Those of you who’ve known me a very (VERY) long time know that for the past 40 years I’ve been talking about a concept I dubbed Thinking 2 Steps Ahead (T2SA).
In the early 2000s I even trademarked the phrase and designed workshops that I taught around the area to audiences of all ages. I wrote a blog with that title for 3 years or so. I dreamed of making T2SA a household concept. Everyone I talked to about T2SA claimed it had value to them.
I wanted to write a book, started writing a book, but got stuck. Really stuck. So stuck that eventually I just abandoned the idea. I let the trademark lapse and threw all my T2SA materials and notes into a bulging leather briefcase left over from my corporate days and buried it in the back of a closet.
We moved twice since that burial day and both times I had the opportunity to chuck all that paper into the burn barrel. But I didn’t, couldn’t really. Something held me back. The briefcase sits in the back of our office closet here, just minding its own business. It doesn’t haunt me or niggle at me. I never even think about it. But it’s still there.
Two years ago, when I met Michele who encouraged me to start writing again, I started this blog. The goal, formulated with the help and encouragement of my BFF, Cindy, was to simply get into the habit of writing regularly. I needed to find some purpose in retirement. Writing has always been a skill and interest I thought I might develop in the years after I wasn’t committed to a J.O.B.
The past few months have been unusual in that I finally didn’t have something big (a move to Florida, a kitchen and bath remodel, a hurricane, cancer diagnosis, hurricane repair and recovery, etc.) to occupy my thoughts and sap my energy. I found myself, since Thanksgiving last year, thinking quite often about writing something with more purpose than just this blog about whatever caught my fancy when I sit down at the computer. That’s how I came to buy the LifeinRotonda.com domain name on an impulse one morning a few months ago.
I mentioned in recent blogs I’ve had book ideas, but they’re fiction and I’m not attracted to writing fiction. Because I’ve been googling topics related to writing lately, my Facebook feed is full of ads having to do with writing. I clicked on several of them and started poking around.
One of the ads touted a fella who offered a free workshop. Everything in the ad appealed to me and hey, it was free. I had nothing to lose but time, and I have plenty of that. In the workshop and the sales pitch (yes, I knew it was coming) Matt made some excellent points. I started to rethink the T2SA book in light of what I learned in that on-line workshop and thought it might be time to resurrect the concept.
Enrolling in Matt’s Punchy Books Accelerator Program cost $1,197. In my world I would never consider spending that kind of money on a program like this. But I sat back and thought 2 steps ahead about it. I discussed it with Randy. I slept on it. The next day I tried to poke holes in a preliminary decision to spend nearly 1,200 bucks on something I won’t particularly enjoy and have failed miserably at time and time again over the past 25 years. One day later I pulled out my credit card and made a writing commitment.
Here’s why. The primary problem I ran into years ago about the book is that T2SA is a simple concept, easily taught, and I never felt I had enough material to fill a whole book that would “earn” its place on a book shelf. I wrote the blog for 3 years, I started writing the book, I taught the class 50 times or so, but it was always the same stuff over and over. Trying to write 300 or more pages without repeating was impossible. Matt’s whole schtick is that successful non-fiction books need to be short and honest and a bit controversial. And that works perfectly for T2SA. He also makes a compelling case for how easy (and inexpensive) it is today to self-publish on Amazon. And finally, he offers a double your money back guarantee, which I researched and considered carefully. Really, I had nothing to lose providing I do the work required to get the book published.
Because I am fairly adept at thinking 2 steps ahead, I considered what would happen if I lost all the money. I decided I was ok with that. But after the first 30 lessons in the 130-lesson course I feel much more well equipped and freshly excited about actually being able to make writing and publishing the book work this time. My goal isn’t to make a lot of money or build a business or anything like that. I just want to get the ideas in print and accessible to anyone interested. And I don’t want to be on my deathbed regretting that I never did anything with T2SA.
So, there you have it, I’m going to resurrect Thinking 2 Steps Ahead and finally publish that book I’ve been talking about for 25 years. The cool thing is that I have all the old blog posts and other things I’ve written in that time on the subject. Matt brought up a good point. If you’ve been writing blog posts that are about 1,000 words long (mine are), they have a shelf life of about 5 minutes (true!). A punchy book only needs to be about 25,000 words, so if you’ve written 25 blog posts, you’ve already written a book. All you need to do is get it organized and published on Amazon. I have WAY MORE than enough words already. And the materials in Matt’s course have given me new perspective and ideas on how to focus, assemble, and market it all.
I haven’t been this enthusiastic about having a purpose for a long time.
Any encouragement or advice you’d like to offer would be very welcome. Any skepticism or doubt is also welcome, if it’s offered as constructive criticism. I really want to hear your thoughts on this. Comment below. Please. And thanks, in advance.
P.S. From this post you can tell my writing is going well. The fasting and weight loss, not so much. I haven’t figured out quite yet what’s going on with that, but I will. It’s an electrifying time in my life. And I’m happy, happy, happy.
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