Chaos to Creation Confessions

SHOW NOTES

Simon Bowkett, my favourite Australian!

Find out why Simon developed his own online training platform and how that's turned into a saleable asset

Go to where the learner is, don't force them to come to your platform

Find out how 15 years ago Simon bootstrapped his online learning business, before developing his own learning platform

You need to motivate people to take the training, especially if they're not paying for it themselves

Software developers speak a different language to business owners... so what can you do?

Create something simple to solve the customer's pain

Learn why Simon had been "writing his book for 6 years" until he met Debs and then he got his 60,000 word book written in 6 months - how? By breaking it down into small manageable chunks.

Hear how by setting outcome goals Simon wrote his 60,000 word book in just 6 months

Hear how having constraints helps Simon write his book, and create hundreds of videos for his popular motor industry sales course

I made sure everyone knew I had a book coming out, because then I had to bloody do it.

Am I really good enough? Can I actually write a book? Who the hell do I think I am? I read all those Anthony Robbins books and all those other books. I remember thinking, can I really do this?

Discover the four fundamentals for selling (from Simon's book: Words That Sell Cars)

How Simon created IP that he can reuse in other industries

Delivered over 13,000 sessions of his online training program in the 2 months of lockdown

How Simon built a plane from scratch, and then let his 18 year old son fly it!

SHOW NOTES

How Sari manages working on more than one book at once: It's a combination of creativity and structure

My discipline has always been to really structure things and on the creative side to really keep on developing.

I go in and out on structure - first I diverge speak to clients, investigate ideas. Before I converge.

It all starts with a question I need to answer for them.

It always goes observation, interpretation, conceptualization, and then I started process.

I look for patterns, and then interpret them

Conceptualization: there are many roads to Rome, what model or concept could I create?

If all goes well then I go to productize, and create a training course, or book, or whatever they need

In that divergent stage, what I've noticed is I really need time to myself. I can't take any feedback then I need to shut myself away.

Being an entrepreneur makes it really difficult to lock yourself away, because as an entrepreneur, you're always thinking not only about your next paycheck, but usually about the next year's paycheck. So you're always doing acquisition and execution at the same time.

Working in blocks is also a very expensive way to write a book because each time it takes me about a day and a half to get back into that voice again. And by that time I have half a day to write in a weekend. So that's the dilemma.

With external constraints I think the trick is not to fight them. If they're really non-negotiable, they're nonnegotiable.

As an entrepreneur, you have to be somewhat narcissistic in the sense that you think that anything is possible.

My constraint is time - the balance between time and money. So if I don't spend time, I don't make money. If I don't spend time, I don't write my book, which could get me more money, you know, that's, that's, that's the dialogue I have.

Learn how Sari, the precocious kid was giving riding lessons at 6, and started her business when she was 22.

What helped me was that I didn't know it was impossible...

I actually don't really look back. I look more in the here and now, forward. When I tell people my story of entrepreneurship, I am really proud. I'm really proud of and that I've been able to help clients improve the quality of their work and their life along the way

I fell in love at 56...

One of the tricks to being creative is to have a plan, A, B and C, so always have many things on the go.

How do you decide what's the right project, right now? I go where my heart lies, where my passion is. I start with a puzzle.

You should also let go of ideas that don't have that energy

SHOW NOTES

When she found herself in her comfort zone as a senior executive in healthcare she decided to strike out on her own and do something new that caters to what interests her

Martina explains how the brain gets into threat states when trying something new, and what you can do to alleviate it...

Even if I'm not obviously scared, my brain definitely is quite scared

I love learning and my fascination has always been about the hidden capabilities of the brain

Throughout my life being an MD, having studied medicine, being a scientist, I see that there's a lot of unused potential in the brain

We know that the brain can be changed, it's changing every day.

We're learning more about neuroscience every day, which is great, because you can learn to deal with yourself better, and as a leader deal with your team better

I get really angry when I see neuroscience being communicated in books and articles in a stupid way or too complicated, so I decided to write a book about it.

Martina's book is called, Build Better Brains: A leader's guide to the world of neuroscience, published in 2020

Learn how Martina wrote her book in 9 months.

You have to recognize when you're ignorant, but you also have to be able to say, I want to learn, but also I need help...

There's no need to "hack" your brain, forget about nootropics

Martina saw that the information on the brain out there was either too complex, too scientific, too referenced, very dry and was usually missing the point. She could see a need for something that was more relevant, lighthearted, more entertaining and not esoteric.

Why you don't need a footnote to be two pages long to impart useful information!

I think that the biggest decision you need to make when becoming an author is: how much do I need to know and how much do I want to put in the book?

I've always been an 80% person, which means I live with the risk of missing out

If I did it again I would build up my community before writing the book

How & why to turn your book into a course

Jump into the cold water, and take Kung Fu Panda's advice, because tomorrow is a mystery...

I like to test with different audiences, I gave this chapters of the book and even the full full manuscript to very different people. Test with people who are not your key audience, but will give critical feedback.

Every time you test and get success you give your brain a little dopamine kick, you activate your reward cycle, that's where motivation comes from

Feedback can activate your reward cycle as much as chocolate, your brain activates its pleasure centre as neurochemicals are released

Go from a dream to a project to get it done.

Don't do it alone. Get help from experts. Your chances of success are much higher.

Find out what type of leader you are - Gardener, Magician or Captain - at www.MartinaMuttke.com

Learn about the concept of Slow Down to Speed Up®

There are so many priorities on the list that nothing's really a priority. It's just a huge to do list of demands.

So slowing down to speed up is about taking a thoughtful, deliberate, measured, considered approach to the work that we do and the ways in which we live our lives.

It's not as straightforward as slow down, then speed up... you've got to figure some things out first

Once you've done that slowing down work, you are then poised to go fast

I am way more effective when I'm in dialogue with other people. All of a sudden I feel engaged and creative and the thoughts start flowing. When I'm just sitting in front of my laptop or pad, it's a blank page phenomenon.

It's fantastic to work with others, think out loud, answer questions, ask questions and get other perspectives

There are a million ways I've been able to repurpose material from my book

Slow Down to Speed Up® also means not doing everything yourself, but finding the right people to collaborate with. Stick to your own forte!

How to use your book as the hub for many assets such as toolkits, PDFs, articles, slide decks, keynotes, workshops

Make multiple Minimum Valuable Assets (tm)

Don't get caught up in making something big or extravagant or complicated or convoluted when really you need to go back to "what does the reader or the viewer or the user need and want to know?" and then make that

Be honest with yourself, don't keep stuff because you're afraid to let go... make sure you're doing the things that only you can do and delegate the rest

Block out time in your day to work on the right things

I'm a psychologist by training and I think one of the things that makes life very difficult is an excess of rigidity.

An essential part of getting the right things done includes taking care of yourself.

SHOW NOTES:

I get into my female energy power...

My last creation was a masterclass to serve my audience

How Jane took advantage of the accidental creation process to serve people who knew, liked and trusted her...

Go out to your market and test. Ask them: "Do you want a book on this?"

Be prepared to take advantage of the chaos to create new products

I love testing and I love doing experiments. It's part of who I am. I've always got one on the go. It's fun. It's a game, it's an experiment.

Look for the signals...

How naming things is hard, but you can iterate it - not all hamsters should be called fluffy

How Jane used a Kickstarter campaign to test her idea for a book... would people put money down?

How Jane manages her energy and sets constraints and boundaries so she can create

Daily create opportunities for accidental creation

In the last 10 years I have been tested to my core... I said to myself, get up, build, build, build... I had to hang on to those small steps and tiny wins on the way to quantum leaps

Have data-driven conversations because that's where the power is

The excitement, coupled with fear of launching new products - "It's like Christmas morning! It's a gift."

Do curiosity driven testing, so you can have data-driven conversations to explain the world.

Know why you do what you do so you can be courageous

Silence is power

How, "Your comment is very revealing." shuts up the worst haters

My natural default is that there are some many people better at some things than me, so I outsource to experts!

Show Notes:

Why you need some "how" and not just a lot of "why" in your book...

I've got techniques for what I'm supposed to do about it, but I still forget and I still end up stuck in my own brain, in my own chaos, unable to see from an external point of view.

When you're so close to the stuff you're good at you forget "beginner's mind"...

I started with the problem...

Find out what's the biggest problem authors face... and it's not writing the book

Why you shouldn't sell books and what you should do instead...

Why you need to Make Your Book Pay

Authors are focusing on the wrong thing if they're trying to sell their books...

Over the last 20 years working with expert businesses Joe has noticed the patterns...

I've been immersed in books and business for the last 20 years...

At Rethink Press it's a point of pride that nearly all of our authors become Amazon bestsellers. But it's not to sell books, it's to sell the author.

Authors need to sell a bigger idea, not books

Mainstream publishers are making a mistake when it comes to serving their authors

Don't become an accidental employee of the mainstream publishers

Don't get into editing before you've done a great job on creating...

Use the constraint of a writing outline to keep you on track

Discover Joe's SOLD model that all expert business owners need to understand

Use your book transactionally

Don't sell books. Give them a way to facilitate the SOLD process in your business.

Don't assume - people want to know specifically what to do, what to say, and they want permission to know it's OK to do it.

Why expert business owners should give their books away...

Find out about the Value Stack, which flips the business funnel on its head, and let's your clients ascend the mountain of value you provide

When do you know to throw away your creation and start again?

Don't succumb to false constraints

Does it really solve the problem?

Bounce your ideas off another brain, but be careful who you choose!

Estelle Read takes readers on a journey from workaholism to being able to shine...

She says: "Like a lot of coaches, I became an NLP practitioner, master practitioner, trainer of NLP, hypnotherapist, EFT-er, blah, blah, blah. But it wasn't helping me get clients from A to B..."

Estelle works with the top 5% of income earners... they're already wildly successful... so why do they need coaching? Why do you need coaching?

She wrote her book, Inner Brilliance, Outer Shine to help you cheat your way to outer shine and reach destination joy.

Find out how limiting beliefs and too much chaos stopped Estelle from finishing her book for 10 years! Then in just 7 months she got it completed! 

She says: "There's a time to learn and there's a time to gather information and then there's a time to just get out there and test it"

Estelle Read is a Human Potential Coach and works in the professional services industry with a variety of clients ranging from PLCs through to small local companies; the common denominator being that they are all looking to grow performance in some way. She describes her style as being: supportive and challenging (good cop / bad cop), tenacious (she loves to see her clients get results), practical, passionate and fun.