Lessons learned from writing my fifth book.
By Michael Bungay Stanier
This content appeared first on the Box of Crayons blog and is excerpted with permission here.
I had a new book come out in February. The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More and Change the Way You Lead Forever is elegant, compact and already getting nice reviews. I'm really proud of it. And yet, this is the book I’ve come closest to abandoning.
It’s taken me more than three years, at least four false starts, and a certain amount of head-banging despair to finally get here, something I didn’t experience with my other books. So what happened? And how did I make it after all?
If you don’t know where you’re going, nobody else does either. The Coaching Habit is my fifth book, and I’d really thought I’d got the hang of things. Nope. I wrote a draft. I thought it was OK. (It wasn’t OK.) I hired a book agent. He’s a great agent, but it turned out that he only complicated my relationship with my editor. I fired my agent. I asked for a new editor at my publishing house. The new editor also didn’t like the first draft.
After trying to push it through, I gave up for a while and sulked. I wrote a second draft. My editor remained unimpressed. I sulked some more. I tried to guess what my editor wanted, and wrote a third draft to that imaginary spec. My editor was still unimpressed. I tried again to push it through. Still no.
Finally I remembered the book I really wanted to write. I pitched it in an adult, non-sulky, non-bullying way. The publisher said no again (and I learned it didn't really do business books). We parted ways and, after weighing up the options, I decided to self-publish and was back on track.
Lessons Learned
- It’s almost always bad before it’s good. And by “almost” I mean “always.” Ernest Hemingway put it most bluntly: “The first draft of anything is sh&*.” I just wish he’d added, “and drafts two through five will probably be rubbish as well.”
For my other books, the good drafts came along pretty quickly after the bad ones. I figured out the idea, saw the arc, imagined the end point and got there. But as the advertisements for financial investments always remind us, “past performance is no guarantee of future results.” When my struggles continued, I began to lose faith in myself. Maybe I was done with book writing? Perhaps I’d peaked? Two things helped renew my faith in myself. First, hanging out with my “Friends-I-Can’t-BS.” They weren’t about to let me subside into self-doubt, at least not for very long. I also needed to spend some time remembering what I was good at, what I’d done before and how it was likely I could do it again.
- If you don’t know where you’re going, nobody else does either. By version three of the book, I was wandering the wilderness without a compass or a canteen. I was now writing the book that I was guessing that my editor was guessing that their readers might like. In short, I was lost.
Then I found my map. I remembered who I was writing for— the engaged, but time-crunched manager. I remembered what I strove for in my writing—practical, lean and funny. And I remembered my purpose behind the book. I really want to democratize coaching, make it something that everyone could give and receive. When I remembered that again, I found the North Star for The Coaching Habit.
- You can’t do great work by yourself. How humbling to have to learn this yet again. I’ve clearly got a very strong streak of the stoic, self-contained, uber-responsible.
When I got back on track, I asked Seth, who recommended Catherine, who became my brilliant editor. I found a wonderful award-winning Canadian designer, Peter Cocking, who then recommended Page Two publishing consultants (and I was brilliant enough to go against my instincts and hire them.) And there are many more people who’ve played crucial roles.
In short, I found myself building an outstanding team, comprised of members who have heaved me onto their shoulders and carried me across the line.
Are You Close to Quitting?
There’s no shame in quitting. Sometimes, that’s the smartest thing to do. But like “buying low and selling high,” it’s hard to get the timing right. If you’re grimly hanging on, how will you renew your faith in yourself? How will you find direction? Who will you invite on to your team? If you’re ready to give it up, how will you renew your faith in yourself? How will you find direction? Who will you invite on to your team? Onwards!
Michael Bungay Stanier is the senior partner and founder of Box of Crayons, a company that gives busy managers the tools to coach in 10 minutes or less.
He is also the author of a number of books, and the one he is best known for with 90,000 copies sold is Do More Great Work.
Read posts on CUES Skybox about Bungay Stanier’s books and presentations: “Life-Changing Work,” “When Building a Sand Castle, You Can’t Beat the Ocean” and “Why Your Work Should Include Elephant Topiaries."
Bungay Stanier has spoken at past CEO/Executive Team Network and CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange events. CEO/Executive Team Network will next be held Oct. 23-26 in Savannah, Ga., and CUES Symposium will next be held Jan. 29-Feb. 2 in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.
