In this LinkedIn Live interview, Becky Robinson shares her personal journey and challenges in writing and publishing a book while running her agency. She explains her initial reluctance, weighing the cost‑benefit of the time and effort required to write and market a book against its potential impact on her business and thought leadership. During the pandemic, she revisited the idea of a traditionally published book and decided to align its release with her company’s ten‑year anniversary, creating a dual milestone. Becky describes how she managed the writing process by using off‑hours, primarily weekends, acknowledging the opportunity cost for a CEO and emphasizing the need for clear boundaries between work and personal time.
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So I had, I had the same reluctance that you have, Peter, about kind of following through on my dream to have a book or my desire to put my thought leadership out into the world. And part of the reason is because selling books is really, really, really hard. It's even harder than I imagined. And so I would always weigh in my mind kind of the cost-benefit analysis that you're talking about of, you know, is the amount of time that I'm going to put into writing and marketing my own book going to be worth the impact that the book has in the world for my business or for my ideas? So I really did struggle with that, Peter. And, you know, like others during the pandemic, when things were, were kind of a bit slower, I revisited the idea of doing a traditionally published book. And eventually what I got to, honestly, was the fact that my company would be reaching this decade mark. And I thought, well, what if— Mm-hmm. I time it so that I submit my book proposal and I have my book come out And it's all around the time that my company will celebrate a decade. And then I can have these 2 milestones at once and have this product of value to offer. So as it relates to juggling, you know, being the CEO of my own agency and writing the book, what I'll tell you is that I mostly did the book in my off-hours time.
Yeah, but do CEOs really have off-hours? I mean, there's an opportunity cost, right?
Sure, there definitely is an opportunity cost. I would say that I did a lot of writing on the weekends. So I don't— I typically try to have a pretty boundaried life. I don't work on the weekends now. You know, in the beginning of my company, I worked
