Hi ,

I'm so excited you're a part of the Win Your Next Hour pre-launch!

We only have 2 weeks to go in the pre-launch window, and here's an update.

In the first 3 weeks of the book pre-launch, Win Your Next Hour has sold 291 books.

That is so cool! The publisher is blown away, as we have more than double the book sales as the second place author in my cohort. (I actually asked them not to tell me that anymore, they know our goal is 540 books...what the other authors are doing has nothing to do with us, and I don't want to ease up in the home stretch!)

Our goal is to break the pre-sale record and get commitments for 540 books. I can't do it alone, but I know we can do it together!

Question for you: Do you have, or know someone who has a company that hires speakers, does a book club that would like me to attend a meeting, or any other use for a pack of 10-100 books. We can customize a package for any number of books and perks/appearances.

Thank you for all your help, together we can crush this 540 book goal and all Win Our Next Hour.

I left the book's Introduction at the bottom of this email in case you didn't get a chance to read it last week. After reading the intro, reach out to at least one person who you think will enjoy Win Your Next Hour and ask them to join the pre-launch group with you! Here's the site to send them to - winyournexthour.com

Be great,

Danny Lehr

*Feel free to hit reply and let me know if you have any feedback, whether good or bad.

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Introduction (Draft 2)

It was beyond miserable. Water was gushing out of my shoe laces as I made the bunny-ears. The necessary double-knots required to keep the wet boots secured over my wet socks worked as a press, wringing out even more water. And as uncomfortable as wet shoes over wet socks are, nothing prepares you for putting on damp, cold underwear at 4:30 a.m. in a tent. But there I was, on top of a mountain in Alaska sporting dirty, wet Ralph Lauren boxer briefs.

The nearest community of Ketchikan receives an average of 175 inches of rain each year, and it felt like my clothing had absorbed 174 of them during the hike in. I was with my friend Jeff, an Alaskan resident and outdoor author, on a four-day summer trip to the top of a remote mountain that required a boat to access. We had not seen a single human soul during those four days. Probably fewer than 30 people summit the trailless mountain each year, and the reason why was becoming clear.

As the rain continued its assault, fog decided to join the party. And because nothing draws a crowd like a crowd, cold ocean air started creeping up the side of the mountain to see what all the fuss was about. I was neck deep in one of the most demanding experiences of my life, and I hated it. My mind was reeling.

This is stupid. I’m never doing this again.

That kind of self-talk is the fast lane to feeling sorry for yourself, which would make the experience even worse and possibly endanger myself and Jeff. I had to change my internal narrative.

I’m not afraid of a challenge—throughout my life I’ve made a hobby of biting off more than I can chew, and then just chewing it anyway. I love being outside in the wilderness. I love adventure, seeing and experiencing things that most people will never see or experience. And most of all, I have become much more than a flippant acquaintance with physically demanding tasks.

As a 6-year old chubby blond kid, my first backpacking trip was a 30-mile stretch of the John Muir Trail through Yosemite National Park. I remember going up switchbacks near 10,000 feet in elevation and wanting to stop. But we couldn’t. We couldn’t just camp in the middle of the trail. The only way out was to take some breaks and push through until we were over the pass.

These kinds of physically and mentally challenging experiences kept coming my way, and I eventually developed my own strategy for dealing with them. The first day of high school soccer conditioning I wanted to quit more than ever before. And that’s the first time I remember using my trick, which became a superpower. I lied to myself.

If I just get through today, I can quit tomorrow. Just finish today. Just win this next hour.

Spoiler: I didn’t quit after that day. Or the next day, when I made the same empty deal with myself.

I didn’t quit during my freshman year of high school when I started wrestling, a sport requiring high levels of technique and even higher levels of suffering, and discovered the unfortunate reality of my athletic prowess—suffering is what I’m best at. This became my reality as I excelled in wrestling and later Olympic style weightlifting which required me to train heavy squats 9 sessions a week.

Over the last 15 years, I’ve seen the power in winning your next hour. Through my experiences in business and athletics, I’ve met and become friends with founders of Fortune 500 companies, Olympians, and people who have found their version of success in many different ways. I’ve experienced and witnessed what it takes to go from the sidelines to success.

Dreams, goals, aspirations: they are all overwhelming when you’re thinking about the final product. If you’ve never had a million dollars, the idea of starting a company that grows to over $10 million seems like an impossible task. If you’ve never been able to keep off the 15 pounds you lost on a crash diet, how can you possibly lose 100 pounds? If you’ve never run two miles without walking, how can you run a marathon?

I’m going to provide you with the tools you need in order to win. The tips and tricks that equip you with the discipline you need to get unstuck. To change jobs, start a business, lose 50 lbs, move states, or take on the Appalachean trail . How to achieve on days when you lack motivation. Why waiting until you’re “good enough” will only lead to failure. How to structure your days and weeks so you have the time to begin. The superpower of friends and the roles other people can play in your success. A goal setting plan that takes you from “I don’t know where to start” to “the things I didn’t even know that I didn’t know.”

If you are happy and comfortable in your current life and have no further aspirations, this book is not for you. However, if you want to take your life to the next chapter, next level, or next step, then you need to commit to winning your next hour. This is how you overcome feeling stuck. Stuck with the boss you hate, in the neighborhood you don’t feel safe in or in the body that makes you cringe when you look in the mirror. Robert Frost wrote “the only way out is through,” but what you need to embrace is that the only way in is to begin.

Life is too short for regrets. Stop waiting and wishing and calling it living.

That morning in Alaska in the rainy, cold and foggy pre-dawn hours I started again.

Just win the next hour. You can do this for one more hour, then maybe the rain will stop. Maybe the fog will lift. Maybe Jeff will slow the hell down.

As the morning progressed, my body heat slowly warmed the inside of my cold rain gear. We had stopped a few times to glass for deer. The fog lifted and I could see hundreds of miles out into the beautiful inside passage, a maze of ocean and island mountains. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And a few hours later the sun was out and I was drying my socks off on a warm rock. And that’s when my next hour of battling gnats began. But I had won my last hour, and was ready for the challenge of the next hour, and the next three days.

Most people see the finish line or finished product. They see the fully functioning business they’re trying to grow or the gap between their current skill level and the top level of competition. They think in order to succeed in business or athletics they have to know how to get to the finish line. But that’s not true.

You just need to start. You need to find one step that will lead to the next. You need to win your next hour.

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