Lessons that I Learned from Writing my First Book with Doug Smith

We also recorded this episode live from the new returncom studio . If you're new to the podcast , welcome . I'm so glad that you're here and I hope that you enjoy our content and become a subscriber . I know that you can also watch all of our episodes over on our YouTube channel , so make sure you're subscribed there as well .

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That really does help us to grow our audience and reach more leaders , so thank you in advance for that . Well , leader , in today's episode , you're going to hear a personal lesson by me on the lessons that I learned from writing my first book . Yes , that's right , I completed the first draft of my first book .

This was a dream that I've had for over 20 years and it finally has been accomplished . Now , obviously , I have to do the hard work of figuring out how to get it edited and how to actually get it published , and those are the next steps that I'm taking .

But I have a finished first draft , which is huge for me , and as always , I like to bring you along for the journey and share lessons that I've learned .

I know that many of you that I've talked to have wanted to write a book and have struggled with it just like I did for 20 years , and I'm hopeful that the lessons that I share in today's lesson will really fire you up and give you the necessary steps for you to complete your first draft of your first book , and I can't wait till that day happens , and I

hope that I play a small part in it by sharing the lessons that I learned . So get excited for that . But before we dive in , just a few announcements . This episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Beratung Advisors . The financial advisors at Baratung Advisors help educate and empower clients to make informed financial decisions .

You can find out how Beratung Advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future by visiting their website at BeratungAdvisorscom . That's B-E-R-A-T-U-N-G-Advisorscom . Securities and investment products and services offered through LPL Financial , member of FINRA and SIPC . Beratung Advisors , LPL Financial and L3 Leadership are separate entities .

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In fact , for every couple that comes in engaged , they give them a book to help them prepare for marriage , and we just love that . So if you're in need of a good jeweler , check out HenneJewelerscom . And I also want to thank our new sponsor , reiturn . com and Leader . Let me just ask you this have you ever had an interest in investing in real estate ?

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Here's my lesson on the lessons that I learned in writing my first book . Enjoy , hey , leader , it has been a while since I've done a personal lesson on the podcast , but I couldn't be more excited about today's lesson , and that's because I have exciting news to share with you . And the exciting news is I wrote a book . Yes , that's right , I wrote a book .

And this is such huge news because this has been a dream in my heart for over 20 years . Yes , just a few weeks ago , on a Saturday morning , I wrote the last word in the first draft of my book and completed it , and in completion , listen to this my final draft has 224 pages , 77,445 words and 415,424 characters .

And let me just be clear I did write a book , but I have not published the book yet , so it's not available . But why I'm doing this lesson is because I know many of you want to write a book . I've talked to many of you for years . I've wanted to write a book , and I always love when I interview someone that has written a book .

I love asking them questions about how did they actually write it , how did they get it done , what's the process .

And that's my hope today is , if you've ever wanted to write a book , I'm going to share with you the lessons that I've learned in the past year on how I actually completed my first book , and my hope is that it'll provide the inspiration , the motivation and the actual process that you need to write your first book , because I believe everyone should have write

at least one book in their lifetime , even if it's just for their family . You have a message that the world and your family needs , and so let's dive right into what I learned in the process of writing my first book . Before I begin with the lessons , though , I want to start with giving you a little bit of context about my journey to get to this point .

I already mentioned that it was 20 plus years that I've had this dream in my heart of writing a book , and in those 20 years I probably had five to 10 serious attempts to actually write a book . Where I got started , I made a little bit of progress , but then I would get frustrated . I would get overwhelmed by how enormous the project seemed to me .

I had all these questions , and then I would just shut down and basically push it aside and say , well , hey , maybe one day I'll get to it . For years , I've had writing a book as a goal in my mastermind groups , that I've shared publicly with them every single year that I want to write a book , and that was going to be the year I write one .

I've been a part of leadership programs where I've also shared publicly that I had a goal that specific here to write one and I didn't , and sharing with friends that I've wanted to write a book . I've had so much encouragement of people telling me Doug , you're called to write you . You know , the world needs your message , the next generation needs this message .

Get it out there . And what do I have to show for all of that ? Nothing . I had nothing to show for that in over 20 years , which was extremely frustrating and , honestly , it was a little bit discouraging to me and I just thought am I ever going to be able to write a book , or is this just something that I'm not ultimately called to do ?

Well , obviously I'm sharing with you the news that I wrote it . And so what changed ? What changed ?

Because the reality is , for 20 years I had that dream to write a book , had nothing to show for it , but then , all of a sudden , within one year , I got the book done and , honestly , in the actual part that I played in it , it only took me two months to write the entire book . So what changed ? Let me dive into that . Number one .

I read a book by Dan Sullivan in Benjamin Hardy called who , not how . Again , the book is called who , not how and it is a phenomenal book . It's a must read . If you haven't read it yet , go buy it on Amazon right now .

But the whole premise of the book is a principle that Dan Sullivan calls who , not how , and he basically said if you find yourself with any goal asking how am I going to do this ? Over and over and over again and you're not making any progress , you should stop asking how am I going to do this and instead ask who can help me do this .

Stop asking how and start asking who , and it's likely that there's probably a who out there who could help you get what you need to get done with ease , because it's something that they're really really good at .

And so after reading that book , I said I've been trying to write a book for 20 years and asking how and how , how , how , how , over and over again . Maybe I need to look for a who . Well , funny enough , I decided to look for a who and I found one relatively quickly . I was scrolling and it was kind of random .

I was scrolling on LinkedIn one day and I saw this woman post a photo of a book . And this woman used to intern with us at Light of Life many years ago and she was holding a book , a book by David Green , the founder of Hobby Lobby and I thought , oh , that would be interesting , I'll reach out to her . I wonder if she knows David Green .

I would love to interview him for the podcast . So I reached out to her and I said , hey , how do you know David Green ? I'd love to interview him . Any chance you could connect us . And she said , oh , I actually Ghost wrote his book for him . And I said what Like ? You wrote his book , you do that . And I said you do that for anyone ?

And we started talking . And then , all of a sudden , we started talking about what it would look like to work together and for her to help me write my first book and Shazam .

We decided , hey , let's move forward and working together , and six months later I had my first book , and so deciding to look for a who , instead of asking how , literally expedited the process more than 10x , 100x , and that was absolutely huge .

So I just want to encourage you if you've been asking how , whether it's writing a book or some other goal that you have over and over and over again . Maybe you need to stop asking how and start looking for a who . So what did I learn in working with a who ? Well , I started working with her names Annika and Annika , if you're listening to this .

Thank you , thank you , thank you . I would not have finished this book without you . You are awesome and I loved every minute of working with you , and if any of you are looking for someone to work with , I'd love to connect with Annika . I'll include her contact info in the show notes as well , but in working with her , how we actually work together is one .

Up front , we agreed on the length of the book , which I'll talk about in a second . Two . I made it clear to her that she wouldn't have to work from scratch . I'll get to this point later , but I've been creating content for over 20 years , so in a lot of ways , I feel like I had the content necessary to actually put a book together .

I just needed someone to take it and organize it . So that was really helpful in us working together . And then I obviously paid her for her work , and again , that's part of the who . Yes , I invested in that , but had I not made that investment in Antica , I wouldn't have a book today .

So you may have to make an investment in yourself and in a who to help you achieve your goal , but I'm here to tell you it was worth every single penny . So how did it play out working with Antica ?

Well , the first thing is she organized , she outlined and she provided structure for my book , and this was absolutely huge and , looking back , for me personally , this was the biggest thing that I needed . The biggest thing that held me back for 20 years is the way I'm wired .

I could not , for the life of me , organize and outline and provide structure that I needed for the book , and so when Antica did that , that changed everything for me , and then Antica actually started writing the book .

So we put together an outline and she started writing , and I think she wrote , you know , about 10 to 15 chapters , and then I would go in and actually read it , rewrite it , make suggestions , et cetera .

Well , what I ended up finding in the process is one I'm a control freak , and so I unfortunately ended up rewriting most of the book to sound I wanted it to sound more like me . Antica did a phenomenal job .

I'm just a weird control freak , but again , in rewriting it , what I found was , again , I just needed someone to provide the structure , the outline and organize all of my thoughts , and Antica did that .

So , moving forward , in the future , if I write multiple books , I'm not going to pay someone to actually write a book for me , because I found out that I actually do have the capability of doing that , but I do need someone to help me on the front end put all the structure and everything together .

That was absolutely huge , and so that's how I ended up working with Antica . It was so great . And so , again , look for who be willing to invest in a who . That could be just the thing that you need to get over the hump with your goal .

So a few other lessons . I learned that I needed to write daily . I needed to write daily and , as many of you know , I'm a John Maxwell fan and I remember hearing John say to people all the time . He said people come up to me all the time and say John , how do I , how can I write a book ?

And he said I always ask them the same question Well , have you started writing ? And he said 99% of the time , their answers no , I haven't started writing . And he said well , chances are , if you haven't started writing , then whatever you want to write will never be written , just start .

And then he said he's very quick to encourage them that in the beginning they won't be very good and that's OK , just start writing . And for me , I realized that if I'm ever going to actually make this happen , I actually need to make the commitment to write every day .

So for me , what that looked like is I chose five to six am every single day to write , and that was the sacrifice that I made . That's usually the time where I read for an hour . I read books and just spend time with God . And for a season and I heard Mark Batterson talk about this Mark Batterson's a published author . He's published many books .

He said if you're an author , there's going to be seasons that are writing seasons in your life and you have to make some changes to your daily routine . And he does the same thing he does not read during his writing season . So I committed five to six am every day to start writing , and at first it was a little bit challenging .

But what was beautiful about it ? And this is the way that so many disciplines are is once I started seeing a little momentum and traction . Then it became really , really easy .

In fact , by the toward the end of the book I could not wait , like I was waking up at four or four thirty every morning with an anticipation and an excitement to write , because I could not wait to let my feet hit the floor and my fingers hit the keyboard , because I was so excited because I started seeing momentum and for me I had my table of contents

and anytime I would finish a chapter I would just put in parentheses next to that chapter Doug dash done and seeing that once it once I saw that happen with one chapter and another chapter and another chapter . That momentum got me so fired up .

And now I would say , even though I finished the book , I'm still waking up and writing content every day , which is beautiful , and so that's going to really help me in the future . And this is the same with all daily disciplines . You all know probably , and have heard on the podcast .

My favorite quote of all time is from my high school football coach , jim Rankin , who said day to day intensity , week to week consistency builds champions . And that's what I found with writing . It's day to day intensity , waking up and committing to writing every day , week to week consistency . That will ultimately get you a book .

And so for me , it took day to day intensity and week to week to consistency for two months and for me to get my book done , but that's what it took .

So make a commitment to write every day and let me just say this not everything you write has to be published , right , you could just write to write , you can write in your journal , you could just write on a notepad , but just get in the habit of writing every day . The next lesson and I alluded to this earlier but Creating content consistently matters .

And again I mentioned , even though I just started writing my book a few months ago , I've been writing content for over 20 years . I mean , I try to write a social media post five to seven days a week , so I'm creating content almost every day .

I do a weekly podcast with personal lessons and so I can take all those podcasts and actually transcribe them and have a ton of content there . When I go speak places or speak in churches , I'm writing lessons .

So I'm always writing content and make sure that when you write content , you save it and organize it in a place that you can actually find what you're looking for , and so , when I started working with Annika to write this book , I literally had probably two to 300 files worth of content on the different subjects that I thought would fit into the book , and so

being able to take all of that and look through what I've already written made writing a book so much easier , and so I'd really encourage you if you're not in the consistent habit of writing content , find a way to do that .

Maybe you're not a pastor and you don't have to write a sermon every week , but find some way that motivates you to create content consistently . It's huge .

The next lesson would be keeping your why in front of you matters . Keeping your why in front of you matters . Now , if you wanna write a book , or really if you have any goal , you have to determine why do you actually want that ?

You know , if you wanna write a book , do you wanna become famous , do you wanna get rich , or do you just wanna make a difference ? And I'm not here to tell you what your goal should be or your why should be , but you need to know your why up front . For me , I had two specific whys that I kept in front of me while writing this book .

The first why was my children . I heard Mark Batterson say a long time ago when it comes to writing books . He said everyone should write at least one book , if for nothing else for their children .

And for me , as I was writing this book , I just thought when my kids are older I have four kids under seven right now when they're older , if I could sit down and give them a book that I think would help them build a foundation for their life like this would be the book .

In fact , without going into details of what my book is completely about , when I was 30 and I did a decade review , god spoke to my heart , not in an audible voice , but just inside , and I just felt like he said Doug , in your 20s I gave you a foundation to build your life on .

In your 30s I'm gonna give you something to say , and in your 40s I'm gonna give you the platform to say it . And for me , this book that I wrote , this first book , is the foundation that God gave me in my 20s . And I get invited to coffee a lot of times with young leaders asking me hey , how do I build a great life , how do I turn my life around ?

And if I were to have coffee with 10,000 of those people like , this is the book that I would give them . This is the book that I would give my children to build a great life . And so that was my why , and I kept that in front of me and I visualized my kids reading this book .

I visualized and that's my second point my second why was I wrote it for the person that I used to be . This was huge . I wrote it for the person that I used to be , and so I heard I think it was Rory Vaden say this recently . He said we're most equipped to reach the person that we used to be . I think that is so powerful .

And as I wrote this book , I thought what book do I wish I would have had handed to me when I was 17 years old , on my way to becoming a drug addict , on my way to becoming an alcoholic , had no direction in life . What would I wish someone would have gave me to read ? And this is the book .

So those are the two whys that I had in mind my children , next generation , and the person that I used to be , keeping that in front of me really helped motivate me to keep writing every day . The next lesson is just encouragement matters .

This should come as no surprise , but you need to surround yourself with people who are gonna encourage you and that cause you to dream big and go for it . And I had so many friends encourage me along the way .

I remember having coffee with Matt Geppert , my friend for the first time , and I didn't even say anything but he said , doug , your call to write , you need to write a book , the next generation needs your book , and he's told me that pretty much in every meeting that we've had since .

I had another friend , jenny , who was constantly saying did you start writing yet ? Start writing , start writing , the world needs your book . I had another friend , chris Murasca , who literally handed me an envelope and I opened it and had a check made out to me for $20 , saying that I wanna buy the first copy of your book .

My wife has been encouraging me daily , having people around you to continually tell you get it out , there's something in you . The world needs what you have . Having that encouragement made an enormous difference in the journey of getting there . The next thing I would tell you and the lesson that I learned is it was time .

It was time and I'd be lying to you if timing didn't play into this . And what's interesting is I've mentioned 20 plus years I've been dreaming of doing this and I remember about 10 years ago I was in a leadership program and one of my mentors , rick Wellock , was there and I had shared with the group hey , I'm gonna write a book , that's my goal this year .

And Rick pulled me aside . He said , doug , you're already writing your book . So what do you mean ? I'm already writing my book . Like I hadn't started writing it yet . He said you're already writing your book . And that's all he said to me and I didn't necessarily understand what he meant at that time . But now , looking back , I do know what he meant .

He said you're living out the principles that one day you'll share in the book that's worth actually reading . And what I found is that we live in a world where everyone wants a platform , everyone wants to write a book , everyone so to be a YouTube star , but nobody actually has much to say .

And I think if I would have wrote this book at any other time or earlier in my life , I wouldn't have had enough credibility or enough life experience To actually write this book , to make it a meaningful book and to make it a book worth reading . But because I've been living these principles that I'm sharing in this book for the past 20 years .

Writing it was easy , and I believe I have something Significant to say for the audience that I'm intending to reach through this book . And so timing played a huge part in this , and so I would also encourage you , especially if you're a person of faith , trust God for his timing . You know , it was great .

I had a dream for 20 years , but maybe God didn't want me to write a book for 20 years . Maybe there's a specific reason . Now is the time that he wanted me to write this . So , and and I would just say this , when it is time , it was easy and light .

Right there , I told you , I tried five or ten times Throughout that 20 years of actually starting to write a book , and it just seemed hard , it seemed uphill , but this time , this time when I wrote it , it was easy and light . It doesn't mean it wasn't challenging .

It doesn't mean it wasn't hard work it was , but there was something about the timing of it in the piece and the ease of which it came out of my heart that I just feel like sharing . It was time for this book .

I thought that was worth sharing with you and and just pray about hey , is it time for you to do whatever's in your heart , whether that's write a book , start a podcast , etc . And if you feel like it's time , then go for it .

And the last piece of advice I'd share is , specifically , if you want to write books , is , have a vision for writing multiple books . Have a vision for writing multiple books .

I was listening to one of the top literary agents in the world recently on a podcast and she said you know now , when people publish books , publishing a book is basically creating a business in and of itself .

And what we're looking for in authors , we're looking for authors who want to write multiple books and and basically create a business of Writing books every couple of years and getting them out there .

And I've always and again , inspired by John Maxwell , I've wanted to write dozens of books throughout my my lifetime and having that vision made me realize very , very quickly to not get so caught up in being a perfectionist . I just need to get the first book out . Again I alluded to , or I said it earlier .

John Maxwell said in the beginning , you're not very good , but if you never write your first book , you're never gonna get to your second book . If you never write your first book , you're never gonna get to the fourth , fifth book . And Maybe the first book is great and it's awesome , but maybe it's not , even if it's not .

Your third or fourth book may be Phenomenal and it may be the very book that God wants to use to reach the world , but if you never write the first book , you're never gonna get to the fourth book . So have a vision for many books . Don't get so caught up in perfectionism world , that you think this book's the only book that you'll ever write .

Hey , get it out there . And hey , even if it's the only book you ever write . That's why they also have second editions and third editions . You could always go back and add to it and change it later , but have a vision for multiple books .

That'll make it easier for you to get over Worrying about this book being perfect , because it's not gonna be perfect , it's gonna be imperfect , but get it out there . Be willing and courageous enough to ship something into the world that you wrote .

And so those are the big things that really helped me write my first draft from my book that I wanted to share with you today . So what's next for me ? Well , I'm really gonna be taking time to research and actually pray about what are the next steps for me with this book . Should I go the self publishing route ?

Should I look for an agent and try to get a traditional publisher and go that route ? So that's what's next for me and , as always , once I go through that process any lessons that I learned I'll eventually do another podcast of Saying , hey , lessons that I learned in publishing and editing and getting my book out into the world .

And if any of you are listening to this and you are an agent or publishing house or published books and you have any advice for me , I would appreciate you reaching out . You can just email me at Doug Smith at L3 leadershiporg or find me on social media . I'm not very hard to find , but I'd love to talk to you and I would love any advice that you have .

So I want to end the the episode by just encouraging you . If you listen to this and you have a dream to write a book , write it . I'm here to tell you . The world needs your message . Your family needs your message . Everyone around you needs the message that God has put in your heart .

So just go for it and hopefully today you were encouraged that you can do it and maybe you got a step or two that was practical for you to actually get it done . So that's all I have . I'll talk to you next episode . Go write your book . You can do it . If I can do it , anyone can do it . I promise you . I'll talk to you next episode .

Well , leader , thank you so much for listening to my lesson on the lessons that I learned in writing my first book . I hope it added value to you and that you enjoyed it . You can find links to everything that I discussed within the lesson at l3leadershiporg forward slash 390 .

And , as always , leader , I want to challenge you that if you want to 10X your growth this year , then you need to either launch or join an L3 leadership mastermind group .

Mastermind groups are simply groups of six to 12 leaders that meet together on a consistent basis for at least one year in order to help each other grow , hold each other accountable and to do life together . For me personally , mastermind groups have been the greatest source of growth in my life over the last eight years .

So if you're interested in learning more about launching or joining a group , go to l3leadershiporg , forward , slash masterminds or email me at dugsmithl3leadershiporg . And , as always , I like to end every episode with a quote , and I'll quote Craig Groeschel today , who said this . He said you can have control or you can have growth , but you cannot have both .

That's a challenge for all of us leaders . Well , hey , I hope you enjoyed the episode . Know that my wife Lauren , I love you , we believe in you and I say it every episode . But don't quit , keep leading . The world desperately needs your leadership .