By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you write your book. Reading time: 3:11.

You’re smart. You’re thoughtful. You’re insightful. Your colleagues tell you that you should write a book. But you’re too busy –even with the services of a ghost writer to prod you. You just don’t have the time.

Me neither. That’s why I had to find the time to write my book and now I want to help you find the time to write yours.

Here are a few examples from other leaders who converted their excuses into excursions and booked their own flight into the publishing world.

They wrote their books despite overwhelming odds. They found their Write Stuff despite challenging obstacles. And they reinforced their leadership role –one chapter at a time. So can you.

EXCUSE No. 1. “I just don’t have the time.”

Wayne Dyer wrote Your Erroneous Zones in 18 days; Voltaire wrote Candide in four weeks and Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in six weeks. In two months, Winston Churchill wrote his first book Savrola. In three months, architect, inventor and poet Buckminster Fuller wrote 2,000 typewritten pages.

EXCUSE No. 2 “I can’t even find a free hour a day.”

Margaret Mead, the anthropologist and author of 34 books, began her day at 5 am writing 1,000 words every morning before breakfast. Thomas Aquinas used to work on many different books at the same time while writing his 50-volume Summa Theologica. Teddy Roosevelt dictated up to 25 letters per hour, alternating between two secretaries. And Thomas Jefferson wrote 20 letters a day as president.

EXCUSE No. 3 “Need to remodel my home office first.”

John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress in prison on untwisted papers used to cork bottles. Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, in prison on scraps of leather. Albert Schweitzer also began writing a book (Philosophy of Civilization) on his first day in prison when he was forced to give up his medical practice in Africa.

EXCUSE No. 4 “ I can’t find all the research documents I’ll need.”

The only copy of Thomas Carlyle’ s just-completed manuscript was mistakenly burned in a fireplace. So were all of his notes. No problem. Carlyle reconstructed and rewrote the book again -from memory -on the French Revolution.

EXCUSE No. 5 “My eyes strain when I concentrate too intently.”

John Milton, the blind author, would wake up in the middle of the night and compose more than 100 lines in his head. In the morning he would dictate the lines to one of his nephews. Milton kept up this routine for more than 10 years in writing the 12 books of Paradise Lost.

So what’s your excuse? Max De Pree, the author of Leadership Jazz, says that writing is one of the ways he has “found my own voice over the years.”

No more excuses. Write your book as I did in Get a GRIP on Your Dream and you will find that your voice as a leaeder is more than amplified. Your voice is magnified, multiplied and clarified. Over Time.

Today’s ImproveMINT

Work every day on your writing to keep your leadership thinking in mint condition.

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