This post isn’t going to make sense unless you get in your head, right now, the thing you’ve wanted to introduce that you keep putting off. A presentation for the office. A project for your community. A process for your team. A book.
For years, my father had a file folder on the desk in his home office. Scrawled in Sharpie across the tab were the words “INDUSTRIAL ROMANCE.”
He was qualified to write it: He was a Certified Fellow for the American Production and Inventory Control Society, accredited with the American Society for Training & Development, worked for decades in manufacturing … and is an incurable romantic.
I have never not teased Dad about this. His idea was a book that would be part romance novel, part instruction on “business information technology.”
But I didn’t think he would ever actually write it. The joke was on me:
Dad started with a book of short stories. Then he published the industrial romance itself, “The Possum Principles.” (Both books are found wherever books are sold, including from the publisher.)
The book has done well enough that Dad is working on a sequel.
Very few do the first book, let alone the sequel.
Dad recently told me that as a youth he submitted a story to Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. He received a reply from the famous publication’s first editor, the legendary George H. Scithers. He said Dad had accomplished something 95 percent of would-be writers don’t: He’d sent a story. Dad shipped it.
That’s the title of our latest “It doesn’t take a genius.” podcast: Ship it! My colleague and cohost Mike Marshall has published two (soon to be three) children’s books. He is constantly amazed by the number of people telling him they have wanted to write a book forever and just haven’t done it.
Mike is a phenomenal resource for anybody looking to “ship it.” You can reach him at Success Amplified. If you think what’s stopping you from producing your thing is time management, check out the video at the top of my Resources page or contact me directly.