The flip side of the uncaged monkey is the silent giant.
You and I have a common objective: to take you from where you are now and turn you into a silent giant.
Before we go further on this subject, I have a question.
How did your first week with FitMind go?
Feel free to email me your impression, even if it wasn’t good.
Have you optimized your mindset and mental fitness for running a publishing business?
That mental state is where we can have the largest impact.
It is the one thing you have control of and are responsible for.
By doing the work I outline, you can become more organized, focused, and better at this publishing business than you have ever been.
I’m not asking you to be perfect, just incrementally better every week.
If you were too lazy to download and use the app for the last week, then don’t be surprised that your dreams of publishing domination remain a fantasy.
You’re not doing what it takes to be a silent giant.
Whatever you prioritized over taking fifteen minutes each day to improve your brain is your priority.
Whatever you put before your improvement and publishing success matters more to you.
If these words sting and you feel called out… let go and move on.
I’m not judging; I’m holding up a mirror.
Move on…
… to the work… or to something else.
Since adopting the FitMind app as part of my daily practice, I’ve changed.
I’ve begun to look at my brain as separate from my consciousness and as a high-performance machine that needs continuous tuning and care.
If you’re like me and embrace this tool and the upcoming articles, you’ll find focus and clarity in your head.
It will happen. You’ll easily drop bad habits and adopt new ones because you’ll see that the thoughts and feelings that made them habits are not you. They are just patterns ingrained into your default mode network that you can reprogram.
If you were a professional athlete, you would spend most of your time practicing and conditioning your body for competition. A hundred-to-one ratio of practice-to-competition time is common.
You are a professional creator.
Your money-making organ isn’t your muscles but your brain. It must operate at peak performance, but we allow it to do the opposite by ignoring mental fitness.
I’m not talking about taking a nap or having quiet time. That is all well and good. What I expect of you is that you prioritize your brain fitness.
I started grudgingly giving a few minutes to this, but now I do several sessions of FitMind and other techniques daily. It has quieted the restless thoughts and time lost in daydreams, giving me back control and focus.
“I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one.”
Gandhi
Think about it. How much time do you put into optimizing your brain?
With higher clarity, you’ll find that the other parts of this season will be easier to accomplish because you will have increased bandwidth.
This is why we are starting with you. We need to get your mental fitness optimized for future work.
Have you heard of BUD/S? It stands for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL. It is the induction course for becoming a Navy SEAL.
It starts with Hell Week, where they crush you mentally and physically. It has a dropout rate of 85%. This means the elite of the elite volunteer and then quit that week.
What if I told you publishing success rates were even lower?
It’s true.
I’m not even talking about the silent giants; I’m talking about people earning a living wage for publishing. It’s less than 2% of all published authors.
Therefore, if you think you will go into this field, start up a new business on an unproven product, and it will be easy, expect to wash out or prepare yourself to become extraordinary.
You see, most people won’t tell you this.
Most people will try to sell you some magic beans that’ll turn you into an author.
I’m laying out a blueprint for how you can re-engineer yourself to be an author. To transform your identity.
To eradicate imposter syndrome.
Even if you can spin a good tale, that is only part of the process. You will have to do hard things you won’t like, repeatedly.
Something you love to do will become your job.
Your success will create more responsibility.
Here is the dirty secret successful authors know:
More sales don’t make it easier; they create more responsibility. Responsibility to meet fan expectations, to pay contractors who support you, and to uphold your family finances.
Have you had some success but never seemed to go to the next level?
Are you doing six figures but can’t seem to level up?
I’ve observed authors in these states, and more often than not, it stems from complacency, distraction, or resistance.
These aren’t willing states. These are states activated in their default mode network. Without rewiring the network, the state will become the default.
Here’s the good news:
All that is in the past. What matters is what you prioritize.
I know what it takes to be a silent giant.
That is what gets produced at the Academy. You don’t have to be that good of a writer to become a silent giant.
What exactly do I mean by being a silent giant?
Silent giants are the folks who aren’t running around saying they are million-dollar authors. They don’t want you to know how much money they’re making because others throw shade at their success. Money rains for them.
Silent giants learned that chasing monetary goals was empty. So they stopped and instead designed a business that serves them as a shareholder. That one decision made the money flow.
Silent giants know when to ask for help.
Silent giants learn how to do the things they don’t like to do or hire someone to do it for them.
They stay in their lane.
They listen.
They learn.
Suppose that doesn’t sound like you right now. That’s okay. No one is born a silent giant. They become one.
When I started working with authors, I didn’t know a thing about publishing beyond what I had picked up from a few podcasts to help my wife. How could I help authors? Well, I had skills in optimizing businesses, and that’s where they needed help.
I took the time to research and investigate the industry.
You are reading these articles because you’ve concluded that my work adds value and gives insight into becoming a better author.
Top authors hire me because I can make their businesses more profitable and help them go to the next level.
I worked hard to become what the industry needs and continue investing in myself and my business to be relevant. I’m not the same person I was when I came into this industry, and I plan to be something different in the future.
Now, let me be clear. I’m not looking to just hop to the next hot topic and try to cash in.
I’m looking to fill the holes that exist in the market with solutions. I don’t need to make another iteration of an advertising course. That’s small. I’m looking to create original solutions in the major problem areas of the market and be the first and only solution.
I share this to show you I’m walking this path with you. I know what I’m asking of you.
And I know you can do the same.
Here’s the interesting thing about the silent giants I know: They were all underdogs, the last ones picked on the publishing team.
While others were talking up their success in the limelight, the silent giants stayed in their lanes and kept driving.
Most stopped and said to themselves, Hey, that doesn’t make sense to me, and that curiosity led them to the right way for them.
In forty-three articles, you’ll be a different author. All you have to do is work to the best of your ability.
But heads up. This will mean doing the work. Changing. Being uncomfortable. When that happens, there will be improvement. You may look too perfect and frown on your progress, but you’ll actually be growing—not to where you may want to be, but to where you should be.
Here’s the secret:
Be a silent giant.
How?
A silent giant deals with the circumstances as they are. If you don’t know what to do, ask yourself, “What would a silent giant do if they were in my situation?
“How would they get to where they want to be if they started where I’m at?”
What silent giants don’t do is spend the whole day writing three-thousand-word “poor me” posts on Facebook, outlining all the things the cruel world has put in their path.
Silent giants understand that their business is about their customers, not their ego. Fans are to be served, not to serve you.
Are you ready to become a silent giant of publishing?
Next week, we are going to talk about storytelling, but it’s not what you think.
Read: Rewrite the Stories Holding You Back From Your Full Potential