A Personal Update On My Upcoming Book - Million Dollar Grit

Welcome to Million Dollar Grit, the podcast that dives deep into the world of entrepreneurship, where tenacity meets strategy and dreams meet reality. My name is Julie, and I explore the raw, often overlooked truths of what it takes to succeed in business and in life. It's not just about the glossy success stories. It's about the grit it takes to get there. Hey, everyone, this is Julie. Welcome back to Million Dollar Grit. So I have a personal update to give you all about my book. So I started writing the book Million Dollar Grit about two years ago, and like most people who write books, the idea and the story and everything probably changes a million times and you have a million drafts. And I have to say, of everything I've done in online business, this is by far the hardest thing I've done. And I'm not sure that it's the writing a book part online, although that is difficult. But I've written books before and I wrote Marketing Secrets, which is a, you know, full length book, 50,000 words. I wrote a book even prior to this when I was younger and more foolish and didn't have that, like, cursive genius. So it's not like I haven't written that many words before, but this particular story had a lot of emotional landmines for me, and so it has changed significantly from where I began. So I want to tell you what's coming and whether or not this would be of interest to you. So the original plan of Million Dollar Grit was to tell the story of how I went from making no money to making millions. And I thought I was going to stretch a long time period, like 2007 all the way to 2022. So over a. And there are a bunch of personal life crises in there. There are a lot of business lessons. And had I stayed on that path, I would have had 75,000, 80,000 words. In fact, I did kind of get through an original draft. The issue is that there are so many stories in there that I'm still not sure that I'm completely ready to tell. And because they happened just a couple years ago, I thought, you know, I'm having a lot of resistance. And it's not that there's anything like super titillating or, you know, like, secretive, but it's just recent and I'm still growing and learning from some of it. Not to mention, there are some issues around privacy and whatnot. And I've had a really rough go of haters and folks that want to extort me. And so this was causing a lot of headache. And so One day I, I had a realization that the book is called Million Dollar Grit. And so what if I just wrote the story of how I got to my first million dollars? You know, because that is honestly the part of business that a lot of people don't talk about. You know, people talk, they say, oh, you know, your first million is the hardest, and then it's easier. That is a true statement, but nobody really talks about exactly what they did to get to that first million. And so I thought, well, if I do that, that's going to trim the story down significantly. It's not even going to be a full length book. It's going to only be, you know, about 30,000 words or so. It's going to cover the year 2007 to 2017. So it's going to be a decade. In fact, the story doesn't even get me to the point where Funnel Gorgeous, my company with Kathy, exists because that didn't start till 2018. It doesn't even really address any of my time at clickfunnels. It doesn't address the launch of my mastermind, Digital Insiders. And the funny part about this is most people know me through one of those three channels. They know me either as, you know, the host of Digital Insiders, they know me as the co founder of Funnel Gorgeous, or they know me as, you know, the woman in Click Funnels during the, the heyday years. And so this is the story before any of that happens. And so I felt really good about that. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just focus on that first million and focus on the lessons that I learned as I was really accidentally building a business. There was nothing deliberate or intentional. I had no idea that I was marching toward a million dollar business. And so this is just a funny sort of journey that I took realizing, oh, that works. Oh, oh, look at this. You know, and I think about it, I'm like, you know, really probably didn't have to take me 10 years to figure out how to make a million dollars, but it did because I was making a lot of mistakes along the way and I was managing a lot of crises along the way and raising children and going through divorce and all of those things. So the official manuscript is complete. It is a hybrid memoir and business. I originally thought it was going to be much more business oriented. I thought it was going to be finance oriented. In fact, about a year ago, I reached out to my list and said, I'm thinking about some financial ideas and frameworks and I want to test them on my students before I put them in the book. So it was very much like, hey, this is going to be almost like a financy businessy book. That's not really what ended up happening. It's very story based. So it basically chronologically goes through my life in those 10 years and talks about the stories. And I try to pull one core lesson that you can take as you're building your business. So it works out to be 15, about 15 chapters. So there's 15 lessons that are million dollar lessons and that will serve you well. And so that is what is now in. I'm in the developmental editing stages and if you've been following me, you know that in the last couple months I have been a little bit more vocal about my faith and about my, you know, sort of falling back in love with my spiritual side. And so I've been really diligently asking God about this particular book and what purpose it serves because it feels a little bit like the rock in the river holding back the water, that as soon as this book is out into the world, there's going to be more and more and more. And I don't really know what those books are yet or what shape they will take, but I know they're there. And this is the first one. This is sort of my first gift to the world in terms of like, here is sort of that gritty, like, let me help you get on your feet type of book. So I felt like God said, I need you to give this away. So I'm going to be giving this away. This is not going to be anything that costs money. I want to put it in the hands of people who need it, who need that inspiration and that permission and that hope. And also they need some, you know, tactical help. So it's going to be a free book, which means it's going to only be in ebook format. I know some of you are bummed about that. You've said, oh, can you please print it? But I'm going to go ahead and release it as an ebook. I have also decided that I'm going to release it as a private podcast as well. So once that's ready, I'll give more information. So this is, you know, my public podcast. I talk about, you know, current trends and tactics and ideas in Internet marketing. But there will be a private podcast that goes through this first, you know, 10 years of my business journey in making my first million dollars. So it will be the story read aloud, but it will also include a little bit of commentary that didn't make it into the manuscript. So that's the update. I don't know how fast it's going to be for me to get it into ebook format. I don't think it's going to take too much longer. I really appreciate all the people who've patiently waited. If you want to be notified of the release, you can go emails by julie.com MDG million dollar grit and you can subscribe to get updates on the release. I'm going to start emailing my list explaining all of this and what's coming and you guys will be the first to be able to grab the file. I will put it in a format so that it can be read on any sort of reading device and Kindle and then I will try to get that podcast feed going and go chapter by chapter. So I wanted to give you an update on that. I'm really excited to get this story done and get this loop closed so that I can move on to the next projects that are in line for me. So I appreciate the support and those of you who have read and given feedback and I will talk to you soon. And there you have it, folks. Another dose of Million Dollar Grit. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired, equipped and ready to face your own entrepreneurial journey with resolve. Remember, until next time, embrace the struggle, Harness your grit and keep, keep pushing forward. You're stronger than any challenge you face. I'm Julie and this has been Million Dollar Grand.