How to Write and Edit a Book (with Amazon best-selling author Clay Clark)

Audio Transcription

You have questions. America’s number one business coach has answers. It’s your brought up from Minnesota. Here’s another edition of ask clay, anything on the thrive time business coach radio show?

Yes, thrive

Nation. Welcome back to another exciting edition of the thrive time show on your radio and podcast download. And Andrew since I’ve known you, you’ve seen me put out a lot of books. I have, I read books. That’s what I do. Yup. And you have some notes I asked you to gather in preparation for today’s show cause today’s show is about how to edit a book. Yup. Andrew, what have you titled today’s show notes? Just so I know how to proof a book. How to proof a book, how to proof a book. Okay, let’s get how to proof a book and had an add slash edit a book. Ooh, how to approve slash edit a book. I want to make sure there’s no doubt for the people out there on YouTube, on Spotify, on Facebook, Google, iHeartRadio, that kind of thing. What it is we’re talking about.

We’re talking about how to edit a book, how to proof a book. And let’s start off with the process of, of editing a book. Andrew, what do you think is the toughest part about editing a book? Reading it 20 or 30 times over and over and over and finding new areas. So let’s put down the steps for the listeners. Okay. Step one, if you’re gonna edit a book step point and you have to write a book. Now that right there, as we going to lose a lot of people a lot, there’s a lot of people out there. They say, I wanna write a book, but this month, right now my business is growing. I’m expanding. I’ve opened up another location with the holidays coming up, you know, with the cheerleading tournament coming up with my, I got this, I got the sniffles, I got this.

I just can’t know this devils you, you know, and it’s like, I can’t, I, I, so we got to sit down and do it. Yeah. So step number one, really pre-step number one, let’s go with this will be the new step one. No step one. Shut the heck up. Then step two, write the book. Oh, okay. It’s to step one is like, well, I can’t write a book because these people will spend hours weekly explaining why they can’t write a book. But step one, just shut up and write a book. You know, now, now, step two now, but I’m just lexical. So am I. Did I write multiple books? Jim Stovall, my good friend Jim Stovall, look him up. S. T. O. V. A. L. L. he’s been on the show multiple times. He is blind. Turns out, if you’re blind, Andrew, it’s harder to write a book and it’s harder but not impossible.

Clifton Taulbert, the first African American West of the Mississippi to open up a bank. Ah, you know, he wrote a book while running a bank. He helped introduced a stair master. He wrote, he wrote a book. He found time. Lee Cockerel, you know, a former executive vice president of Walt Disney world resorts who managed 40,000 people. He found time to write a book. You could find time to write a book. Now there’s a great company out there called scribe media. We’ll put a link there for to scribe media. I think for about $30,000, they’ll help you write a book. If you’re a coaching client, I’ll help you write a book. I’ll do that, you know? But you gotta you gotta write the book and I’ve written now, I mean books for myself like that personally written with my name on it. I think this is book a 16, I think 16 but I have, you know, dozens of books that I’ve worked on for other people.

And you just got to shut up. Andrew. Talk to me about, you have to shut up and write the book. What, what time do you wake up every day? We, my wife and I wake up at 2:30 AM every day. What time do you go to bed? Eight 30 to nine. So you go to bed at eight 30. If you sleep five hours, that’s one 30, maybe two, six, six hours. That’s a lot. So you have, you could get up, but you’re saying you do this. Yeah. Are you a morning person before you started working with us? I was not actually, I had to learn it. So you could do it. You could do it. That’s one thing you could do. Or you could make an excuse. Now, George Washington Carver tried to, I tried to book him on the show, but I couldn’t get him on the show cause he’s dead weird.

George Washington Carver though, who was born a slave who didn’t know his own birthday. He says this, let me read the notable quotable to you, George Washington Carver. Here’s the little, Oh, cool. It’s not very fun quote, but it’s what, let’s split it. Let’s be mad at him. Let’s, let’s boot him. Don’t boo me, don’t get mad at me. I’m just telling you the truth. You know, and I’m not funny enough to tell you, you know, truth about you getting mad. Now, if I was really funny, I’d be a comedian then I could say whatever I want to say. But this is the truth. It says George Washington Carver writes, 99% of the failures come from the people that have the habit of making excuses. 99% of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. So step one, shut up. Step two, you have to write a book, so block out the time in your schedule to do it. Andrew, put that down there and step three, block out that time.

I find that the best time for me to write a book is no time. I find the time that I have taught to do it is between 3:00 AM and 9:00 AM and I just lock it in my schedule. 3:00 AM tonight at 9:00 AM write a book and I’ll just do it like every day until it’s done or every weekend until it’s done it. My kids typically don’t miss me at eight in the morning. True at 3:00 AM they’re not coming down here, dad, dad, where are you? Are you wow, how come you’re not in your bad dad cat? Don’t write a book. Go back to a bad snuggle. I don’t get that. Maybe I’m a bad person. I don’t know. So step three, block out, time to write the book. But now once you’ve written the book, okay, we got to write the first version of the first version of anything.

According to Ernest Hemingway, who turns out to be a great author. Ernest Hemingway writes, the first draft of anything is booboo. He he, he cursed the will be it. He says the [inaudible] would try to let me try to time it. He says the first draft of anything, the first draft of any thing is, let’s say it rhymes with ship. If you’re a rapper, it’s like, you know ship, it’s, it’s very close to that. It’s kinda like shift. He says the first draft of anything is, you know, that’s, that’s what, that’s what that is. Okay. So, but you got to ride it and perfect is the enemy of done. Perfect is the enemy of done. So just write it. I’m so excited. I want to ride it. Oh no. Oh no. I might have a mistake. I’m going to stop now. Stop it when the excitement is over.

That usually takes me about 10 minutes of riding before I’m no longer excited about writing and they just have to do it. You just gotta write. You write now, Paul Graham, who couldn’t be on the show today because he has class, but he talks about this a lot. If you go up to there and read a a Paul, go to Paul graham.com he’s the guy behind Airbnb, Dropbox and Reddit. He talks about this a lot. Paul Graham does on his website, Paul graham.com where he talks about the first eight iterations of things. I’m paraphrasing, but the first eight iterations of something are usually not that great. Eight. This right here in my hands, my new book. If walls could talk now it’s supposed to. I mean I got no here. You got my my friend. My first change. I want it to be if the walls could talk, so I do is I get out a pen.

He’s in pin technology. Now I’m going to get this pin if, if the walls could talk, but did I think of the, do I want to use say if though, because really what this book is, it’s if my walls could talk because these are notable quotables I’ve written on the walls in the office. Andrew, why have I written certain quotes on the walls in the office? These certain Epiphanes it’s words of wisdom. I mean, they’re good for one, they’re good for everybody to know whether it’s a quote or a stat or a story. But also it creates a good polar environment. It polarizing environment. Yeah, it’s true. People say all the time, clay, why do you write all these Epiphanes on the walls? I do this because it’s a divisive thing. It causes you to love me or to hate me and I don’t want you in the middle.

I do not want you coming to a conference and being upset about it just don’t come. That’s what the money back guarantee. If you come to the conference, you’re not happy or you go by. It’s, there’s no upsells. But I, it’s, it’s, it is what it is. I, I’m not interested in having a church service, a Christian Church service where I also let the leader of, let’s say the Muslim mosque also speak. I wouldn’t be interested in going to a mosque where they also let equal time happen for a Christian pastor. Pick a side, pick a team. I’m not interested. And members of the new England Patriots also wearing the other team’s uniform. I am not interested in attending the Republican convention hosted by Barack Obama. President Obama. I’m not I the former president Obama. I’m not interested in seeing a more moderate tone down president Trump.

I’m not interested in that. So I write these words of wisdom on the walls because I do believe you do not spell words, but words cast a spell on you. You don’t. You don’t spell words. Words cast a spell on you. Who you what? Why are you looking at me? I’m looking at you because you know what I’m talking about. Words cast a spell. They do. It’s very important that you don’t put bad words in your walls. All right, Andrew [inaudible] and then my bathroom. Why do I have pictures of where somebody tried to file unemployment and they tried to file it and they were wrong. Yup. And then I won. Why do I put that in my bathroom? Oh, that’s a good reminder to know that a to one to kind of be paranoid. Yep. It’s a reminder, but it’s allows me to be paranoid.

Yeah. It reminds you that that’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen again. It has happened. It turned out good. But always be on the lookout and be paranoid. Okay. No Steve jobs who couldn’t be here cause he’s also dead. He said, people think focus means saying yes to the thing you got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the a hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things that I haven’t done is the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things. So I’m writing a book. Andrew, what am I not doing anything else besides writing the book and trusting anything else and trusting, this is how you write a book. So the book is what we call it. If my walls could talk, I made that change.

Now there’s a lot more changes that I want to make. Like right now it says my name, but we don’t really know clay Clark, who’s that? So they I think I, I’m not famous enough to not have a clarifier and I’m going to need a core endorsement so I’m going to take out my pin and I’m going to write on here my endorsement because who, who’s gonna endorse me, who, who do I want to in? Because again, people read books that are endorsed by people, so I would take out a pen and I would write that down and then I moved to the next page. Now this next page explains kind of the legal ease of publishing. Now for the sake of the listeners and viewers were watching this, I’m not going to sit there and do this part with you, but this right here would take me about five to 10 minutes to prove this legalees.

Then I would move on to the next page and I am going to have to prove this page. This is a picture of the office from the office and you will see a picture of a diagram from the office and I have this little diagram I made called cause and effect, and it says, hard work produces results. Cold calls creates appointments. No sick days creates consistency. Accountability creates traction. Firing idiots creates an idiot free zone. Article writing allows you to be top and Google, that kind of thing. And so I will read this for another 10 minutes. You go, you’re going to read this page for 10 minutes? Yeah. Out loud. You’re going to read this page out loud? Yeah. Yeah. Why? Because I agreed on the same thing over and over all the time. It’s exciting for me. Just gets me going. No, it’s because I got to find Andrew, I’ve got to find the errors.

It’s like an Easter egg hunt. It’s right. And you have to look at it expecting to find errors. You can’t look at it thinking in your head, Oh, this is great, this is perfect. You have to intentionally be looking for errors. What did I do wrong here? You have to have that mindset. And every single time I proof it, I will find another air. And Andrew, I’ll find another air every time. Is it because I’m a horrible writer? No, it’s because you’re a human. How many times Paul Graham say we have to edit something, the guy behind Airbnb, Dropbox and read it before we get it right and well he says the first eight. So that means at least nine. You have to have nine iterations. How many prototypes of the light bulb did Thomas Edison make before we made one that actually worked? It was 10,000 yes, it’s a lot.

It’s more than eight. Mm. So you think about this, you go, well, 10,000 that seems like a lot more than eight. So then you have two options. Either one, you go, I got to shut up and sit down and edit this thing. Or we go, what do you guys want to eat? He doesn’t want get something to eat. I’ll call my mom, call my girlfriend, call my neighbor, call my wife, I’ll check Facebook. So this is how most people do a book. Okay? What you do is you go on Facebook, and I wish I don’t do, but let me just explain what they do. They first, they get excited about writing the book and then we go onto Facebook. For Andrew, how many hours a day does the average person consume media on their phone? Did you find that stat from Nielsen, my friend? I’ve got it right here.

Let me get yet accurate. It’s over 11 so 11.3 11.3 make sure you put a link to it. We can cite that. That is the truth. Nielsen says 11.3 hours a day. A day over almost half a day spent on social media. Take you to reset when you’re interrupted. One time, 23 minutes. According to was at fast company. That’s ink ink. Dot. Going into ink magazine. It’s right. It takes 20 to how many minutes? 23 minutes to recover from a distraction, so that’s why people can’t get anything done. Perpetual distraction gets in the way of taking the action. Now there’s a picture on this, on this page, page six of the book, my new book called if my walls could talk. You used to be called if walls could talk, but I don’t, I’m not interested in all walls talking. I’m interested if my walls could talk.

It says a business exists to serve the owner. And I’m quote, I’m attributing to dr Robert Zellner. What does that mean, Andrew? It means that the business is not set up or made to serve anybody, whether it’s the employees, whether it’s the end user or anybody else that may affect it’s created as a vehicle to serve you and your family or whoever you want it to. So let’s, let’s, let’s talk about this. You are an employee. You work with me to what time does our daily coaches meetings start? 6:00 AM did I ask you when you would like to have that meeting? He did not. Did I run it by the whole team to see what’s the most convenient time for everybody? Nope. Do you see a lot of business owners, cause you’ve worked a lot of business owners, you’ve met a lot of them at conferences.

Do you see a lot of, I’m trying to take it to a vote. Yes. Yup. And how does that go over every single time? It always leads in a decision not being made because no one will agree on everything. No. Let’s talk about this for a second. Yep. Businesses are benevolent or benevolent dictatorships. That’s what a business is. And a democracy is a dysfunctional business. Okay? You cannot get consensus from everybody. Andrew, overhead music who, who chose the set playlist? Mr. Clay Clark. And if you go to EITR lounge.com and you click on clay Clark radio, you can hear the music. Yup. Some people don’t like the music. Some people do. Do I care? Not at all. Interesting. When is our conference currently? Our conference conferences on Friday, Saturday 11 December 13th and 14. That’s the next one. What time does it start?

It starts at 7:00 AM. Why? Because you decided to start at seven so that the diligent doers will show up. All the entrepreneurs who are successful love it. That it starts at seven. That’s right. Everyone. The exact same reason that the people who are not entrepreneurs hate it or aren’t there. Yeah. They always are like, Oh, why does this thing start at seven coming in looking like death warmed over at 9:00 AM watching the boys get out of here. Quit T going the voice. I’m watching the mass. Two boys watching. Let’s see who wins. Did you write your book? No, I was busy watching the boys debating with people on Facebook. That’s what people take one. That’s a big one. Debating on Facebook, debating on Instagram. So we’ve got to do, we’ve got to get to a place where we sit down and write the book now.

Now I’m in America. There are 330 million. What? Andrew? There are 330 million Americans. And how many of them start a business each year? A 16 million. 16 million self employed people every year. And what percentage of them fail within a decade? According to inc magazine, 90% of all 96 96 people, 96% look that up. 96% of businesses fail. Look up the stat within 10 years, 96 that means there is a 0.00193 chance to be exact 0.00193% chance that you will be successful. That’s not encouraging at all. No, you could be successful. Andrew. We have got some really, really great clients that we are honored to serve. Yeah. And I’m not sure when this show is gonna come out, but I just released the Thanksgiving show. I just recorded that at least to be released on, on Thanksgiving. But I’m will you pull up that Thanksgiving show document? Yeah. And then kid, will you put the camera on him to focus on him?

I’m going to read, I’m going to reset my, my, my keyboard here real quick. And as I do that, I want the, the judgment of the thrive nation to be on Andrew as he looks for documents. Nothing’s more exciting than watching a man on video search for a document. Let’s see if he can try it. I believe I can find it. Here we go. Thanksgiving show. Is it the emergency update? Is it that one? There’s a much to be thankful for. One, that’s the one right there. Okay. So we got the Thanksgiving show. Yep. And we’ve got some percentages of growth. I don’t want you to share how much revenue a company is doing, but I do want you to share about the percentage of growth. Yeah. and I’ll share the hard numbers for the ones I can, but let’s talk about this for a second.

We’ve got a metal roof contractors, that’s a company. Okay. Scotch construction company. The number, you can see the annual sales total for scotch instruction. And by the way, we’re not done yet. This is the, I’m recording this show two days before Thanksgiving. Yeah, we’re in November. He’s already almost doubled last year. Sales. It’s very close now. Andrew, we’re in an economy that is rocking. Yeah. 1.9% GDP growth every quarter. It’s about seven and a half for the year. It’s rocking, rocking under Trump. Tastic the Dow Jones has skyrocketed. Things are rocking, but that being said, average business owners are growing at like 1.9% per quarter. 8% per year is 50% more than 7% ah yeah, it’s 43% more shocking shock quite a bit. The reason why scotch construction grows is because he shuts up and does what needs to be done and what you need to do is not related to what you feel like doing.

You’re not related ideas. So then we look at a metal roof contractors, he’s up, he’s up for the year right now. A little over 13% and we’re not done with the year yet. It’s a November. December is a huge month for people. Jamison cabinetry, your fine client there. That guy talked to me about him. What kind of growth is he having? Is he having any growth? He’s having a lot of growth. He’s a, this year is definitely going to be going to, going to be his best year ever by more than 5%. More than 10% more than 20%. Say it’s around 20 between 20 and 30. A Jean breeze, a great speaker based in the Phoenix, Arizona area. I believe she’s doubled her fees this year as a speaker doubled. Not what she could charge, but the real, we’re not talking about feelings folks. I’m not talking about a book. She’s thinking about writing.

I’m talking about a completed book I’m talking about not the sales sheet. Could have, I’m not celebrating a false, when I’m talking about a real win the real way, she’s really doubled her revenue that’s in the bank account. Brian T. Armstrong builder. This guy has almost tripled his company. Andrew tripled. Triple, triple. That’s a lot. Triple. That’s huge. Sounds a lot like you guys said triple Andrew. I tell him, look, what did you say, Andrew? What was the word you just said? And that was triple, triple, triple, which reminds me, whereas Mabel Andrew triple though, seriously triple, triple. How often do you hear about something tripling? Never, not, not business growth where all my pants, I see a lot of entrepreneurs who are unable to focus. They’re like that senile. You know, we all have that seen how great uncle, he’s got his glasses pulled down to right about here and you know, he pulls his pants up well over his belly button when he backs out, he no longer looks when he backs out his car, he just backs up. He just waits for broken glass trashcan and he’ll say, it’s the Tommy Andrew. How is work going?

Hey, Andrew answered, I’m over here. What? Oh, well it’s, well my parents, you know, and you’re like an hour later you’re like, Hey, Hey, it’s uncle Larry. Okay. You know, I can hear you Andrew. How’s your wife, Carl, when you’re like, my mom’s name is Manoj Carl. Where are my parents? I mean, we all know people that are senile like that, right? It can’t hold a thought man. It’s true. We know people like that, do we not? I know a lot of people don’t. We know we’ve met people. It’s sad, but they’re senile. They don’t know what’s going on. They they, they, they cannot hold a thought. Yup. Can I let you know a little secret? Let me in the smart phone is making you because the average person’s interrupted. How much of their day, Andrew, how many hours? 11.3 and how many minutes does it take somebody to recover the thought after they lose it to 23 minutes.

That’s a lot. Hedge row. So good to see you. You look a lot like your brother. Where’s Mabel hedge row? Where am I? Pants. I mean you’re just like uncle Larry. Stop. It’s just, is he on his med? Does he had his meds? Too much meds. Not enough. So many meds. Most people are like that now. They can’t sit down and write a book because why? Why? Because they’re getting distracted. If you imagine that a lot of people would get on their phone to write their book or get on their phone to look something up or get on their phone and that just means it’s you’re going as soon as you touch your phone, that’s an half an hour. Zoom in on this crap right here. Kill. This is my pink phone. The pink pants are right. It’s a beautiful thing. This phone right here, it is on this cool setting that all the kids are not doing called airplane mode.

Now when I put it on airplane mode, who can call me Andrew? Absolutely nobody. And in what time is it now? It’s three 30 in the afternoon. Three 30 in the afternoon. And ms, it’s shocking, Andrew, that I would keep this phone off. How many clients don’t believe I do that? But they brought it, he really turned his phone off and keep it off till the next morning. I would say a lot of them until they shadow and then they’re like, Oh wow, I turn this thing off on Friday. I turn it back on a Monday. Yup. Why? Because everyone’s got to open their mouth with an opinion. I got a guy in Russia today. If you could find my to do list, I’d like you to show it to listeners. We’ve got a guy in Russia who’s a great guy and he found our show online on Kindle.

You were there when we read the, we read the testimonial from the guy, but he’s a listener from Russia and he loves the show. He says, I love the show. I, this is the show I love. This is his name. Here he is. He says, this is, I’m looking at the email. There it is. Everybody email him right now. If you can copy his email address, just send him an email. Bombard him. There it is. D a N I L [email protected]. There he is. Send him an email and say, good job buddy. He says here, he says, steer, sir. Madames this email is just my gratification to clay Clark and your team. I’m a sophomore student living in Russia and first of all, your podcast is the best one and teach you so much how to manage people, how to exceed at work. Clay constantly pontificates about a six day work week.

I’ve never heard such before. Thrive team really inspires me and helps to overcome harsh moment. Thank you. I’m glad you like this. But then I have another person emailing me. It’s fabulous. Some of the emails. I’m so glad I don’t see all the emails, but some of them are just incredible. We had an email coming years ago and this guy says, you’re your rant about people who have, who have anxiety or our week is terrible. You’re a horrible person. No, I think if you’re not in physical shape and you’re not very fast and you’re not 23 to maybe 30 you probably shouldn’t try out for an NFL team. You know, you probably shouldn’t try out for a national football league team unless you’re in shape. You’re good at football. You probably shouldn’t try out. That’s so offensive. You’re killing my train. Get off your dream. Just because you went to a Tony Robbins seminar and he says that you can, if you can achieve it, you can.

If you can achieve it, you can. No, wait a minute now guys, ya. Oh yeah. If we can believe it, we can achieve it. Yeah. Walk on hot coals. Walk on hot coals on the fire. Just because you heard that somewhere doesn’t mean the book’s going to ride itself. You got to sit down and shut up and write the book. And then once you said, so this guy from Russia likes to show, but other people don’t like the show and it’s true. But everybody wants to contact me and let me know. Yup. And that’s why I don’t want everyone to take on more than 160 clients because our clients are growing. Yeah. And I’m not too curious about what’s going on with someone else’s business who disagrees with the show. This is not Fox news. This is not CNN. This is not my opinion. It is facts.

And if you do not agree with these facts, you are wrong. Because I cite everything I say. Andrew, what do you call somebody who disagrees with facts? They are probably mentally impaired somehow. Do you think someone’s mentally impaired if they don’t like facts? Like if I, if I walked in here today going, yeah, you know, guys that gravity gravity thing is be is, yup. Let’s jump off the roof of the deck. Yes. Yeah, I’d probably just watch, listen guys, that’s BS. Our gravity is just a mindset. I mean people do that crap to Google all the time. You say, how do you get to the top of Google? Okay, Andrew, tell us the four moves we have to do to get to the top of Google. Yeah, you have to, one have a canonically compliant website, so website it follows all of Google’s rules.

You have to have a mobiley compliant website, so a website that follows all of Google’s mobile rules to make sure it looks good on. By the way, we have all these rules available. Download for free, download for free in my book, the best SEO book.com just go to the best for SEO book.com you can download my book for free. All the rules are there. They’re all typed out. You can also buy it on Amazon called search engine. The book is called search engine domination. Search engine domination. It’s filled with case studies from real clients, or you can download the ebook right now by going to the best SEO book.com. Either way, Andrew wants somebody who reaches out and wants to know the knowledge, but they don’t want to apply it out. Why is that weird? It’s weird because I mean, we had like, we can help you, we can get you to a space where you’re on top of Google, where you’re getting a lot more leads because you’re in front of a lot of people. But if you don’t want to listen to it, it does make it a weird thing because you reached out and said, Hey, I need some help to do this specific thing, and then you don’t want to do that. So then it’s like, what are we doing here? I’ve got another notable quotable for my book that I’m editing right now. It says, inspiration is the reward in action is the giant action is your sword.

I’m going to start this book with all my client stats this year. By the way, that’s, I’m going to start my book. There you go. Because I am correct. And if you don’t implement this stuff, you’re wrong. You know, and that’s just the fact that who are you to say that you’re a fit? Someone’s wrong. Are you judging people? Absolutely. I’m like a referee of business. Okay. A RAF RA. Come on rapper, you’re blind. No, it’s cause your kids out of bounds. Homes kill it. Okay. That’s how it works. So let’s think about this. Another notable quarter one, the book says action is the real measure of intelligence. Napoleon Hill writes action is the real measure of intelligence. Andrew, why did I write that on the wall with chalk? Because one, it’s a true statement. It’s a great statement and it’s, it’s, I dunno, it’s blatantly saying that action is the measure of intelligence. If you take action, then you are intelligent. Sean’s in her office. You know, Sean, you met Sean. I haven’t met Shawn. Great guy. Full time employee at leadership initiative where we do the back end support for his institution there. Yup. And I want to his clients here, back to basics builders is up 27% for the lights come on. 27% I mean that Andrew, it’s more than the average. Is that more than 8%

Yep. More than eight I’s a math wizard. This Justin math wizard. So we get the economy is growing at a 1.9%

This quarter. Yep. This guy grew by 27% it’s crazy. Kelly construction group up by 21% Bogart and sons construction up 33% restoration. Health chiropractic from a startup to 115 grand of extra revenue. Sick, best buy window treatment up 75% Cheney construction, we’re talking about multimillion dollar companies up 14% custom automation technology is up 16% I mean, it’s unbelievable stuff here guys. It means a lot. CT tech doubled their sales. Listen folks, if your business isn’t growing, there’s something wrong. Find a problem that you can solve for your ideal and likely buyers reach out to us, get out to a workshop and then we’re going to teach you what you do. But you got to sit down and do it. Andrew, how often do you hear people say, the reason why I didn’t get it done is I ran in a time. That’s probably the number one excuse that happens all the time.

And it’s just simply because someone didn’t schedule it for one, they didn’t schedule it and two, they didn’t say no to the rest of the distractions out there. And so you have to schedule it and you have to say no to it. Literally everything else that comes in the way of it. I call this a phenomenon called the Hala plagues instead of the holidays. Most entrepreneurs who are self employed, they make less money than ever while spending more money than ever. It’s the month of the year. They make less and spend the most, the whole world’s out shopping, including them, but they sort of acting like employees but their owners. Right. Andrews, it’s shocking to you that I’m meeting clients at 5:00 AM on Thanksgiving. Yeah. I mean well it’s, it’s good to see. It’s refreshing cause I see a lot of people who take off Thanksgiving and so it’s good to see that there’s better. My kid’s gonna miss me at five in the morning. They are not. I’m still going to be home by 9:00 AM. Yeah, but it’s a trade off. Yeah. How do you find time to write a book, Andrew? What do you do? How do you find time? You got to say no and you got to schedule it. You just have to say no to everything else. Literally everything else. Okay. Schedule it. Another notable quotable from the book, again, I’m editing this. This book says ID GAF.

[Inaudible]

It GAF. I found an error there. I got to fix that. There we go. But it stands for, I don’t give up feeling. Oh for the people that are wrong, I don’t care. I’m not trying to convince you that I am correct. All I do is I show client wins and this is what’s funny. When you show people wins and they still don’t agree, then they go, well all you care about is money. Okay now or yeah, but are you a good husband? And then I’m like, I’ve been married 18 years, I’ve got five kids, we’re doing fine. No one goes to jail. Yeah. Yeah. Haven’t are your kids good in school? Yeah. Well

Cause you’re a dirty with publican. I had a person two weeks ago, this is really funny. This person’s wife asked me true story if I was part of the Illuminati. Oh wow. I’ve never had that one really. Cause she said all the businesses that you’re working with are growing. And the only way that I could see it to be possible is if you are part of some sort of secret society that is controlling the economy. That is my favorite one I’ve heard so far. That right there is an incredible, there’s a triangle right over there. So now, so now that we have the rewritten the book we’re assuming we’ve gone through. So step four okay. Is edit the book. Step five, edit the book. Step six, edit the book. We’re gonna go through step 14 just edit the book, edit the book, edit the book.

And each one of these steps should take you about 20 hours. So you just got to edit the book, edit the book. Now we’re on what I believe to be step 13 this is when your content no longer sucks. So remember the first version of any book sucks. The first draft of anything. My book sucks. Your book sucks. Every book sucks. It’s like we’re writing a book about vacuums that sucks that bad. We’re so, it’s like we’re writing an entire novel about a straws and the suction power of a straw. It’s like it just sucks. But then once you get past that, that step, you know, you’re kind of into that. Now that that step, you know, at step 13 sauce, now you gotta do is wait, we have to type set the book. Now if you’re a client, I’ll, I’ll do it for you.

We’ll type set it. And if not, you gotta hire a company to do this for you. And it’s, it’s called type setting a book. And I’m going to put the average cost. It’s usually between four grand and 20 grand to typeset a book and to have it edited professionally one more time. Excuse me, what it costs. And there are companies out there that do it. I mean there’s great company, I’m not, I’m not quoting the prices, but like as an example, there’s a company in Tulsa called Mason publishing, I believe they’ll do that for you. And they did great, great company. But I’m just saying is that what it’s gonna cost usually. Then after that you got to book the book on a print on demand platform. So you don’t fill your garage with thousands of copies of a book that no one reads. I recommend Ingram sparks, Ingram sparks is a print on demand, a platform.

And then the next step you do is Ingram. Sparks will give you what’s called an I S B N number I S B N number and a. Andrew, why do you have to have an ISP in number? Do you want to have to have an ESPN number? Ah, that’s a great question I just gave me, Oh, let’s look at daddy flipped. It helped me there. I didn’t, I just Whoa. Paint me into a corner there buddy. Okay, so international standard book number. It’s like a serial number for a book. Yup. And that’s how Amazon knows how many book titles are selling, that kind of thing. And every time you sell a book on Amazon, you get paid per book that we don’t have to buy a bunch of books and have that inventory sitting there. Now you say, okay, now I’ve written my book. How do I sell a book?

It’s a good question. Step one, make a list of the top 1000 podcasts or media outlets that you want to be featured on as a guest, as an expert. You know, shows are looking for guests to provide content. So like, you know, Fox news, CNN, Tim Ferriss, they’re looking for guests. Tim is very selective. He won’t let jerks like me on the show. Other people will, you know, more selective. Some are less. You wanna make a list of the top 1000 and you reach out to them. So next step is you want to create a pithy email that States, hi, my name is clay Clark. I’m the former SBA entrepreneur of the year. I have built six multimillion dollar companies and I have written a book on the powers of the Earth’s gravitational pole. I think your listeners would like it because please let me know if you’d like to schedule an interview.

And that’s what you do. That’s it. And you just don’t stop. Andrew, we just had John Maxwell reach out to us to be on the show. He wrote the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. Please told me no a lot recently we’ve been in talks with Dave Ramsey’s people to have Dave on the show, but I mean Dana’s class and style and he, his team has previously rejected me. And do I keep reaching out Andrew? Absolutely. Do I feel bad never cause they’d gaff it calf. I don’t give a few. I don’t. I just keep going cause emotions get in the way of motion, which is in the book by the way. No, there go. He emotions get in the way of the motion. So it’s really, really important that and by the way, this book, it needs a translation for every one of these, every scene, every scene. One of the quotes needs a reason why, you know, it needs like the quote and then the why, you know. So this right here as you know, I mean this is guys, I’m going to probably have another a hundred hours right here. Yeah, that’s a lot of writing. That’s a lot of writing. And you say, well,

What do you do for fun?

[Inaudible]

No, I mean yes, but no, not all. That’s all I do, but I enjoy spending time with my wife. I enjoy my kids. I enjoy motivational movies, like, you know, like a Braveheart kind of thing. I enjoy Adam Sandler films. I call them films, movies. It sounds like Adam Sandler, man. Adam sand, there’s not a film. And that’s a Sandler film. Yes it is. That makes it sound like it’s a bigger thing than it is a better thing than it is. But I enjoy that. Yeah. I’m grilling [inaudible] going in the pool and you know, chasing my wife around Patriots games, Patriots games. I mean, I have things I enjoy. Yeah. Well what about, what about TV? I mean, how are you going to possibly find time to write a book and watch 11.3 hours of film, of, of media day? I don’t, how are you gonna hang, going to write a book and respond to everybody who doesn’t like you? I don’t. Why are you gonna are you gonna write a book and then go to the HOA, the homeowners association and argue about what the dues are? I don’t. Why are you going to ride a block and go on Facebook and argue about Obama? I don’t.

Why are you going to write a book and spend your day gossiping? I don’t, I ain’t gonna ride a, but I mean, you just got to say no to a lot of stuff. That’s what you gotta do is not Andrew. It’s not complicated to write a book, but it does require work a lot. Now you reach out to those top 1000 media outlets, okay? With your, with your super pithy email, your email that gets attention, you know, a subject line that makes sense and you keep doing it. And you know that book you’re a bad ass if you’re about that book, Andrew, the book you’re about, you’re a bad ass. Yeah, I’ve heard of it. And have you, have you read that book? I have not read that book. Why a bad man? I’m an I’m actually an awful human. I don’t, I, I’ve never read that book.

Okay. Well the book is called you’re a badass. How to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life by Jen Sincero. Now she Jen, her book was represented by Foundry media and the founder of Foundry media. He fought, we’ve had her on the show before and he fought, explained that this book was not a best seller, I think until the third year after it came out. Andrew, what do you think she was doing for three years? The writer? Yes. she was probably holding the book. Yes. On the, on the podcast, on the media outlets. That’s what she was doing for how many years? For three years. Right. A lot of years. It’s a lot of dedication. Now. Wa what was she doing again during those three years? She was sending out a whole lot of emails. Do you know that ESPN was started in 1978 [inaudible] did you know that?

I did. Did you know that ESPN didn’t make a profit for seven years? Did you know that? I did. It is written on the, it is actually written on the wall. As soon as you walk into our office building to the right, there’s that quote. So again is if you’re [inaudible] it’s really funny, but my book, I wrote a start here. It is now starting to sell a lot. And I didn’t write it yesterday. True. Why? Because people have to get it, read reviews, share it with a friend. I got to promote it. I got to be in a lot of shows talking about it. It’s what happens. We have here on the wall, we have a picture of teachers at sales scripting, how that works. We’ve got a, another notable Cortile explain how search engine works. Another one I gotta, I gotta write translations for all this.

I’m ready to wrap up the show. But then I have on the wall it says Facebook lost 3.6 $3 million in the first three years. Why is that on the wall? Could you please explain to me why I have another wall? A reminder that Facebook lost 3.6 $3 million during the first three years. Yeah, because a lot of times what happens when a bad thing happens to a just a typical person, a business owner or not, they spiritualize it. They, they think that, Oh man, this is, this is just me. This just doesn’t happen. I screwed up. Something bad happened. We lost a ton of money. I mean, Facebook, Facebook lost that much money and they are still as successful as they are today. I mean, if, I mean you have to just keep going. Tesla from 2003 to 2013 didn’t make a profit. Why is that on the walls 10 years?

Why is it on the wall? Because that’s 10 years forward on the wall. It’s 10 years for a company to not make a profit. It’s a lot of commitment. It’s that three years of promoting your podcast or your book. It’s that 10 years of committing to a goal and sticking to it and not giving up and saying no to everything else, including giving up and ignoring all the all the hate that Musk Elon Musk had to receive. He’d probably get super successful. People are mad about his big bonus. This is true. Now they’re mad that he’s that he’s very successful. He, they were mad when he wasn’t successful and now they’re mad that he is successful. We’re in the great ironies of life is that the dumbest people usually comment the most when it comes to negative comments on social media. Have you noticed this?

They’re the loudest. Yeah. The people who are the dumbest usually comment the loudest with the most anonymous account. True. Then when you look them up every to every time you see a scathing review by a random, if you prefer who they are, they are a Google user. They’re usually just a complete troll almost every time. Now I’ve got a picture here. It shows like I’m like an onion shows rings and at the center of it is your why. Now before you sit down to write your book, you want to know why are you writing the like why does it matter to you that much to put yourself through 250 hours of of just exercise the demons. I mean it’s just you’ve got to get out there and exercise the demons. You got a demon, a procrastination. He got to cast out that demon brother. I mean, you’re going to have to get out there and fight with the demons of now

You’re going to have to fight with the demon of distraction. You’re going to have to fight with him,

Demon of your neighbor coming over and going, you got any butter? I mean, you’re going to have to find all these daemons and you’re going to be like,

I don’t know if I got enough joy in my heart to cast out the demon of procrastination and I, I don’t know him. Well,

You’re going to, you know, before you’re going to get yourself up to a place where you’re willing to say no to everything. You probably should make sure it’s something you want to say yes to. Yup. So to quote dr Z, you want to say no to everything except for the things you say hell yes to. That’s a good one. Hmm. So then after that you got the how, now that we know why we went to write the book. By the way, I wrote the book for the Russian guy. That’s why I wrote the book. Because I didn’t have mentors starting my business. I didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing. I didn’t know how to grow a business. So I tried everything. I hired marketing firms that didn’t work. I bought ads that didn’t work. I bought yellow page ads that didn’t work.

I bought so many things that didn’t work and I figured out through trial and error how to make it work. But I spent millions of dollars figuring it all out. And I just want to believe that somebody listening out there is like my dad. This, my dad my dad is no longer with us. He passed away from Lou Gehrig’s disease and my dad went to college, oral Roberts university, got himself a nice degree, graduated near the top of his class and I’m 39 in and about my age. He found himself delivering pizzas and working at a convenience store. Why? Because the stuff they teach at college is entirely what you don’t need to know. And so I wanted to find a way to mentor millions. And the best way to do it would be through this diagram behind me. It’s got this diagram behind me here.

So it’s a top. There is a picture of an eye of God and I hope that I don’t make God cry too much per day. That’s pretty heavy handed. Yeah. But I mean, I, I don’t want to make God cry too much per day. I don’t want to screw up too much. Then there’s my partner Z. I want to make sure that whatever I do doesn’t conflict with God or Zuck, dr Z, who certainly not God, but he’s an important figure in my life. Then I want to make sure my wife and I are on the same page and that Jonathan knows what’s going on. Then I want to help 500,000 people per month with their business growth, which is what we do. We have half a million listeners per month on the podcast. That’s what we do and that’s what I want to do. Then coaching diligent doers.

I want to only work with 160 of you guys because Andrew, I mean is it not pretty intense the stuff we do for people? Yeah, it is a lot of work. Print piece, graphic designs. I write every single business plan myself. Yup. And I do every 13 point assessment myself. Yup. And I’m just not interested in and doing all that beyond 160 clients. Still we have a workshop and at the workshop we don’t want, I don’t want more than 2000 people a year attending because of the size of the building it would take and the emotional toll of answering the question. I mean literally Andrew, you’ve seen this. I answered the questions of every single attendee. Yeah. We put it on a whiteboard and we do not leave until every one’s question has been answered. And then we have the online platform. If you go to thrive time show.com right now and you click on the business school button, you will find the thrive 15 videos.

And we have up there over 2000 videos taught from NBA hall of Famer David Robinson. I mean you’ve got Jill Donovan from rustic cuff. You’ve got Jim, Jim Stovall, we’ve got so many great people up there behind the payment wall and it’s just $19 a month. There’s no contract. Yeah. A lot of people don’t see how valuable that is, but there’s so much good info on there. The people that I know that have gone in there and who have like watched every single video changes their lives. They’ve gotten so much out of it. There’s so much you can from Tucson. Yeah. She’s watched the multimillion dollar companies. You watch the videos that there and so it’s 19 bucks a month. Yeah. So you go, well, how does this have to do? What does this have to do with writing a book? Do you understand? I did over 2000 videos and now I’m on almost my 2000th podcast. That’s 4,000 somethings.

When did you start? 2006 I started coaching clients reaching out to me. People asking me for help. 2007 I made it official. It doesn’t. Eight more, nine more. This is not a new idea for me. It’s 2019. This is what I do. I’m not switching careers. This is my design of a decade, you know? So if you’re out there today and you want to have success, you’re going to have to do something that a lot of people don’t do. And that’s called saying no to everything else except for the stuff that you need to do. And I know that’s hard to do for a lot of people, but imagine you got to the end of it. Imagine you were where our clients are. Imagine that you got to a place where you were reaping the harvest based off of the work that you put in. I’m going to cue up this audio. This is from a a song written by a a William Murphy. It’s called. It’s working and I’m going to cue it up here and I’ll put a link to it on the show notes. It’s called, it’s working by William Murphy. Just listen to the words before we wrap up today’s show. Hope this is encouraged to somebody. I often listen to this with headphones.

The morning. Get ready. Here we go. [inaudible]

For grades. Think about that for a second. This is my season for crying, for grace, for Fe, for favor my season.

Reap what you’ve sown. Have you sewn any seeds? I mean, it’s hard to be just wanting to be an author doesn’t actually help you become an author. You see, inspiration is the reward, but inaction, inaction, not taking action. Inaction is the giant in action is the sword. Action is the sword, but inaction is the big giant inaction. Not doing something that is the giant in action in action is the giant, but inspiration is the reward. Again, inspiration is the reward. It is inaction. That is the giant, but action is your sword. You’ve got to activate. You can’t just educate. People think I’m going to educate and then I’m going to elevate, and I say, no, you ain’t. It’s not going to happen that way. You can’t just educate and elevate. That’s why a lot of people on my dad included have a degree from a fine university and it doesn’t help.

Andrew, you’ve seen this a lot, have you not? Oh yeah. Yeah. A lot of people with a lot of degrees. It doesn’t not bother people that people like me who took algebra three times and their act three times, does it not bother? Some people that doctors and dentists and lawyers from all around the country are reaching out to me, the Butthead, yes, for help. I’ve seen a bother people before. It bothers him a lot. It does. So either get bitter or get better, but I want to encourage you, this is your year to thrive and that my friends is how you write a book. And so now that any further ado, we’d like to end the show with the boom, and you can feel free to do it. And I’m sure people in your office will think you’re psychologically impaired. So you have to know why you’re going to do it. Boom stands for big, overwhelming, optimistic momentum, big, overwhelming, optimistic momentum. Boom. That’s what it stands for. Big, overwhelming, optimistic momentum. And that’s the kind of fire and passion that is required to be successful. You’ve got to bring the boom. Are you prepared? So here we go any further? I do three, two, one, boom.