MBA2188 Must Read: On Writing by Stephen King

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Hey oh. Welcome to the $100 MBA show, the business podcast you can count on every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is a must read episode. On our must Read Episodes, I share with you a book that I've read that has influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights and why you should read it too. Today's must read is on Writing by Stephen King. Stephen King is mostly known for his fiction work, his horror and thrillers like it and Misery and the Shining. But this book is not that. This is Stephen King's only non fiction book and it's all about writing. It's about what it's like to be a writer, to write books, articles, even blog posts. And his advice to those who are trying to write great words or great work for their audience. Now if you're an entrepreneur, you know that I believe that your number one skill that you need to cultivate is your communication skills. And that includes writing. Whether that's an email, whether that's a tweet, a blog post, sales copy. Being a better writer means you're a better communicator, a better salesperson, A person that knows how to transmit their message clearly. And this is why I wanted to read this book. And boy do I not regret it. In today's episode, I'm going to share with you some of my favorite highlights from this book. And no matter what kind of business you have or what kind of business you plan to have, this book can help you be a better communicator, writer, and thinker. I can't wait to get into the nuggets. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Gas, snacks, tolls. This trip is draining my wallet.

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On writing by.

Stephen King is a must read and.

There'S no way around it. Even though this book is a nonfiction book on writing and becoming a better writer, there's so many great stories he shares in this book. The subtitle of the book is A Memoir to Writing, and there's so many great stories that help illustrate the points he's making in the book. Speaking of stories, one of the things that Stephen King talks about early in the book is the fact that everybody can be a good writer and storyteller. They have the requisite talent. But most people don't kind of cultivate that talent. They don't work on it. They don't strengthen that talent. And therefore when they try to write, it's difficult or it's just rubbish. He says that if you want to get great at writing, if you want to feel like you know how to produce great work, it's going to take work. And he says the best writers do this. The best writers work the hardest. It doesn't come easy even to somebody like Stephen King. But he adds to this point that anybody can work on their skills as a writer, but ideas? That's out of our hands. I think this is an interesting perspective. He believes that ideas are not in our control. Ideas come to us and they come to all of us. Many of us ignore these ideas or don't capture them or don't pay attention to them. When they come to you, you're distracted, you're too busy, you're not open, and therefore you think you have no ideas. The best writers are always on the lookout for ideas, meaning they're on high alert. They know ideas will come at some point. And the best writers have little notepads. They jot down these ideas. Even if they're falling asleep in bed or when they just wake up in the morning, an idea pops in their head. He says, I don't know where these ideas come from. He's just saying it like it is. But they do come, and you just got to be ready for them. And he gives examples about ideas that just came to him out of the blue. He got the idea, he jotted it down, he got to work, he implemented on that idea, and he was a bestseller. So, as we dive into this must read episode, I want to share with you five of my favorite insights. There's so many more, but these are my five favorites, and it was hard for me to choose these five, but I want to focus on these five. We're going to talk about them, we're going to unpack them, and how these insights can help you as a business owner. The first insight is he talks about your work ethic as a writer. Now, this book is about writing, but you can apply this to pretty much anything, including entrepreneurship, creating your sales system, creating your marketing system, hiring team members, all kinds of stuff. Here's that first insight, and it's stopping work when things are difficult, stopping work when it's hard, either emotionally or even what he calls imaginatively in your mind, the creativity of it all. If you stop because it's hard, because it's not coming easy, he says this is a bad idea. It's a horrible idea. Don't stop, he says. Go towards the pain. Go towards what's hard. Because behind that is some amazing stuff, he says. And I can definitely agree with this, especially when it comes to writing. When you're sharing something that's kind of difficult, vulnerable, even painful, you're hesitant. You're not even comfortable sharing it with yourself. Meaning, like putting it out of yourself and putting it on paper or on the screen. But once you actually do it and work on it, you start to realize this is actually probably something that I'll consider some of my best work. And I feel this way about anything in business. When I'm creating a sales video for Example that's a little bit different than the typical sales video that I've done before. I'm taking a risk, I'm putting myself out there. Or I have a different perspective on an idea or a technique, and I teach it in a workshop. Doing the uncomfortable things sometimes is just what you need to do to get better. So I love this concept of going towards the pain and understanding behind that.

Pain is something great.

The next concept, concept number two that I wanted to share is that writing, he says, is lonely. Having someone that believes in you makes all the difference. I cannot tell you how true this is. Entrepreneurship is very lonely. Running a business is hard and taxing, and many of us, we just feel like, man, does anybody get us? We're a bunch of misfits, right? But I can tell you firsthand, having my wife, Nicole, who's a part of the business, but also just my number one supporter. I have somebody to lean on. I have somebody to talk to. I have somebody who doesn't think I'm crazy, sometimes just gives me encouraging words and says, hey, you'll get through this. You always do. This is sometimes the difference between people that are successful and not successful, people that have somebody to push them and support them and to really just love them, be there for them when they're vulnerable so they can make it through, you know, tough times and challenges in their business and their life. Now Stephen King's talking about a life of a writer, where writing books is a lonely process. And having somebody that just supports you helps a ton of. So I highly recommend, whether you're married, you're single, you're somewhere in between, is to have a good network of people. I say have five strong friends that you can count on. Hopefully one of those people you live with, your partner in life, maybe a close friend, maybe even a relative, like a mom or a dad or an uncle that you can lean on, and then four really strong friends that you can stay in touch with, that you can communicate with, maybe even see a few times a month, somebody that you can just be open and honest with and not worry about what they think of you. It's not going to change your life or your business in any way. They're just there to support you because that's super important as you go through the ups and downs of your journey. Number three, I love this. And I changed my office because of it. My office. What are you talking about? Omar, let me tell you. He says, put your desk in the.

Corner of your room, not the middle.

Of the room, and the Reason why is because he says that it's a reminder. It's a reminder that your life is not a support system for your art. It's the other way around. Your art is a support system for your life. You need the art to give you the life that you want, to give you the happiness, to give you the satisfaction, to give you that feeling of significance. A lot of us, we like to kind of have work support us in so many angles. I know I just talk about somebody who supports you, but even that, that person's supporting you and your art, your work, that's why you need that support. And this is a very deep point. It's reminding yourself that, hey, I don't do all these other non work things to help me run a business or help me become a better entrepreneur. I actually become a better entrepreneur to have a better life. The entrepreneurship of it all helps me succeed, helps me win at life and enjoy my life, the other aspects of my life more. And this is such a fantastic way to look at work. Why? Because when you sit, sit down on your desk and you start working on your business, whatever that is, your new product, your new service, working on ways to make more money, revenue expansion, revenue, your mindset is, when I do this work and I'm successful, I'm going to have a better life. It's going to make me feel better. It's going to give me the fruits of the labor, meaning it's going to pay me so I can have a.

Better life and support my family and.

Support my goals and my wants and needs. It's getting real with the situation that my art, my work, fulfills me internally, but also externally. And it's this idea that my art, my work, serves me. I don't serve the work right. I don't do everything to make sure I can work. The work works for me. So my life is great. All right, insight number four. And this one is all about writing. Since the only thing that you can really do to mess up your writing is to try to use unnecessary large words. When he says large words, he means like long, fancy words. And he says most of the time when we try to do this, it's because we're ashamed of the little words. But he says that's not the point of writing. The point of writing is for those who are reading it to read it effortlessly. So when you're choosing which words to use, use the first word that comes to mind, the most common word. He has this great concept that says writing is meant to be read, which is Great. If you think about it, I know it sounds so simple, but like when you write something, whether it's an email to your newsletter or it's sales cop on a landing page, the whole point is to make it easy to read that people read it. If they're not reading it, then your writing has no purpose. So if people get stuck on a word or they look it up or it just doesn't flow, you got a problem. My buddy Neville Medora, who is a great copywriter who runs a course called the Copywriting Course and is the author of a lot of different kinds of writing books, he says use your caveman voice, which is like, just keep it simple. Even if short sentences, people like clear language. Don't try to go too fancy and use long words as Stephen King says.

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All right, we went over some amazing insights from Stephen King in his book on writing. Absolutely love this book, but let me share with you one more. He says, write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Now he explains what this means. He means when you're writing the story, writing your article, writing your copy for the first time, write the whole thing just by yourself. This is for you, okay? You need to get the ideas out. You gotta just kind of have something completed, something that is actually whole. And before you ask for feedback or get somebody to read it or help you edit it or rewrite it, just be content with what's on the page. Like you're happy, you got what you needed to get out. You have all the ideas out there. You're not going to add something later. Maybe you'll remove some stuff, but this is what you want to communicate. Make sure whatever you wanted to communicate is on the page. And this is an intimate time between you and your mind, right? A chance for you to reflect, chance for you to understand, hey, this is gonna have an impact on people. I need to make sure I put everything I want on the page. Once you do that, then have your door open. Give somebody a shout. Ask a friend, hey, read this. Let's rewrite this together. Let's edit this. Why? Because he believes that you need to make sure that your ideas are there and that it doesn't become a piece that's always co authored by somebody where you're creating stuff on the fly with somebody. You might miss a gem, you might miss an insight. You might miss what makes your writing amazing or a book amazing because you didn't just pour everything out first before rewriting, before asking for insights, before asking for edits. Guys and Gals On Writing by Stephen King was one of my favorite reads this year. Such a strong book. It's actually a lot of fun to listen to in audible or with Audible, the app, he does a narration. There's a lot of fun stories. Like I mentioned, it really paints a picture of how he became the writer he is. If you love hard work, if you love learning from a master, then you're going to love On Writing by Stephen King. That wraps up today's lesson. Thanks so much for listening. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe. Hit follow on your favorite podcast app right now and leave us a rating and review. If you're on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, that's super easy. Just click Follow and click the stars. If you want to learn more about our podcast about the hundred dollar MBA, just go to 100-mba.net. there's a lot of free goodies there for you. Head on over to our website and check us out. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of my favorite quotes by Tony Robbins is Success leaves clues. If somebody offers you advice that is successful, you take it. You don't refuse it because worst case scenario, you learn something from it. You take part of the advice. You apply some of it. You don't apply it at all, but you learn something and it's based on real experience. And Stephen King is a master writer. And even if you're not looking to be a New York Times bestselling author, this book will help you just become better at whatever you love doing. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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