I guess the South Sea Island was part of the plan when she was in college. I was tempted to ask her who decided to have 3 kids, but I didn't dare make her any more upset. I explained to her that I knew a number of authors and none of them went to the South Seas to write their books. Most of the ones I knew were writing while they were busy working at their job or their business or whatever else they were doing. I pointed out one exception -- John Graham who is the creative director of the Nightingale Conant Corporation took a whole stack of Earl Nightingale's radio shows and went to Bimini for a week and turned the shows into a book called This is Earl Nightingale. It's a really excellent book. You might want one for your library.
Outside of that, I told her, I didn't know any authors that went down South to write a book. Then I suggested to her that she should get up an hour early every morning ahead of the family, make herself a pot of coffee and write a page, just a page. At the end of the year she'd have 365 pages written. Even if she were to miss a number of days she'd have 200 to 300 pages. Then she could take the following year to edit what she had written. That way every couple of years she'd be able to turn out a new book, all the while being with and enjoying her family.
As I said this I thought to myself that's a heck of a good idea. I don't know if she did it, but at 6am the following morning I was up writing. I got so enthused about it I was not only up at 6am writing, I was writing on planes, writing in hotel rooms, writing in between meetings. Before I knew it, I had an enormous folder of hand written pages and my book was finished. Because I carried it with me all the time, I didn't have my name or phone number or anything written on the folder.. You guessed it. I lost the folder. I couldn't believe it; I had left it in the taxi. About an hour after I got home, it suddenly dawned on me that I didn't have my folder with me. A cold chill ran through my body as I told my wife Linda what I had done. She peppered me with questions - "What was the name of the cab company? What was the phone number? What was the cab driver's name?" I didn't have answers for any of her questions, just a blank screen. But I remained calm. Linda wanted to know why I wasn't upset. I explained that with something so bad there had to be something really good about it. The book probably wasn't any good. So I let it go and set out to rewrite the entire book. That book You Were Born Rich has been sold all over the world in a number of different languages. We're constantly receiving letters from people about how the book has changed their life.
Now here's an interesting twist - it was the woman on the radio show that motivated me to write the book. But it was a man who ultimately became my business partner, Gerry Robert, that gave me a suggestion that turned the book into a piece of gold, when I think of what it did for me and my business. And believe me, a book could do the same for you. I believe everyone has a book in them. At any rate, Gerry said, "Bob, rather than sell the book, why don't you give it away. Just sell enough to pay for the books you give away." I looked at him like he had a few screws loose, but he explained that business people spend absolute fortunes on brochures. And yet no one has a brochure case. Lots of people have bookcases, but no brochure cases. And that's because people don't keep brochures. They do keep books. Once it's written, a book doesn't cost much more than a brochure. In fact, in some cases, it costs less. So Gerry said, "Why not use your book as a brochure that will market your business." The more I thought about it, the more I realized it made a lot of sense. It was a very solid, creative concept. I did what Gerry suggested and that idea changed my business like night and day.
Shortly after that, Gerry and I got together to talk about forming a publishing company to help business people write books. We got excited about how much it could help their business grow. We decided to do it. We hired ghost writers, marketing people and designers. Today we've helped between 200 to 300 people create books that they use as their brochure to market their business. It's making as big a difference in their business, just asYou Were Born Rich did in mine. The Born Rich book is not just an interesting story, it's the cause of numerous interesting stories. As I'm writing this, I'm sitting in my library surrounded by about 3,000 books, yet none of the books here has helped my business like the Born Rich book has. I think of all the people struggling in business right now that are letting the economy affect them. If they only knew how much a book could help their business, they'd start writing now.
If you would like to find out how a book can help you or your business, send an email to Toni@bobproctor.com. And here's the beautiful part about it, you don't even have to know how to write a book. We do, and we can do it for you or with you. I'll promise you one thing, you put a book out with your name on it and it's not going to get thrown away like so many of the brochures that you've printed in the past. A book changed my life and it can change yours."
