A while back, I had run into a financial downtime in business and like you, I went online looking for articles that could show me how to make more money as a therapist. I chose to read one of the articles that I thought has a really long list (it was impossible not to find something there, right?). Well, I read through that list and realized I was doing everything on the list. So now, I’m upset!
I went to my business coach to ask for more personalised tips because these online researches were leading to a dead end. When I finished explaining everything my business was going through and what my online searches led to, I expected him to whip out a talisman of some sort that assesses the situation and revealed what I forgot to consider. Have you ever been in a position where you wished someone would tell you how your failure was because you left something out? That was me.
Instead, he applauded my efforts and the lists I had ticked and encouraged me to wait. I was upset. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me to take a course. Tell me to send out more cold emails. Tell me to fight. Tell me to do anything else but wait? Wait for who? No one is coming to rescue me.
That single strategy has changed how I execute projects. When you have done everything that needs to be done, stop moving things around – give your plans the opportunity to come together.
Morgan Housel in the Psychology of Money has a similar suggestion that luck and fate have a very important place in financial growth.
This is not synonymous to laziness. Rather, it is the quiet belief that everything that can be done has been done. Now, time must be given the opportunity to run its course. This is a belief in your dream and your big picture that it will work.
When my coach told me to wait, I was distraught but I waited. While waiting, I would ensure my content had great search engine optimization and I had great visibility (as much as I could afford), I would check up on old clients and pitch to new ones, I would write more content and discard what was shiny but not functional in the picture. Then the magic began like a snowball – an old client referred someone who referred someone who referred someone. We went from “is this working to yes! We were not mad”.
Dear Affluent Author,
There is a strong need to dot your I’s and cross your T’s. Have you been creating? Have you diversified your creation? Have you carried your audience along? Are you doing due diligence with publishing? Is there a distribution plan? What’s the visibility strategy? Have you successfully built a campaign team (fans and experts)? Do you have a structure for making a career out of this?
As you do all these, please leave room for time.
You need time to get lucky: luck is not an accident. The more you do something, the more you recognize the opportunities in that field and the more you understand why you’ve missed previous ones and how to position for newer ones. More practice equals more opportunities to be lucky.
You need time to build a fallback portfolio: a great advertisement could get you in front of the crowd but if you do not have an archive of valuable and enjoyable resources, you will lose that crowd while you are working on a new book. People are likely to wait for your work when they have something else, they can hold onto as an appetizer or something else they can reheat from you.
You need time to re-strategize: everything in your plan will not work as planned. So, you need to always make time to see how successful your plans will be and make time for course correction if it does not work. For example, if your book launch gets delayed due to some printing error, did you include a time margin for failure? There’s a margin for failure required even financially. So, why wouldn’t you apply that principle to time?
You need time for success: say you planned for your book to sell one thousand copies in twelve weeks but that happens in two weeks. Did you and your team make plans to coordinate that success if it happens? We are familiar with saying “ugh! It’s failing”. That we miss the opportunity to just calm down and watch things work out well.
Time to reset: this was the final step I was hoping my coach would take me through; reset. Reset is what happens when everything has failed or everything has succeeded and you take a break so you can relaunch. Without resets, we are at the brink of becoming monotonous and fatigued. Whether it works or not, a reset is necessary.
Dear Affluent Author, the year is not yet over. Thirty days are enough to finish that book you have been second guessing, sign a publishing deal, sign a distribution deal, launch your online presence etc. If you do not want to try again this year, it is enough time to hit a hard reset for the New Year.
Until I see you next year, do not forget to give yourself time to be lucky.
Read – Gone too Soon – Affluent Authors Column – Liza Chuma Akunyili
