Christine Kloser on How to Get Your Book Done | PoP 430

Share this content
Christine Kloser on How to Get Your Book Done | PoP 430

Do you have an idea for a book you are wanting to write but you seem to be suffering from writer’s block and self-doubt? Are you looking to gain clarity and focus to write a book that people want to buy? What if you could blueprint your book in 15mins or less?

In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok speaks with Christine Kloser about her journey, roadblocks to writing a book, the Transformation Quadrant and some key points on how to get your book done.

Podcast Sponsor

Everyone loves payday. But loving a payroll provider? That’s a little weird. Still, small businesses across the country love running payroll with Gusto. Gusto automatically files and pays your taxes, it’s super easy to use, and you can add benefits and HR support to help take care of your team and keep your business safe. Plus, listeners get three months free when they run their first payroll. So if you want better payroll in 2019, now’s the time to start.

To get 3 months free once you run your first payroll just go to www.gusto.com/joe.

Meet Christine Kloser

Christine Kloser trains entrepreneurs and leaders to write their transformational books. She is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, coach, and publisher. Since 2004, she’s helped nearly 80,000 aspiring authors in 127 countries. Many clients have become bestsellers with her help. Others have signed publishing deals, speak on stages worldwide and appear in media outlets like CBS, CNN, ABC, NBC, The New York Times and TEDx. But what’s more important is who they become through Christine’s life-changing process. She delivers much more than a published book. She helps aspiring authors fully embody their true authentic selves and bring their brilliance to the world.

Visit Christine’s website and her program and connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. If you have any questions you can also reach out to [email protected].

In This Podcast

Summary

  • Helping people write their transformational stories
  • Roadblocks to writing a book
  • The Transformation Quadrant
  • How to get your book done

How have you helped that many people write their own transformational stories?

There was no looking back, there was no testing anything. There was just go forward and pray and act, and it worked, and I here I am now.

In 2011 when Christine was going through bankruptcy and losing her home to foreclosure, she had written the right book at the wrong time and it led to a business that she had to shut down in order to figure out what would make her happy.

She had an idea that kept resurfacing about creating a free online training called the Transformational Author Experience. It would be a conglomerate of her own ideas as well as New York Times bestselling authors, book marketing people and other industry experts, where she could really educate people on what it would be like to be a transformational author. In the very first year, she had 10 000 people signed up for her training.

What are the biggest roadblocks to writing a book?

  1. Self-doubt
  2. Lack of clarity
  3. Finding the time

The Transformation Quadrant

If you don’t really know the transformation you want your book to have for your business, you can’t really develop the book in a way thats going to support the very transformation.

Christine wrote this book to help you:

  • Gain clarity and focus to write a book that people want to buy
  • Overcome writer’s block, self-doubt, excuses and time constraints
  • Transform your book into a “viral platform” that grows your business
  • Organize your ideas in the bonus TQ workbook!

Download a copy here for free!

Get your book done!

Give your book the time and energy and respect that it deserves, and that your readers deserve. So don’t just sit and start writing

  • Build a foundation first
  • Be clear on who your ideal reader is
  • Understand the problem that the reader is facing as well as the solutions you provide

Christine recommends that you first write your back cover copy – the 250 most important words you’ll ever write for your book. You want to be able to concisely and clearly communicate who this book is for, what the promise of the book is about, bullet points as to what they are going to learn from reading this book and what makes you the person to be the author of this book, to share this wisdom and to help them.

Useful Links:

Meet Joe Sanok

private practice consultant

Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.

Thanks For Listening!

Feel free to leave a comment below or share this podcast on social media by clicking on one of the social media links below! Alternatively, leave a review on iTunes and subscribe!

Podcast Transcription

[JOE]: This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 430. Everyone loves payday but loving a payroll provider, that’s a little weird. Still, private practices across the country love running payroll with Gusto. Gusto automatically files and pays your taxes. It’s super easy to use and you can add benefits and management tools to help take care of your team and keep the business safe. It’s loyal, it’s modern, you might fall in love yourself. Listeners get three months free when they run their first payroll. Try a demo and test it out at gusto.com/joe. It’s what I use. That’s gusto.com/joe.
Well, welcome, welcome, welcome. I am so glad you are here. Hope your new year is kicking off awesome and if you just found this podcast and you’re listening sometime in the future, welcome as well. We dive into how to start, grow, and scale a private practice, but then we go even a step beyond that where we talk about big ideas. Because what I’ve noticed over and over is that as people kind of get their private practice going, they start to realize that the systemic problems that they deal with they often want to go beyond just the work in their office, that they want to launch a podcast, an e-course, that they want to be a public speaker or a writer. They can really get out there and address these big ideas on more of a national or global way. And so, today we have an awesome guest coming in that’s going to be talking all about how to get your book done.
We all went through grad school. Writing maybe has some negative connotations of term papers and things like that, but the kind of books we’re talking about are bringing that passion that’s inside of you out on a much deeper level. I’m really excited about this because Christine, she’s someone that really guides a lot of people and seeing the Slow Down Schoolers and masterminders that have written books and how quickly that helps them level up, it is one of the best things that you can do to really get out there on a podcast, get public speaking, launch e-courses, all of that. So, if you’re interested in that, she has kind of some links about how to best help. She’s actually going to give her book away for free and so, and she’ll give that link in the interview also.
And you know, a bunch of the Slow Down Schoolers has started following her work as well. And so if you are interested in Slow Down School, we just opened up early bird tickets for that. And so I want to make sure that you apply. If you just go to slowdownschool.com you’ll find a time to schedule an interview with me and we’ll just talk through whether or not it’s a good fit for you. I want to take the time to really hear whether or not it’s a good fit for you, what, you know, kind of you’re looking for and to see if I think that you’re going to get a strong return on investment. So without any further ado, I give you Christine Kloser.
Well, today in the Practice of the Practice podcast, we have Christine Kloser. She trains business owners and leaders to write their transformational books. She’s a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, coach, and publisher. And since 2004 she’s helped nearly 80,000 aspiring authors in 127 countries. I mean, she’s been on CBS, CNN, ABC, NBC, the New York times, TEDx. Christine, what haven’t you done? Welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[CHRISTINE]: Thank you. I am so excited to be here with you and your audience.
[JOE]: Yes, well it’s so fun to have met someone in person. You know, we met at a conference out West and you are doing this great work of helping people, not just tell their story, but to actually help people transform. And that’s what our audience completely is all about here on the Practice of the Practice podcast. So maybe let’s just start with, you’ve worked with 80,000 aspiring authors. Just that number alone just boggles my mind. So how have you helped that many people write their transformational story?
[CHRISTINE]: Oh, well it starts with my own transformational story back in 2011 when I was in a crisis of every possible way that you could have a crisis. I was going through bankruptcy, I was losing my home to foreclosure, I had written the wrong book, maybe the right book wrong time. And it just led to a business that was just killing my soul that I had to shut down and just like figure out what would make me happy. You know, where would I be most happy? Where would I be able to serve the best? And in that time that I was in that deep inquiry this idea came to me that I had had in the past, but had a lot of colleagues telling me would never work. But when I was in the inquiry at the, you know, on my knees, just trying to figure out like, what do I do next?
The idea that kept coming to me was to create this online training. It was a free training called the Transformational Author Experience. And it would be a conglomerate of, you know, my own wisdom plus the wisdom of New York Times bestselling authors and publishers and agents and industry experts and book marketing people where I could really educate people on what it took to be a transformational author. And up to May of 2011 when I ran the first training, like, you never really saw those two words together. Like Google had nothing on transformational authorship. So I didn’t listen to my colleagues who said it would be terrible. I trusted my intuition that if this was what I was being called to do, then this is what I had to do. And that very first year I ended up by the grace of God and relationships I had built over a number of years. I ended up with 10,000 people in that first free training, like signed up for the first free training and, —
[JOE]: Wow. And was it live or was it all like an e-course or what was the form of it?
[CHRISTINE]: There were a lot of interviews that people could tune in to listen to. Actually no, that’s not true. I prerecorded the interviews, but they ran as if they were a live and you know, people would have never in a million years and when they find out that it was prerecorded, they’re like, “That was prerecorded. How’d you make it sound like you were alive? Like right there in that moment with us?” I just, you know, I thought it all through and I thought about how I wanted them to experience it and I gave them that experience. So it was prerecorded but it ran as if it were live for a number of days over the course of two weeks. And it was, you know, two teachers a day that I interviewed. I of course taught my own class. Like I taught two of my own classes and you know, everyone got access to it for free.
They had I think 24 or 48 hours to listen to the recordings if they couldn’t attend live. And then, you know, we made it possible for people to invest to get lifetime access to the classes because a lot of people didn’t have time to listen. There was a lot of content and you know, at different levels they, you know, got different things like here they just got, you know, at one level they just got the audio and another level they got all the audios but then they got to join me for some group coaching calls to ask me questions about the content. So there were just different levels they could invest in. And you know, I got my family back on our feet because I was a sole breadwinner at the time. So you know, it worked too. We made over six figures in, you know, that two week training and I was able to get my family moved into a home and started this whole transformational author movement.
[JOE]: Wow. I love stories like that when people kind of go out on a limb, they go after what they’re passionate about and what they’re good at and kind of bring in the people that they’ve been connected to. That’s just so awesome. I love that sort of thing. [crosstalk] So how [crosstalk], go ahead.
[CHRISTINE]: Is that so many people said that it was the name Transformational Author Experience. It was like the first time that they saw any language that identified who they knew themselves to be as an aspiring author. So it was the very name that had those people resonate with it and show up. And then, you know, we ran it for a number of years and you know, 80,000 people over the years have registered for that training.
[JOE]: Wow. Well, and so often you hear, you know, beta test and test groups and all of those sorts of things and that’s great to do but then there’s other times that you just say, “No, deep in my gut I know that this is the name, this is how I’m going to do it and I’m just going to go for it.”
[CHRISTINE]: Yes. I did not have time to beta test. I mean I was losing my home and I needed money to put down for a rental for my family to move into, so we weren’t homeless. Like, no beta testing. Like I just pedal to the metal. You know, within 90 days, 60 to 90 days, I think I decided I was doing this at the beginning of March. We started promoting it I think the second week of May, so within 60 days got, you know, 18 speakers on board, promotional support from people I had built relationships with over the years, worked with a $3 an hour team in India to get the website together, because that’s all I could afford from money my father had loaned me to try to get through those difficult days. You know, so it was, yes, there was no looking back, there was no testing anything, there was just go forward and pray, and act. And it worked and here I am now, what, nine years later.
[JOE]: Well, let’s fast forward to now because now you’re working with authors, you’re helping them with this process and I’m sure a lot of things have changed over those years. But let’s just start with what are common things that get in the way of people writing these things that they know that they’re so good at? I mean, we have therapists, counselors, every day. They’re helping people with trauma or abuse or marriage things and they haven’t written a book. They haven’t put it down. They may have written some blog posts. There’s things that probably I could say stand in the way. But what do you see with the authors you work with that are the biggest roadblocks to writing a book?
[CHRISTINE]: The biggest three that I see are self-doubt, lack of clarity, and issues with finding the time. Those are the big three. And you know, it’s interesting, I’m flashing back to a client. I work with Dr. Cindy a number of years ago and very first time I ever ran my Get Your Book Done program in 2007. Dr. Cindy was a therapist, had a really amazing practice in Los Angeles, specialized in working with people and relationships you know, do a lot of couples work and singles, work with people who wanted to be coupled and like, she was so good like I’m sure many of you listening right now, you are so good at what you do. You just do it. And I bet that sometimes if you’re anything like Dr. Cindy, you don’t quite even really know what you’re doing.
You just know the question to ask, you know when to pause and listen, you know when to reflect something back. You just do what you do and you’re naturally gifted. And that was Dr. Cindy’s challenge. And she had such a self-doubt that she had any process or any way that she did things as she could communicate it into a book that would make sense to someone who wasn’t sitting across from her in her office. But you know, lo and behold, she got her hands on my Get Your Book Done program, she went through the process and what she discovered is that she very much had a methodical way that she did what she did and was able to put it into book form and impact people that she never met. So, you know, you can get past that self-doubt if you find that you are like, “Oh, I don’t know what to do. I don’t have anything to say.” It’s like you have so much to say. It’s just a matter of getting over the self-doubt and realizing you do and putting form to it.
[JOE]: Well maybe take us through one exercise that has helped people to overcome that self-doubt, and like, this therapist that you said she found that she had a method. What’s maybe one thing that we could walk through that would show people you actually have something to say. You just don’t want to say something. You have something to say. What is something that you could take us through that would help us maybe think through that if we feel like we don’t have something to say?
[CHRISTINE]: Absolutely. Well, we’ll touch on it here, but I think I’m going to give you a free resource to a book I wrote where people can get for free called the Transformation Quadrant that help them —
[JOE]: Yes. And you gave that to me when we met too. So that’ll be awesome.
[CHRISTINE]: Yes. So, we’ll share that with everyone for free. A digital version. They can go buy it on Amazon if they want, but we’ll give it, we’ll give the PDF to everyone for free, but I’ll walk through that process here kind of light and then you can deeper dive into the book and the workbook that we’ll make available for you.
[JOE]: Awesome.
[CHRISTINE]: The first place I tell every client to begin, and this was the piece of my own process that I did not have when I told you I wrote that wrong book, you know, maybe right book wrong time, but not what I should have been doing back in 2008, 2009. This piece of my process was not in place yet. It came out of the dark side of my soul. And, I mean this piece changes everything. I’ve been teaching this since 2011. So it is a process called the transformation quadrant, and if you have a piece of paper, even you might want to draw like just a vertical line and a horizontal line and put an S in the upper left quadrant, put an R in the lower left quadrant, a B, I hear your pen on the paper, Joe.
[JOE]: I’m working with a writing coach right now for a traditional book proposal and so to just have any new tools, I’m like, “Yes, of course I’m going to scribble that one.” But this personal consulting session I had with you —
[CHRISTINE]: Love it, love it, love it.
[JOE]: How would you know that this actually isn’t a podcast, it’s just my free consulting for myself?
[CHRISTINE]: Oh, is that how you fly? All right, we know. But in the upper right hand quadrant, you’re going to put the letter B like boy and in the bottom right is going to be a W. All right? Hopefully you got that.
[JOE]: S, R, B, W.
[CHRISTINE]: Yes. And this quadrant, you want to think of it like a table with four legs. If any one of those legs isn’t there, that table might stay standing for a little bit and then it will do what my, the table of my business did after I wrote the wrong book. And it just collapsed and imploded. So it’s essential to have these four pieces in place. The S quadrant and again, the book and the workbook, you can dive into this deeper. But in this S quadrant, you really want to ask yourself, what is the transformation I want for myself through the process of writing this book? Because if you approach a book from that perspective, you will get that transformation. Does that make sense?
[JOE]: Yes, totally. So examples could be, or maybe what are some examples you’ve seen in your clients, you’ve worked with or just a couple of the goals that they would put in that area?
[CHRISTINE]: A big one here is confidence. People want to have that confidence, who they are and what they’re saying. Many of them also want like, they want to feel safe to be seen. Like writing a book is a, you know, like you’re exposed, you’ll have lovers and you’ll have haters, both. And a lot of them just want to feel so solid in themselves. They feel safe being seen and having everything they share on the page of their book be shared. So the confidence, safety, clarity many of them sometimes like they’re literally writing this book and they know that as they do so it’s releasing old patterns that don’t work for them anymore. That’s been a big one for people. And, I mean I’ve seen it on so many levels.
Oh my gosh. Like, I’ve just like, I’ve seen people so completely transformed that it blows my mind and it blow theirs too because they’ll come to me, you know, at the end of their process and be like, “Remember back when we talked about my transformation quadrant and that self-quadrant, like they literally like, I am that person now. So that’s what’s possible here in the S quadrant. When we go down to the R quadrant on the bottom left, that R stands for reader. So you need to ask yourself, what is the transformation that you want your reader to experience through this book? And some people are like, “Well, shouldn’t the reader be first?” It’s like, “No, you need to focus on your own transformation. That’s the core of it all, what you desire, and then what you desire for your reader.”
And then the B quadrant is for business. So what transformation do you want this book to bring about in your business? Do you want it to open doors from a professional speaking? Do you want it to get your phone ringing or your email dinging, you know, with inquiries for people who might want to work with you privately or join one of your groups. So you know, what do you want your business to do? Do you just want it to help you impact more lives and grow your email list because of some invitation that you make in the book for them to go to your website and get more connected with you. Like the possibilities are endless. But if you don’t really know the transformation you want your book to have for your business, you can’t really develop the book in a way that’s going to support that very transformation. And so many people miss that part. A lot of people like, they got the S, they got the R, and they got the W, which we’ll talk about in a moment. But when it comes to the B, they’re like, “Oh, like I have no idea.”
[JOE]: Or maybe it might even confuse the self in the business because I thought like when you said self, I was thinking, “Oh, I hope my book kind of does these things for me financially” or they, and that’s not really self. That’s more business. And so I think that gets confused so frequently by people.
[CHRISTINE]: Yes. The self really is something that you feel inside that’s different that if anyone were looking at you from the outside who didn’t know you closely, they might not know what’s different. They might not see the success or the external things that the business might show, they might not see that inner transformation, but you know that you’re standing in a different place in yourself than you were at the beginning of the process. So yes, there’s a big distinction between the two.
[JOE]: Yes. And I think it’s also, you know, when you think about what you want for your business, when I wrote Mental Wellness Parenting, which is a book that I wrote aimed at parents when I had my counseling practice before I sold earlier this year, or actually last year at the point of this recording and to say, well, was it to get speaking gigs, was it to get more clients? And when I really thought about the purpose of that book for my business, it was to quickly build authority locally for my business. And so the way that, you know, we did the book release, it didn’t really matter if people outside of Michigan bought it because that wasn’t my target for my business. It was that locally, you know, the local business news would pick up on it, that I’d be on local radio.
We even, at a bookstore, we had a band play for the book release and instead of just me sitting at a table awkwardly, I put on a party that I could write off for my friends. And then we happened to have a whole bunch of the community come too. And so it then kind of set the tone that mental wellness counseling and mental wellness parenting are both places that are connected to the community at this independent bookstore, they’ve got a local band playing, they’re fun, but they also want to kind of bring people together. And so, I didn’t do it through your quadrants, but to even just say what was the purpose of that book helped me focus in on, “Okay, I’m just going to promote it locally and if I sell 10 copies and give 200 away it’s a giant business card that might get passed around to other people.”
[CHRISTINE]: Yes, yes, yes, because I can’t tell you how many people are like, “Oh well I want my book to be a New York Times bestseller,” or “I want to sell thousands of copies all around the world overnight,” and all this stuff. I’m like, “Okay, and how exactly like is that going to serve you on the nitty gritty? How does it transform into business?” And you know, I find myself a lot of times —
[JOE]: Yes, starting like Instagram followers.
[CHRISTINE]: Yes.
[JOE]: Yes, you have thousands of Instagram followers but so what? Like, “Okay you have a bunch of people that liked it. Do you actually make money off them?” And so making sure that you really say, “Well what’s the flow of the finances here?” Instead of just, “I just want to be popular,” for the sake of being popular.
[CHRISTINE]: Yes, and I can’t tell you how many authors I have to reel in and I tell them like your book launch could be a house party. You know that you would invite all of your friends and family and colleagues and potential clients to just come hang out at your house and maybe you read some and maybe you sign books, and like, it doesn’t have to look like 500 partners sending out for your book on the same day. You know, it’s yes I love that you went local because it has huge impact when you’re that targetive, in the reading quadrant.
[JOE]: Yes. So what’s the W?
[CHRISTINE]: The W stands for world and with the world quadrant, you really want to think for yourself like, “Gosh, if everyone that I write this book for,” like if, you know, everyone on the planet who fits your ideal reader, read this book, implemented what they learned and live their life just a little bit differently because of what they learned from your book, what’s the transformation you would hope to see in the world? You know, and I would imagine with the audience we’re talking to, you got practitioners of some sort that we could see reductions in suicide rates and divorces and you know, people on prescription medications and dealing with depression and anxiety. Like if they really got this stuff in your book, I would imagine on a world level, that ripple effect could literally see some shifts in some of those statistics and help people be more joyful and more fulfilled in their lives and not as much of a statistic, you know. So that’s what you want to kind of look at. How do I really want the world to be shifted?
[JOE]: Yes, I love that because you know, it’s one thing to just, you know, work one on one with a client and that’s great for those people that say I don’t necessarily want to write a book. But for those that say, “I want my impact to be broader, I want to really influence what’s upstream and causing these things.” A book really can help do that. And I think starting on the front end and saying what’s the impact before I even write a word, that’s so smart.
[CHRISTINE]: So that’s a great place to start.
[JOE]: I love this exercise and I feel like this is going to be way too short of an interview for this topic, which is definitely why people should get this free book from you and make sure they work with you if they want to write a book, what are some maybe quick hit tips, some bullet points over the next say five minutes or so that would help people once they have their topic, once they want to get writing, either things to avoid that you notice people do a lot and don’t even realize they’re doing that they should avoid or things that they should do that will help them be more successful and just getting the book done? Because I feel like sometimes just getting the thing done in a timely way is part of it but then also getting it done correctly is also the other part of it.
[CHRISTINE]: Big part. Yes. There’s a lot of, I mean, my program is called Get Your Book Done. So I’m all for getting people, you know, having people get their book done. However I am not interested in having people just crank out any book, throw together some blog posts or previously published articles and call it a book because that does not serve you. It does not serve your reputation. It doesn’t serve your reader. It’s disrespectful to not do it and do it well. Like if you’re going to do it, do it well. So some of the other things that I’d recommend first and foremost is don’t just start writing. If you just start writing, oftentimes what happens is like a river flowing without banks and the water goes everywhere. In this case, the words would go everywhere.
They’re not pointed and it can be very confusing for a reader to try to follow you if you’re just writing completely without structure. So build foundation first, be clear on who your ideal reader is, understand the problem that that reader is facing. You know the solutions that you provide for that problem, the transformation as we talked about in the reader quadrant. You know, if you know where you want them to end, what’s the logical process that you need to walk them through to help them go from point A to point B? Map some of that out. Like give your book the time and energy and the respect that it deserves and that your readers deserve. So don’t just sit and start writing.
And what I recommend you actually write first or what I call a 250 most important words you’ll ever write for your book, and that is your back-cover copy. I mean if you’re writing fiction, chances are if you’re here, you’re not writing fiction. You’re writing a nonfiction book that’s going to help teach people something that you know and share your wisdom. So this applies. If you’re writing fiction, this doesn’t apply because fiction kind of takes its own self on a journey. But if you’re writing nonfiction, by all means, you want to be able to concisely and clearly communicate who this focus for, what the promise of the book is about, bullet points about what it is that they’re going to learn from reading this book and what makes you the person to be the author of this book, to share this wisdom and to help them, and —
[JOE]: I think even reading the back cover of books that you like to, because when you’re just starting this process, for me it’s been so helpful to just say, “Okay, here’s the 10 books that I adore that are maybe not even in the same genre of nonfiction, but their structure, the way they’ve kind of articulated their point, that they have used every single word in a sentence to lead to their point. That’s been really helpful to see how a lot of the structure is common between these New York Times best sellers and authors that I really like of often having three to four big parts of the book and you see this kind of arc and then kind of micro arcs and, to just even observe the craft of writing in the books that you like is just such a different lens to look at these books.
[CHRISTINE]: It absolutely is. And the thing to keep in mind with writing this back cover copy is, I mean, I’ve seen people who did not go through my course who did not do this exercise, who have written, you know, books anywhere from 40,000 words to over a hundred thousand words, which is a massive book. And at the end of it all, when I asked them, you know, what their book was about, they could barely tell me. Like they could not clearly and succinctly communicate to me what their book was about. And you need to be able to do that first so that as you said, Joe, every word written is pointed to the promises that you make on the back cover of that book.
[JOE]: Yes. It’s almost like how, you know, when a new Netflix show comes out and it automatically pops up. They’ve got probably five seconds before you scan down to the rest of the Netflix shows. And in those five seconds it’s, you know, even if it’s fictional, it’s meant to pull you in and want to add that to your queue. If you can’t articulate that in just a few sentences then like what do you have?
[CHRISTINE]: Exactly. That’s the opening paragraph, the headline and the opening paragraph of your back cover copy. So do that first before you start writing the guts, before you write the manuscript itself because it will focus you, it will be like your North Star and it will help you, you know, stay committed and know where you’re going with that book. That’s just, you know there’s lots of other things but that’s an important piece.
[JOE]: Sure. So after that, how important is outlining kind of the whole chapter flow before just saying, “I just want to be inspired and put it in there.” I’m assuming based on what you’ve already said, that having that clear outline is really important before you start really getting into the meat of writing it.
[CHRISTINE]: It is. And here’s the thing that I know to be true about outlines. I encourage all of my clients to do them. I show them how to like have fun creating it almost like it is this little puzzle that you put together and creating a spreadsheet that has like your chapters and your topics and all of that stuff like in flow. And some of my clients will follow that exactly. And other of my clients they will create it and then they will have everything they need through the actual creation to then go and sort of write without following it specifically. But the outline is critical. Like I said, think of the river without the banks. The outline is like the banks of that river that keep you on point and that keep you in a place of really serving your reader from this step to the next step, to the next step, to the next step until they get to the end of that book and the point that you desire for them to be.
So yes, I mean some people can just write without outlining. I myself, when I outlined my book, the Freedom Formula, which was that one that I wrote years ago that I relaunched, I’m on the 10 year anniversary. But when I wrote that, like I did outline and the outline was awesome, but then I just wrote and I didn’t look at the outline as I wrote, but I could have never written the book that I wrote, which is actually really good. Just wasn’t the right book for me at the right time. When I went back and looked at the outline, it’s like I touched everything. But through the process of creating the outline, it was like it was integrated. I had such clarity. It was just integrated into me. So I just, you know, I was able to write free form relatively quickly and get that book completely written and done in 40 hours.
[JOE]: Wow. And how important is it to be capturing stories, case studies, research, kind of as you’re thinking about the book, would you recommend that people are kind of doing that over the long haul or once they’re kind of in the writing phase?
[CHRISTINE]: Well, here’s how I like people to look at it. You know when you go see a movie, you’ve got your lead actor, your lead actress, and then you have your supporting actor or actress and your teaching, your wisdom, your process that you want to communicate in the book, that’s the lead, right? Like that’s your lead actor or actress. Your stories, your case studies, your anecdotes, your personal experience, those are all like the supporting actors and actresses in this movie, in this analogy that we’re calling your book. So you always want to pull in stories and case studies and things like that, but only the ones that serve and support what it is you’re teaching. So if you’re teaching a certain point, you can think to yourself, “Okay, well if this is what I’m teaching, what’s a real life example that I have in case study or personal story that I can share? So, they’re critical, but they’re not the lead. They’re the support.
[JOE]: Got you. Yes, one habit I have is just whenever I remember a crazy story from my life, I just put it into a note not knowing if I’m ever going to use it in something but then at least when I have maybe a keynote or something that I want to put an interesting story into, if it relates, at least I have, here’s the five or six random stories that to me just as a story, as a standalone. But if it relates, then at least I’ll have a list of good stories.
[CHRISTINE]: Yes, absolutely. I mean it’s, I always recommend like using some sort of organizational structure, whether it’s just a journal that you jot down or a note in your phone or you know, an index card that you throw in a box for your book. Yes, keep track of those case studies and stories as they happen because you might forget down the road when you’re like, “Oh, I know this thing happened and who was that?”
[JOE]: Awesome.
[CHRISTINE]: Yes. But they’re critical. They bring a book to life. You know, those case studies and stories really do bring books to life.
[JOE]: Yes. So the last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?
[CHRISTINE]: I would want them, well, first of all, I wanted to thank you for the work that you do, first and foremost, because I know it isn’t always easy work. So thank you. But as it relates to this topic, if you’re a practitioner in private practice and some part of you inside just feels this feeling like, “Oh, there’s a book inside me,” and even as I say that right now, you may feel that seed and maybe through this conversation, like you feel like there’s been, you know, some water and sunshine and you know, good organic fertilizer report on that seed of this book in your soul, trust that inkling, trust that seed, the idea you know, this desire, this thought that there’s this book inside of you that has value for your readers. Like it’s not put there by accident. That inkling, that nudge is there, I believe, because it’s something that you and you alone are meant to bring to life. So trust that and you know, yes, trust that.
[JOE]: Oh, that’s so awesome. Christine, what’s the best way for them to get that free download of your book or to connect with you if they want some help writing that book.
[CHRISTINE]: Well, there’s a couple of things. You can go get the book at transformationquadrant.com. So just go to the website transformationquadrant.com if you’re curious to learn more about the award-winning program I created to like guide people through my process of writing books. That’s the one I mentioned has been going on for, you know, helping authors for 12 years. You can learn more about that getyourbookdone.com and if you have any questions in the meantime, just reach out to [email protected] and my team will get you answers. But yes, we’re here to help you.
[JOE]: Awesome.
[JOE]: We love what we do, so I’m going to be honored and a joy to hear from you or see you on Get Your Book Done program or at least know that you’re reading that book and working through your own quadrant.
[JOE]: Oh, that’s so awesome. We’ll put all those links in the show notes and Christine, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[CHRISTINE]: Well thank you for inviting me. It’s been a pleasure.
[JOE]: I’ve got to say I could’ve gone hours talking to Christine. I feel like there was so much content that we could have dug into and you know, maybe I’ll invite her to come speak to our Next Level Practice folks as one of our experts for our Ask the Expert series You know, if you’re not a part of Next Level Practice and your practice is under $100,000 you’re going to want to get in on the next cohort which is coming up in a few months. We only launch it, you know, three or four times a year. We open it up, but you want to head on over to practiceofthepractice.com/invite if you want to be connected with us in that way. Next Level Practice helps you to structure out when you’re starting your practice and then as you start to add kind of clinicians to your practice.
What are you going to do with this information? You know, so often we can consume information and feel like that’s the end goal, but really what Christine talked about in regards to your book, this is only the beginning and I want you to really think through what are you going to do with this information? What can you put in your calendar this week or next that is going to actually affect your movement forward? Rather than just consume, I would love for you to take some actions. And so for example, when I listened to a podcast recently, they were talking about doing more Facebook Lives through your business page, that it can help to engage your audience more, that it can help with some of Facebook’s analytics when you end up running ads, all sorts of things. And so I committed to doing a weekly Facebook Live. I have a topic and I put that in an invite, but then also people get to ask me questions.
So, if you’re looking for some of those kind of free questions to get answered, we’d love for you to come hang out with me. It’s usually going to be on Wednesdays, but all of them are scheduled out on our Facebook page. If you just click on events, you’ll see all the upcoming Facebook Lives. We’d love to see you there. So without any further ado I’m going to say goodbye. Thanks for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Thanks to Gusto who’s an awesome sponsor. Head on over to gusto.com/joe and you can then end up getting three months for free of Gusto. They’re a payroll solution. So amazing you got to check it out.
Next time we are going to have Adam Schaeuble who is on a million-pound mission and so he is going to tell all sorts of stories about how he was overweight and now he teaches people how to get ripped. He’s a really nice guy that I met. He’s a fellow podcaster. I was on his podcast and vice versa. So really excited for you to connect with him next week. Thanks so much for letting me use your ears and into your brain. Have a good one.
Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. We really like it and this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It’s given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.