Mike Michalowicz's Toilet Paper Entrepreneur sold zero copies on launch day. Instead of quitting, he drove to colleges like Princeton and Rutgers, spoke for free, and pitched the book directly to students. Sales were slow, but the grassroots push kept him going.
In any aspect of life, we may choose to have this profound connection that it's part of us. Here's my assessment. Your children are part of you. I mean, biologically, they're part of you. Sure. But there is this visceral connection. I think we can have that same emotional connection with different purposes in life. I got to do this. I need to do this. And then there's nothing that will get in your way.
Right. Well, you could talk about Toilet Paper Entrepreneur wasn't the success that you had hoped it was going to be. Definitely wasn't the path I expected.
Yeah.
Didn't dissuade you. You were still driven. You still knew that authorship was what you were meant to do.
My first day with the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, the launch, I didn't know what a launch was. I simply said, I guess you post on Amazon.
We're good to go.
Yeah, good to go.
And there was no sales on that first day.
And I'm like, what is going on? I spoke with an author later that day. I can't remember who it was, but I want to thank this person because they said something funny. I said, I didn't sell any books today. And they said, oh, don't worry. That's simply the quiet before the quiet. Before the absolute quiet. Yeah, the quiet before the absolute quiet. And it was like, oh, it was such a gut punch. And they were speaking factually, if I didn't take action, there's gonna be quiet. So I'm like, okay, this failed. It actually inspired me. I said, okay, I'm gonna get out here and start the grind. I went to colleges all around here from CCM, went down to Princeton. I went to Rutgers and William Paterson and all these different schools. I started traveling across the country, going to school after school and just pushing books. I was getting speaking engagement, often speaking for free and seeing if I can get the school or the students to buy books. I sold 1 or 2 here. I sold 3 or 4 there. And that was it. I felt so called to do this. I'm like, if this doesn't work, I'm not stopping. I don't care.
So that doggedness like pushes you past the whole failure thing. That's what keeps you still going.
