90. My Big Scary Decision + Daring Greatly

Transcript – Episode 90: My Big Scary Decision + Daring Greatly

Joe:
Two months ago, and against the advice of experts, I made the riskiest decision in the history of my career. This is the story.

Jamie:
You’re listening to Boss Better Now. This show is sponsored by Joe Mull and Associates. Now here’s your host, speaker, and author Joe Mull.

Joe:
Welcome back friends to Boss Better Now, where we endeavor to share advice, humor, and encouragement for bosses everywhere. Whether you’re joining me today in your car, at your desk, during your workout, or from the A L E X A in your kitchen, I am so glad to be with you wherever you are. I am flying solo again today, not because we don’t love having Suzanne around, we absolutely do. But for the second week in a row, we’ve decided to try something slightly different. Don’t worry, we’re gonna go back to our regular Boss Better Now format in the next episode. But for this week, we’ve decided to share a behind-the-scenes story about the big book release we started talking about last week.

Joe:
If you haven’t heard my first new book in five years will be released on May 9th, 2023. It’s called Employalty – How to Ignite Commitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work. And it argues that the era of trying to find the best person for the job is over. If we wanna find and keep devoted employees in a post covid world, we now have to create the best job for the person. The book then provides a simple, clear framework for creating the conditions that lead people to join an organization, stay long-term, and do great work. It’s really targeted toward business owners, executives, and leaders who manage people, and it advocates for a more humane employee experience. It is available for pre-order, I guess I have to say that now, and I’m gonna have to say that pretty much every week for the next couple of months. You can pre-order it on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble , or at indiebound.org if you wanna support your local independent bookstore. And we’ve decided that on today’s episode, I am gonna share with you how the way in which we decided to share this book with the world really came down to a big scary decision that we made just over two months ago.

Joe:
I don’t know that I was ever planning on sharing this story publicly with anyone… but that all changed after Boss’s Day. If you remember that Boss’s Day was in the middle of October. And for Boss’s Day, our beloved producer, Jamie, who I’ve known for many years, and who has worked for me now for a couple of years really gave me just a lovely Boss’s Day present. It was the famous Roosevelt quote about Daring Greatly. Now, this quote was popularized by Brene Brown in her book and in her Netflix special. And if you’ve heard it, it’s sometimes referred to as the Man in the Arena. And it’s Roosevelt talking about how for those who take on challenges we shouldn’t listen to those who are not the ones who step into that arena, that the credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena.

Joe:
And I believe the quote says, who, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. Basically, we should really not give too much credence to those folks who don’t have to tackle the challenges that we tackle, but to embrace the fact that if we choose to go into the world daring greatly, then the credit goes to us and it’s better to live a life of having dared greatly and failed than to have not tried at all. I really kind of just butchered that quote. So <laugh>, if you wanna see the whole thing, Google, you know, the Man in the Arena or The Daring Greatly Roosevelt quote I’ll be sharing a part of it with you in a few minutes that I have written here in front of me where I won’t actually butcher it horrendously, but I digress. Jamie bought me for Bosses Day, a framed print of this Daring Greatly quote.

Joe:
And this was really special because we had just made a decision to dare greatly… to, to chase something that was scary. And what ended up happening is on my personal Facebook page, I shared a picture of this lovely gift that Jamie got me, and in the caption, I wrote something to the effect of, hey, two weeks ago in my business, we made a big scary decision. And today for Boss’s Day, Jamie bought me this lovely gift, and I’m so moved that I’m so grateful, blah, blah, blah. And <laugh> that actually sounded really dismissive of the lovely gifts, and it’s not meant to. I was trying to summarize the Facebook caption. Anyway, we were struck by the number of people who commented on that post, something to the effect of, hey, can’t wait to hear more so we can support you. There were so many comments of people going, you know, we’re rooting you on or go, you. And you know, when people show up in the world and give you love, they express love. They root for you when they take time out of their busy lives to stop on any number of the various online platforms, we all connect with to drop you an encouraging note that’s really special. And so, Jamie and I kind of looked at each other and said, maybe we should talk publicly about what’s going on and what we’re doing. And so that led to this episode. We decided that we were gonna share this story with you. And part of that comes down to my core values around transparency and, and trying to engage in transparency whenever it’s possible and wherever it doesn’t do harm. I think you all know that that’s a, a key belief that I have around how leaders need to operate. I think you’ve heard me say on this show that the truth works pretty well most of the time in terms of trying to figure out what to say or how to say something.

Joe:
And so, our story begins with me taking just a minute to explain a little bit about the various paths to publishing a book. So, if you were to decide today that you wanted to write a book and you went out in the world to try to get that book published, you would discover that there are really three primary ways to publish a book. The first is self-publishing. In this day and age, you could do everything yourself. You can go through some online outlets, including Amazon, and you can write your own book and design your own cover, and where you can hire people to help you with that and then publish it on Amazon. And self-publishing has grown in popularity in recent years. My first book was self-published. Other folks will also sometimes hire people to help them with those parts and pieces. My second book, No More Team Drama was technically self-published, but I hired a book coach, a professional editor, and copy editor, a professional design and layout team because when I moved that book out into the world, I didn’t want there to be any impression whatsoever that it was anything other than a high quality professionally published book.

 Joe:
And that book has done well and I’ve, I’ve gotten a lot of wonderful feedback about that book. The other two ways to publish a book are through traditional publish publishing or what is sometimes called hybrid publishing. Traditional publishing is what you all are probably most familiar with, where a publishing house pays in advance to an author. The author signs a contract, and the publisher agrees to publish the book. In traditional publishing, the publisher pays the author, but then the publisher owns the intellectual property. They own the book, and they get the bulk of the royalties. They get the bulk of the sales prophet for that book. They also get final say in control over what goes in that book, what that book looks like, et cetera. There are a lot of tremendous books. Many of the books that you’ve read and loved to have been traditionally published in the last two decades.

Joe:
Though there has been a rise of what is called hybrid publishing. I know this goes by some different labels. I have heard it referred to most often as hybrid publishing. So, if you are listening to this and have heard it called something else, forgive me for not using your preferred label. Hybrid publishing is where you work with a publishing house, but instead of them paying you, you pay them, you pay them to develop the book and bring the book into the world. You still get all of the international distribution that comes with working with a traditional publisher. You still get all of the expert layout, design, editing, sales, marketing, you get all of that. But I’m paying them because I get to own my intellectual property. I own the book. I get final say over what the book looks like and what goes into the book.

Joe:
And if the book sells, I get more of the sales and royalties than the publisher. So, you can kind of hear the difference, right? Traditional publishing, they pay you, they own the book, they keep the proceeds. Hybrid publishing, we pay them, we own the book. We benefit if the book does well. When the time came for me to take Employalty from an idea to an actual project, I made the decision that I wanted to work with a hybrid publisher. For many of the reasons that I just limited, but especially because I wanted to level up. I wanted all of the benefits of working with a traditional publisher in terms of distribution. I want any of you to be able to walk into a Barnes and Noble or an independent bookstore and see the book on the shelf. And so, when the time came, I looked around at the most reputable hybrid publishers out there and had no hesitation whatsoever in deciding to work with an organization based out of Canada called Page Two Publishing.

 Joe:
I have a handful of friends and colleagues in the speaking and consulting world who have done books with Page Two. They have absolutely raved about the quality of the people there and the quality of the experience working with them. I, I’d known all along that’s who I wanted to work with. And so, for the better part of the past year, I’ve worked with their team writing the book, working with the developmental editor, talking about title and cover and positioning, and how to bring this book into the world, how to position it in the marketplace in the right way, what time of year it’s gonna be released. And you know, that was something that I self-funded. And so, after funding that, you know, that is a, a full disclosure, a mid-five-figures investment to take a book into the world that way, the next decision that needs to be made is once the book is finished on the size of the print run.

Joe:
You see, when you hybrid publish, not only do you pay to develop the book, but you have to pay to print the book. Every single copy of this book printed in the world; I have paid for first before somebody buys it. Now, the size of the print run is a determination that the author and the publisher make together. The publisher has a whole lot of expertise and a whole lot of information they can throw into the hopper to figure out what the right number is in terms of the print run. And so, we arrived at the end of September knowing that the time had come to make a decision about what size print run we were going to go with. Now, a little backstory here, one of the things that I will share with you transparently is that one of my goals for this book was to see if we could get it to qualify for a best seller’s list.

Joe:
Ever since I started my speaking business nearly 10 years ago, I’ve dreamed of becoming a bestselling author. It’s become a kind of bucket list item. And you know what, that’s probably influenced by ego. Let’s admit that. I’ve also long strived to do work of the highest quality and right or wrong bestseller status is one way, though, certainly not the only way, but one way that the universe conveys credibility on a piece of written work. Plus, again, selfishly legitimate bestseller status has tremendous value in the marketplace. In my world of professional speaking. It can lead to more opportunities to bigger stages, bigger clients. It can be a game-changer for a speaker. So, there’s that. And when I talk about bestseller status, I’m talking about legitimate bestseller status. There are ways to game the system. You can buy and pay for all your own books and rocket to the top of a list.

Joe:
And there are plenty of folks out there who call themselves bestsellers bestselling authors because they landed at the top of an incredibly obscure Amazon category for five minutes. But I’m talking about a legitimate national printed bestsellers list. This is a goal that I set. This is a dream that I’ve had, and it’s not just for the reasons I just listed. There’s more to it than that. I wanted this book to potentially qualify for a best seller’s list because getting the book noticed at a high level would be another way that I’m accomplishing my mission of filling workplaces with better bosses and reducing suffering for people at work. And you heard me talk about the book at the beginning of the episode. It’s all about creating a more humane employee experience and business owners, executives, managers, and employees everywhere, all benefit when that happens. Can you imagine the dramatic transformation we could create for people and families and society on the whole if fewer and fewer and fewer people were suffering at work?

Joe:
Think about how many people you know who go to work miserable every day. Think about how many bad bosses they’re out there in the world. Think about how many people are underpaid or don’t have flexibility or don’t experience belonging at work. This book goes right at all of those things. Getting on a best seller’s list only means that more and more people will get their hands on the ideas in the book and maybe act on them. Also, becoming a bestselling author would be a remarkable tribute to my family. And my family has a long legacy of loving literature. My grandmother, my maternal grandmother, who I was very close to and who has since passed away, just passed away a couple years ago. She was an aspiring novelist and a published poet. It would really, it would, it would really be something for her to have been able to see that I was doing this.

Joe:
Now, at this level, I also grew up with a mother, aunts and cousins who adored books and who instilled in me a love of reading that has stayed with me my entire life. And I think I’ve talked about this a little bit on the show. I have had, I had difficult formative years in school. I had; I experienced a lot of bullying. I dreaded going to school and books were an escape, and words were the one thing I was good at. I’m a book person who comes from a long line of book people, and so I know the label is meaningless to some and even derided by others, due to the politics behind who ends up on a bestseller’s list and why. But for me, earning the label bestselling author would be a really special achievement. Now, this is something that I had communicated to the publisher right from the start. We want to go big with this book. We want this book to make a dent in the universe. We want this book in airports. We want this book in bookstores. We want this book out there and as many places as we can possibly get it. And we’re willing to do what it takes to try to make that happen.

Joe:
Now, if you’re gonna publish a book, you have to have a couple things going for you. First, you’ve gotta have a good book. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of crappy books that have become bestsellers. I’m <laugh>, I’m not judging any one book. But let’s not pretend that every book that has ever landed on the best sellers list was, you know, Tolstoy. So, you gotta have a good book. The other thing that you have to have is a following. You’ve gotta have a pretty significant digital footprint. And I’m not a celebrity. I, I have a following. I have an a, an audience who I love working with, and just feel so privileged to serve here on this podcast and through our BossBetter Email Newsletter. But when you look at the size of my following compared to many others, it’s really not much. The other thing you need is a little bit of luck.

Joe:
I have seen a lot of authors spend two years writing and launching a book only to have their whole launch derailed by some kind of massive weather event or tragedy or global pandemic the month of their launch. So, a lot of things have to go right, and the publisher knows all of that. They, they look at all of that. Does this person have a following? What kind of bulk sales are going to be done? What kind of social media following do they have? How many speaking engagements? Is there a built-in audience of people who are gonna run out and buy this book? And if so, how many? And so, they take all of that into consideration when the time comes to make their recommendation for the print run.

Joe:
We were expecting an email from them right around the first week of October. And sure enough, it arrived on schedule. And by the time I got to the end of the email, I felt completely deflated. I knew there was a chance that this would be the recommendation. I knew that these experts at the publisher, these folks who have forgotten more about the world of book publishing than I’ll ever know, would confirm that the chances of my new book becoming a best seller were so minuscule that the financial risks brought on by trying to achieve it, made it something I shouldn’t even consider trying. In their email, their message was detailed but succinct. Their team had considered a number of factors relative to the size of the print run I should fund for the book’s launch. And they had two options to lay out for me.

Joe:
Option one was the bestseller campaign. They explained that to have any chance of qualifying for bestseller status, I would need to fund a 15,000-book print run minimum to signal to trade reps in stores to order in the book, I would also need to fund what’s called trade optimization, which ensures the book is listed in buyers catalogs and appears as a suggested title on retailer websites. You know how when you go on to Amazon and you look up a book and at the bottom it says, if you like this book, you might like this book. All of that has to be enabled and paid for. That’s not all — bestsellers need PR hits from major media to put them on the radar of the people who set the bestseller lists. Would it shock you to learn that bestseller lists aren’t based on sales alone? It shocked me.

Joe:
It turns out it’s a bit of a popularity contest. There have been plenty of people who have sold piles of books, but because they weren’t that well known or they weren’t out there in media getting coverage, they didn’t land on the list. And so, so for this reason, the publisher said, I should strongly consider hiring a PR firm that specializes in books, in promoting books. They also explained, and I’ve long known that I’m gonna need to do a gazillion appearances and interviews and also activate an entire army of people to promote the book in a multitude of ways. In the months leading up to the May 2023 release, when you add all of this to my costs for the print run, producing the audiobook, the digital and analog promotional assets will have to mail out postage for those mailings, warehousing the books and the staff and support people who have to work behind the scenes to manage all the social media and the podcast interviews and the outreach and the bulk orders. You put all that together, it becomes pretty clear. Chasing bestseller status is going to require a six-figure investment.

Joe:
Now, option two, they explained would be an initial print run of 7,500 books. This approach would prevent an excessive initial outlay on my part, but the smaller print run would signal to trade reps and retailers that the book would likely not do substantial sales at launch. And as a result, these buyers and these retailers will order in fewer books and give the launch little to no attention. So, a print run of this size, all but disqualifies a book from any chance at early bestseller status. However, this option would let me off the hook from many of those additional expenses I just listed in option one. After their team met to examine all the various factors involved in my upcoming book launch, they sent this email outlining these options and making a recommendation. They suggested my best course of action would be to avoid chasing bestseller status with option one and to instead move forward with option two.

Joe:
Now, to their credit, they promised me they were behind me 100%, whichever direction I decided to go. But their recommendation was clear in the email. They said bestseller campaigns are notoriously expensive and difficult to achieve. We would be remiss to not let you know of our reservations, which are based on experience and a deep knowledge of the publishing sphere. I understood where they were coming from. I’m not a known figure with a significant following. If I overshoot at the start, it could be a costly failure. I could do a print run of 15,000 books, only sell 2000 books, and then spend years having to pay to warehouse 13,000 books. Of course, after reading the email, I admit I felt defeated. And part of that is because I put a lot of emphasis on the opinions of experts. As you know, if you’ve listened to this show for a while and here the experts were rendering their verdict, bestseller status is not going to happen for you, Joe.

Joe:
By the way, if you don’t know all pre-order sales count as part of a book’s first week sales. So, an author’s best chance to land on a bestseller’s list is usually their launch week after months of buildup and pre-orders. And while there’s a chance that my book could achieve bestseller status, well after its release, if it like catches fire and builds up a cult-like following, my greatest chance to do the sales volume needed for bestseller status is actually in the pre-launch period. So, I got their email, I read it, I felt defeated, and I replied and said, I want to sit with their recommendation for a few days before making my decision, I spent a day just being down <laugh>. When somebody tells you that something you’re gunning for is probably out of reach, it takes a little bit of time to swallow that down.

Joe:
But then as I sat with the publisher’s recommendation, something silly happened. I <laugh>, I kept picturing those cheesy motivational quote posters. You know the ones: “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars”. I also kept thinking about that famous Wayne Gretzky quote. Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!”… as shallow as these quotes can sound. At times I realized my mind kept coming back to them for a reason. There were some important points to consider buried in those quotes. For example, even if option one didn’t result in bestseller status, I could still land among the stars. It could still… the work we would do to promote the book could still have a tremendous impact on my business and on the reach and the success of the book. And you know, Wayne Gretzky is right, was I really going to produce what I think is my finest piece of work to date and then not give the book every opportunity to become something special?

Joe:
Once I pushed past pithy quotes and kind of surface-level thinking, I pulled my team here at work together and we went to work. We did several types of financial analysis and projections. We said, okay, if we choose option one and we fall way short, can we weather it financially? Also, remember, more promotion of the book means less time for client work. So, we’re spending more while earning less, right? If the book crashes and burns, it could be a financial disaster. I also talk with my wife and my kids about the colossal amount of work a bestseller campaign would require in the months ahead. I have a goal to do 150 podcast interviews in about a three-to-four-month period. You can divide that by weeks and figure out how much that is involved. I could just hear the conversations now, mommy, why can’t daddy play with me? Well, because he’s doing his 117th podcast, honey, and after all, I just spent a year with the busiest, most demanding schedule I’ve ever had in my business just to continue doing the client work and get the book done. Do I really wanna keep that up for another six to 12 months?

Joe:
I’ll confess, there was a moment when I felt a little bit of relief. Oh, bestseller status isn’t gonna happen. Phew, maybe I don’t have to do all this work. Maybe I should just put the book out in the world. And the handful of people who pay attention to what I do will buy a couple copies. But then we started revisiting all of our goals for the book and our definitions for success around it. We said, of course, our number one goal is a book of great value and utility to the reader. Plus, this is a book that we truly believe will reduce suffering at work for many in, in places that choose to act on its contents. And so, in that way, we see the book as something that’s sorely needed. Round and round we went, and I realized that for me, there was no choice at all.

Joe:
On October 4th, I emailed the publisher and I said, we’re going with option one.

Joe:
When it all came down to it, I made the choice for two primary reasons. And the first is that success only comes from daring greatly. I’ve been running my own business now, oddly enough, which is something that I never aspired to do for almost 10 years. It’ll be 10 years in July. And I’ve learned that a scarcity mindset is crippling, making decisions largely to avoid failure, only secures it. Right now, I’m facing a choice to level up or stay put, and I wanna level up. You know, it’s funny how the universe works. I’ve talked on the show about how last summer I was invited to be the main stage keynote speaker at the world’s largest professional speaking conference. And what a privilege that was. Well, I stood on that stage, and I told my industry peers that you have to be willing to experiment and even fail to serve your audience and find success.

Joe:
Once again, I face a choice to act on that conviction. And you know what that Roosevelt quote says it all, “if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.” The other reason I decided to go with option one is because of who is watching. I’ve talked about my kids a lot on the show, and I am very aware that the choices I make now will inform the choices that they make as they move through their lives. My kids are 12, 10, and six at the time of this episode.

Joe:
I want them to pursue their dreams fiercely while never shying away from the hard, relentless work it takes to achieve anything of significance in life. You know, the idea that I have a dream, but that I would decide not to chase it because it was hard, and B, unlikely would send a message to my kids that I just can’t stomach. I remember reading a couple of years ago a poem from a pro-athlete turned poet who wrote this beautiful analogy about how our struggles aren’t always about us. They’re about who is watching us. And he used the analogy of people who are rowing against the current while others watch from the shore. And that is really a big part of why I made the choice to go with option one because I can row ferociously against the current while these special eyes watched from the shore.

Joe:
And so, we made our choice. It’s <laugh>, it’s both terrifying and exhilarating. And the team at my publisher has been amazing in their support thus far. As soon as we went all in, they did too. And here we go. We’ve just launched the early pre-order phase. So, here’s to daring greatly. I hope you don’t mind me sharing this with you.

Joe:
As I said, I, I did it because I believe in transparency but also maybe you’ll find some motivation in the story. I know that I am always inspired by stories of people who step up and step out to chase their dreams. So maybe this episode gives you a similar boost. I hope so. And I guess I’m also sharing this story because I need your help. As I said, I need to activate an army of people. I need people pre-ordering the book and sharing it on social media and liking and commenting on all the things that we post. I need people leaving reviews. I need people who host podcasts or who have email newsletters inviting me on to talk about these ideas of a more humane employee experience and promoting the release of the book. In short, I need to build a hype squad. So that’s my ask if you’d be willing to champion this book out in the world in the months ahead. Will you join my Hype Squad? If so, I’ve set up a little form at jmbookhelp.com and you can add your name to my list there, JM as in Joe Mull — jmbookhelp.com. It’s a private list of a handful of people who are volunteering to spotlight this book in the world and who will periodically get updates from me on how it’s doing and what’s happening with it behind the scenes. And so, if you wanna be on my Hype Squad, if you would be willing to be on my Hype Squad, just go to jmbookhelp.com.

Joe:
And of course, as we said earlier if you would be so inclined early pre-orders are tremendously important. They also signal to retailers whether they should pay attention to the book. And so, we’re doing two things right now to really try to jumpstart early pre-orders. We’re starting to talk about the book quite early, a few months before it’s released. And so, you can go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble or indiebound.org and order the book. Amazon and Barnes and Noble are the two most important retailers that are watched for early sales. The second thing is that we have created a book club kit. We know that a lot of organizations in the past have used some of my books for book clubs, for group study, buying a copy for all of their managers, and then maybe periodically talking about it for a few minutes at weekly management meetings or monthly management meetings.

Joe:
And so, we’ve created a book club kit. If you pre-order 10 copies or more in the month of December or January, we will send you the book club kit for free. It has a kickoff video from me. It has a robust discussion guide to help you lead your book club. And it has an implementation checklist to help you act on the ideas from the book. All you have to do to get the book club kit is pre-order 10 copies or more, and then just send some sort of proof of purchase to hello@joemull.com. We don’t care what that proof of purchase looks like. It can be a screenshot; it can be a confirmation number from your order on Amazon. Just, you know, whatever it takes to say, hey, look, I ordered these, and we will get that book club out, book club kit out to you.

Joe:
So, there you have it, folks. That’s the story of the big scary decision. I am so excited to go on this journey with you and not just to see what this book can become and selfishly do for me, but more importantly to see what it will do for you. I have absolute conviction around the ideas in this book. We have known for a long, long time what leads people to want to be a part of an organization, to want to go to work and, and deploy their effort and invest themselves emotionally. We have really smart people out there in the world who have studied these things for decades. We just haven’t done a very good job of putting it all into one place and giving leaders a clear, simple framework to help them know what to do to create those conditions. That’s what I set out to do.

Joe:
I think we’ve done it and I think it’ll be of great use to you. So, check out Employalty – How to Ignite Commitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work. And thanks for listening to my story today. I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear your thoughts or comments or reactions. Good, bad, indifferent, anywhere in between. Whatever your thoughts are. Having heard this story, I would love to hear them. You know, a podcast can be not a very reciprocal experience. I’m a professional speaker. I’m used to being on stages. If I crack a joke, I know whether or not it worked pretty quick. If I’m saying something that is useful or significant, I know pretty quick because people are nodding or making eye contact or writing it down.

Joe:
But when you do a podcast, you sit in a room by yourself, and you talk into a microphone and nobody else is there. It’s one of the reasons I love having Suzanne with me. I, I benefit so much from her insight and just so enjoy having somebody to talk to. But you know, this isn’t a very reciprocal experience, and so I would love to hear from you. If you have ideas, thoughts, comments, shoot an email to bossbetternow@gmail.com. Thanks for listening and thanks for all that you do to take care of so many.

Jamie:
This show is sponsored by Joe Mull and Associates. Remember, commitment comes from better bosses. Visit joemull.com today.