I’d been dreaming of working with him for decades.
He’s the writer behind two of my favorite books (Never Split The Difference & Never Eat Alone).
His name is Tahl Raz – and I thought that if I could combine his writing skills with my book idea, we could create something really special.
So I cold emailed him. Nothing.
Years later I messaged him again, this time on LinkedIn. He replied! We got on a call and after pitching him the book idea (and a large sum of money), he agreed to help on my upcoming book.
Best-seller in the bag, right?
Wrong.
We booked a cabin in the woods for 5 days to finish the first draft. I was excited to work with Tahl, but on the first day, he called my book proposal bullsh*t (ouch).
It stung. But he was right.
Tahl pushed me and challenged me constantly. From this I was able to see his best-selling writing process.
- Study the best. We conducted book reports on the top 30 books in our category. Tahl said, if we are writing this book - it had to be #1 in the entrepreneurship category.
- Get to the core. Break down each chapter on human-sized pieces of paper to clarify the ‘aha’ moment, unique angle, and compelling story. This was to make sure there was 0 bullsh*t in the book!
- Stories are memorable. Specifically, vulnerable stories are what gets remembered in a book. Focus deeply on this!
- The process is never pretty. People romanticize the process of writing a book, thinking the first draft will be perfect. In reality, it takes edit after edit after edit to get it right. Over the course of the book, we cut 20,000 words.
- Include your customers in the process. The final ⅓ of finishing the book was beta readers which quickly highlighted points of confusion and which parts were most impactful. Thanks everyone.
From Tahl, I learned a ton about the book-writing process.
But what I wasn’t expecting was how much I learned about myself.
I faced serious imposter syndrome throughout this entire process. Sometimes I doubted the entire book.
We all have doubts in our lives.
Hiring Tahl, in some ways, was to avoid doing the hard work of facing the material and seeing if I could really put a book together to help people.
But after working on this book for 3 years and going over our book with thousands of beta readers, I realized I can truly help people.
Million Dollar Weekend is for all the people willing to take a chance on themselves.
Be epic,
Noah
PS – Tahl, thank you for teaching me how to tell a better story. Check out our podcast (Apple - Spotify) where we reveal more behind the scenes of how the book was created.
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