Several years ago, I watched my friend, Tony, an elite speed coach, work with a group of teenagers who wanted to run faster.
Tony was the man for the job.
He and his two sons played college football. He and his two boys earned scholarships. All of them ran the 40-yard dash in 4.3 – 4.4 seconds.
One of the takeaways I learned from Coach Tony is the same as what I tell aspiring writers.
When you’re in the middle of a sprint and you want to arrive faster – then focus on the finish line. See yourself already there. This alone will cause you to run faster.
Keep in mind we’re only talking about a task that takes four to five seconds, unless you’re slow as molasses.
If you’re working on a marathon project, such as writing a book, the approach is different. If you only focus on the finish, you may end up discouraged.
Writing a best-selling book takes more time than writing an email or a meme you post on social media.
But it doesn’t take forever. Most books can be hammered out in a few weeks or months. That’s more than enough time to complete this type of “marathon.”
If you write 2,000 words a day – or even 1,000 – you can get your book done in what most people would think of as quantum speed, even though it isn’t.
You can eat the Marathon candy bar a bite at a time. One thousand to two thousand words per day is not difficult. It’s a matter of focus. It’s a matter of focusing on the finish. The daily finish.
And those daily finishes add up to far more words than most books require.
1,000 words a day for 90 days is 90,000 words.
2,000 words a day for 90 days is 180,000 words.
Yes, you can crank out a book even faster than the above.
The first edition of Combat Conditioning was 15,000 words. I wrote it in a week.
Along with Eddie Baran (who wrote the technical portion), we wrote Gama Fitness in a weekend. That was nuts.
And on Easter Sunday, 2008, I wrote 101 Ways to Magnetize Money… in Any Economy. The first draft was 12,000 words. I finished it the same day. I began by writing the idea on an index card around 7 AM. I stopped writing and called it a day at 6 PM.
That’s 11 hours total.
Was I writing the entire time?
No.
I wrote, walked, showered, shaved, swam, visualized, walked some more… and so on.
If all I did was write I would have gone coo-coo.
How’d the book do?
It kicked AZZ.
I sold out of the first printing super fast because many people were buying it by the case.
Years later, Nightingale-Conant published the book as an audio program. You can download and listen by going to Audible.com
My point here is simple: Most people who want to write a book have a mental image in their minds that is faulty. They focus on all the wrong things. They focus on the pain, the agony, the time it will take, the editing, the sales, the “who am I?” factor, and so on.
None of these images are helpful whatsoever. Nor are they advisable from a Psycho-Cybernetics vantage point.
All of these images create a dark cloud overhead – as well as a dark energy standing between you and your goal of being a writer/published author.
Coach Tony helped his sons and many others he coached run faster by teaching them what to focus on. What they focused on lightened their loads and brightened their lives.
I’ve done the same as a coach for writers, email copywriters, fitness fanatics and people who want to lose a lot of weight.
If you aspire to be a writer, you can avail yourself of my knowledge by getting my programs at knockoutmarketing.com – or you can send me an email inquiring about having me be your personal coach, guiding you through the forest on the way to the castle.
In the interim, remember this, “When you really, really want it – you’ll find a way to get it.”
Matt Furey
P.S. My coaching is NOT cheap and it’s NOT for people who want to be coddled. It’s also NOT for those who want to compare this and that. This means you don’t want to write me unless you WANT ME to be YOUR Coach.
