How to Connect With Famous Authors and Write a Real Book in 90 Days.

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Howdy Tribe! You may remember my good friend Anthony (https://www.anthonymoore.co/) from our LAST chat (found here).

He’s a highly-skilled writer (and prolific holy cow), overall nice dude, and now author!

In fact, he wrote a real book (i.e. not a 30-page PDF ebook) in less than three months.

Wait what??

It’s called What Extraordinary People Know, it’s available now, and you should grab it!

It’s not your average formatted book, either. Really easy to digest and get through. Recommended ????

We also chat:

  • Connecting with famous authors like Ryan Holiday, James Clear, Michael Hyatt, etc.
  • How to pitch people effectively (so it’s a win-win and not ultra spammy).

Enjoy!

Listen to my episode with Anthony

or listen on Apple Podcasts \\ Google Podcasts

Resources mentioned:

Here’s the full transcript!

Anthony 3:05
Great to be here, Pete.

Pete McPherson 3:07
So it’s been a little while. It’s been a hot minute since we caught up in Nashville at the tribe conference. And then last year on the podcast. First, let me just start off like totally casual podcast style, like, how’s it been going? And you and your writing business? We’re gonna talk about the book in just a minute for sure you got a book coming out? But in general, like how things go and give us like a like a two minute little catch up? What’s happening in your, your blogging business world since last year?

Anthony 3:34
Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on. Thanks, listeners for tuning in. Honestly, Pete, things have been going so well. And I say that with so much gratitude, because I mean, I’ve come from telemarketing and awful nine to five jobs and Horrible Bosses. So it’s so great to be working from home as a writer of the book coming out not worrying about am I going to get fired every single day, my whole job. So it’s great.

So I finished my book. They gave me three months to write and I was like, there’s no way I can do that. And I did it, which is what happens when you give yourself deadlines.

I been launching a lot of courses have a new or new ish writing course called wealthy writers with a matching kind of like books guide to that physical copy. So have that kind of growing, growing. I’m partnering up with a few other writers to make a course on how to launch a side business, more personal growth course. So lots of kind of online products, meeting with a lot of top tier writers talking about guys like Ryan Holliday, David Gaddafi, I’ve sent James Clear a few hundred letters. He hasn’t got back to me. So James, you’ve got their me back. How’s it been? Great.

Pete McPherson 4:39
James out there. He should do the Do You Even Blog podcast as well

Anthony 4:43
“get on his podcast because Pete awesome.” So it’s going really well. I write a lot on medium calm, which if you don’t know what that is, listeners, it’s a big kind of writing hub. Last last topics there, you get paid for your writing, as well. So have 10s of thousands of followers, they’re making decent income, they’re getting a lot of good connections. So really, the writing is a great platform for all these other things like videos and courses and coaching and whatnot. And like that book. So it’s going great.

Pete McPherson 5:08
Aawesome, man, you have a ton going on for one thing. depressed. So without, let me do like a little 22nd catch up. Last time you were on the show. We did talk a lot about medium specifically as a platform. And we also shared your backstory, which I’m not going to go into right now people go listen to that, because I feel like that was awesome. Like with the travel and you know, you and your wife coming back and then working with college students, high school students. I can’t remember now.

Anthony 5:35
Kind of both high school. Yeah.

Pete McPherson 5:38
Yeah. Well, people go back and listen to that. What I thought was cool. I want to start off with the pitch email you sent me was like a hard sell. I try to sell Pete… And we were we’ve met in real life, quote, unquote, we’re friends now, like 10.

So it wasn’t, it wasn’t a hard pitch email, but it was a pitch email.

So I wanted to point out what I liked about it. I don’t get like, I’m not one of those people who like, Oh, I get 100 pitch emails a day, I get 100 guests, but I’m not like super huge. I don’t get that much yet. But I do get a fair amount of like really bad stuff. Specifically, everybody just wants to come on the podcast. Really.

That’s all I get, like are no one wants to write me amazing content. Everybody wants to come on the podcast.

But yours was good. And so I want to point out why.

And then I thought we might dive into your strategy for the book launch right after that. But But here’s the context for people listening. So I think you sent me an email. First of all, there’s a lot of things going on correctly. Like you gave me some ego bait as well. Like, hey, my publicist said like, oh, talk to that, Do You Even Blog dude, some ego beta side, I like that you were very upfront about what you’re doing.

Here’s like, I got a new book coming out, I want to talk about it. But it wasn’t just about that you were like, here is what the book is going to cover. And you haven’t sent me some bullet points, you sent me two emails, one of which had strict bullet points. The other was still like, we could talk about this. And this and this, all of which were directly related to my audience, writers, creators, bloggers, that sort of stuff. I was like, this is like a perfect combo. I don’t like that you’re trying to like, sneak your way in by pretending that I’m just doing this to provide value for it.

No, Anthony has a book coming out and wants to talk about it. And it’s good. He wants to promote it. And he also has valued at that’s like a win win. And that’s a win win win. Good for my audience. Good for me. Good for Anthony. Right.

So I just want to point that out. Kudos to you.

Anthony 7:35
Thank you.

Pete McPherson 7:36
To turn this back on you now. Because I’m curious about the the book tour thing, right?

It used to be people launched a book. And then they got in a van like my friend grant spotted this best like six months, and literally toured the country and or world. And now it seems like it’s less physical travel more podcast tours. So Anthony, if you don’t mind sharing, you don’t have to give away anything secrets, you not to give away any explicit details. But…

Anthony 8:03
I’m giving all the secrets that’s later for.

Pete McPherson 8:06
So you’re gonna like release this book and to the wild that you’ve written? What’s the promotion strategy?

Anthony 8:13
Well, thanks so much. I’m glad you liked my email for listeners who didn’t read it, which is everybody. What I did is I emailed Pete and I was pretty forthright with but what I wanted to do, I said, hey, I’ve been on the podcast before I have a book coming out.

And I told him, I think I wrote up I said, Hey, like, I don’t want to be that guy that just takes takes takes, you know, and like, because, frankly, I was that guy, and it never worked. And I was saying like, hey, like, Can I help you out in some way? Like, I know, I’m trying to promote this. I don’t want to just take from you like what can I do as well to maybe help you out because I understand that, you know, people come to the podcast, people like you and just like want to get on there and just kind of say their two cents and leave.

So my biggest lesson I’ve learned recently for this book tour thing as I’m talking to talk to your authors, podcasters speakers, bloggers, whatever, is that they don’t like takers.

I took this great email course by a guy named Zack slay back really cool about like how to email very busy people, basically. And one of the most important lessons there was saying that you should just make the email very, very simple. And almost like a yes or no answer for them. Because they’re like he said, just like imagine that these people who you’re trying to connect with, almost like they’re, like running between terminals at an airport with their phone in their like, wrong hand like, like right handed, like left handed.

They’re busy. It’s like it’s so like, and like, how can they respond in that context, positively?

And if you break it down, it’s like, well, make sure it’s not long, make sure you’re not trying to take because people can scan and see like, hey, this guy’s trying to scam me or like just just wants my free publicity.

So I have really focused be on focusing on what the people I’m contacting what they want, what they need, how I can help them in the process. Because really, the point isn’t just to like, blow in. Now it’s my book to everyone in like, leave I want to have a relationship. I want to you know, like learn from them. I want to help them if I can.

I love Adam Grant’s whole book about given take, you know, like the world takes on the takers but gives to the givers. I think that’s that’s really important. And that’s not what I did at first. And so for like the first four or five years my writing journey, never had any success with guest posting or like getting connection because I was always like, take take take How can I get from you?

Now I’m focusing on what do you need? And how can I help with that knowing like in like saying, Hey, I have stuff that I would like to do as well I have a book or you know, for you listeners, if you have a podcast, you want your product or services or whatever, you can be honest about that. But when you’re doing that, you can also say, hey, by the way, I know that you give us these kind of contacts a lot or you you might get like all these requests, how can I help with that I don’t want to take from you. I want to give you your your people value. But I also know that you know, there’s a lot of takers out there. So how can I help that?

So I just focus on a very simple like, how, how can they skin this when they’re busy at the airport? And and say yes to me. And I can do that by being generous, being kind being serving and kind of putting their needs first along with mine to see how we can like I said, have a win win win for everyone involved?

Pete McPherson 11:15
Yeah, I think that’s what I liked about it is the fact that most people who receive any sort of decent inbound, I’m just gonna say like those influential busy people you’re talking about.

Most of them can see right through BS, way more than we even think they can. Like, a lot of times, they’ll look at those emails that seem like oh, here’s a give, give, give, give, give, but they don’t actually make a direct ask or they don’t actually come straight out and say like, Hey, I’m having a book tour, I thought this would be a great opportunity to yada yada yada, right?

So I think it has to be both and your email did that I thought was great. Like not only you just kicked it off with like, yeah, I’m, you know, good to catch up. I’m doing a book. Like here’s some other things like it was, it was truly a win win win. And the win win win was actually expressed in the email very quickly, which I thought was great.

A lot of people don’t do that.

A lot of people, we get the gift thing like, Oh, you gotta figure out what they want. Most people do, at least some people don’t. But a lot of times they’ll kind of forget, like, I’ll just be like, super clear and crisp and quick. imagining that they’re running through the airport, like you said, holding their phone, just like browsing through their emails really quick. Yeah, I like that. And I thought you did it. So kudos.

Anthony 12:26
Thank you. I’m glad it worked out.

Pete McPherson 12:29
By the way, this is totally related. I promise. I have a book in front of me right now by Dan Kennedy called the ultimate sales letter book on copywriting. For the most part. And I just read this yesterday.

Pretty much the exact same advice. I’m pretty sure it came from Gary Halbert, maybe I’m not sure it was this good. This. He’s talking about direct mail marketers, by the way, like people who send physical mail back in the old snail mail, snail mail, man, he’s like, imagine that everybody is opening your mail or diving through their mail and seeing your envelope for the first time, as they’re standing over there wastebasket about things away.

Like that’s the moment you’re catching people. And when you’re emailing anybody, they’re not like sitting at their computer just waiting to receive an email and excited to dive in the inbox and knocked up know, they’re like on their phone, or they’re trying to crush email as quick as humanly possible, because they hate doing it. And yada yada.

So I like that approach to it. Thanks for mentioning that. There was no question there I just want to share.

Anthony 13:29
No, great, that’s a great I mean, I love the always back a picture of that is a very powerful analogy.

Pete McPherson 13:34
So two things, really the only kind of chats on this episode here Anthony, actually three things, why don’t we kick it off with I want to talk about the actual content and the book last will give people like a strong call to action, the dates where where they can find it, etc, etc. How they can grab that when it comes out. I also want talk a little bit about writing and publishing the book, especially the three month deadline thing. I’m super curious about that.

Actually, let’s do that. First. That’s what I’m most curious about.

I also want to talk about kind of networking and meeting up and, you know, building these relationships with the the writers and influencers you’re talking about. I will talk about that too. But I’m not as excited about that.

So Anthony, walk me through this, like whole writing consistently. And you even mentioned in one of your emails, I believe staying disciplined with your own actually want to sit down and work. Right. Right. I found this evidence by your three month book deadline.

So what did you first thing when you heard about that? three month? Oh, after write a book deadline? Were like no screw that or like, we got this? How’d you feel?

Anthony 14:38
I feel nervous. I mean, I I feel the nerves coming back just thinking to that that month. Like first month?

Yeah, so I’ve signed my book deal. And I December, and my publisher was like, yeah, we need it by March. And I was like, Holy moly, you know, and I talk with a lot of other traditionally published authors, and I heard one of these afraid is that it’s called jumping on a moving train. So if you’re getting into the book publishing industry, and you want to publish a book, you have to realize that these publishers, they have a lot of plates, they’re spinning, and a lot of authors and that not all of them are gonna be successful, unfortunately, I was even talking with with my publicist, and my publisher, they’re saying that, you know, they have about 20 authors that they’re working with, right, right then and they kind of each given them like a minimum advance, you know, and like, they’re kind of just like seeing what works.

And they’re, it’s, it’s in their best interest to have the book finished ASAP. And from experience authors can write a book in three months or less if they really kind of feel that tension. So I was thinking I would have like a year to like just kind of ruminates and go on a hike in the woods and reflect on the deep principles and they’re like, nope, March quickly, you might have a few weeks of you know, grace period, but let’s go.

And I loved reading Ryan holidays, “perennial seller”, he talks about how to just have like a very strong powerful like focused project and how that can be successful and he says he had to cut everything else out around that.

You can’t be doing you know, social media and coaching and conference tours and stuff. You’d have to focus on your thing while you’re doing it. And that’s how that works. Also a great book on that is is “essentialism” by Greg Mckeon I’m reading that right now. And he’s he’s even saying that when he’s writing that book, which is a huge bestseller, he just had like an automated email saying, Hey, I’m busy. I’m writing my book.

I only have like two months to do this, right? Like, I think he also finished in two or three months, this this huge, big bestseller.

So when I saw that, I just kind of was in disbelief. And I kind of played along. I was like, Yeah, I can do that. But mentally, I was like, there’s no freaking way I can do this, you know. But I also just love a thought by my colleague, David Gaddafi, he wrote, designed for hackers, great author as well, he had a quote from his book. She’s hard to start, I believe he’s, he said, basically, like, like, you take as long as you give yourself, you know, and so if you say I have 10 years write this, you’ll probably finish it in about 10 years, but you say you have six months or three months, you could probably do that.

So I think that people, writers in particular, and bloggers, you guys listening right now you are more powerful than you know. And you’re you can be more focused and precise and discipline that then you might even expect you might surprise yourself. So take it from me, I had no belief myself that could finish in three months.

But I said no to everything else. I stopped doing coaching stopped doing my usual blogging wrote the book, day in day out is stressful. So waking up early, staying up late kind of worrying all throughout the day about my content and editing it. And my publisher is talking me every week, say Hey, are you finished yet? It’s like hell, man. And I’m not you know, but I did it.

And I surprised myself. And here I am, you know, like a while later with this great finished book. And I hope it can be a best seller.

Hopefully it is by the time you listen to this. But it’s possible. And I think that you just take as long as you give yourself. I love the whole idea of like, like mastery and like finishing takes only as long as you want it to take.

Because you control your level of focus and effort that you put in. You might have a busy schedule, I work a nine to five and like I was there too. I was working, you know, a full time job and full time grad school in the past trying to blog, it’s hard. But you can be as disciplined as you want to be. And you can take very, it can go very quickly if you give yourself a very quick timeline. And that’s how a lot of authors start out. They don’t think they can do it. And hey, the rest later have a great book, you know?

Pete McPherson 18:34
So we’ve already talked about like a whole bunch of resource. I’m pretty sure there’s like seven or eight books and people’s names that we mentioned.

Anthony 18:40
Oh, yeah, no, I just mentioned that.

Pete McPherson 18:42
But let me let me throw out two more only because I’ve just encountered these things recently. Actually, one’s not recent.

So I read the four hour workweek. And here’s here’s years ago, and that’s where I first learned about this. It’s called Parkinson’s Law. By the way people can go Wikipedia, it or something. That’s where we want to accomplish a task. And whatever time frame we got lined to accomplish this task. And I was reading No, excuse me, I was watching Tim Urban–Wait But Why. Amazing writer, bloggers just crushing it.

One of the best TED talks of the past few years was his inside the mind of a master procrastinator highly recommended, it’s like 15 minutes long, everybody should go watch it. But part of what he talks about in there is what separates people who just naturally don’t procrastinate at all, like who would hear three months to write a book. Totally. And they would just like crush it without any stress or anxiety. Like that’s the extreme. And the other extreme is somebody who would literally wait to like the last week, and that’s, you know, not at all. Yeah.

And part of what he talks about in the TED Talk is the psychology and science behind it, which I found fascinating. I was like, it was it was refreshing to hear that if somebody gives you a deadline, on three months to write a book, it’s all coming down to willpower.

In fact there’s something in our brain that starts to trigger panic, when we realize that deadline is coming. And that’s what actually moves us and motivates us to act, whether that’s writing a paper at the last minute in college, or reading a book in three months else’s publisher might walk away or you know, I might not have a book deal or whatever that is.

So people go look that up. Tim urban, Wait But Why just incredible blog, by the way. Totally cool. Yeah, that was really great. So Anthony, walk me back, right at the beginning of that, did you already have I’m assuming you already had the idea for the book, like the content and the concepts in there? Did you actually have any of it at all written before you got that deadline?

Anthony 20:43
I had nothing written.

Pete McPherson 20:45
No outline? No, anything like that?

Anthony 20:47
No, no. So I was found by my publisher, which is, I think, a pretty uncommon way of doing it. They found me and asked me to sign the deal. I was like, Yeah, sure.

So I wasn’t trying to write a book. They said, Hey, we like your writing your content, kind of, you know, growing in and blowing up a little bit here. We’ll do a one on one write a book for us. So I said, Sure. And all I had was like maybe some vague idea for a title, which we didn’t even end up using. So no, I mean, in December until March, I did not have anything, and I was able to finish it by then. So again, it just goes to show that that deadline really kind of pulls it out of you. I mean, I love the whole idea of you know, National Retail National Novel Writing Month, if you guys don’t know, it’s like every November 10s of thousands of writers around the world, write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days in the month of November, and people do all the time, like first time authors and like, Hey, I finished it only took 30 days.

Pete McPherson 21:41
What’s the name of this?

Anthony 21:43
It’s called nano remote, national November Writing Month, it’s kind of a popular, trendy writing thing where you know, you write your huge novel in 30 days, and I’ve had friends do it who’ve never written consistently, but that deadline really just kind of pulls out of them.

And they finished this huge novel and what 30 days, while they’re friends, it’s been 10 years on the same, you know, draft over and over again. Yeah

Pete McPherson 22:04
That’s awesome.

Okay. So anyway, what I really want to dive into is the actual step by step, what you did first, did you create an outline first to do create, like titles of chapters, this is what I do, whenever I write like a longer blog post, I will have to physically go through and create the bullet points, not like an outline of the actual post, even though that’s really what it is, I have to think about it as headlines. Like I literally write the headlines for each section.

And then I redo it and redo it, and then only then do I actually go in and start writing the content. So that’s my example. But when it came down to writing this book, what extraordinary people know, by the way, is the official title, when it came down to this, and you’re like, Okay, I don’t have anything written. so far. I got three months, how did you structure that you’re like, I’m gonna do this and week, one, this week, to this month, one this a month to or I just need to do this part of the project.

First, I would actually love to hear how you started thinking about the structure of nailing that project. Does that make sense?

Anthony 23:08
Yeah, definitely.

So I didn’t really know the direction the book was going to go. And since I wrote that book, I’ve actually done a lot of other really huge projects like 40 to 50 plus video courses, you know, like huge coaching packages, and like, reading another kind of mini book.

So big projects, things I never thought I could do, you know, and I just love the whole idea of how do you eat an elephant? Well, either one bite at a time. So my strategy, I think it’s a pretty similar to yours, Pete,

Pete McPherson 23:34
I like that by the way, that’s really see all these things, all these places. I love this.

Anthony 23:38
Yeah, one bite at a time. So starting from nothing. I mean, I think most writers and bloggers and people who are going to start a big thing like a book or a podcast or a blog, they think man, like, like, I have to be just like so and so author, he has hundred thousand followers, how can I right, just as well as he is like right now starting right now.

And that’s impossible. And of course, they fall off after a few weeks, just like they usually do.

So when I was kind of staring down the deep dark abyss of that writing deadline, I broke it down. And that’s what really made it manageable. It’s a small little bites. And that’s how it kind of ate this metaphorical elephant.

So I like just wrote everything down and had like three main chunks and with with those main chunks, kind of like the beginning, middle after of the book, I broke each one down, it’s about five chapters. So there’s like, it’s like 15-16 chapters in a whole book, each chapter, there’s about five sections within that, and then I just would wake up and just just knock out another section of that. So like what’s like five times three times five, I can’t do math right now.

So I knew it was like a lot of these like things, you know, and it wasn’t linear. It was just kind of what inspired me to do. I mean, like, just like you’re saying, like, that doesn’t excite me, this excites me, let’s let’s let’s do this.

So by the end, I had, you know, kind of written all these chunks. And by the end I had like the not as exciting things are going to crank out the end. But I would just wake up and say what can I do today? And for me even just like writing one of those sections, like I kind of did the I used to be one of those each day, I would do it on time with time to spare.

So whenever I was focusing on a deadline, and like, I think I tried to do the whole like week that week, like 500 words a day kind of thing that didn’t work for me. What did work was like, kind of like not the like logical, like structure. I was just like I how do I feel? How can I just kind of keep this momentum going, what can I do today to do this, and so Sunday’s out, right, like 200 words and like, that’s like all I could do, but I kind of checked off a box of writing.

So I kind of kept that like emotional momentum going. And other days I would write like 2000 words, and just be just be stoked about that. But what really made it possible was just having a very, very small win, which was just like writing this little section.

And if I could do that I could do it again and again and again. I spent a lot of time in like therapy and like counseling, I’ve masters in psychology, I’ve had a chance to work with a lot of like addicts, especially alcoholics and one of them to talk with a long time ago in some studies, he was saying that the best kind of like, like most sober you know, I call it was like people who can like last and be consistent.

They’re only really good at doing one thing was just stringing on one more day of like, sobriety, you know, like that’s like all they’re good at. They don’t have like huge timelines. They’re like, well versed in anything, but they’re just really good at doing it one day, just one more day.

And for writers writing a book and kind of fitting into this, like huge structured schedule, if you think about this, like end result, you know, that’s just so hard. It’s like so impossible, like how am I gonna eat this like whole elephant, right.

But if just tack on one more day of just doing a little bit that day, that’s that’s, that’s the important part, keeping that momentum going. being consistent, being disciplined, just taking another bite of the elephant, you might not feel like you’re going anywhere. But when I favorite quotes by Darren Hardy, he wrote the compound effect really great book on consistency.

He talks a lot about how like, successful people do what unsuccessful people aren’t willing to do anything, just just just willing to just do it one more time. Even when you feel like you’re not you just kind of just go go and go. And and those small, seemingly insignificant steps that will create a radical difference over time.

So I just did one last section every day. And and that’s kind of tacked on one more day after another. And eventually, the book was written. So.

Pete McPherson 27:14
I like that. Well, I think you’ve written some good points. And the funny thing is, I’ve actually heard part of that little story from several podcast guests before Todd Henry.

I don’t know if you know, Todd, or nice. Yeah, I met him. Right? That’s right. Yeah, that’s where I met have to talk to Henry said this.

Some other people have said this as well. And I’ve heard it on other people’s podcast to it’s it’s great advice. But I feel like we ignore it half the time, actually lowering the bar, and not lowering it, just to make it easier on yourself one time.

But lowering the bar of whatever it is writing x amount of words a day, or doing this one task every single day, working out once a week or whatever, lowering the bar that’s so you will do it consistently. which I find very interesting and helpful and practical, only sometimes. Like, I feel like as much as I hear that, I still arrive to work most days.

And I’m like, Okay, I’m going to do this and this and this and this and this crush it I gotta write, you know, this 10,000 word blog post this week, and I got a question like a yada, yada, yada. And I think your advice when I think back on the days and weeks where I’ve done that, I thought, you know what, I’m just, I’m just gonna lower the bar.

I just want to do this one tiny thing every day this week. Like if I could do those one tiny thing every day. This would be like a win, and I will feel good about myself.

The weeks where I’ve done that I’m happier, and I get more done. Is that weird? Now I don’t think it’s fair. I guess, you know, Neil Gaiman wrote a book and 50 words a day, not 500, not 250…50.

Yeah, literally, by his bedside, pick up a journal with a fountain pen. Neil Gaiman writes and felt Yeah, which I also just find interesting. And he literally did it over the course of years. Like he was writing other projects that he had these other things going on, but he wrote one book, I can’t remember which one it was maybe in the graveyard book in 50 words a day, which was just blown away by just super interesting to hear about that.

So. Alright, well, that’s cool.

So let’s go I gotta go in a few minutes but want to get out to really quick things. Let’s talk about connecting with these these top tier writers that you’re talking about. Ryan Holliday, and uh, like, how did this How did this happen?

Just give us a broad overview like how you found yourself not just with Brian but anybody else you were throughout your name drop other people go for it. Yeah, well, I mean, how do you how do you approach this sort of contact building networking, relationship building, yada yada.

Anthony 29:51
I want to be very honest with a very kind of unfair lesson I learned recently so I’m writing for six years and I’ve been reached out to these authors since day one basically.

I recall reaching out to you a quitter was the john aka him Michael Hyatt also big leadership guy. I love those two authors. And like my like, first year I like had I was emailing them I like wrote john a couple hundred letters.

And I hey, can you mentor me like I’ve been trying for a long time and it never worked. Johnny kept emailing back. He’s like, Hey, I’m busy. But thanks. So maybe later, Danica, maybe we can talk later. But uh, I’ve been trying for a long time.

And frankly, I just have to be totally honest here. Pete what I’ve learned is that after I kind of got big as a writer and like I had more clout and like I was on a bigger places, people kind of recognize that. And I think that senior round, and I email Ryan Holliday, just like a few months ago, and I was like, Hey, man, I like like, like, the title was like, like, Hi, I’m a huge fan.

I was like, Hey, I’m like a big fan. It’s like one of like, say hello.

And just, you know, maybe like, just chat for like, a few minutes and email you back. Because I hey, yeah, I’ve seen you around before.

And that would have never happened before I actually kind of got that influence like actually did get featured all over the place. So I think that you unfair truth is getting that kind of like following and like the views and just like that level of publicity, where like, people kind of see you on blogs. That’s huge. If you can just like show them like, Hey, I’m feature here, here, here. Instead of just like, Hey, I’m so and so with a personal blog that you’d never heard of, I get like hundred views a day, want to get coffee, I think I just think that those people get so many contact requests a day and getting big, getting followers getting your book deal, whatever, like that really helps.

So I was trying for a long time Pete and it never really worked out till I kind of got that like clouds and like weight of like, Hey, I’m also kind of a decent writer like I have x y&z kind of like you do.

And that’s really what helped out.

But I love this whole idea of like, the law of the harvest that kind of talks about, like, if you have a farm, you can’t force like fruit and vegetables grow overnight, right?

Because all the time we like reach a point where like an entrepreneur, launch our product, whatever. And we like want to get help with that. You can say hey, by the way, like want to connect, can you tell all of your friends about this, and without even knowing me, like that’s, that’s not how like food vessels work like that, I don’t know, just grow overnight can’t just like plant the seed very early, kind of like do what farmers do whatever they do, and like make them grow over months and months and months until finally the harvest comes and then you can make the ads successfully.

So I think it takes a long time. It takes a lot of just you becoming a good writer to kind of get on that level. And once you do that, I mean I’ve invested a lot in like how to email people like how to connect with them and in a way that’s like not going to spammy or scam me or trying to like take from them.

And someone has a cold email works like the ryan Holliday like definitely author cold email works. Other times like at a tribe conference. So we went to Nashville last year with Jeff Goins, one of my closer writing friends down named David cadaver you I mentioned, he’s a great author and writer, he was at Tribe and I was like, Hey, I have to meet this guy, you know, so I invested in it. I kind of like saw where they were going because that face to face interaction. so important.

Now he likes sent me a kind of like a few copies of his book. I mentioned him on my blog, like on the podcast. So good way to building.

But I think just making that investment is really important, like learning how to talk with them how to email people how to kind of cold email them or approach them going to where they are researching on their topics, because that’s really what they’re looking for.

And if you don’t show that if you kind of come off as like a scam me, kind of like one hit wonder like, Hey, can you blast my thing for free? Okay, thanks. Bye, that’s not going to work. So for me, it’s taken a long time of like, you know, playing the seeds and like harvesting them and like waiting a long time, like doing it well and doing correctly. And that’s what really got me huge results. That’s that.

Pete McPherson 33:38
I like that. I also find it interesting how I’ve heard this in other people’s podcast, they will say things like, Don’t send the email that’s like, Hey, I’m sorry, yada, yada, yada, yada. I wonder grab coffee sometime. They say don’t send those emails, what they really mean is, don’t send those emails to people who are just, quite frankly, like out of your leage a levels.

Like for example, if I sent that email, like, Hey, I’m a huge fan. I love Fight Club, and all the oceans movies to George Clooney. I’m like, Can we grab coffee sometime? That that’s going to go on answered. Right? But right, pretend that Brad Pitt, what if I’m Brad Pitt, emailing George Clooney and and be like, hey, you want to grab coffee? He’s gonna say yes.

Because we’re friends are on the same level. And we’re both like, a list celebrities, right? That’s an extreme extreme example.

But you know what I’m saying? I’d like to are upfront candid about like, Hey, I sent these emails and never would have worked. Now that I have now that I’m almost on these top tier players level, or I’m on this level, whatever that may be, that’s different for all of us, right? We’re all at different levels.

It’ll work. Or it’s more likely to work, you’re more likely to gain attention, I guess you could say, I don’t know. There’s something there. That’s good. I like it. Okay, I gotta go in a minute. But let’s conclude I will talk about the book.

So we’re gonna start off, what’s the book about “What extraordinary people know?” Just give us like the, you know, the little elevator pitch? Like, why should we read it?

Anthony 35:12
Yeah, what’s “What extraordinary people know how to cut the busy Bs and live your kick ass life.”

And I think this cuts right to the point of cutting out the business that keeps people stuck where they are, I think a lot of people are living in the kind of like, level of mediocrity in their relationships, their health, their income, their career.

They’re kind of stuck in this cycle of like, it’s, it’s just kind of good enough. It’s bearable, but it’s not great. It’s kind of just ordinary, in average, and Seth Godin, great author, number one best selling author, awesome guy.

He said that is there a difference between average and mediocre, and not so much. So this book helps you break out of that kind of average, mediocre, ordinary lifestyle, and teach you how to become consistent focus is discipline and breakthrough to become extraordinary talks a lot about what extraordinary people know, their mindset, their behaviors, routines, their disciplines, how they kind of got to where they are, there’s a case studies like a ton of quotes and research on how these people, you know, athletes, actors, CEOs, entrepreneurs, politicians, how they got to where they are, what keeps them there, and how any Joe Schmo can look at their ordinary average, maybe even mediocre parts of their life and say, hey, how can I change this?

How can I get from point A to point B? simply and easily in a way that that that lasts? So that’s what the book teaches you.

Pete McPherson 36:37
Okay? Do you have any favorite parts?

Like for example, you mentioned athletes, CEOs, celebrities, etc? Do you have any one person or one example or anything like that, that comes to mind? That’s like your that’s like one of your favorites to like, throw out to people you know what I mean?

Anthony 36:52
Yeah, I think my favorite one is a bio kind of a controversial guy. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a checkered past by read his autobiography really fascinating story of an immigrant coming to America, dominating all these industries, like real estate, he, like kind of gotten Santa Monica really quickly before it happens. And you know, obviously acting and bodybuilding.

He said basically that how do you like, if you want to become a leading man, you know, or leading women, if you want become a leading name, they had to treat yourself like a leading man, and work your ass off. He said. So that’s a huge mindset shift.

You know, like one of my articles, I recently got to be the number one article on meetup com, out of like, hundreds of thousands of authors. And it was called want to make millions then act like a millionaire. And it was all about this, this idea of treat yourself the way that you want to become basically if you want to be a millionaire, a leading man or woman or whatever it is, treat yourself like that.

And that’s what’s going to get you to be extraordinary, because there’s a great old classic book as a man thinking by James Allen, bold premises as you think.

So you are and as you continue to think that’s how you’re going to remain. So I love just the idea of treat yourself like fill in the blank, a leading man, a politician, an entrepreneur, like a badass author, whatever it is, treat yourself like that. And you’ll start trending in that direction before you even know it.

Pete McPherson 38:13
So I one more thing, and then I gotta go.

But you mentioned James clear, earlier, atomic havoc habits, excuse me. I actually saw the book when it first came out. I was like, Yeah, I don’t know. That’s kinda that’s whatever, right how to build extraordinary I was like, okay, like another book like this. And then person after person sort of recommending it more and more and more and more, so eventually bought it, read it. It’s great. I totally stand by I loved it. By the way, I totally want James on the podcast.

But he talks a lot about that in his book as well just like how to, almost like trick ourselves, like duped ourselves into thinking and behaving a certain way. I love that. I just want to point that out. So that’s totally like, I’m assuming that’s kind of gonna be in your book as well. What’s up? Let’s go. Yeah. Well, Anthony, where can we find it, what is the exact date? We’re recording this a little bit early to have time to come out? There’s a book launch but what day is it available? And where can people find it?

Anthony 39:11
Yeah, it’s couple months out right now but you listen to this in August sometime probably.

Which is the launch date so it comes out middle of August you can find the book at Anthony more CO or just Amazon type in what extraordinary people know it’ll be there. So yeah, either of those two places my website AnthonyMoore.co or Amazon where they have everything.

Pete McPherson 39:31
What’s your when your medium handle?

Anthony 39:33
and the media handle is medium.com/Anthony_Moore.

Pete McPherson 39:37
Okay,great. Well, Anthony, thanks for coming on, man. I’m going to promote the book on it comes out, grab me a copy as well. And what can I do something? I’m gonna go ahead. This is totally selfish. Go grab. Do you have copies of the book? Or like, are you gonna have copies of the book beforehand? There you go.

Anthony 39:54
Yeah, nothing. Yeah, they’re actually being created as we speak right now. So yes, I’m going to send you a copy over there, man. It’s all good.

Pete McPherson 40:00
You know I would feel if like somebody sent me a book. That’d be awesome.

Anthony 40:04
I’m gonna send you a book and it’s gonna be great. I’m gonna get your address right now.

Pete McPherson 40:07
I’m gonna read it and review it. I’m excited. Now, no one’s ever done that I’ve never actually received like a book from the author. Let me say, I’m excited.

Anthony 40:14
Well, get ready because it’s coming.

Pete McPherson 40:17
Oh, man. That’s awesome. All right, what external people know, out in August when this comes out, and say thanks for coming on, man. Hopefully we’ll catch up soon.

Anthony 40:25
Thanks, Pete. You guys take care.

Boom! Hope you enjoyed this chat 😉

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