I'm Delegating An Entire Book

Transcript from video:

Hey, it's Alzay Calhoun with Coveted Consultant. And you read the title right. Yes, I am delegating the creation of an entire book. But let's put that in context, because these kinds of headlines read as some magic secret sauce where you can write a book in 30 seconds without doing any effort. And that is not what I'm talking about. Let's talk about this from a bit more of a pragmatic approach. So here's the thing, is there have been people along the way who have responded to these videos and they've said, "Hey Alzay, where's the book?" There are folks who have written me emails, and messages and so forth on social media, "Hey Alzay, you should write a book." So I appreciate that vote of confidence from people. And that's something that I've thought about, was really deliberately creating a specific kind of book for Coveted Consultant, but I also realize the amount of effort that goes into writing a book; it's not the kind of thing I think you should do passively.

So I've had to balance the work that I know that is required in creating a book versus what I'm currently working on inside of my business, and where I want my attention to go. So long story short, I've decided to delegate the creation of the book. Now, creating a book involves multiple work streams that happen at the same time. I know no one talks about it, but here's basically how you should think about writing a book. There is the book itself. What is the book going to be about? Then there's the actual creation of the book, the manuscript, the editing, the binding, the cover, it's the production of the book. And then there's the marketing of the book. How are you going to sell the book? What's the book being used to build, or do? What's the usefulness of the book in the marketplace? So number one, I'm saying to you that those three things are part of the same process. You must think about them, consider them at the exact same time if the book is going to be useful. Okay. Then you have to pull all that off.

All those details have to actually occur. So I'm delegating this, right? I'm delegating the workflow that is creating this book. So the first thing you're hearing from me right now is this intention on delegating the core activity. Hey, I don't want to do it. I can't do it. I'm not the best to do it. So I'm going to decide to delegate.

Now let's talk about the second half of delegation. The risk involved in delegation. So right now at this moment, the book is a project inside my business. It's not finished. It's not complete. It's a series of drafts and ideas that are still coming together, which means when I delegate this, it may not come to pass. It may not come to fruition. In other words, I'm okay if this book doesn't get done by a certain date or a certain time. I'm okay if certain breakdowns happen in the process of creating this book. I am okay if things don't go perfectly. And so when we think about delegating, even once we can get our head around the idea of delegating something, then we get nervous and scared because somebody else may "break it".

But you gotta be okay with things maybe being broken. A number of reasons here. Number one is that while when things break, your company gets to learn something. Every time something doesn't go perfectly. If there are things to be refined, your company gets a little bit better. That's a good thing. In addition, when something "breaks", you're still left with the "assets". So there are still useful pieces of that project. Just because the end result didn't complete, there are still useful things you can take from it. Hopefully what you're hearing from me is, at least on my end of this conversation, I'm okay with and prepared with all of that. I'm okay with understanding all the tasks that needs to be delegated, and then delegating it. I also understand that when I delegate it, even if it doesn't work out perfectly, there's still usefulness all along the path. And what I would offer to you is that this is the way you should think about delegating, so that you always get your value. Whether you're creating a book, or some other big project inside your business.