to trust myself a little more, trust myself that this will actually happen. I have become more patient. I think I'm pretty patient to begin with but this was even an exercise in patience. I think that I've become even a bigger thinker, way more future-focused than I was. I think I was, to begin with.
I guess everything here just elevated where I was. Yes, I was patient but I'm more patient. Yes, I was trusting but I think I'm more trusting. Yes, I can access my future you but now I can really access my future you. I'm a really big person who says, “What's the next best step?” but now I think like, “What's the next best leap?” Not a step. What if we were leaping versus just taking steps? That's fun.
I guess also writing a book was not on my bucket list. People who are like, “Was not always on your bucket list?” No, it was not. It wasn’t on my bucket list. But I remember you and I sat down, it was like 100 years ago in McAlister's. You were like, “You should write a book,” and I was like, “I'm not writing a book right now. I'm not doing that, Nicole. I'm not ready for that.”
That probably was 10 years ago and then here we are, we're writing a book. I think I got to the place maybe in 2021 or probably beginning at 2022, I was like, “I'm going to write an ebook.” That's what I got to. Then I said that to my coach and she's like, “No, you're going to write a real book.” I'm going to write a real book, okay, well, I better call Nicole then if I'm going to write a real book. That was like not a step. That was a leap.
Nicole Gebhardt: It was a leap. Michael Hague, the story coach, has a really great challenge that he talks about when you're doing this inner transformation. There's this one sentence that you can complete which is “I will do whatever it takes to achieve my goals but just don't ask me to [blank]” Whatever that blank is is the one thing you must do.
Andrea Liebross: Yeah. I probably would have answered just don't ask me to write a book.
Nicole Gebhardt: Because you're fearless on all other areas.
Andrea Liebross: Yeah, it's like, “Writing a book, I don't know, man, writing podcast scripts, that's a lot but writing a book.”
Nicole Gebhardt: And putting it out there in front of Megan Hyatt Miller in front of thousands of people, that's game-changing. There are vanity presses out there that'll help you write a book in a weekend and then there are people like, “Oh, go write your book and come back,” but this inner transformation is what it's all about.
Andrea Liebross: It would not have been as impactful for me personally and I don't think it would have been as impactful for my business, which we'll see what happens there, but if I hadn't gone through the whole process. I think if I just sat down with my pen and wrote a book and then handed it to you, that doesn't do it. It just doesn't do it. You don't really see the evolution.
I also could see, I know when I'm coaching I say that sometimes I can see people's brains clicking, I can see the clicks going on. I could feel the clicks going on in my brain. Between you asking me questions and Melanie asking me questions, explain this more, tell me really what you mean, or why is this important.
Up until, I don't know, two weeks ago, we were still doing some of the very final proofreading and editing and Melanie Voxered me. She's like, “Why did you write this? Tell me more. I don't understand.” Because I had put a comment next to it, “This needs to change. What about I want to change it like this?” Even at that point, she's like, “Why?” and I explained it to her and she's like, “Oh, I get it.” But that helped me even clarify why I wanted that to be in there.
Nicole Gebhardt: I think this transformation for you, and you talk a lot about your coaching in there, you talk a lot of in your book about all the transformation you've had helped other people do, this just 10x is what you're able to do for your clients now, which again, I'm just really excited for you and all that's ahead.
Andrea Liebross: Thank you. Well, I couldn't have done it without you. What's next for you?
Nicole Gebhardt: What's next for me?
Andrea Liebross: What’s your next big leap?
Nicole Gebhardt: I'll invite people first. If you want to know more about what we do and what Andrea has been through, we do an annual publication called The Niche Leaders Journal. We do an annual publication called The Niche Leaders Journal and you can find it on our website and you can either request a printed copy or read the virtual copy, which it talks a lot about our process in there so there's a whole publishing section that explains the process and how we work with our clients. Then there's some cool stories and there's a story by Michael Hauge there.
I had started to write my book and two years ago, I realized that the magazine idea came to me as this download. For two years now, we've produced the magazine which has just been a game changer for our business because we have really cool stories we wanted to tell and they're highly visual and so that's what the magazine does for us. But I shelved a book that I will now finish and so that's what's big next for me. It's the book.
Andrea Liebross: I love it. I love it. Okay, so you need to go check out Niche Pressworks and if you want to check out, whenever you're listening to this, which is if you're listening in order when podcasts are released, the book probably hasn't launched yet but you can still go be part of the Think Big Movement and get on the list so that you get discounted pricing on launch day, you're going to get lots of other free bonuses.
You're going to get a free ticket to a masterclass I'm doing around the book in October and you can go access all of that at shethinksbigthebook.com. That was a whole other decision-making process, URLs, who knew that would be included?
Well, Nicole, it has been so fun to have you here and to work with you over the past year. I guess you did say 90% of our authors finish in a year and I am, that worked out. That worked out. That's what happened. Look at that.
Nicole Gebhardt: 97%, it’s a process, man. You and I, if there's a process, the process works.
Andrea Liebross: The process works. I'm just going to leave with this. Nicole and I, we just happened, we both decided independently but we both ended up going to a conference together in November. The little motto of the conference was this: LFG. We both looked at each other and said, “What does that mean?” because neither of us knew because we're old.
I am not going to say what it means but you need to go Google what LFG means and it's not the version Looking For Groups, because that's one version of LFG, but that was how we left the conference, LFG, so I'm going to leave the podcast with LFG. Alright, we'll see you next week.
Nicole Gebhardt: Let's do it.
Andrea Liebross: Okay, my friends, what do you think? What do you think about writing this book? Are you ready to write a book? Would you like to write a book? Do you want to write a book? What's that going to feel like? What would it look like? Are you ready? Are you ever ready?
I think it's something that's worth exploring. I think it's something that's worth planting a seed in your brain about. We may not water the seed for a while but it's something to consider. If you would like to have more of a discussion around writing a book, please reach out. I'd be happy to share my experience with you and connect with Nicole. She'll tell you all the ins and outs and help you figure out what is the best book to write for you.
Okay, my friends, stay tuned this month to learn more about all the things She Thinks Big. I want you to make sure that you have become a She Thinks Big Insider by going to shethinksbigthebook.com so that you can get not just discounted pricing on launch day and a free ticket to the She Thinks Big: From Action to Extraordinary Masterclass but you can also get snippets and previews of what is inside that book that I wrote just for you. Until next time. Remember, now is the time to level up. There's never been a better time and I'm here to do it with you. See you next week.
Hey, listening to podcasts is great. But you also have to do something to kick your business up a notch. You need to take some action, right? So go to andreaslinks.com and take the quiz. I guarantee you'll walk away knowing exactly what your next best step is to level up.