The intangible benefits that surprise everybody who writes a book

The thought leaders and aspiring authors that we talk to and work with tend to know the benefits of writing a book; recognition for their expertise in a particular area, opening doors to bigger clients, pre-qualifying potential clients, invitations to speak or be interviewed, greater exposure and awareness of their ideas, and the potential to crystallise their thinking into additional paid offerings – among other things.

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Yet, there’s a ‘little-known but always experienced’ intangible benefit that they all get, but that none of them expect. A bit like you can never truly understand the intense sleep deprivation of parenting a newborn until you’ve done it, this too is a case of needing to be there – and to go through it – in order to really understand.

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Writing a book helps you to not only make your thinking and ideas better, but it also helps you gain greater confidence in them and, by extension, in yourself.

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Writing a book stretches us towards both personal and professional development

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Let’s look at the professional development first…

If you want an accelerant for developing your thinking, writing a book is the best one I know of. In order to write a book about your topic, you’re going to need to go deep. Furnishing 50,000 words or more around your ideas is no small feat and requires you to expand your thinking, research more diligently and craft examples to back up what you are saying. You’ll be having conversations about what you’re exploring with colleagues and clients, possibly even with friends or loved ones and you’ll be testing out what you are writing in the course of delivering your work.

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All of this takes time and, over this time, your thinking inevitably evolves and matures. Part and parcel of the focus you are bringing to writing a book, is that you are proactively dedicating time and energy to your ideas. No other thought leadership activity does this on the same scale as writing a book does.

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However, more proactive thinking about your area of expertise is only part of the picture. Greater clarity in your thinking is also an inevitable side-effect of book writing. Not only is your thinking going deeper and broader, but it’s also getting clearer. In order to write a good book, you’ve got to untangle the mass of what’s in your head. All of the conversations, tests, research and thinking creates feedback loops that then crystallise what you are saying. You become better at articulating what you know, and more confident in your expertise along the way.

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I recall the experience of Kon Apostolopoulos who joined our Better Book Project in 2023 until he released his book in February 2024. Originally planning to launch his book in November 2023, Kon struggled with the fact that he could see he was going to have to shift his timeline a little later. However, he reflected on what he wanted his book to do for him; he wanted it to open the door to speaking opportunities and to create demand with larger clients – and even in the second half of 2023, it was already doing that. The book was delivering what he hoped for long before it was out in the world as a result of the increased clarity and confidence he had, and the improved way that he was able to articulate what he does, why he does it, and the value it brings those who work with him.

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And what about the personal development?

I’ve mentioned confidence already, and most definitely those authors who get to a finished book are better able to back their thinking and expertise, but the personal development doesn’t stop there. Something else shifts too. There’s a sense of achievement that comes with completing such a significant project; a ‘holy heck, I did that!’ that lingers for some time after your book gets out into the world. And while that is a delightful thing to experience, it’s actually doing something even more powerful: it’s starting to change the stories we hold about ourselves.

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Writing a book proves what I say to my kids all the time: “we can do hard things”. The book journey isn’t ever easy. Sure, there are times when you are feeling inspired, find your flow, and it all feels like it’s coming together. However, there are also times when you will struggle to write anything new, when you’ll wonder who on earth had the silly idea to do this in the first place, and when you’ll be tempted to give up. But you won’t, and that is incredibly character-building. It takes grit to get to the finish line, so that achievement alone shows what you are capable of.

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Later in the same day that I had been trying to articulate the intangible benefit of book writing to a group of aspiring authors, I saw a post by our lovely client and friend Daria Williamson . She was celebrating a year of her book being out in the world and reflecting on the journey that had taken her from vague idea to a finished book that she was proud of. As she put it: “It's Unleash Your Awesome's first birthday this Sunday – and writing it gave me one heck of an unexpected gift. What I didn't know when I started was that writing a book is the closest thing you'll get to a “shortcut" to intense personal development! As I said in a recent conversation with someone who said they wanted to write a book: You get to see all sorts of things about yourself that you'd previously been able to ignore, and you come up against AAAALLLLLL of the limiting beliefs at some point. AND, you get to step through the process of looking each of those things in the eye, and carrying on anyway - and so you discover that the only power they have over you is what you hand to them! Seriously - writing a book is confronting. It's not for the faint of heart! But it's also incredibly empowering. Because you discover a wellspring inside you that you had no idea was there.”

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As Daria and I have reflected since, in walking your readers through the transformation offered by your ideas, you are also transformed. There’s no way around that when you’re putting such a big piece of you – your energy and your heart – out into the world.

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This is why we approach writing a book in the way that we do; why we don’t force people’s ideas into templates, why we caution them against picking (or flogging themselves with) arbitrary deadlines, and why we say ideally it’s going to take longer than 30 days, or even 90 days, to get something really good. We are asked often about how AI changes authoring a book, or whether you can use AI to help you on the book writing journey – and the answer is absolutely you can. (We’re considering writing a short guide for how we would suggest writers use AI constructively.) Aside from some of the other obvious downfalls – around tone, lack of originality and natural language etc – solely relying on AI means your book is not asking a lot of you. You miss out on getting much of yourself in there, and that’s where the real benefits lie, for both yourself and your readers.

If you’ve written a book, I’d love to hear about your journey and whether the points here about personal and professional development resonate. I’d also love to explore any of the questions or concerns you have about AI-assisted writing too, so please leave these below. And, if you’d like to explore how we support aspiring authors through the book-writing journey, flick me a message.?