- The completion of the task is really important
to release the chemicals, to feel like a winner,
to feel like you've got that off your plate.
I wonder how you break it down for when you're
working on the bigger projects.
Say you're working on a book.
You've done 80 plus.
You're an expert on writing best selling books.
So a part of your most important thing is
hey, I'm on a book deadline.
I need to get this done.
Obviously, you won't be able to write an entire book
in the first two hours of a day.
So how would you chunk it down so that
you get that feeling?
You want to leave feeling like you accomplished something.
That you got something, that you checked the box.
How would you break down a bigger goal for the morning?
- I'm assuming that everybody who is watching this
wants to become rich sooner or later.
And sooner is preferable.
Alright?
The way that you become rich is you deliver results
that people will pay you for.
Well, one of the greatest result tools in the world
is called a checklist.
And a checklist is very simply a
list of every step in the process from
step one to step two to step three.
Very much like a recipe that is organized.
That says this is what you do to prepare a particular dish.
You do these things and you do these things
and you bring out these things
and you take these ingredients in this order
in this quantity and so on.
And you put it all together.
So, some years ago, I did something
which was really quite ridiculous.
I wrote a book and I promoted the heck out it.
It cost me more to promote the book than
I got from royalties or advances.
And then after three months, they told me that we
have no more interest in promoting your book.
And I said, well why?
I mean we're doing so well, interviews, blah blah blah.
They said, well after three months, the window closes.
Because when you write a book, there's a three month window
prior to the book coming out.
And three months after it comes out it closes
and we go onto other books.
Your book is now an old story.
It's yesterdays news.
And I said, well geez, what can I do with that?
I said, I know, I'll write book every three months.
And I made that decision.
I'm just now working today to finish my 82nd book.
- Wow.
- It will be finished by Friday.
And with all the major publishers.
Every one is published by major publishers.
No self publishing.
And I am talking about Simon and Schuster,
and Wylie, and I have just published four books
with biggest publisher in the world, Penguin Random House.
And they came to me and asked for the book.
So a person says, how do you write a book?
I say, I take out my checklist, and I say,
the first thing I need to know.
We need to agree on the subject, alright?
And I only write on a subject that I have put in
hundreds of hours of research and experience.
The second thing we need to know is when
is the drop dead date?
When do you plan to publish the book, release the book?
And when do you have to have it in your hands?
Which is usually fully six months before the book
is published, okay?
So I work back from there.
And then I've got a checklist.
Now I know what the subject of the books is,
when the book has to be in the hands of the publishers,
and then I work all the way back to step one.
And by the way, anybody who wants this,
just go onto my website BrianTracy.com,
and just say Brian's checklist for writing.
It's free.
And it's 20 points.
Cause people kept asking me, how do you write so many books?
I've written now four or five books a year
for twenty years.
And now I say, well I'm out of it now, I'm done.
This last two months I've gotten requests for
five books for 2017.
From this publisher and that publisher and
one other publisher wants two and
I said, geez, I said, you know, I got to take a break.
No, we want the books because these books sell.
They just kind of tumble over each other.
One sells and the second sells and
I said, so here's the formula.
Just simply download the formula like a recipe
and follow the formula.
It takes tremendous discipline to write a book.
You can appreciate this because you've written your book.
I said, writing a book is like
digging a ditch to the horizon.
- (laughs)
- Can you picture that?
- Yeah.
- In other words, you just work and work
and you lift up your head and
all you can see is the horizon.
You put your head down and work and work and work.
You look up and it's still the horizon out there.
Hour after hour after hour.
But you've got to get started.
- Well I'm going to check out the checklist.
It took me two years to get this thing out,
so I'm envious to get a new book out every three months.
Maybe, that list will help me too for the next version.
Thank you for the tips.