>>Pete Williams: Dom, big fellow. How are
you, mate?
>>Dom Goucher: Pretty good, Pete. Pretty good.
>>Pete: Welcome to Episode 2 of PreneurCast.
We are back.
>>Dom: We're calling it PreneurCast, but
we never did get the main name, did we?
>>Pete: No, no. But you know, we'll negotiate
on the aftermarket.
>>Dom: I'm with Ed's [Ed Dale] plan: force
of marketing.
>>Pete: In regard to?
>>Dom: Well, he says if you want to take over
something or if you want to be known for something,
and you're worried about people copying
you or any problems like that, you win by
better marketing. That's how you do it.
>>Pete: Oh, yes. That actually was a thing
I was discussing on Tuesday night at a seminar
that I was a panelist at, which was quite
interesting. We actually spoke about a few
different bits and pieces for start-up entrepreneurs,
and one of the things was intellectual property.
A couple of speakers were off doing their
usual rants and raves about, “You need to
get a trademark. You need to do this,” all
that sort of MBA bullshit. And I just kind
of said, “Well, realistically, I think it's
just all about better marketing.” It's
exactly what Ed preaches, and me as well,
is that the best form of copyright protection
or marketing protection is better marketing.
>>Dom: And don't forget… Because I've
come across people because I help out with
media production stuff, doing a lot of info
products and I get this a lot. I've got
one client at the moment and they're like,
“Oh, yeah. We've registered the trademark.
We got the domain name. We've really thought
it through.” I was like, “You haven't
shipped any content yet.”
>>Pete: Look, there's a time and a place.
I'm sure, like for some of the bigger corporate
stuff, $180 or $200 to get a trademark isn't
much at all. So why wouldn't you do it?
But for a lot of start-ups, I think, you have
that on your radar to do at some point just
to confirm your market leadership and position.
But realistically, for a lot of this stuff,
I think it's just about superior marketing,
becoming a market leader in your market. And
I think that in itself is enough sort of protection
that you really need for a lot of things these
days.
>>Dom: And I have to ask, because I've been
in a similar situation, how well did that
go down?
>>Pete: It was interesting. The panelists
were a little bit, ooh, taken a step back.
That was fine because they're sort of innovation
consultant and a marketing consultant with
two of the other four panelists. So they all
sort of had that MBA-style background. And
that's all fine and dandy. The audience,
I think, seemed to really sort of get where
I was coming from because I was the kind of
the down-and-dirty entrepreneur of the panel
who's doing a lot of stuff in the real world
with various businesses so I think it sort
of resonated a lot with the people out there
who were in the crowd, about 70 people or
so for Anthill magazine, which is no longer
a magazine actually, given the demise of the
publishing industry. But James Tuckerman,
a guy I've known for quite sometime started
a magazine a few years ago here in Australia
that was kind good in the entrepreneurial
space, innovation entrepreneurial-type. It
was a bimonthly magazine. ‘Bimonth,' does
that mean two a month or one every two months?
I always get that…
>>Dom: I'm like that with you. I haven't
got a clue really what it means. It's every
two months.
>>Pete: Yeah, every two months. So they were
doing great. Given sort of the way the publishing
world, they've gone to an online model now.
They're doing really, really well. But I
do these various sort of info evenings. This
one was called ‘Entrepreneurs' Night Out.'
And basically, they get a bunch of panelists
to talk about all things entrepreneurial,
which was good fun. There were 70 people there
-- business cards being been swapped, beers
being drunk, people talking about what they
do. So it was a good night out, quite a bit
of fun.
>>Dom: Cool. What's been your main focus
this week then? What's been going on other
than your jollies out?
>>Pete: Other than my jollies out? The big
thing this week is just getting back to shipping,
just focusing on some projects and trying
to ship, which is sort of the big buzzword
at the moment. Everyone seems to be talking
about shipping, you know? Steven Pressfield's
fantastic book Do the Work, which is awesome;
Seth Godin has been a big proponent of the
shipping mentality; and obviously, for those
of you following Merlin Mann, his latest escapades
with his book and Cranking, which is a blog
post, and the Back to Work podcast that came
out -- all about shipping.
So just like everyone else, I've been focusing
on shipping. And again, similar to Merlin,
it's been around the book. For those of
you who haven't been playing along at home,
I've got a new book that's coming out
last year with a couple of very good buddies
of mine, very, very smart men Rob Somerville
and Ed Dale. So that book's sort of been
churning and been coming out for a while now.
We're getting to the final end of it. We've
got the first draft, I guess you'd call
it, down. And it's just about going through
that and refining it, and making it something
that we're proud of. That's sort of been
the biggest focus for me of late and will
be for the next sort of four or five weeks
until I head off to Bali for my fiancée's
30th birthday. We're going to Bali which
should be fun.
>>Dom: So that was a nice little segue into
the holiday thing. But let me drag you back
to the book.
>>Pete: I want to talk about the holiday because
I had to get injections today and my arms
hurt.
>>Dom: Can I say a nasty word? Can I say procrastination?
>>Pete: Yeah, okay. Fair enough.
>>Pete: Yes, back on point. Bring me back.
Focus.
>>Dom: For people who aren't playing along
at home, what's the book about?
>>Pete: The book is about everything that's
not the product. The book has two underlying
ethos. The first thing is based on the foundation
of The Challenge or for the veterans out there,
what was the 30 Day Challenge, which is a
program started by Ed quite a few years ago
which is designed to help people start a business
using the internet as the platform. I hate
saying an ‘internet business' or an ‘online
business' because that's just crap. It's
a business that happens to have the platform
being the internet. We can talk about that
entire thing in another soapbox episode if
you want to.
But basically The Challenge is all about getting
your business up and running, and making your
first dollar on the internet. And it's been
fantastic over the six or so years that it's
been running. It's just grown and grown,
and grown very much virally. Last year, from
memory, about 76,000 people from around the
world took part in it. So it's a huge, huge
thing. It's basically built on the foundation
of the training so to speak, which is all
completely free. For those who are interested,
challenge.co is the domain. It's awesome.
I'm a faculty member of that. But again,
back on to the book.
The book is basically about everything that's
not covered in The Challenge. So the theory,
the context, the framing and the foundation
of what The Challenge is built on, which in
essence is a thing that we refer to as ‘The
Marketing Symphony,' which is four parts.
So the first part is market research, then
you've got traffic, conversion and then
finally, product. So unlike a lot of entrepreneurs
and a lot of the people who were actually
there on Tuesday night, funnily enough, who
were sort of asking questions of the panel
about what can I do with their business and
things like that, a lot of people when they
are starting out, they're very passionate
and focused on the product.
When they ask you questions about their business,
they want to tell you all about the product,
why the product's so good, why the product's
so different, what's going to make the product
stand out, and why everyone wants to buy the
product. But realistically, the most successful
businesses do the other way around. They go
market first. So that means you focus on market
research: is there a market of people out
there who actually want to buy what you're
selling? Does there exist a group of people
who have money, with the propensity to spend
it, with a problem that needs solving that
they're willing to spend that money on the
solution?
You have to really focus on that first. And
that's the first step of The Challenge and
the first chunk of The Challenge is all about
that. Then from there, the focus is getting
traffic. So yes, you may know people that
need to file a tax return every year, or you
know people that are out there wanting to
teach their parrot to sing, or there are people's
roofs need shackling or whatever the term
might be. But once you've got that and you've
established that yeah, there are enough people
in your area that needs a tax return, well,
how are you going to get that phone to ring?
How are you going to get those clients?
It's not about doing a better tax return
yet. It's not about being out of there and
cross-sell insurance or do trusts and that
sort of stuff. It's about, okay, the first
thing is yes, there's a market, how do we
get people to call me? So it's focused on
then getting traffic. Whether it might be
foot traffic in your business or web traffic,
the visitors or phone calls, you've got
to focus on that and get that engine right.
And then once you get the traffic, then you
go, “Okay. Well I can definitely get traffic
to this business. There are people interested
in actually looking for my information. Well
then, you've got to build a conversion engine.
That's all about getting that traffic and
converting it into sales. You have to be a
salesperson. That's something that a lot
of people, they get that little vomit, they
throw up in their mouth when they start thinking
about being a salesperson. But realistically,
you have to be.
You don't have to be a door-to-door cold-calling
salesperson, but you have to close and convert.
You can put systems in place and conversion
tactics in place. Once you get that down pat,
then and only then is it about the product.
I can give you case study after case study.
When we started the telco company, which is
my biggest project, venture or company (whatever
you want to refer to it as) that I'm involved
in, when we started that, we went traffic
first. Myself and my two business partners
in that particular entity, none of us ever
installed a phone system. We started that
business by traffic and conversion. We got
the engine right to actually get traffic to
the business. Our phone continually rings
off the hook. We had a very strong skills
set and system in place to actually convert
those calls into phone system buyers.
Then we outsourced the actual implementation
originally. We just got subcontractors. You
can almost call them competitors to a certain
extent and use them to actually do the implementation
of the phone system, the actual install and
support, and all that technical product stuff.
And then, obviously, as we grew and the volume
grew, it became much more financially beneficial
for the business to actually start hiring
technical staff and have it all in-house,
which is obviously what we do now, that's
fine.
But the product was the very last thing we
focused on. We worried about getting traffic
and converting that traffic into sales. Then
we worried about the product and actually
bring the product in-house, so to speak. That's
a long nutshell of what the actual book is
all about. It's just sort of walking people
through that methodology, that line of thinking,
that structure, that framework, that every
other adjective, noun and verb that you can
think of, whatever one of those three words
used is the correct one. So that's the fundamentally
what the book is about. Is that coherent enough?
Is that concise enough? Is that long enough?
Does that make sense?
>>Dom: Well, it is definitely long enough,
dude. I, for one, am really interested in
seeing this. Because to me the principle of
The Marketing Symphony -- yes, okay, everybody's
listening. There's a potential for me to
be blowing smoke up various backsides with
this. But, the concept of The Marketing Symphony
is out there, for me, with the kind of concepts
that were put across in The E-Myth by Michael
Gerber.
>>Pete: Yes.
>>Dom: I was a latecomer to The E-Myth. If
I had read that the first time around, it
would have changed how I did everything in
the last seven or eight years. Literally,
every single thing because he comes out with
this absolutely outrageous idea. If you're
someone like me, I'm a content producer.
I make product. I'm not a marketer, not
by trade. I'm not an entrepreneur like that.
I'm what he calls a technician in The E-Myth.
So, every day, I'd get up and I'd focus
in making the gold standard product. But he
says in The E-Myth, that's not a business
-- that's work. Whether you work in an office
for another guy or whether you work for yourself,
it's your business. But if you focus on
making a product that's just another job.
He puts across this idea that you need to
look at all these different systems and whatever.
Let's not go into that. But to me, The Marketing
Symphony is out there with that kind of a
concept for people like myself.
>>Pete: Absolutely. I think the big thing
is that so many people, particularly in blue-collar
trades, they go and do apprenticeship for
four years and they learn how to fix the pipe,
bang the nail, screw the screw and whatever
else they do in apprenticeship. They walk
away knowing their product. They know that
product inside out. They know the S-bend from
a drain pipe, from whatever the heck sort
of wrench it might be, whatever sort of plumbing
utensils and tools people use. They know that
inside out. They know their product. But that's
not a business. How are they going to get
clients? How are they going to keep clients?
How are they going to convert clients? How
are they going to turn into a revenue stream?
That's the real focus.
>>Dom: Yeah. In a way, even more than The
E-Myth, The Marketing Symphony, when I first
came across it when I first started doing
The Challenge -- oh, wow, it was like three-plus
years ago now, when I first went through The
Challenge myself, that was the first thing
I saw. I came across it completely by accident.
I was over looking at people and all they
were doing was saying, “Make product. Make
an information product. Make an information
product of the future. La, la, la.” And
then Ed pops up. And I remember this because
it was literally an ad scribble on a lined
legal pad. And it just…
>>Pete: Is this the one where he drew the
hill and the two pieces of two roads, the
country highway and the city highway?
>>Dom: No, no, no, no. It was even more sketchy
than that. It was a four-part sort of symphony
with a really hand-drawn scribbly funnel in
the middle of it.
>>Pete: Oh, yeah.
>>Dom: And he just literally panned around
it and talked about it. I just sat there and
I almost bruised my forehead from slapping
it so hard. I've spent years perfecting
my art of product creation and I was ready.
I really thought I've got this great product
and I'm really focused on it for a while.
Then that came along. I went, “Hang on a
minute. He's right. I've not even asked
anyone if they want this.” It's a total
guess. So from an entrepreneurial point of
view, The Marketing Symphony is absolutely
perfect. It's exactly as you've said.
No traffic, no demands before you start. No
demand, don't waste any more time. Got demand
but no traffic, wait until you get some traffic.
But the product is absolutely the last thing.
Just to drop another name, Dan Raine, who's
kind of part of The Challenge gang, he's
out there with The Immediate Edge. He's
a lot more focused and really blunt about
this in his methodologies in The Edge. A lot
of people have been quite shocked by some
of the stuff that he puts out and the way
he tests for traffic and things. But he's
absolutely adamant. He says if there's no
demand then no traffic, that's it. Bye.
Next one.
>>Pete: Move on. Yep.
>>Dom: Move on.
>>Pete: It's got to be the numbers thing.
You got to do business by the numbers to a
certain extent at the early stage.
>>Dom: Absolutely.
>>Pete: That's been my week and that's
going to be my week for the next four or five
weeks hopefully, just trying to bum in chair,
sit down, focus, write, and get this thing
finished. It's weird. I'm a big fan of
Merlin Mann and what he does over at 43 Folders
and stuff. It always seems, whatever he seems
to be doing, I'm trying to subconsciously
or somehow manifesting the same result in
my life -- the whole starting with Inbox Zero
and big believer in the whole Inbox Zero methodology
and all that sort of stuff, and productivity
stuff which is where he built his name and
his brand, I guess you'd call it. And then
from that, he's got the MerlinMann.com site.
If you check out PeteWilliams.com.au, it's
basically modeled off Merlin' site. So I've
done that. Then he comes out with the whole
cranking blog posts about how he's struggling
with his book that's again should have been
shipped by now and all that sort of stuff,
here I am doing the same thing. It's quite
ironic that I just seemed to be channeling
Merlin Mann.
>>Dom: That's not really a bad thing. You
can work your way up from Merlin to eventually,
Seth Godin.
>>Pete: Yeah. There you go.
>>Dom: Channeling those two guys is not a
bad thing, modeling yourself on those
>>Pete: As long as you can ship.
>>Dom: As long as you can ship. How is it
going? I mean, a book. A lot of people struggle
with writing a blog post every week. How is
that going because that's a massive project?
>>Pete: It's different to the first book.
I had my first book come out six years ago
now, I'd say six years ago maybe.
>>Dom: Oh, yeah. That's right. You're
a published author, aren't you?
>>Pete: Yeah, mate. This is the second book
I've got coming out through a third party
or an actual physical publisher. Done a couple
of other sort of smaller books self-published,
I guess you'd refer to them as in-between.
But this is the second book that's going
to be through a traditional publisher. So
with the first book, I used a ghostwriter
to help me put that one together. I sat down
with Michael, probably about twice a week
for about six months, give or take.
>>Dom: Wow.
>>Pete: Just literally sat down one morning
every breakfast and kind of gave him a big
verbal diarrhea plateful of my ideas and an
overview, as well as dumped on his lap about
30 books full of Post-it notes saying, “This
is sort of what I'm trying to say in Chapter
Two. This is kind of where I got my idea from
for Chapter Four. This is sort of the scope
or the flow that I think should work for Chapter
Six.” And he went off and did an amazing
job of taking my incoherent ramblings, some
bullet points and bunch of Post-it notes with
the various things all over them to make a
great little book which I was very proud of.
It was an interesting sort of scenario where
someone pays you to write a book about marketing
but it doesn't take your advice to actually
market the book. That was a little ironic
and I think that's partly why the publishing
game is in the space that's in right now.
But then again that's a whole another soapbox.
>>Dom: Oh, yeah. That's definitely for another
day, that one.
>>Pete: This one is a lot more me. I had some
people help me put some stuff together early
on. But this one is very much me trying to
actually sit down, bum-in-chair, timer on
for 25 minutes like we spoke about in the
last session. I had a time and just churn
through stuff and just say, “Okay. This
is what I'm going to do now, small bite-sized
chunks and just push through” It's been
tough. There have been months where it's
sort of… It has been the Resistance for
me, as Steven Pressfield puts it. I just sit
down in front it and it just freezes me for
whatever reason. It just sort of came back.
I could ramble on for ages about why it is
where it is. But fundamentally, we need to
push this out because it's a great a book
and it's got a great message. I think a
lot of people will really want to hear it
and need to hear it as well. And I think it'll
do well. I've got big goals for the book
itself, which is probably partly why there
is resistance. I think part of resistance
is actually somewhat fed by big hairy audacious
goals. The bigger the goal, the more you actually
feel the resistance. You don't want to ship
something that's sub-par because you know
subconsciously that for it to reach that goal,
it's got to be quality and then you start
questioning your own radar of what quality
is.
>>Dom: This is something that I'm really
interested in your input on…
>>Pete: Now seriously, for my input -- get
the cream and apply it. The rash will go away
in three weeks. I promise you that. That's
my input. Sorry, back on point.
>>Dom: Thank you for that wonderful response.
>>Pete: That's what my doctor told me today
when I got my injection. So, I'm just passing
on the doctorly advice.
>>Dom: Please don't get me started on that,
okay? We've only got half an hour.
Has putting your name on this thing got anything
to do with it as well? You've got goals.
You wanted to succeed at such a book. It's
going to have your name on it.
>>Pete: Oh, ego. Absolutely.
>>Dom: What about the procrastination side
of things though? What about that? Because
you are known as an entrepreneur, you're
known as a successful guy. So if you did something
this public and it doesn't -- I'm not
saying it's not going to because it's
a fantastic idea and you're working with
some fantastic guys, but is that in there
somewhere?
>>Pete: Yeah. I'm sure. The cake of procrastination
is a matter of many layers. Wherever that
came from but anyway.
>>Dom: That's quite good though. I like
that.
>>Pete: I like that. I'll trademark that.
>>Dom: There's a blog post in that for the
big corporate.
>>Pete: There's a blog post in that. I'll
have to talk to one of those panelists from
Tuesday and then work out how to trademark
it.
Now, I think so. There's definitely a part
of that. I think the logical side of it says,
“Well, look. You can reframe anything no
matter whether it goes well or goes bad. You
can reframe it, point fingers, explain and
justify.” A lot of different things, a lot
of different ways. If it doesn't succeed,
if it goes really, really well. But on a subconscious
level, which I think is as wanky as it sounds
where resistance bubbles up and feeds and
grows, is yeah. It has to be some of that.
The ego is there. I want to make sure I ship
stuff that's good.
There are so many clichés and sayings that
I think subconsciously do stuff to us as well.
You're only as good as the last blog post
you publish or you're only as good as your
last album if you're a musician and all
that sort of stuff. As soon as it ships, I'm
only going to be as good as that book is.
Whereas right now, I'm great. But as soon
as this book ships, if it's only good, well
then I'm only good or whatever it might
be.
>>Dom: How are you beating down the procrastination?
You talked about Steven Pressfield. I've
read the Do the Work book, excellent piece
of marketing between him and Seth Godin.
>>Pete: Absolutely. I've got the audio book,
downloaded the audio book the other day.
>>Dom: I did the Kindle free thing.
>>Pete: I did that as well. I read that first
but I'm a big audio guy. The thing I find
disappointing with the audio book is actually
somehow I ordered the audio book but it came
on CD, MP3 CD. So I got a CD in the mail from
Amazon. You couldn't actually download the
audio version, I think, at that time. I had
to get it shipped on CD. But the CD came with
the MP3 version of the book in six separate
MP3 files, which was so frustrating. I wish
there was a solution for that. A way to actually
stitch those MP3 files together in just one
audio book would be awesome if there was.
>>Dom: Hey, product idea. Quick, trademark
it before anybody else gets the idea.
>>Pete: Listen to the next podcast. We might
talk about some of the new projects that you're
involved in, that we're doing together which
kind of fits in with that teaser as they say
in the biz.
>>Dom: So, you still dodged the question of
how you're dealing with procrastination.
>>Pete: Yeah, by saying crap like that and
working on silly little Mac apps and stuff
like that. That's what's causing it. How
I'm actually dealing with it now is, let
me blow smoke up your butt. You've been
blowing some smoke up my way. I'm making
you my trainer, my gym trainer, I guess is
sort of one way of putting it in a very basic
analogy. You're my coach. You're not my
writing coach. I'm making myself accountable
to you is the coherent way of saying that
where I give myself deadlines. Part of it,
and I think it's the same problem Merlin's
had, is that the publisher has been almost
too good to us, “Oh, yeah. Not a problem.
The book is going to be great. When you're
ready to get it to us, get it to us.” That's
sort of not great because I think you need
deadlines in life to make stuff happen.
>>Dom: Yeah.
>>Pete: Self-justified deadlines haven't
worked historically, clearly. Otherwise, the
book will be in bookstores and that would
be different. So it's fundamentally getting
you to sort of keep me accountable, just like
my team are accountable to me every day with
their daily emails and that sort of stuff
-- if you saw the presentation I did at Going
Pro, Ed's event, about how my team are accountable
to me. I'm basically doing the same to you
that I'll make commitments of what I'm
going to work on, and then emailing you those
commitments, and then we discuss it.
Now, there's no real stick. That's the
carrot side of things but there isn't really
a stick. If I actually don't meet the deadline,
I'm in Australia, you're in Spain, so
you can't really come and hit me over the
head with a stick. There's no real punishment
per se that we've put into place because
hopefully, just the embarrassment of not hitting
a deadline and myself, I'll use the word
ego, I guess, I don't want to sort of break
promises and not follow through. Hopefully,
just the promise of I'm going to do this
and being accountable, that way should be
enough.
If we don't hit that, then we'll change
the rules of the game again because it's
our game and we can play it how we want. That
basically, in a coherent way, is that I'm
getting you to keep me accountable. By every
couple of days, we jump on Skype and I'll
email you the updates of the book. You can
read it and give me a feedback. Tell me what's
crap and tell me what's great. And just
fundamentally, if you don't read it, I don't
care. You can feel free to print it out and
use it as firewood and keep yourself warm.
But if you want to actually read it, then
great. But it's all about keeping me accountable.
I guess I'm talking in circles now.
>>Dom: The important thing there though is
I think that it's an accountability thing.
Because a lot of people in this situation
or previously, you handed everything over
and gave it to somebody, and you were almost
checking their work after that point.
>>Pete: Yeah.
>>Dom: Making sure that they have done the
right thing. That was a form of tight relationship,
a form of difficult one to get, really find
somebody who can help you that way.
>>Pete: There's plenty people out there
who ghost writes, isn't it? That's their
job and they do a fantastic job of it. That
was really easy for me. I just turned up a
couple mornings a week, had breakfast and
just talked because I enjoy talking. It wasn't
a stretch for me at all to ship that because
I really didn't do anything. I just had
breakfast and talked. Whereas this actually,
I've got to push, I've got to get down,
I've got to grind through the writing process,
which is interesting. The whole accountability
thing, which is possibly where you also want
this to go, I think it's important for anybody,
no matter what you're in, again this is
a whole another podcast which we probably
should do is the lessons of how running a
marathon or training for a triathlon can apply
to doing your business.
That's something that's been with me a
little bit, which I think could be a great
episode. We'll put that in, but I guess
another teaser for that or a prequel would
be that I think the thing that got me to do
my marathon last year and will hopefully get
me to do my Ironman that I'm doing in December
this year, will be the fact that I've got
a coach who is expecting things from me. It's
not whether I run or don't run or swim in
the morning -- it doesn't affect him and
his family. But it's just that accountability
that he's going to be there coaching. What
if I didn't turn up? He's going to know
that I didn't turn up. So, I think that
applies to a lot of people and why people
have personal trainers for the gym and stuff
like this.
It's not about necessarily them telling
you you've got to lift this piece of metal
over your head 20 times, it's about them
just they're going to be there when you're
there. I think anybody who does group training
sessions and stuff with a friend, it's important
that someone's there and you're accountable
to someone. So much when it comes to business,
people tend to do things on their own. It's
just obviously not the case. I think it's
a silly thing to do and that's why masterminds
work really, really well. But even masterminds
to a certain extent, I think, you can kind
of get lost in the group. If there are six
of you in a mastermind group, there's always
going to be one person who isn't as proactive
as the rest of the group and I think that's
what it is.
And there are benefits to masterminds. I'm
in a few and it's actually a mastermind
that got me my first book deal and we can
talk about that if you want to. But I think
the real secret is having one person you're
accountable to and be the mirror for somebody
else. I think that's really helpful. If
you really want to push this, ship this and
get it done, I needed that mirror and that's
what you're doing for me, which has been
great for the whole 48 hours or 72 hours that
we've been doing it.
>>Dom: Working well so far. We're getting
close on the time on this one. But really
what I was looking at with that because something
that Seth Godin wrote on his blog in the last
couple of days really hit me. He wrote this
thing, and it's one of those things that
make you feel a bit rubbish. He's good at
that. He's good at that. His advice is good,
but sometimes it makes you feel really rubbish.
The latest thing that I read was about coaching,
true coaching because I think there's a
difference between accountability and coaching.
You kind of talked about it there. He basically
says, summarizing the whole thing to the last
sentence, coaches are fine. Coaching is fine.
Having somebody to work with you, show you
what to do and make you do it like directing
you to do it is fine. But the true measure
is what you do when they're not there.
>>Pete: Absolutely.
>>Dom: That was one of those “ooh” moment.
I think it's quite distinct between accountability
and coaching. Because as I was trying to say
with your ghost writer, yes, he's fabulous.
The work you did was less because he's fabulous.
But with this arrangement with you being accountable
to me, you're still doing all the work.
I'm not even telling you what to do. I'm
just asking you to tell me what you're going
to do and then asking you if you did it. Now,
with all due respect, your mom could do that.
>>Pete: Absolutely. She probably could slap
me if I didn't do it. She could probably
be better than you. But it'd be more embarrassing
to get her to push me because she's written
for Cambridge University Press. She's much
more qualified than I to be writing stuff.
>>Dom: I guess what I'm trying to say is
keeping it real, keeping it down at the level
that everybody can do something about. If
you've got something out there that you
want to get done just -- I mean, everybody
says this. It doesn't matter, you'll hear
this and read this, but everybody says this.
If you've got something you want to get
done, tell people you're going to do it.
Now Pete, you've gone and done it because
you said it on the podcast.
>>Pete: Can I? I'm sorry. I'm going to
have to interrupt for two seconds. I'm not
going to be able to give it justice, but I'm
pretty sure it was the TED talk. If you haven't
seen TED, just go and check it out; it's
amazing. There's a TED talk about that exact
point. And obviously, you can say 97% of statistics
are made up. So you can sort of argue any
way you want. A presentation on TED that I
only saw recently and he was talking about
the fact that if you say you're going to
do something -- I'm going to get this completely
wrong and ball it up and just not do this
justice. But it was basically saying that
subconsciously, if you already picture it
in your mind already done, it's actually
less likely that you'll take action because
your subconscious thinks it's already done.
>>Dom: Wow. That's deep.
>>Pete: Yeah. I think I got that right. I
hope I did. Sounds poignant enough. But it
was interesting and that's as much as I
can say on the topic. It was just interesting
to sort of say, “Well, okay…” He said
it so eloquently that there's a different
way. He agrees with you that you want to make
public declarations. But there's a way to
word that public declaration to enhance your
percentage of completion, I guess, is how
you could put it. I can't remember what
it was. We should go and check it out and
we'll put in the show notes if I can find
it or mention that quickly at the start of
the next episode. But it was just about, yeah,
you want to make public declarations but you
want to do it in a specific way so you don't
feel like it's already done. Otherwise,
you won't go and do it.
I think that's possibly a big thing about
why the book hasn't been finished yet because
I've spent so many times in my mind lying
in bed at night thinking about the blog post
I'm going to write, thanking everyone when
the book hits New York Times Best Sellers
List. People do it. Everyone has done that.
Don't get me wrong. I wish that was the
same in terms of the stuff with Jennifer Aniston,
but that's a whole another podcast again.
But I think that's part of it too that you
can make that picture in your mind so real
about what it's going to be like when you
actually achieve it and when you finish it,
your body thinks it's already finished.
>>Dom: That's seriously deep. I think that's
a really good thing for us to finish because
my brain's going to melt with that.
>>Pete: Well, let's call it a show. It's
probably about time. You're the watch keeper.
I just kind of sit here and talk. I guess
back on the whole thing is, the reason this
podcast is going to ship every week is because
we're accountable to each other that we
turn up on time every week to talk, share
our experiences, probe each other and blow
smoke up anybody's butt who's justified
to have it blown in their direction. Let's
wrap it up. We'll start again next week
with the next episode.
>>Dom: Excellent, mate. Excellent. See you
next week.
