Book Journeys Author Interview – December 27, 2012
Dr. Angela Lauria with Edwin J. Sprague, author of The Point Guard and The Z Factor: How to Get the Life You Dream of With The Law of Extraordinary Effort.
“… get past the idea that you’ll be somebody when you do something. Well, it doesn’t work that way. You’ll be somebody when you start to do something” ~Edwin J. Sprague
Angela:
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back to Book Journeys Radio! I am Angela Lauria, the author incubator, and I am here today with Edwin J. Sprague, the award-winning inventor and author of The Z Factor: How to Get the Life You Dream Of With The Law of Extraordinary Effort. I hope that doesn’t mean I have to make an extraordinary effort, but we’re gonna find out about this. Ed, thank you so much for being here. I know that The Z Factor isn’t your first book, but why don’t you tell us a little bit about it, ‘cause that’s the one I wanna talk about the most today, and we’ll talk about your first book, as well. Talk about The Z Factor.
Edwin:
You want to talk about The Z – you want me to talk a little bit about The Z Factor, is that what you say?
Angela:
Yeah! …
Edwin:
Okay, well The Z Factor is a – a – my newest book, published by Career Press, and it was a journey to get there, I kinda did the – the self-publishing thing first with my first book, and, in fact, in The Z Factor, I dedicate a chapter to what I did, how I did it, to – to – to get the first book off the ground and running, but the Z factor is – is your gut factor, your Z in guts, your phonetic in guts, but here, in Philadelphia, we have a street version, the abridged, street version is, you gotta get ballsy in life, and the Z is the phonetic in “ballsy.” So, it’s – that’s what the Z factor is about.
Angela:
Got it, and …. You can go to getballzee, which is g-e-t-b-a-double l, then z-double e, so, getballzee.com, and I bet you have more about the book there, too, right?
Edwin:
Yeah, there’s – just go to getballzee, however you spell it, it’ll get you there, getballzee.com or getthezfactor.com, and it’ll tell you all about the book.
Angela:
All right! Excellent! So, what we talk about on Book Journeys Radio, we do – I know your – your first book was a – a nonfiction book, but we talk – was a fiction book, but we mostly talk about nonfiction books here, and how to get on the other side of how to get on the other side of wanting to write a book and then actually holding the book in your hands. So, why don’t you tell us some of the key moments between when you have the idea to write The Z Factor, and – I know it was a – a couple of months ago, right, that you finally had it printed and you’re holding it in your hands. Tell me a little bit about the journey, some of the highlights on that journey.
Edwin:
So, now, we’re talking about the second, the – the – the published book, not the first, self-published book.
Angela:
Right.
Edwin:
Well, The Z Factor – after I had done the first –the – the first of a – a – shot out of the blocks with – with The Point Guard, which was my first book – I learned the business, and I learned the realities of self-publishing and the things that had to happen, and I was dedicated to going, okay, this time, I’ve experienced that I want to go out there, and I want the opportunity to see if I can’t get traditionally published. And the way that I did it was, I really drew on all the things that I learned on, when I did my first book, and one of the things that worked in my favor and really – really help – helped me significantly was that I did finally land an agent, and having landed an agent was really helpful. However, landing an agent didn’t happen in a vacuum. The things that I learned in the first book, and the things that I – that I learned to do, the way I learned to write and things like that, helped me write a very good book proposal. And when I put that book proposal together, and I got it in the hands of some people who knew a little bit about book proposals, and they went, “You know, you’re missing one or two things here, you might wanna tighten this up, or tighten that up.” And I did that, and got it in the hands of an agent, and the agent called me up after he read the proposal and got me a deal – signed me up, and signed me to a deal shortly thereafter.
Angela:
And was all this before you had written the book?
Edwin:
No, I actually wrote the book. I just knew a little about the industry, other than what I had taught myself. I had written (laughs) – and I had written an eighty-three thousand word manuscript that I – I looked up online, how many words should a book, a nonfiction book, that’s an inspirational, motivational book, how many – how many words should it be, and – and it was in the eighty thousand word area, and – so I wrote it, eighty-three thousand words, and in my mind, I’m not the – I always joke, I’m not the brightest – I’m not the sharpest knife in the – in the drawer, but I’m also not a wooden spoon, so I – I kinda looked at it and went, “All right, it’s got to be around eighty thousand words,” I wrote eighty-three thousand words, wrote the proposal, didn’t know that in the – the nonfiction world that you’re better off writing the proposal first, and then writing the book second. But I had already written it – in fact, when – when I got the deal and the – and the publisher said, it’s gotta be seventy thousand words, I kinda went, “Oh, man! I gotta cut thirteen thousand words!“
Angela:
Bummer, I gotta cut thirteen thousand words!
Edwin:
Yeah, yeah! And the way I – and I kinda prided myself in life as being a sort of minimalist, say it in as few words as you can, and do it in as – in as few mo – movements as possible, and I thought, eighty three thousand words, I’ve got really – pare this thing down to the bare bones! So, I actually drove up –
Angela:
Yeah, I’m seeing … shorter now, I’m seeing a l – a move towards fifty, fifty to sixty thousand. So –
Edwin:
You’re right. In fact, when I got with them, they told me seventy thousand, and they – and the reason, they said exactly what you said, everybody’s moving to shorter, there’s more information available online, there’s more things you can do, so we need shorter books.
Angela:
Yup. It’s pretty phenomenal. So, so let – so, when you got the idea for – well, let’s talk about how did you get the idea to write The Z Factor?
Edwin:
Again, it came off of the first book. I – I – an article had been written, and I had done all my own – my own marketing with the first book. I got into some Barnes and Nobles and some other major bookstores, and – so – so, there some reviews being done, and somebody had written a review on me, and it was a full page review in a – in the newspaper. And when I got the newspaper, I’m reading the review, and I’m like, “Holy cow!” It – it was like three columns, I’m like, “Man, this is a big review!” And as I’m reading it, none of the review – none of the review had anything to do with the book! I’m reading it, this is about my life, she had done a very in-depth interview. And it was all about the things that I had done in my life, so – so, I’ve been very fortunate in life to have done the things that I’ve wanted to, like – like a lot of people, you – you dream to take a product to market or play a professional sport or become an author or become the president of your company. Well, I – I’ve been fortunate enough to have done things like that, and – and – and I – I’m reading all these things about – about myself, which I’m kinda laughing at, ‘cause … it’s ridiculous to write this stuff, and at the very end of it was a – was a review of the book. And I called – the woman’s name is Kathleen – I called Kathleen up and thanked her for the article, and I said, “Just curious, y – you wrote ninety percent of it about me and – and not a lot about the –the book itself.” She said, “Well, your book was really good, but your life was compelling.”
Angela:
Mmm.
Edwin:
“If I were you, I would – I would chase that down a little harder.” And – and with that, I thought, “You know what, it’s probably not a bad idea to – to write about something I know a whole lot about, which is myself, and try to develop an audience and a following based on what I think I know and what I can help other people do. So, that’s why I wrote that book.
Angela:
And what – and what was your goal for the book, what was your hope for the book? Wha – what is success – what would success have looked like for you, way back when you had the idea?
Edwin:
Well, it – it just came out, and – and the goal was, I – I – I write this in the book, Angela. I had a goal, it wasn’t to write a book. The goal was to be an author. And, in my mind, the author meant more than what I had done with my self-published book, though that – that qualifies, it certainly qualifies. But I wanted to have a traditional, marketed book, I wanted a traditional contract, I wanted to see the editorial process, go through a traditional house, and – and to experience that, so my – my goal, what success meant to me was, one, getting some representation that would – that would put a stamp on – for me, it would put a stamp on the – your work’s good enough for u – for me to – to put my reputation on the line and represent you. Two was to actually get it published and – and become an actual – and become an author, and be – be known as an author, and then the third thing, which has yet to happen, because I’m still working on it, it was to hit The New York Times bestseller list. And, now, that is an entirely new experience for me. Because, like the first part, when I first wrote the book and decided that I was gonna write the book– when I was a kid, back in the seventies, I wanted to write my first book – now, I’m sitting here, going, “Okay, how do I become a New York Times?” Everything has been a progression. So, those three things would classify for me, in my mind, as success, two of which are now down and out, done ‘em, they’re over with, the third one I’m working on now.
Angela:
And what’s the – what – why do you think you want to be a New York Times bestseller? Is it about book sales? Is it about a credential you wanna use in some other way for your business?
Edwin:
It – yes, to both of them, and thirdly, it – it’s – it – the – little bit more than just credentials. It’s – it’s what I’m shooting for. I’m a goal-setter, I’ve always been a goal-setter all my life, I’ve always looked at things and – in terms of chunks, like, when I always said, “I wanna play football,” and people in my family say, “We do play football,” and I said, “No, no, I wanna be in the NFL. I wanna play football in the NFL.” And they go, “Well, you can play in all different places, but why – why the NFL?”
Angela:
Yeah.
Edwin:
“Well, because, it’s the cream of the crop, it’s the best of the best,” and if y – you get to The New York Times bestseller, you’re the best of the best, a – and that makes – makes it – for me, real. For me. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s real for anybody else. That’s what I set my sights on, and that’s where I wanna stop with it.
Angela:
That’s exciting. So – I always ask this question near the end of the interview, but I’m compelled to ask you right now, so I’m just gonna jump in and ask this one. So, I talk to people every day that call the author incubator that want to have a book, that is a goal that they have, just – they want it, ‘cause they want it, it’s something that came into their head, but for some reason they’re not getting it. There’s something standing in their way, they’re making promises to write – I’ll wake up every day and write five pages, and they’re not doing it, or they come down to their list to accomplish in 2012 and didn’t get to it and they’re frustrated, and, for some reason, people aren’t hitting that goal, and I – we know, we know eighty-five percent of people say that, someday, they want to write a book, and, obviously, eighty-five percent of people don’t write book. So, I’m wondering, from your perspective, if there’s any advice you would give someone who, like you, has a goal orientation, but, maybe, hasn’t reached it in the way that you have with your goal.
Edwin:
Yeah, I – I do, actually, and I’m not quick to give advice on things. I – I al – like I said, I always – was one of my goals, I wanted to write – write a book, and – and it took me thirteen years to write my first book, The Point Guard. And it wasn’t because I wasn’t doing it, it was because I had – I – I would have been diagnosed with ADD as a kid. I was a remedial reader all through school, in high school I was a remedial reader, never got out of the remedial reading class, actually didn’t read at all until I was in my mid-twenties, after I got finished playing football, when I realized that, if I don’t read, it’s gonna poison everything in my life. So, I understand the challenges of sitting down and having to write, particularly when I couldn’t even really read all that effectively. I could read, but I wasn’t reading at the level that I should. And I wish there was a secret that – to – to what I’m about to say, but there really isn’t. When I wrote my first book, I thought about it for the longest time, what am I gonna write about, exactly? So, when the OJ Simpson trial came on years ago, it gave me – the idea of what I wanted to write about. And, Angela, I sat at my kitchen table. Here’s a guy who can’t read, I can’t type, I can’t do that – I take out a piece of paper and a pen and I started writing. I wrote two hundred pages by hand. I was like Forrest Gump, just sitting at the table, just writing after writing – I didn’t care if I got punctuation write, I didn’t care if the words came out right, I just started writing. And after about two hundred pages, I kinda – like Forrest Gump, I went, “Ah, that’s enough of that.” I sat back and went, “All right, now I – I need to know how to type.” So I started teaching myself how to type, and I went back, but I never worried about the grammar, punctuation, anything. I just wrote. And I – if I could say anything to anybody about doing this thing, and – I remember being at a party once, and a guy had told me he invented a product and he was working on a book, he and I had a lot in common. The difference was, he hadn’t started writing his book, and he never wer – he never was going to, because he didn’t have a goal. He didn’t want to be an author and take his lumps. He just wanted to talk about writing a book.
Angela:
Mm-hmm.
Edwin:
So, I said to him, “Look. You have a pen and paper?” And he said, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, hell, you can write a book! Sit down and write a book!” And – anybody can write a book. If – if – if you can sit down and just get started. I – I talk about something that all of us know but don’t really understand that well. It’s called “tactical ignorance.”
Angela:
Mm-hmm.
Edwin:
It – don’t sit there and try to get too far ahead of yourself and worry about how the story is gonna completely unfold, if you’re struggling to get started. Write the first sentence. Sit at a – with a piece of paper, in front of your computer, whatever it is, and write the first s – s – the first sentence. And just keep writing. Don’t worry about what’s right and wrong, you kinda draw yourself into it, like reading a good book, it – when you’re writing a good book, you can’t stop!
Angela:
Mmm. Wow, that’s … a great piece of advice. So, one of the things I hear, almost every time I work with, at some point in the process, even people that are extremely successful, will say to me some version of, “Who – who am I to write this book?” Like, “I’ve – I’ve looked around, and there’s so many books on this – there’s so many books on this topic, I went to a bookstore and there were lots of books, I looked on Amazon, there’s so much free information online,” but why should people listen to me, “Who am I?” Did you have any of those sort of limiting beliefs about your – about yourself, and – especially not having experience as a writer.
Edwin:
Yeah. Yeah, I did, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t. I – I – fortunately, I – I – I’m kinda thick-skinned on certain things, and I guess there’s two parts to this answer, and one of them would be, most people – the average person makes this – and I write about this in The Z Factor – and – and I – everybody thinks they aren’t somebody of significance until they do something of significance, and it really doesn’t always work that way. Typically, you have to start becoming that person that you want to be long before you are that person. So, you have to really go out there and kinda get past the idea that you’ll be somebody when you do something. Well, it doesn’t work that way. You’ll be somebody when you start to do something. So, go out there and doing something now, and that starts the, one, make you believe in yourself as an expert, and then, secondly, the – and – and I had to get over this, too, is – man, there’s a lot of people out there saying the same thing. A – and when I wrote about the things in The Z Factor, fortunately, I was working off my own life, and I didn’t have to look at somebody else’s as an example, so I wasn’t giving the ideas off the cuff or from somebody else’s experience, I’m writing my own. But what I had to realize was, even if I were saying the exact same thing that other people were already saying, it’s coming from somebody different, from a totally different perspective, the messenger is different. We – we – I coach a football team, a seventh and eighth grade foot – I help coach a seventh and eighth grade football team, and one of the coaches came to me and say – before the season start – “Can you help us out? We can’t seem to get our – our defensive line off the ball, or not just getting off the ball fast enough.” I say – I ask them a few questions, I say, “So, what’s up, Sal? … any problems. I watch them and they seem to be getting off the ball on offense.” He said, “Yeah, I don’t know what it is,” and I looked him, and I said, “You know, it just may be the messenger.” He said, “Why? … What’s that?” “… someone told me the exact same thing you guys said. I’m just gonna say it a different way from a different perspective.” And that can create a – a – an entirely different result. Same thing said, just from a – in a different way, from a different person. And if you’re trying to become an expert, I believe – and I – I don’t – I – I think the ex – “expert” word is used way to loosely these days – but I think you can be an expert, provided you have enough years of experience with you – practical experience in doing what you’re doing, and not worry about what other competition is out there, because it’s your perspective. It’s your unique perspective, and your – the way you deliver it as a messenger that – that makes it different.
Angela:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that’s – I think that’s all true, and I think so – so much of it is a mental game, and I know, for you, you had some – you had – you had some experience with – with your own mental game as an athlete and with your – with your corporate experience, so I think a lot of this is – the things that hold people back in one area hold people back in other areas, so if you can … in one area, I don’t – it’ll work in other areas to use that. So – so, when you – when you decided to start writing this book, part of your vision was to work with a traditional publishing house and an agent. How did you go about finding an agent?
Edwin:
Actually, that – I re – I remember, when I got done with the first book, looking around … okay, after all that, and after some of the success that we had with it, I was wondering how I could get to the next level, and, of course, getting to a publishing house would be one of the ways to get there. And – and a traditional publishing house. And – but – but I couldn’t get anybody to take any of my phone calls, nobody – nobody would even talk to me. And I just kinda looked around and went, “All right, there’s gotta be someplace that you can go to that people gather that do this.” Not only am I not talking about joining a writing club, or something like that, where you si – everybody sits around and talks about something, I – I was looking for somebody or someplace that had connections to the people that I needed to meet that could deliver on it. And I knew that that wouldn’t be free, and I know that it wouldn’t be easy. So, I – I started doing my homework, and it took me probably a year, and I landed on a – on a program that’s a local Philadelphia program that I signed up and joined and I told the guy who was running the program, “If anything comes out of this, I would like to be introduced to a – agent.” A – and I knew for a fact, prior to signing up for the class, that – that he had contacts with agents. And then, the rest was up to me. I needed to write a good proposal, et cetera, et cetera. But the – the – the introduction was made – I created the introduction by going to this class and becoming a part of it and paying the tuition and being involved in – in the program.
Angela:
Hah. Is that an approach you would recommend to other people, or knowing what you know now, are there certain ways that somebody wanted an agent that you would recommend?
Edwin:
I’m a pretty aggressive guy, a – a – and I couldn’t get an agent to – to really talk to me. I think that, because I paid the tuition in this class, and that there was agents that knew this, they at least knew I was serious. They would at least look at what I had, and go, “You know what, it’s worth ta – taking the time.” So, I think that you have to look – I – I looked at the book business like I look at the invention business and the direct-response business that we’re in. A – anybody who’s serious has certain things around them, or certain things that they have done that let’s you know they’re serious. And if you step up to the plate and you put yourself in a group of people and you invest your money and your time and effort, I think that people are gonna go, “Yeah, he – he’s serious.” So, I think that you have to wan – have the – the funds and – and be – be able to – to invest in it, but more importantly than having the funds, have the seriousness about it, the – the heart that says, “I’m doing this, and therefore, I will spend money to be a part of a program that may introduce me.” Now, I don’t say that lightly, ‘cause I don’t believe in spending money just for the sake of trying to get involved in something. If you’re good, you’re good, I – and – and it finds a way. In my particular case, because I’d spent so much time trying to get an agent and a traditional publisher with the first book, I had to be reasonable with myself and recognize where I sat in a shoebox, and what I found out in that process was, it would be a hell of a lot easier for me to get where I wanna go if I had an agent. And the program that I joined had three agents associated with it, they had a – they had a good resume, they had good, successful people around them. The guy I met before I spent any money – I met the man, I looked him in the eye – eyeball to eyeball, had a personal meeting with him – and said to myself, “You know what? This is worth – worth – worth the investment.” And an introduction was made, and through that introduction it grew to be a relationship.
Angela:
And with your agent – so, you gave your agent your proposal, you had your book proposal, and that’s what they made the decision to work with you from. And then, how long did it take to find – for your agent to find a publisher that you were happy with, and did you have multiple offers, or how did you end up with Career Press?
Edwin:
We did. Originally, I had – I had somebody from Wylie contact me, because, with this program, there was a – a person that was involved in the – in the – in the class that I had taken – involved with Wylie publishing, and this person helped me out a little bit with my – with my proposal and told me, there’s a couple of things missing that I should probably clean up, but it was in al – pretty much pretty good shape, and then she passed it on to one of the editors in the business and motivational area, and he called me up and said, “I like the proposal a lot. I’d like to send you a copy of a – of our – our standard agreement, and – and I’d like you to consider it.” And so, when I got that, I read through and I realized, “Man, I don’t know enough about –“ I – I have read enough contracts to know that I shouldn’t be reading contracts, so I –
Angela:
Mm-hmm.
Edwin:
(laughs) So, I went back and I hadn’t yet gotten – gotten the – the – the agent yet, and went back and talked to the guy who had sent my proposal out to the three agents, and he said, “Hey, did – did these guys get back to you?” And I said, “No, nobody got back to me.” Well, in a couple of days, one of them did get back to me, shortly thereafter, and I told him I had, in my hand, an – an agreement. And he said, “Lemme look at it,” and we kicked it around, and he said, “Let me shop it around, see what we can do.” And he got a bunch of rejections, but then he – he got an – an offer from – from Career, and we went with Career Press. It was a good match for me, it was a – a smaller publisher that – that would be easier to work with a first-time guy like myself, that I could sit down, have a lot of conversations with, have a lot of input, and – and really be a part of the process.
Angela:
And were you – were you happy with that process? I know a lot of people talked about working with – being super-excited to get a publisher, and then feeling they kind of lose control of their creative work. How was that …?
Edwin:
Yeah – nah, I – I can’t say that. I – I’ll say this, that I was intimidated, to a certain degree, with what I had to do, when I was given a – “Hey, you have six weeks to give us seventy thousand words,” and I had already written eighty three thousand. That was harder than writing a whole book, but I’ll tell ya, I think you have to put things in perspective, and this is what I think a lot of people lose. You get caught up in the art side of things, you get caught up in the – in the writing side of things. Look, when you’re at that point, you’ve written a book, and I think you have to recognize, at that point in your life what it is you’re going after. And I – and everybody has something they’re going after that’s different. Some people are looking for editorial control, some people are not looking for editorial control, they’re looking to get published. I think you have to know what your goal is, and then really stick to what the goal is. So, I was never feeling like, “Aw, this is a pain, I’m losing some editorial control here, and I don’t like the way –“ because they really didn’t treat me that way, in all honesty. They were very good to me. And – and even if they were not, I think I would have been smart enough to go, “Look, you – you’re now – you’re now out on the football field.” I used to say to people, “I – I’m out here, in the parking lot. I just wanna get in the stadium. If I can get in the stadium, I can get a good seat. If I can get a good seat, maybe I can get down to the sidelines. If I can get to the sidelines, maybe I can get onto the field.” So, I think you gotta recognize where you sit in the stadium and where you’re trying to go, and what your ultimate goal was, because if your ultimate goal was to write the book only the way that you see it, and nobody else sees it, then you probably should be happy and okay with the fact that you may not get published. Because there are some realities, they may not like it, or it may take longer, it may take a lot longer, which is okay, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. And you may become the next Charles Dickens, and that’s terrific. My goal wasn’t to become the next Charles Dickens. My goal was to be a published author. And I stuck to that. In my particular case, I didn’t lose anything, they were that – they were fine with me, but I’ve talked to many authors that have said that, “Aw, I don’t like the way they done that.” Well, I don’t know what to say about that.
Angela:
Right. Yeah, I think that’s one of the first steps that people don’t do, is get clear on what their goals are. And that’s definitely one of the big lessons I’m learning from this conversation, is that your – your clarity about your goals actually has allowed you to go even further, because you could still go on them without trying necessarily to do everything in an unspecific way. So …
Edwin:
Y – you – you said it perfectly right, instead of being so locked on so many things – you’re easily – when you’re locked on what it is that you – that you know you’re supposed to be doing, or what you want out if it, it’s easy to let the things that could distract you fly by.
Angela:
So, I love before an afters, this is one of my favorite parts of the interview, so – your first book, The Point Guard, came out when?
Edwin:
2007.
Angela:
2007, okay. So, I just love to talk about the before you were a – I think about the moment of holding your first book in your hands as this “before and after” moment that you can’t really go back from, it’s like being a parent, once you’re a parent, you’re always a parent, once you’re an author, you’re always an author, and I just love, from you, any insights of the before 2007, before The Point Guard was published, and then, after, today. In what ways, either internally or externally, is your life different, now that you’re an author?
Edwin:
That’s a great question. Before – it was something I always wanted to do, of course, obviously, afterwards, it’s something that’s done, it’s a check – i – it’s a check in the other column, but I think that w – what happened to me, is that I’ve recognized something that I didn’t think I actually – I actually didn’t think I could write. I – I wrote the book, because – the first book – because it was o – on that list, and I – I wanted to be an author. And I wrote it, and I plowed through it, and it took thirteen years, and it was really difficult, and when I got that book in my hand, after all the challenges we went through, with the print-on-demand process and self-publishing, and I finally got that book in my hand – I remember, my wife and I looking at each other, going, “Wow! That’s pretty cool!”
Angela:
Mm-hmm.
Edwin:
“That – that’s good! That’s good stuff!” And – and we went out and had a beer and a roast beef sandwich and we had a great time we – we just – we just thought it was the greatest thing. But in that process, Angela, I learned things that I could have never learned. I – I probably coulda hired somebody, I know they had people who would help you write, and I never agreed to any of that. I wanted to make sure that, if I was doing this, I wanted to be the person who would take the lumps, or get the rewards. So, I went through it, and I did it all myself. So that, when I got to the second book, when I got to this one, I wrote it much, much quicker. There were so many things I’d learned in the process that, actually, as I was writing it, I could ac – there – there was never times in the first book where I got done and I went, “That’s – that’s good writing!” I – I went, “That’s a good story, that’s good,” and I – ‘cause I just didn’t know enough. But when I got to the second book, when I was going through it, because I had so much experien – not so much, but I had some experience to that point, I was going through, and I go, “That’s – that’s good writing, that’s good writing, I can leave that alone and move on.” I was always second-guessing myself in the first time, this time, I – I’m not second-guessing myself, and – and, if and when there’s a third, it – it – there won’t be the, “You know, I wonder if I can do this,” it’ll be, “Well, this is what I do for a living, … one out, you gotta do this now.”
Angela:
Right. Right. So, I think that’s fantastic, I know – I know that you have, in addition to the book, or the books, you have – you also do coaching, right?
Edwin:
I do. I – I – I help – you – you … about professionally, correct?
Angela:
Yeah.
Edwin:
Yeah, I – I – I’ve not done that sort of stuff, I’ve stayed away from it, and because I – I – I typically do a lot of stuff, when, I should be careful saying this, for free, as an inventor.
Angela:
Mm-hmm.
Edwin:
I’ve – I’ve had so many failures as an inventor until something really took off, had a couple of products that did well. And I – one of the guys in our sister company always jokes, he says, “You give everybody that much time?” I go, “Well, when someone contacts me and I talk to them, I try to give them some free time, because I know what it’s like to try to chase someone down, try to find somebody who can help me out, ‘cause of their –“ they’re – they’re kind of like in a giant ocean, “so – so, can someone point me to a bouy? I’m not even looking for an inlet or – or a place to land, I’m just looking for some sort of light, something that could let me know I’m not alone!”
Angela:
Mm-hmm!
Edwin:
And – and I try to put myself in that position, and – and I rarely, if ever, turn it into a business. I – I – I kindly s – sit there and kinda sit there, and go, “Oh, you have an idea, let me see if I can’t pull some –“
Angela:
Well, I want people to – I want people to check out getballzee.com, ‘cause you definitely have an amazing biography. I think you’ve given people a lot of food for thought today, and – and, hopefully, they can reach out or download or get your book or whatever and learn more. I know you have a lot to teach people, and I appreciate you taking the time with our audience today. Thank you so much, Ed.
Edwin:
Thanks, Angela, I really appreciate being on!
Angela:
Great! Well, we will be back next week with more Book Journeys Radio! Thanks, everyone, for listening!