Rejected! 5 Lessons from Getting Dumped by My Publisher

Hey everybody, it's Ben Richard, author of the New York Times best selling book, the Motivation Manifesto. And in this video I want to address the controversy about my publisher having dumped me and also share with you how you guys made this a New York Times bestseller. I'll tell you the journey about writing the book and also about maybe some five lessons that you could apply in your own life if you have a dream that you are ready to fight for or you've been struggling along the path of your own art or your own business or your own career for a long time and you've just been waiting for that big breakthrough to happen. Well, I like to share my own story about this book because I just wanted to give this video back to you guys because you've done so much for me to support me and my own art even when other people didn't believe in me, even when people said I was crazy, even when people said, well, this isn't the right book for you, even when people said I don't like the book, that I went for it. And I'd like to tell you the story of that and then give you these five lessons at the end. If you haven't heard a little bit of the controversy that ended up happening. Forbes sort of broke the news about what happened originally with this book. I was never going to shoot a video like this. At the outset I was embarrassed about what had happened. And what ended up happening is I worked for two years on this book. I mean, I went back and I studied the sort of revolutionary rhetoric to understand how do I make the call for us to seek greater levels of personal freedom in our life? Because I believe that's what this book is about and I believe that's what we're all about, that the main motivation of humankind is this drive to be fully and freely ourselves and to pursue our dreams without restriction and self oppression, without ourselves getting in our own way and without social oppression, without people pushing us down. And of course the funny turn of events of this book was that when I turned the book in of April of this year, my publisher at the time, a very big New York publisher, turned it down. Now I wasn't going to reveal the numbers either, but Forbes broke the news in their article and this was wrapped up in a multimillion dollar book deal. And basically the publisher came back and said, Brendan, we don't get it. We don't see why you're trying to use this very formal sort of presidential language and we don't understand why you're trying to, you know, use this particular pentameter or approach this to your audience. But instead of asking why, instead of being, I think, what a great editor or a great publisher would do, which would just say, tell us, what do you know about your audience that maybe we've missed, maybe that we don't know. What is it that your vision is for this book, exactly? Why are you going about it? There's. There's no collaboration. They basically came back and said, we don't like it. We think you need to add more stories in here. And, you know, in my mind, they wanted a little bit more of the, you know, the, hey, here's a. Here's a very, you know, wealthy yoga mom with all the reason in the world to be, you know, happy and carefree, but she's miserable. And here's why. Well, I think you can read that story in magazines, and I think that's what's been in self help for a long time. I didn't feel like we've had a very powerful, direct, sort of occasional voice in personal development for a long time. We haven't had a real serious approach that brought in philosophy, that brought in neuroscience, that brought in a powerful push, a clarion call for you to change your life. It's now just a bunch of nice little stories about people changing their lives. But it's like, no, I wanted to push people. I wanted to challenge people. I wanted to bring back a voice that used to be that clarion call to service, to greatness, to leaving a legacy, to doing something important with our lives, to taking back our lives from all the people who are trying to steal it from us by distractions or their wants, their needs, and getting back in the driver seat of our life. And I wanted to reuse a different voice for that. And that's why I wrote the book the way I did. I started the book with the Declaration of Personal Power, which was a rewrite of the Declaration of Independence from the United States. And it brought this feeling to it. You could tell right off the bat when you get in this book that it's something that's important and it's different. But they didn't like it and they didn't get it. And so they said, we want you to do two things. We want you to change the voice entirely. And they said, modernize the voice. And they also said, well, we want you to add a bunch of stories. I said, but that's not the vision of this book. This book isn't about a bunch of stories about me. They wanted Me to write about myself. I said look, I've done that in other books. This book is about the reader. This book is about us human beings alive today in a time in which extreme distraction and extreme stress are ruling the day. Where we all feel compelled that we have to do things for other people. 24, 7, including reply to their text within 7 seconds. Right? The world has changed and we need a different sort of voice to lead us out of it. And that's what I tried with the book. I took two years and every waking day, every waking moment thinking about this book. So you can imagine after having literally a seven figure advance tied to this book that then to get the publisher to tell me I don't like it was a big blow. But it got worse. They said if you don't change it, we want our advance back, we want our money back. And again, we're talking about, you know, a seven figure amount of money. It was like of course that two years I worked for this thing was under the assumption that this was part of the deal. I would have done it anyway because it's my art, as you'll find out in a moment. But it was this stunning odd behavior from a major publisher. I was one of their best selling self help authors already. And so for them not to trust, them not to ask and I don't think that I'm not bemoaning them in this video and saying they did anything illegal, they didn't anything wrong, I, I think at an ethical level, as professionals, they made a very poor choice. And now you have validated. This book debuted number one on Barnes and Noble. It debuted this week, it is number three on the New York Times. It's a Wall Street Journal bestseller. It's a USA Today bestseller. It has taken the web by storm with over 60,000 pre orders by itself. It went out and it crushed all expectations and, and it did that because of your support, because you followed me maybe on Facebook. We've got 2 million followers on Facebook now. We've got over 14 million views on YouTube. I mean we've really shown, I think that you can put intelligent, caring, challenging, leadership driven messages in the marketplace again. And of course the publisher that missed out on it, their approach at the time was well, this seems a little hard on the reader or jeez, this seems like it doesn't make any sense to us. Well, it's because their proficiency, their level of excellence, particularly that person I was working with at an editorial level, they didn't have a background in self help. They didn't understand what self actualization meant, but you and I know what that means. That we are driven to achieve our highest potential. We are driven to make our most profound difference in the world. It's a part of us that we want to be free, to be ourselves and pursue those things that we find meaningful and fulfilling. That's what drives us. That's what this book is about. And you guys got it even if the publisher didn't. So I had a choice. Return the advance, all the money they gave me and be cut out into the ocean without a publisher, without a deal to hopefully put this book out in some magical way. By the deadline. And it was a very frustrating period of time. There were lots of lawyers and consulted and advised and my agent's freaking out and my team's freaking out, my family's freaking out because they just saw me give two years of my life to develop this for you guys. I went way above and beyond to try and do something that was artistic and different and they didn't understand it and they didn't reward it. They pushed it away. And so luckily, luckily I took the book and I ended up going out after we finally figured out what to do with that other publisher and. And I went out and I created an amazing deal and I had an amazing opportunity to work with Hay House, who ultimately helped me distribute and publish the book. And they did it beautifully. If you look at this, this looks like one of those old school journals that you get that you carry all around the world. This beautiful look and binding and ribbon and paper that you just want to. It's a beautiful work of art. It doesn't look like a normal book, as you can tell. And when you feel it in your hands, you'll know what I'm talking about. And so you all and your support of me and my messages helped this hit every list of best seller right out the bat. And I want to thank you for that. And so a couple things I'd like to do. I'm going to tell you five things that I learned along this process in fighting for my own art and my dreams. And also down below this video. You're welcome to again send that link to anybody. I'm giving this book out again once more for free. So you can still get the motivation manifesto. I'm opening it back for you guys just as thanks since we hit the New York Times that you're welcome to get the book for free. Meaning I bought the book. It's 19 bucks. I bought it for you, bought thousands of copies for you guys, and I'm happy to give it to you. I just ask that you pay your own shipping and handling to receive it, that's all. That way I can focus on buying thousands of books or as many people as I can. And you just pay your shipping and handling. And you can do that via the link below this video. Now, I'd like to tell you just maybe some things for yourself as you continue to fight for your own art, your own career, your own dreams that might help you. And it's just, I often call it the five rules of life. And that first rule is, have vision for your life. Have vision for what you want to create and contribute and be a part of and be about. I had vision for this book. I said, look, I don't want it to look like a regular book. I want it to look like a journal, you know, that you write in with no edges and no silly jacket copy that comes up. I want it to look old school because we're bringing back a voice. I mean, there's parts of this book that reads like, you know, the founding fathers of American sort of society talking about what's important to us and why our freedom is so important. And then it gives you these nine declarations. But I wanted the ribbon. I wanted to go above and beyond. I wanted this to be something that you carry along, that you read throughout your life, that you tell your friends about. I want to do something special. I had a deep vision for this down to when you open it, you'll see. I designed the COVID I designed a lot of layout. I picked the fonts. I mean, I picked the color of the inside of the book and the way that the font rolled throughout the page. I mean, I went so minute into my vision for this. And that's why it worked. If you have a vision, if you have a dream, you've got to get to it. You got to see it, you got to visualize it, you got to believe it, and you got to fight for it over and over and over again because the world will try to put their own vision on it. That publisher, they tried to make me write a pop psychology pop pop self help book. That would have sucked. That's what they wanted, was a book that they thought would work. They didn't understand my vision and I had to fight for it. And I encourage you, if you got a dream, you got to stick to your vision for it. Yes, listen to people. Yes, take input. But you know in your heart what is right for you, and you need to stick to that. Have vision for your life. Second, believe at all times in your ability to figure things out. When this publisher dumped me, I didn't know what I was going to do. I had a vision. I had the thing. I was scared, I was upset, I was hurt, I was frustrated. I had all these emotions going on. But I checked myself very quickly and said, you know what? I will find a way to support this art. I will figure it out. I don't know what the answer is yet, but it's not always important to know the how. It's important to know the what, the why are you doing something? You'll figure it out. Trust in your ability. If you got enough time, you got enough commitment, you got enough resourcefulness, you will figure out a way to get ahead. You'll bust through. You'll find it. Believe in yourself. Believe in yourself at all times. You can figure things out. You might not know the next step for tomorrow, but when you get there, just trust in yourself. Believe that you know what is right for you and keep working at it. Third thing, third big idea is, no matter what, have fun making your dreams come true. I had to constantly remind myself along that journey. I mean, you know how it is. You probably dealt with lawyers before, or you've dealt with a contract that got broken, or someone gave you their word and it didn't work out right. They said they were going to publish it. Now they aren't. I mean, it can be a very frustrating experience. But the reality is this. We get to choose how we bring ourselves to each day. This book is ultimately about teaching you to be more present and more powerful in your daily life. It's teaching you to bring the joy, to become what the book ultimately calls to become, a joyous master in your life experience. You know you're going to go through chaos, you're going to go through conflict. You're going to go through times when it doesn't work. It doesn't seem like everything is going your way. That's the most important time to bring the joy. That's the most important time to have fun, to be present in the process. That is the most important, important time to stick to it. So no matter what, make your journey of making your dreams come true. Make it fun. Even if it's chaotic and even if it seems like it sucks at the moment. Say, how can I enjoy this process? How can I make this better for myself? And I think you'll do that for yourself. If you'll bring that joy, your dreams will come into fruition. So have vision for your life. Believe in your ability to figure things out. Make the process of achieving your dreams fun. Fourth, be patient, but always persistent. I was patient. I knew. I said, you know what? This book is going to come out. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I believe in it. The people who are reading it were saying, but this is completely different than anything I've read before. And now you see on the reviews on Amazon or the reviews on Forbes or Success magazine, some people are calling this one of the better personal development books of the decade. And I think the reason why is because I was patient enough in the writing process. Most of my books before I could write in several weeks time. But as my brand has grown, as my business has grown, as my commitments to my family has grown, I couldn't take the time to spend that much. I took two years to write the book and there were times in that process I thought, oh my gosh, I'm so tired of writing this book. But I was patient towards it. And then when I got turned down, I was patient with that process. I said, okay, I'm going to have to figure out another way to do this. And so I got very, very, very committed to it and became very persistent. Even though I was being patient, I was allowing it to kind of happen as it needed to, but I was persistent. Every day I was making calls. Every day I was calling my partners. Every day I was calling somebody to say, hey, here's what I'm doing with this book. Could you help? Do you know anybody? I could do it. I mean, I was persistent to make the dream come true. So do not ever give up. Don't give up on your dream. You never know when it's going to turn out. Be patient with the world. Be patient with other people. Be patient with yourself. Honor the struggle of this journey, but be persistent. Keep working at it. Never forget when you knock on the door of opportunity that it is work who answers. It's going to be challenging. It's going to be a struggle. And that is an awesome thing because that is what's going to challenge you and it's what's going to struggle you. And the fifth idea is so simple. Along the way, love and respect other people also playing the same journey of life. People have now asked me now that this is a New York Times bestseller. Hey, Brendan, don't you just want to put it in the face of your publishers? And believe it or not, this is not this video. This is not what this is about. I have nothing but Love and respect for those people. I think they were trying to make appropriate decisions for who they are and what they wanted and the financial realities of their company. I think they did the best that they could. I got no harm or no. I have no ill intent to them at all. And I hope you have that. There's going to be people who support you and people who do not. Just, you know what, have a respect for everybody, know that everybody is doing their best and love the people that support you. I love Reid, Tracy and the entire team over at Hay House. Who made my dream come to life in such a beautiful manner that people are talking about as much about how the book feels and looks as much as what's in it, which is a real honor. They did a beautiful job. They made my vision come true. And I also, I thank my family and my friends who supported me over two years of writing when I was away for weeks at a time when I didn't return calls and texts and messages, when I was just so committed and into my art that I passed up on some responsibilities, some major opportunities. I just stayed focused to this dream and brought it to fruition now. And I also am so thankful for you guys. You know, you guys went out. It's you who made this New York Times bestseller, you who made it Wall Street Journal bestseller, you who made it a best seller in every single category that we're competing in, a number one on Barnes and Noble. I mean, all of that happened because of you guys. You know that in your heart that there's just something that, you know, if you could just. If you could just tap into greater levels of motivation in your life, you would bust through. If you could wake up every day as driven as you've ever been in your life and put some practice into your life to achieve something phenomenal, well, then you'd have sustained motivation, what we talk about in this book. And so I feel like you are a reflection of this book that in so many ways you said, you know what? I'm going to support this book because I've got dreams in my life. And no matter what level of achievement you've already had in your life, you know that you can always go to another level of life experience, you know, another level of presence or consciousness, another level of joy and energy and engagement, another level of just crushing it every single day that you have in your power, your potential, the ability to achieve remarkable things. And it does not matter if your publisher agrees with you or does not matter if your family or all of your friends or everybody in the world supports you. You have power within you. This book is about nine declarations to get that power back fully ramped up and sustained over a period of time. And so I thank you again for supporting it because I feel like the book succeeded because you are a success. The book won because inside you have something that says, I want to win when I march towards my dreams. That this book achieved what it did as my personal dream because you guys have dreams. And so as I'm striving, you're striving with me. And I've always felt that way with you guys. And so I shoot these videos for you every single week. It's why you see everything that we do on YouTube and Facebook and all the amount of time that we put in the putting out just content to inspire you. I do it because you inspire me. So I just want to thank you guys because this was two years big, big journey. We pushed and we pushed and people believed in us. And I'll never forget your support of this. So thank you. Please pass the word on, Share the link. Get your friends involved. Talk about personal growth again from an intelligent perspective about what's important to us, life. And I think what's important to us in life is being yourself. This is a reflection of me, this book, whether the publisher understood or not. And it's about pursuing your dreams. And this is my dream. And you guys make my dream come true every single day by watching these videos and sharing my message and putting good things out in the world and sharing your own journeys about how you're changing your life or how you're helping other people change their lives. So I honor you guys. I thank you so much. We did it. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, usa, Barnes and Amazon. I mean, it just. It's been such a thrill to be able to do this with you and to see it. So I thank you every single day of my life and I want you to know it. I hope you enjoyed this video. I just can't thank you enough for your support. Please go out there every single day of your life as I've always shared with you. Make sure every single day you go out, you live fully, you love openly, and you stay motivated to make your difference every single day. Thanks, guys.