You Hurt Others By Not Sharing Your Big Ideas In A Book
Paul Epstein had a life-changing experience at a San Francisco 49s’ executive retreat some years ago.
As head of sales and business development with the 49ers, Paul went with colleagues on a two-day retreat. He came away from the experience transformed, finally knowing what his personal “Why” was. “I knew my mission, and I now had clarity on my core values,” Paul tells Published Author Podcast host Josh Steimle.
The big change was that Paul realized he had to lead himself before he could lead others. Next, he identified his passion: The leadership, culture, and people side of business, versus hitting the quotas hitting the goals, targeting those KPIs
Not long after the retreat, Paul left at the 49ers after 15 years at the top of his game to join the group that led the off-site executive retreat. This experience, ultimately, inspired Paul to write his book The Power of Playing Offense: A Leader's Playbook for Personal and Team Transformation.
TOP TAKEAWAY: YOU’RE HURTING OTHERS BY NOT SHARING WHAT YOU KNOW IN A BOOK
Through his life-changing experience, Paul believes that entrepreneurs and leaders who have an important message to share must write a book.
“I understand the mental barriers about: Who's going to read this book, Who's going to care? Where do I even start? Do I have the time? They're a natural part of the process,” says Paul.
“But on the flip side, why are you inspired to write the book? What is the ‘Why’ behind the book? How is this feeding into your personal mission? How is this going to add to your legacy? And is there something inside of you that if you had a billboard (this is that Tim Ferriss question of if you had a billboard, and you put one thought or one idea on it), what would it be?
“If you have that idea in your head, then my advice would be you're hurting others by not sharing it with them, because others need that boost.”
WORKING WITH A COACH
Paul realized in spring of 2020 that the pandemic presented him with a silver lining: He'd now had an opportunity to write a book. So he began. Although it was more difficult than he imagined, he hired a book coach, which turned out to be one of the best decisions he made.
“I'd never written something so extensive, and this process taught me that it's exactly the same level of preparation as you would prepare as a trainer, as a coach, as a consultant, as a speaker, thought leader, frankly,or any business professional,” he emphasizes. “You have to do the work behind the scenes in order to shine when it matters.”
The coach helped Paul with every aspect of the book, including some of the most important parts. Explains Paul: “To be completely candid, I was probably too author-focused when I came into the process, meaning: What does Paul want to say? What's Paul's message? What's the message Paul wants to share with the world?”
KEEP THE FOCUS ON THE READER
Paul’s coach got him to do a 180-degree shift, so that instead his focus would be on the reader, and he would look at everything through a reader’s lens.
“It helped tremendously, because now that led to the outline of my book. The focus sounded very familiar to me, and I should have realized this on my own but I didn't.
“And when they got me to think it's like in keynote speaking, it's not about the speaker, even though many speakers think it is. It’s audience-focus,” explains Paul. And the best speakers are 100% audience focused, they are servants for the audience. There has to be a ‘What's in it for me?’ to the reader each and every step of the journey.”
Paul says that although the book is written for leaders, almost anyone can get something from it. “My take on leadership is that the principles of what makes a great leader apply to any walk of life.
“This is not written from any other place than the trenches of leadership” and from those trenches come the truths that people are not able to find anywhere else.
LINKS
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle
Welcome to the Published Author Podcast where we help entrepreneurs learn how to write a book and leverage it to grow their business and make an impact. I'm your host, Josh Steimle. Today our guest is Paul Epstein. Paul successfully steered a business teams that executed billion-dollar NFL campaigns, broke Superbowl revenue records, and generated league-leading sales results for the NBA. He then served as a consultant for some of the largest brands in business and sports. He's now the founder of Purpose Labs and the author of the Power Of Playing Offense. Paul, welcome to the show.
Paul Epstein
Thanks so much Josh. Fired up to be here.
Josh Steimle
So give us some background. Where did you grow up? I mean, I know now, before the show, Paul and I were talking and it turns out he's in Pasadena. I grew up in Arcadia right next door. I was actually born in Pasadena. So we're practically from the same hometown, but give us some detail. What was your upbringing like? How did you get from where you started to where you are today?
Paul Epstein
Yeah, absolutely. So like you mentioned from Pasadena, for those familiar with the Rose Bowl, or the Rose Parade, that was a stone's throw away from where I grew up, so extremely blessed and fortunate to grow up in this area. And so as a born and raised Angeleno, when I think about my upbringing, it was really two different worlds, I had my world and my family here in Southern California. And then my mom, based on where she's from, we would take about a four hour drive south, and I spent a significant chunk of my childhood below the border, down in Mexico and in Ensanada. And so that was quite the experience, because I really felt like you can experience two different cultures. And I got to assimilate with people on a much deeper and more emotional level. And of course, just given the proud Mexican heritage and the family dynamics, I was just like a kid in a candy store every day, whether I was in So Cal or down there. And so as I grew up, stayed in LA, my entire run through undergrad didn't fall far. It was here in USC in Los Angeles. And so I studied business. And I always knew that there was going to be a path there. What I didn't know was that a year after I graduated, I would land in a dream job, which would lead to a dream career. And so I found myself in the professional sports industry. And when I say that, and if you could see my entire body, you could tell a little vertically challenged, so I wasn't necessarily catching the passes, I was the guy in the board room that was responsible for filling the stadium, as all of those things were happening on the ice or the field or the court. And so from three different NBA teams in NFL club with the 49ers, a global agency, you mentioned some of the accolades and some things that I'm extremely proud of. But well, I'll always remember, as I reflect back on what turned out to be a 15-year journey in sports, I fell in love with the people-side of the business, I fell in love with both the art and the science of leadership. I started to toward the latter part of my time in sports, appreciate what investing in culture, and unleashing the full potential of people really means. And so everybody always asked me about the sexier part of it, which is the stuff you mentioned the billion-dollar campaigns and the revenue records and saving an NBA team from relocating. That was awesome. What was more awesome is that . . . and I will get to the book in a few minutes. But they were the things that I learned from the people that I had the blessing of locking arms with on a day-to-day basis, because when you strip away all of the glitz and glamour of the industry, we were executing just like any other business professional does. And that really gave me a lot of fuel and momentum that led to not only starting my own business, but writing a book in the not-so-distant future.
Josh Steimle
You know, when you watch a movie, you see the credits roll at the end, and you realize, gee, it took a lot of people to put this movie together. It's not just the actors, but with sports teams, we never get the credit roll. And so you see the players you see the coaches, but you don't really see how many people are working behind the scenes to make that all work to make that huge, huge business operation work. Those that team that's just the tip of the iceberg, right?
Paul Epstein
Yeah. 100%. And, as I mentioned earlier, the world sees when the lights come on, but really it especially let's use the NFL as an example. There's 10 games. So for the 355 other days. All of that is the work that goes in to the 10 times a year that the lights do come on.
Josh Steimle
Yeah. So now give us some insight into what's going on during this special year. 2020 COVID, global pandemic, this has hit sports hard. Do you have any insights into what's going on and how the teams are handling this behind the scenes?
Paul Epstein
Well, it's been a rough year. And if you try to sugarcoat the reality of the impact of 2020 on live events as a whole, so whether for yourself Josh, or myself being keynote speakers or trainers, coaches, consultants, thought leaders in essence, or were the athletes on the field, we all know, there were some sports that went through more of a bubble environment, meaning they were fully insulated for the better part of four or five, six months. And then there are others like football that we're going through now where it's a bit more of a modified environment. But regardless, 40 to 50% of the bottom line is attributed to the gate, meaning the tickets, the sponsorships, the merchandise, the food and beverage. And so that gameday experience which, which, if you're a sports fan, there probably is a childhood memory or memories as you were growing up, where you remember going to a game. And that's really where the love and the passion comes from, taking nothing away from the Add home experience. But 2020 has been a really, really challenging year. And unfortunately, I do have countless friends in the industry, that careers have been impacted, there have been some pivots, there's been a hard look at reinvention in their own ways. Now, I'm a firm believer that they're going to come out of this bigger, faster, stronger, and I think there was in an industry where I wouldn't always say we had to be the most progressive, because when you flip the lights on on something that's as attractive as professional sports, the results kind of take care of themselves. If your team is winning. Here's a good analogy. It's hard for me to have a great business idea when my NFL team goes Oh, and 16, it's hard for me to have a bad idea when my team goes 16. No. And so given those dynamics, this is one of those years that there was a forced perspective toward innovation. And so I'm really excited about the future of the industry, and all of the unique lenses that are going to come out of this 2020 experience.
Josh Steimle
And across-the-board challenges. So no team can say, Oh, that's just them, or it's a bad manager. I mean, everybody's hurting. What do you think are some of the most interesting or exciting or best changes that will come out of 2020 for the future of sports?
Paul Epstein
I believe that the experience will be amplified. Well, two things. One, I'll say. And I can look in the mirror, when I say this at the 49ers let's say we have 70,000 fans that have sold out game at Levi's Stadium. Sometimes you take things for granted when they're working. And on a scale of one to 10, to what extent do you extend your guest service team, your customer experience? Is it solely about the bottom line? Or are you truly willing to invest in the experience. And as a byproduct of not having fans in the building for many professional clubs this year, it gave people a fresh look, in essence, a blank canvas to say, what would a utopian customer experience look like? What are we missing right now that perhaps we were sprinting too fast. And we had blinders on as life was progressing as normal, and it was in broke, so there was nothing to fix. Well, now, with that blank canvas, I believe that the in stadium experience will be enhanced based on the innovative looks that clubs are taking a look at. Beyond that the at-home experience from not only an AR perspective, but there's a lot of VR technology. And there's just a lot of cool things that are going to augment the in-stadium experience. So I think whether you're at home or whether you're in the building, the fan is who is going to win at the end of the day, once we come back because of the forced innovation.
Josh Steimle
Cool. So one of the things that you talk about in your book is this leadership aspect of the sports industry. And I'll confess I grew up skateboarding, I was into more like individual sports. I wasn't a huge fan of team sports so much. And what flipped things for me was when I began to understand the dynamics happening behind the scenes, the coaching, the leadership, the management process. When I watched the movie Moneyball, yeah, the whole data-driven thing that's interesting to me. But what's more interesting to me, is how the head guy handled the leadership issues that came up because of the technology, how he dealt with the people who were struggling with it or fighting against it, that type of thing. So take us into your book. What was the inspiration for this book, and what do you hope to accomplish with it?
Paul Epstein
100% Josh, and I appreciate you asking. So the book is titled The Power of Playing Offense. The subtitle is where the impact lies: A Leader's Playbook For Personal And Team Transformation. I was very strategic with the ordering of that transformation, because it's based on a transformation of my own. And the premise of the book is, before you lead others, you must first lead yourself. And when I went through that lightbulb moment, at that point in time, we're talking a handful of years back, I'm head of sales and business development for the 49ers. And we went on an executive leadership off-site retreat, and it changed my life. What I walked away with from that two-day experience was, I found my personal Why. I now had a Northstar, I now knew my mission, I now had clarity on my core values. And I started to use them as lens for how I showed up in the world, through my decisions, my behaviors, my actions. And as I started to lead myself, in the terms of the book, that transformation was something that I drank the punch, so to speak, and I couldn't walk away from it. And I started to, in essence, fall more in love with my passion project, which was the leadership and the culture and the people side of business, versus hitting the quotas hitting the goals, targeting those KPIs, which is something that always got me out of bed. But now that I had my Why it no longer did. And so I did something that nobody does in sports. I left on my own terms, when things were going perfect. Nobody does that. They're lying to you, they tell you they do. In my case, I've never been more confident about a leap of faith in my life. And that leap of faith got me to join the group that led that leadership off-site retreat. So essentially, for a few years after my time in sports, I became a leadership coach and trainer because I wanted to stress test how do all of those insights of leadership that I learned in a 15 year sports journey, largely from a boardroom perspective, does it apply universally? Or was it insular to the sports industry. And what I found after working with leadership teams, from Aoom from Amazon, Navy Seals, American Airlines just to name a few, I found that the principles of leadership are universal. I found that when I asked a question of what makes a great leader, and for somebody to think of the greatest leader in their life, you're going to get the usual suspects at the top: listening, care, compassion, all of these characteristics that I don't believe are tied to a rank or a role, or a title or authority versus leadership is the responsibility that we all can step into each and every day, if we're aware of it. And so that's the background of what led me to the point of eventually writing the book. But really, it was founded also on solving a problem that I knew was not being solved. I wrote it for my own avatar, what was the leadership playbook that I wish I had when I was leading teams in the NFL and NBA. And to use a metaphor here, I found that there was a gap on who is coaching the coaches. So in the sports world, if you have a great player, and if I was to say even in Josh, you could say, as a skateboarder and because you said that was a part of your passion when you were growing up. Okay, so I think of the name Tony Hawk. Great. So one of the greatest skateboarders, if not the greatest, don't want to step on your turf. But does it mean because he was great at it, that he would become a great coach at it. And I think it's fair to say that it'd be a coin flip, taking no judgment against Tony pro or con. We clearly know that in sports, a great player doesn't always become a great coach. They're different jobs. They're different skill sets. But then why in business, is that our default, you're a great player, wave the wand, you're now supervising coaching, leading the position that you were once in. And what makes it even more challenging is not only that flawed perspective of the default player-to-coach promotion. They're not being developed as leaders. When I reflect back on my journey, I was trained real well how to manage results. I didn't have nearly enough training or coaching on how to lead the people side of the business. And that was what I was on a mission to solve with this playbook. So as important, Josh, as it is, for me that people read the book. Even more important is that people use the book. This is not written from any other place than the trenches of leadership, as I call it. I didn't integrate any consulting fluff. I didn't take an academic lens and bury it with research. I literally talked about using my leadership journey as a compass to navigate through a story. My worst days, my best days, the pitfalls, the decisions I wish I wouldn't have made, but also the inspirational ending to this transformation in the hopes that it inspires a transformation for somebody else. And so from equal parts, inspiration and action, what I'm most proud of and and what I'm most looking forward to sharing is that there are over 50, five zero, activities, exercises and trainings that you can implement on Monday morning. And that's what I wish I had through my journey. And my goal is that this is a reference guide that every leader that reads it always has it nearby so that they can level up and they can level their teams up.
Josh Steimle
So when I was a kid, I used to look at like NASCAR and f1 Racing and all this stuff. And I thought, this is sure a waste of time and money, like why are they doing this and yet, that technology in that research that comes out of those activities, filters down into the cars that all of us drive every day, we're all driving race cars today, the cars that we drive, were the race cars of a few years ago. And so there's a logic to it, there's a purpose that society has in that. And with sports, I see a similar thing. And that was sports, the leadership lessons that are developed on the field, are something that can filter into business, into families, into all sorts of organizations, is that the approach that your book takes that, hey, I wrote this for myself, and I'm in the sports field, but anybody can benefit from the lessons, or the principles in this book is that where you go with things
Paul Epstein
100%. My take on leadership is that the principles of what makes a great leader apply to any walk of life. So as much as the book is written for a business leader, I could just as easily apply this in the classroom, as a parent, as a child, in any walk of life, because my definition of leadership as I share in the book is that it's a trainable set of behaviors. And those behaviors don't require the rank, the role, the title, the authority, they require awareness, which is part of leading yourself. And once you're aware of how you show up on a daily basis, now you can be more intentional to say, Ah, okay, so the people and the leaders that inspire me most do A, B, C, D, E, well, now that you're aware of that, my challenge is you should show up with A, B, C, D, E. Because then it's going to continue to cascade out. And when people always ask me, how do you develop a culture of leaders? And how do you pay it forward for the leaders of tomorrow? Well, that's exactly the game plan that I share in the book is first leading yourself through those behaviors and the emotional intelligence and the awareness, then sharing out these experiences and insights with your team so that they can grow when they're still potentially in player roles. But now they're acting as leaders on a daily basis. So you see them in action, you can coach them as leaders, all they're missing is the rank in the title. And now you can best decide when to waive that one, when to tap somebody on the shoulder when they're ready for that next seat. But yes, going back to your question - it's written for business leaders 100%, it can be applied across all walks of life. And the reason I did it that way, Josh was, I tried to make it as portable and accessible for all of us. Because sometimes I think we put leadership as a topic or a theme up on a pedestal. And in my case, I just view it as something that we should all be inspired by not be intimidated by, and that we should all feel like, it would be an honor to show up as a leader each and every day. So now the question is, how do I do it? And that's where I try to step in, to share the perspectives, to share the insights, and to share the actions so that people can essentially step in with a playbook already in-hand. And then of course, make it their own.
Josh Steimle
Perfect, thank you for sharing the story behind the book. Yeah, let's dive into the nitty gritty details of how you actually got this book done. Because there's so much work that goes into writing and publishing a book. And for those of you who are just listening to this, if you go over to YouTube, and you look at the video of this on the wall behind Paul, he's got his outline written out all over this big wall, back there. So talk to us about the process that you went through. Was there a certain was there a point a specific moment when you said, I've got something and I need to write a book about this, and then what was your next step after that?
Paul Epstein
So it's a great question and this should resonate with everybody listening to this because I feel like 2020 was a year of . . . it leveled the playing field. Nobody was immune from the challenges of 2020. And yourself, myself included, if I could go back in time. So let's take a time machine back to January of 2020. This is post my 15 years in sports post. Several years as a leadership coaching consultant working under the umbrella of a consultancy, I decided to bet on myself. And in January of 2020, I launched and founded Purpose Labs, which is my consultancy that essentially guides people, teams, and organizations through the same transformation that I had, when I found my why. Now, that's important context, because the first two and a half months of 2020, we're going phenomenally I could not have dreamed up a better launch. Well, mid March comes around. And this little thing called the pandemic comes around, and the quarantine and for folks like a lot of those that are listening to the show as thought leaders, we pride ourselves on large in person gatherings to share our message. And that was not happening. And so the first couple weeks just like anybody else, if they're being 100%, transparent and vulnerable and authentic about it, there's a lot of fear, there's a lot of risk, there's a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of uncertainty. And it takes time to be able to put these shattered puzzle pieces together. And I still remember when I thought the pandemic, oh, it'll be over by the summer, and I'll be back on stages by the fall. Well, clearly, that didn't happen. And so tying back to the book, here was the process I went through that led to the decision to say, let's put pen to paper, I look at all of my mid to long term objectives, things that likely would not have happened in the calendar year 2020, had there been no pandemic. And right at the top of that list, as a thought leader, I had a gap, I had a hole, I had a void, I had not written a book. So when you're getting on planes every other day, it's easy to keep kicking that can further down the field. But in this case, I thought to myself, if I treat 2020 as an infrastructure building year, what can I do to best position myself for 2021 and beyond. And there was no bigger and more exciting decision to make then this is my time to hunker down and write a book. And to be frank, now that I know what the process is like, now that the book is just released from a pre-order perspective. So we're kind of looking back in the time machine now. I think it would have been a much more massive challenge had I had a consistent travel routine and had I been carrying the consultancy and had I been on stages every day, to balance the focus that I was blessed with to go into a cave, this room right behind me I literally walked locked myself in for two and a half months and pumped out an entire manuscript. I know for a fact
Josh Steimle
That's pretty quick.
Paul Epstein
That's pretty damn quick. And I know for a fact that that would not that timeframe would not have happened if it wasn't for the quarantine. And so the process at that point of saying I'm going to push forward with the book, I then went through likely many of the same forks in the road that folks that are listening to this are. What are the publishing options? Where do I even start? I had this inspiration, I had this idea. But I felt like I needed a thought partner, I felt like I didn't want to go on the journey alone and just put myself on an island because it's all the usual emotions of writing a book. On its best day, you're thinking, I can't wait to get this in people's hands. I wish I could deliver this to somebody right now. And on its worst day, you're doubting yourself asking yourself, who's gonna care who's gonna read this. And so again, author, the author and for everybody listening to this, those are just the natural pendulum emotions that go through that you go through when you're writing a book and so happy for you to jump back in Josh and happy to provide any other context that would be valuable. But really, that was my early pandemic decision-making tree and that's how I started to process it in the earlier days.
Josh Steimle
This is fantastic. So when you started working on your outline, then what was your process with that? Where did you Where did you get literally get started on that outline? Did you write just kind of a thin outline and then start filling it in? Or did you have an idea what your chapters were going to be? Did they come to you as you were working on the book?
Paul Epstein
Yeah. So that is part two of the, the response. Part one is going to be the decision I made that led me to that point, which was, what did I end up doing from a publishing perspective. And so my options, because for me, maintaining rights to the IP, knowing that as a thought leader, I wanted to use the book as a builder, as a brand builder, as something that as as people say, it's a little cliche, but it's the world's biggest business card. And we all know folks that have used it to gain more speaking engagements, get more consulting, gigs, whatever the end game is, the book is a part of that building process and journey. And so for me, working with a large publisher, even if one would have raised their hand and say, we'd love to work with you, the IP piece in the maintaining of controller that was important to me. So I really was considering self-publishing versus hybrid publishing, I ended up going with a hybrid publisher, Amplify, and I was introduced to them through my speaking coach. So I'm a big believer that once you have a great relationship and a great partner, essentially, I have a coach for every aspect of my business. I now have a writing coach, did not at the time I was making this decision. I have a speaking coach, I have a training and facilitation coach, I and I have a general business coach. And so I'm a massive believer, I practice what I preach, if I'm going to coach others, I'd be a hypocrite to not take on coaches myself. So once I came on with Amplify, part of the original discussion was all those things you just mentioned the book outline, and what's the what's the big idea is the way they described it to me. And I struggled with that, I felt like I had the inspiration, I felt like, I had all of the motivation to get the work done. And I just wanted to be scrappy, and just start hitting the keys. But what I didn't have was structure, what I didn't have was a thought partner. And what I didn't have was a coach. And when I voice, being very self aware, I voice those gaps to Amplify. And they said, You know, I thought we were just going to help you with design and with print and all the these blocking and tackling fundamental things in the process. But actually, we think we can get you a coach, and we think that coach can help you with your outline, we should all have a meeting of the minds, if you will to talk about that big idea. And then let us being the publisher, let you know what the market is consuming to see where we find that intersection to say, great that you want to write this? Is the market going to give a damn is the market gonna care. Thankfully for me, they saw a similar void in the leadership space in the sense of I think the philosophy was, there's a lot of theoretical leadership books, there's a lot of leadership books that are highly conceptual. And then there's a ton that are backed from an academic perspective, via the research, there were a lot that were built as a playbook that were designed for utility to say, here is what you can do tomorrow. And then the next day, and then the next day. And oh, by the way, here's what you should actually share with your team, and do the next day and the next day. And so that was that who's coaching the coaches. And before you lead others, you must first lead yourself, those were kind of the big ideas that we started with before we started to put the outline on that's right over my left shoulder here.
Josh Steimle
Cool. So then as you develop this outline, you had this team helping you and I love that you're going into this detail and talking about the team and the people who are involved because a book is never really a solo project. And the sooner that an author recognizes that the sooner you can get help to make a better product. And it sounds like you had that team from a pretty early stage.
Paul Epstein
Yeah, I did have the team and the end result. And for those that do end up diving into The Power of Playing Offense, what you'll see and what I give all the credit to my team for because again, I had the big idea, but they helped me with the particular structure. So the book ended up coming out following a similar structure as what my keynote is, which is also about playing offense. And so essentially, there's five pillars, and each pillar within it has a transformation. So one of the gaps that I had Josh, to be completely candid is I was probably too author-focused when I came into the process meaning what is Paul want to say? What's Paul's message? What's, what's the message he wants to share with the world? versus now I'm looking at everything 1,000,000% of it from the readers lens, and how are they going to benefit from it. And once I got coached up to do that 180 degrees, it helped tremendously, because now that led to the outline of my book because it sounded very familiar to me and I should have realized this on my own but I didn't. And when they got me to think it's like in keynote speaking, it's not about the speaker, even though many speakers think it is. Its audience-focus. And the best speakers are 100% audience focused, they are servants for the audience. Now, if that's the case, in speaking, we say inspire, educate and transform, flip that similar model for a writer just going to take the speaking and more so from a lean perspective. So my philosophy was, if I'm thinking about the reader, I have some thoughts on how I would organize this. But there has to be a what's in it for me to the reader each and every step of the journey. And so as an example, pillar one, live with championship purpose. This is the ability to transform from a paycheck-driven society to a purpose-driven society. And I felt like I had to solve, I had to crack the code of more meaning and more impact for every single reader, then pillar two, which is extremely fitting for the pandemic, is to be the storm chaser, that transformation is to go from adversity to achievement. So there I'm coaching a reader for how to shift the mindset from solely focusing on hurdles and obstacles and reasons you cannot do something to possibilities, opportunities, and why you can do something. And so the following pillars go from disengaged to inspired your culture from command and control to camaraderie and connection, and then the finale is to go from a life of self to a life of legacy, essentially, we're so hyper focused on success. How do you say yes, and yes to success, and to significance. And so all of those things, identified problems in the market and challenges that potential readers were facing. And I said, each pillar, each chapter should deliver some value to take the reader from here to there. And that's how I attacked it from a structural standpoint.
Josh Steimle
It's interesting, this has come up in a number of other interviews that people said, I have a talk, I have a presentation that I give, and I realized, I can turn this into a book, this has come up in a number of interviews. And so once again, here's an example that if somebody is out there listening to this, and you give the same presentation over and over and over again, and people love it, maybe that should be your book.
Paul Epstein
Yeah.
Josh Steimle
So you have this outline there on the wall behind you. What are some of the things that you learned during this process of outlining and then writing the manuscript? If you could go back and do it over again? What are some of the things that you would do different based on what you know now?
Paul Epstein
Well, it's a great question. And what I would do differently is, so again, a blessing of the quarantine, if we had to find a silver lining was the ability to go heads down, and focus. And so I've noticed that, here's a good example, whether you're a speaker, or any other type of thought leader, for me, the secret sauce is all in the preparation, your natural gifts and talents may allow you to air quotes, wing it. But if you really want to be the one of the best in the world at it, that's the work you do behind the curtain that's going to show up on stage in front of the curtain. And I didn't think writing worked like that, because I'd never written something so extensive. And this process taught me that it's exactly the same, the same level of preparation, you would prepare as a trainer, as a coach, as a consultant, as a speaker, any other type of thought leader, frankly, any business professional - you have to do the work behind the scenes in order to shine when it matters. And so what that meant very specifically for me as I dove into my first series of writing, so essentially, I had a weekly call with my coach, it was a great accountability metric, because there was an exploding deadline. And I couldn't disappoint him. I didn't want to fall behind. I had aggressive timelines to get speed to market. And so all of these different dynamics, I love the structure. But the reason we came up with that structure was because I attacked the first week, just thinking, I'm just gonna go in and start hitting the keys. And a week later, I'm going to hit send, I'll get some edits back and they'll proofread it and then we'll just go on to the next chunk. far from ideal, far from ideal. I realized that all I had at that point when I made that mistake was I slowly had the chapters outlined. I had to drill down into the level of headers, sub headers, I even asked my coach, kind of a crazy, detail oriented guy. I said, Give me the word range PR because if you don't give it to me, just like I'm very long winded when I speak, I know that I'm going to write a 600-page book unless you stopped me so give me the parameters and so he literally said okay we've got a heads be heads we've got intros. A heads are going to be this many words, that many words. This is the range for B heads. And once he gave me that structure, I kid you not Josh, I could have written we were essentially going a pillar a week was our cadence, meaning three, and there's three chapters in each pillar. So I was writing a chapter, Monday, chapter, Tuesday, Chapter Wednesday, edited Thursday, we had a call Friday, and then rinse repeat, took the weekend to really brush back with the coaching I got on Fridays. Now, what's important for everybody to know is, as much as it seems like that feels like a pain in the you know what to go through that level of detailed outline, the writing became exponentially easier. It was just flowing from my fingers. Because A, I knew how much I had to write B, I knew now what I needed to transition into. And it took the guesswork out of the writing. So at least for me, I appreciated that approach. But again, I needed a coach to really organize it for me otherwise, I probably have an unorganized 600-page book. And it might be good. But I'm confident that the best product came out of this experience because of the guidance that I got.
Josh Steimle
So a writing coach is an interesting thing. A lot of people don't even know that such a thing exists. What did your writing coach do? What did he she not do?
Paul Epstein
He. Yeah, so different from . . . most are familiar with a ghostwriter. And, frankly, had we been in a traditional 2020 and going into 2021, businesses thriving, it's booming. I had an open mind toward ghostwriting. But the pandemic because of the time that came back to us, that took me away from the ghostwriting angle. And now I said, I don't need somebody to write the book. And frankly, from an authenticity perspective, I felt better. I'm not knocking it at all. I know phenomenal ghostwriters and people that have used ghostwriters, I just felt like personally for my process, I didn't want to go down that path. I wanted to go down the path of just having a coach on my shoulder just to help guide and so specifically what they did, they helped me develop the overall book outline in the level of detail that I shared, not only the outline, they then audited it, they gave me parameters on length within each section. They helped me with transitions. Most importantly, in our weekly calls, as we reviewed the week's writing that I just came off of. I challenged my coach, his name is Miles, I challenged Miles, to not just be a yes, man, not tell me that it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Like I didn't want that I wanted somebody that would just be ultra, ultra candid. And if I needed to get punched in the mouth and challenge and Paul, that was a crappy chapter, I wanted to hear that. And so I said, Miles, shoot me straight. And don't look at it as much as I want you to read it through twice. The first time as a reader the second time as a coach, because my fear was if he's just my coach, and he's gonna fix the grammar, the structure the sentence, I learned what prose means I had no idea what that was. And now I do. That's the type of stuff that in author land. It's cool. But for me, I said, Tell me if somebody is going to give a damn about these words and the book and does this resonate? Does it inspire you here was my spirit of this chapter did it work. And that's really the first pass. And then the second pass was more of the technical stuff that a coach would do relative to writing.
Josh Steimle
That is great. That's a fantastic insight into the world of that interaction between you and your coach. So tell us a little bit about this hybrid publisher arrangement because a lot of people are familiar with self-publishing a lot of people know about traditional publishing. Most first time authors have never heard of a hybrid publisher. So can you explain what amplify did and did not do for you? And the difference between amplify versus self publishing or traditional publishing?
Paul Epstein
Absolutely. So my process as the fork in the road was between hybrid and self. And so self, as I'm sure many folks have kicked the tires on this process. And so may have actually gone through that I've great, great friends that are going through that process. I don't know if this is exaggerated. And Josh, I defer to you as the expert here. But literally, there's people that say, once you have your book written within hours, it can go up on Amazon. I don't know if that's an exaggeration. But needless to say, of course, speed-to-market relative to self publishing seems to be a phenomenal benefit, whether it's a couple hours, I don't know. But that was something I explored. But I asked myself and this is something that the CEO of Amplify asked me, he said what's the bigger play? Because I thought he was solely focused on the book, of course, he's the head of the publishing company. But this is a really cool and this is before I hired them, but one of the things that gave me confidence to hire them was Amplify was thinking of the bigger Paul Epstein thought leadership play. They were thinking about what's the book and a set you up for? So if I read the book, what do you how do you want me to engage in the future with Paul? Speaking? consulting it? Or is there nothing? Is it solely about the book and there's no right or wrong? Help me help you. And we'll develop a business plan for you to make a book a part of something bigger, if that's what you want to do. And so that type of thought-capital and thought leadership was very valuable to me in that pre- decision making phase. But really, when I made the fork in the road, hybrid versus self, I believe, because I was trying to feed into a larger, very premium type of thought leadership practice, like, at my keynotes premium, consulting premium, I mean, that by investment by experienced by every other measurable imaginable, and so because of that, I wanted a level of brand consistency. So that the simple way of thinking about this is, if you have a beautiful website, but then the PowerPoint deck to your keynote speech looks like crap. Well, there's there's a mismatch there. And there's a well, so who's Paul? Like, what level is he trying to play ball at. And so for me that I had already established a high mark, relative to the rest of my thought leadership practice, my concern with self-publishing was that I didn't want to put the work on my shoulders, because it's my first time and perhaps sacrifice quality. That could have just been in my head, I don't know how that would have turned out. But I was willing to make an investment in a hybrid publisher to help me A. with the thought leadership that I described a few minutes ago, B. with what's the big idea for the book, C.the market analysis of how we position the book uniquely from the other traffic that's going to be in these categories. So what's the unique value and message that I'm bringing as an author versus other leadership folks that are writing. Then on the more technical side, they helped me find my coach, we interviewed a handful in which I found the one. We then on the, during the process, there was a fully designed the book. And I mean, this from a humble place, they turned it into a work of art, it was not my intention to make. It's such a work of art. And they are magicians and so I could not sing their praises anymore from a design perspective. And they manage all of the relationship relative to the editing, the proofreading, the printing, the distribution, they'll get everything set up on all of the different sales and marketing channels. So all that to say it's a full-suite, just like I'm familiar with a large publishing house. But the difference here was the ability to maintain the rights to the IP. And also without disclosing the exact number, the revenue split of what I keep versus Amplify, I found it to be the most generous in the market from the hybrid publishers that I did research on. So that was another piece was not that this to me was it was not about the economics. But it's always nice to know as a proud author that, hey, this can also be a leg of your of your business stool, if you will.
Josh Steimle
Cool. Well, we've covered a lot of ground here, Paul, but I feel like we could go on for another hour or so. But I'm gonna try to wrap this up by asking if there are any key lessons that you learned as a first-time author going through this process from scratch. If there's any one or two key lessons that you would give to another first time author listening to this, what would that recommendation or that advice be?
Paul Epstein
The advice would be very similar to the advice I would give to any leader or any person relative to if you want to do something special in life. You don't want to have the regret of never taking the shot. And so I understand the mental barriers about: Who's going to read this book, Who's going to care? Where do I even start? Do I have the time? And I'm not even going to diminish those as excuses. I'm just going to say they're a natural part of the process. And so if you think about it from that level, it's just natural to feel that way. But on the flip side, why are you inspired to write the book? What is the Why behind the book? How is this feeding into your personal mission? How is this going to add to your legacy? And how do you want to be remembered? And is there something inside of you that if you had a billboard, this is that Tim Ferriss question of if you had a billboard and you put one thought or one idea on it, what would it be? If you have that idea in your head, then my advice would be, you're hurting others by not sharing it with them, because others need that boost. They need that connection, they need that inspiration or that big idea that you have inside you. And you're never going to impact any lives if you don't take the shot. So, go make the play it or is, as my book would say, take a playing-offense mindset into the decision. That way you don't live with any regrets, and you create impact for others.
Josh Steimle
Awesome. Thanks so much, Paul, for being here with us. If people want to find you, what's the best place for them to reach out?
Paul Epstein
Absolutely. So on social, very active on LinkedIn, both my personal page and then Purpose Labs being my company. Also, my thought leadership site is PaulEpsteinspeaks.com. So every everybody that just wants to follow from a book perspective, for online content, all of that in the power of playing offense up on Amazon via pre order. So I would be honored and blessed if folks took a look at it. And again, all of my details are inside of the book. So any way that we can meet at the 50 I'd be honored to do so.
Josh Steimle
Great. Thank you so much. Once again, Paul Epstein. The book is the Power of Playing Offense. And as you listen to this, it's available either for pre-order. If you're listening to this a little bit later, it's available to buy on Amazon and everywhere else fine books are sold. Thank you so much, Paul, for being with us today.
Paul Epstein
Thanks, Josh.
Josh Steimle
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