Perfectionism Will Stop Your Service

This is the reason why many of us, including me, often fall short of truly changing people’s lives.

On today’s episode Russell talks about struggling with his need to perfect his book as he’s reading it for the audiobook version. He remembers struggling with it 2 1/2 years ago when doing the same thing with Dotcom Secrets book and how that has helped work through it this time.

Here are some of the cool things you’ll hear in this episode;

• Why Russell struggled to do the audiobook version of the Dotcom Secrets book, and how that is helping him get through it with the Expert Secrets book.
• What Russell learned from listening to Brian Tracey onstage versus a Brian Tracey audiobook that was too perfect.
• And why sometimes we should let our perfections go because that might be keeping us from changing others lives.

So listen below to find out why Russell struggles so much doing the audiobook versions of his books.

---Transcript---

Good morning everybody, it’s Monday, well at least for me. Who knows when you’ll listen to this. But even if it’s not Monday, treat it like it’s Monday because it’s going to be amazing today. I am actually on my way to go record the last half of the Expert Secrets book for audiobook format.

It’s interesting, I don’t know how many of you guys have done it before, but I remember the Dotcom Secrets book, when it was done we were planning the launch, everything was happening. And all the sudden the week before I was like, “Wait a minute, what if we did an order form bump that was the audiobook? That’d be the coolest thing in the world.” So then I was like, how do you make an audiobook? So I tried to start recording it myself, and that didn’t work.  So I’m like, there’s gotta be recording studios that do this kind of thing.

So I search around, there’s this dude in Boise who has a recording studio for bands, but I don’t think we’re in the era where bands record a lot of stuff anymore or whatever. So anyway, I hired him to do the book and it was awesome, kind of. Well, it turned out awesome for those that got the audiobook version. But a couple of things, because I forgot the mental turmoil that I went through. So the problem is he said normally people spend a week recording an audiobook but I had to do it all in one day because I was in a huge time crunch.

So I started trying to do the whole book in a day, which had a lot of pain associated with it because it just took so long. And it was tiring and it was, I was trying to keep my energy level up because I didn’t want people listening and each chapter getting tired-er and tired-er with me. So I was doing all sorts of stuff to keep me awake and alert, which was really hard. Honestly, there’s a lot of pain associated with that first book.

And the other thing that is interesting, first half of the Dotcom Secrets book is written like a story so it sounds really well. Then the last half it’s like examples and things that don’t make sense as an audiobook. So I recorded it and I remember as I’m doing that whole thing, it made me really self conscious about the book because I was like, these don’t sound awesome. The first half of the book sounded cool, but these parts, me telling the script and plugging in examples, it just doesn’t work unless you’re reading it.

So I did it, but what’s interesting is when it was done, I was, and I forgot about this until Friday when I started recording this version, but I forgot how self conscious when it came to the book while I was recording the audiobook version. It was this weird mind thing where I was like, this book is not very good. Because I don’t think it’s that good as an audiobook. But because of that, I never, after that was the last time I read the book, was when I did the audiobook. I put it on a shelf and I never read it.

Then we launched it, literally a week later and sold, I think last we checked it was like 79 thousand copies, so we’re getting close to one hundred thousand copies, which is awesome. And I’ve had insane amounts of people tell me that the book changed their life and changed their perspective on things and helped them understand marketing and sales and funnels. It did it’s job and I’m really proud of it. Really, really proud of it.

What’s funny is that I know that as we’re approaching our next book launch, there was things I wanted to clean up in the book, and most of them are things that I remember came to my head during the audiobook version, things that bugged me back then. So last week when I was flying to Arizona on Wednesday I got the old book out and I was highlighting all the stuff I wanted to change. And as I was reading it I was like, “Man, this book…” I probably shouldn’t say this about your book, it’s not very humble, “This book is really good.” I was really proud of it, even though there’s things I want to change and tweak or whatever, but I was really proud of it.

And I forgot. I was like, “Man, I haven’t read this in a long time, I forgot about it.” And then Friday I went in to read the Expert Secrets book I started getting this, I was sitting in the exact same chair, in the exact same room, exact same everything as the Dotcom Secrets book. And the first part of the book is similar. It reads like a story, so it, I was liking it. But then I got to the parts that are similar, where it’s like I’m taking the power point slides and I’m plugging in all the stuff. And it doesn’t read good as an audiobook that way. So I started becoming more and more self conscious as I was reading it.

I spent probably 6 or 7 hours in the studio recording the book and by the time I left, I was a wreck, my whole brain was just second guessing the book, is it any good? Maybe it’s not any good? What if people don’t like this because it doesn’t make sense this way? And all the sudden as I was sitting at home I was laying there, after I think my wife went to bed. I think I was watching Shark Tank or something because I was hopped up on enough caffeine to give me energy to read the book and I couldn’t fall asleep.

I was sitting there and stressing out and then I was just like “Huh, I kind of remember this from 2 ½ years ago when I did it with the Dotcom Secrets book, and I remember how much I second guessed the book and  I didn’t even want to sell it after I finished the audiobook. But we did it anyway because I was like I can’t do anything, I just have to put it out there. I kind of feel the same way about the Expert Secrets book. And this time luckily it broke up into two days, otherwise it would have been even worse. That’s why I’m going back to do the last. I probably got 68 percent of it done on Friday and I’m going to do the last 40 today.

It’s just funny how much you second guess yourself. And I started thinking about all the products I’ve created in the last 14 years, and the interesting thing is I’ve never gone back and watched any of the products ever. And I think that the problem that some of us have, is that we do. You put your heart and your soul into something and when you’re creating it, you know it’s right. When I was working on the book I was like, “I know this is right. I know.” I felt right about it and then when I went back for the book version, its me doing the audiobook, you start second guessing yourself because you’re like, “Ah, I didn’t say that right. I should have said it this way. “ So much of this stuff floods into your mind that if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s being published, it’s being printed, the launch date’s happening, all these things, I probably would just pull the plug.

“You know what? Screw it, I hate this book.” Just running away. Luckily the wheels are in motion just like the Dotcom Secrets book, I couldn’t do anything about it. The Dotcom Secrets book we were giving away a Ferrari, there were no if, ands, or buts. This is happening whether I liked it or not. The same thing with this and I’m grateful for that because I think a lot of us, we record something and we go back and listen to it, and then you second guess yourself and you cancel this thing that could have been life changing for somebody else.

So I would recommend for a lot of you guys, first off, if you’re editing your own videos or audio, I bet that’s hard. I luckily have no skills or talents, so I’m not able to do that, but if I could I can imagine how I would be stressing out and trying to cut our every cough or hiccup and everything. I would be trying to make it perfect, whereas the perfection is often times what kills the project or what takes the soul out of it.

You know Marketing In Your Car, you’ve guys have heard me sneeze, you’ve heard me almost kill squirrels, I even got pulled over once, or at least almost pulled over multiple times. But that rawness of it is what makes it intriguing. I think sometimes we try to perfect it so much that it loses it. I remember I was listening to a Jay Abraham course back in the day and it’s the first time I remember hearing Brian Tracey and I was listening to this presentation of him on stage and I was like, “Dude, this guy is captivating.” Everything was amazing about it. I was like I want to learn everything Brian Tracey. So I went online and to Ebay and bought every Brian Tracey course known to man, and the first one I plug in and it’s Brian in the studio reading a book and I was like, I listened for probably an hour and I was like, this is horrible. I just turned it off and I’ve never listened to Brian Tracey since, which is sad because the first experience with him live in front of people, there are flaws and things and it was amazing.

In fact, it’s interesting, everyone is obsessed with audiobooks, and I like audiobooks, but if you look at what I listen to, this morning while I was working out I was not listening to a course of Dan Kennedy onstage. Because there’s something, I like people’s energy on Stage much better than their energy reading a book in a studio, typically. That’s why I’ve tried to keep, in fact that’s one big reason why I read my own audiobook, as opposed to everyone else was like, “Don’t read your own audiobook, hire someone else to do it for you.”  because of the pain I’m going through now, but I was like “Then you’ve got some dude reading a book to you. At lease when I’m doing it I’m able to use my own voice inflections and talk the way I would speak to somebody more personally and have a little more fun with it.

But there’s something about live, so I would just say, the  reason why I’m sharing any of this, in fact, I think sharing my mental battles I have with myself over my own content is the same thing all of you guys are dealing with. And I would just recommend to, if I was most of you, don’t ever go watch your course after you do it. Let the people speak. Because you’re going to be so, at least for me, I’m so critical of myself, I would hat everything.

I literally, if I went back to every podcast I would edit out every stutter, which I just did three of them right there in a row. I would edit out every cough, every sneeze, edit everything and then it would become this perfect thing and you guys wouldn’t connect to it. I just think it’s important to pull yourself out of the editing of the content if you are the content creator, because I think sometimes because of our perfectionism, that we like and we expect of our own stuff, it will actually keep you from creating what will give people the lasting change that they had made.

So I hope that helps somebody who’s stuck in that part of it right now like I was and have been and am in often. With that said, I’m going to wrap this, for a couple of reasons. One, it’s kind of the end of the thought. Two, I’m about to get on the freeway and I have no idea exactly where I’m going, I’m really bad at directions, so I gotta turn GPS on my phone. I should have just done the episode with GPS on and you guys could have heard every two minutes, “Turn left here. In one quarter mile, turn right.” But anyway, I didn’t do that, so you guys missed out.

Anyway, I’m going to bounce, appreciate you guys all, have an amazing day and don’t be perfection, don’t try to be perfect in your content. Just create stuff and put it out there because I think perfection is the number one thing that’ll kill your ability to change your customer’s lives. With that said, appreciate you guys and I’ll talk to you soon.