This ONE THING will help any expert to go from under-valued to overpaid

For years, I accepted behavior that was unacceptable. For years, I allowed myself to be treated badly by superiors who didn’t know as much as I did. For years I allowed myself to stand in the shadows.

Then everything changed.

I went from working for an unappreciative boss who took credit for my work to appearing on The Today Show as an expert. 

I went from writing about people to being someone people wrote about. 

I went from watching TEDx talks online to giving three TEDx talks of my own in a year.

I went from writing for websites to creating a website, which I then sold to an investor for six figures within a month of its launch.

What changed?

One thing: I wrote a book about my experiences with addiction and in doing that, overnight I was considered an expert on the topic. 

A Book is the New College Degree 

The first time I watched myself on television and saw that I was being considered an expert on addiction, I called my TV agent, aghast. 

“I need to go back to school!” I exclaimed. “I’m being called an expert on addiction and my only expertise is in taking a dollar bill, rolling it up and ingesting cocaine through it! I’m a fraud.” 

He laughed. “Why would you go back to school?” 

“I’m giving millions of people advice on addiction,” I said. “Don’t I need a graduate degree in psychology? Or something beyond a college degree in creative writing?”

He laughed again. “Why would you need a degree?” he asked. “You have a book. That makes you an expert.”

From Agent to Prince of the Recovery World

That conversation with my agent was over a decade ago and in the time since, I’ve watched what he told me play out over and over again for other people.

Darren Prince was a sports agent who had struggled with his own addiction, come out on the other side and wanted to be a voice in the recovery space.  And his book, Aiming High: How a Prominent Sports Agent Hit Bottom at the Top, launched him into the stratosphere.

Suddenly he was appearing on The Chris Cuomo Show and Tucker Carlson Tonight and chatting on podcasts hosted by people like Lewis Howes and Jordan Harbinger.

He was meeting with Lions Gate about doing a TV show based on his life, landing six-figure spokesperson deals and fielding $10,000 speaking gigs. He even launched a foundation named after the book.

But the book didn’t take him away from his core business; it actually enhanced it. “Aiming High has helped me get more business because it shows every corporate client who I am and that I’m proud of my journey,” he says. “It humanizes me so much and transforms a business conversation into a personal one."

From Behind-the-Scenes to Front of the Pack 

Matt George, the CEO of The Children’s Home Association of Illinois, is another person I watched take his book and run. The Nonprofit Game Plan: The Proven Strategy for Nonprofit Success was released in January of 2020. Matt was well-prepared.

“Before the book came out, I went to the top 15 corporations in town and I gave them a little sneak peek of what I was doing and said I needed their back,” he told me when I had him on my podcast. From there, he got interviews with publications in Michigan, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Vegas and Orlando. Now he’s giving keynotes—one in front of 1000 people at an accounting firm. 

If you’re wondering what a guy who wrote a book about running a non-profit is doing speaking at an accounting firm, it’s this: “It goes back to people and it goes back to community,” Matt says. In other words, it was his understanding of what his book could do for him that helped him see how his message could resonate anywhere. 

The Voice for Female Recovery

Emily Lynn Paulson has also used her book, Highlight Real, to jump to the top of the heap—with appearances on the TV show The Doctors and at TEDx talk conferences. Her book is now being sold in over 70 book stores.

But it wasn’t a grand plan that got Emily to center stage. “I never thought I'd be on a TV show,” she says. “It was when I was in the process of publishing and writing that I really found what I wanted to do from it—that’s when the rivers started making a little valley for me and I saw: this is where I'm supposed to be going.”

Of course, she—like Darren and Matt—didn’t just sit back and wait for a flood of offers to come in. “Everywhere I've gone since the book was published, I have a little book event,” EMILY says. “I just rent a bigger room in a hotel and invite people who I know that are really well connected in other areas. And then they promote the book by posting about it. And from there, their connections get me other connections. I think it's just about just getting your business card in as many hands as possible.” 

Write Your Way to the Top

Still, you need a book before you can step out of the shadows and into the spotlight. And you have to know how to write it. As much as I’ve witnessed success stories, I’ve seen just as many people flounder for years, trying to get their stories on the page without any clue how to do it.

I don’t want that to happen to you. If you follow the steps that Emily, Matt, Darren and I have, you can take your experiences, make them into a memoir and finally be treated the way you should. Grab my free one-page memoir structure guide here.

HERE'S HOW I CAN HELP YOU WHEN YOU'RE READY:

→ You can get my 5 steps to creating a life-changing book

→ You can apply for an Authority Experience to have us create the concept and promotion plan for your authority-building book

→ You can apply for a call to work with Legacy Launch Pad (our publishing packages range from $7k-150k)