Wrote and self published a book in 10 days.   Make the impossible, possible and live your legacy!

It all started with a call from Dave Magrogan, my Rhino Living business partner, on November 30th.  His daughter was moving in with him because of a situation with her mother.  Dave was pulling all his “clear the mental clutter” and “goal setting” training material together and said to himself, “this is silly, why am I only doing this for Ivy, I should be doing this for everyone in the world.”  My phone rang 30 minutes before I was to go into the Ritz movie theatre in downtown Philly to watch “Oh My God,” an incredible movie about a man who traveled the world asking people who God was.  After I got off the call, I wrote down the table of contents for our book.  Well, just another sign that God is working in my life—literally and figuratively!

After I got home from seeing this amazing movie, the writing began.  I started pulling all the material from Dave’s blogs, speeches, weekly e-mails, you name it!  At 2am I was half way there.  By Tuesday, I had a draft for Dave to review and was meeting with the printers that evening to review the project.  Luckily the printers are just as driven and crazy as we are and looked forward to the challenge to get this book produced by Wednesday the 16^th in time for holiday sales.

Since Dave was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, opening up another Kildare’s Irish Pub location, we spent the beginning of the week e-mailing back and forth.  Thursday the 3^rd we were writing the chapter summaries and discussing book titles.  While in our meeting, Dave got Frank Daly on speaker phone, Dave’s Marketing Director for the DMG brands.  That’s when the synergy got flowing along with looking at book jackets for inspiration.  We kept gravitating to Larry Winget’s books—it felt like Dave.  After throwing a few names around—“Do It Rhino Style: Magrogan’s Method to Rapid Goal Achievement” was born! 

Now we needed to shoot the cover.  We didn’t have a huge budget for this project, but we did have people with talent and resources.  I remembered that a friend of mine, Anthony Gold, had lighting equipment at his Healthy Human’s office and we knew Sarah Christie, Dave’s marketing assistant, had photography talent although she never used lighting.  The night before she read up on lighting to make her as much of an expert she had to be. Monday the 7^th we were having a fun filled photo shoot and the pictures turned out amazing!

Next we were on the quest for endorsements! I had a few C-level execs and entrepreneurs I could ask, and Dave had a few top notch people as well.  Dave having Pat Croce as a friend never hurts!  We ended up getting eight amazing endorsements. Also, at the time my aunt and father were in Australia.  I e-mailed her to have her tell my dad I’m going to be a self published author.  She wanted to know more… and in great detail.  She responded back with I might have someone interested in what you are doing.  It ended up that her boyfriend works with the Ken Blanchard Company, of which I adapted the 1 Minute Manager back cover design for our book, Do It Rhino Style.  The Law of Attraction is amazing!  Since we only had three days to go before print, I wasn’t able to get Ken to endorse this book; however, we’re hoping and praying to have it for the next printing.  I am meeting my aunt’s boyfriend at Christmas so I’ll let you know how it goes!

Tuesday the 8^th I ordered all the display boxes for the restaurants to sell them at the hostess stands.  I also worked with Sarah to design stickers to put on the books “A Must Buy for the New Year” along with a design for all the display boxes.  Dave and I continued to go back and forth adding book introductions, author pages, acknowledgements, and a few extra parts to the book.  Meanwhile Carolyn, the cover designer, took two of our favorite “Dave” pics, and uploaded them into the jacket design she created the end of last week.

By Tuesday the 8^th, we picked the cover design and Carolyn from Bentley Graphics, began to layout our book.  After a few final edits back and forth, the book was finished on Friday the 11^th and the jacket was printed and ready to be sent to the bindery in Lancaster to become a physical book that will change the lives of millions.

Meanwhile, Dan Murphy, Rhino Living’s Social Media and Techie Guru, was working on the back end—trying to figure out how online sales and electronic downloads are going to work.  I love working with Dan because he not only takes pride in his volunteer work, but also approaches it with such passion and conviction to figure things out.  I love surrounding myself with people like Dan.  We were up and running and taking sales that Tuesday.  My blackberry was buzzing (phone was on vibrate) with sales.  It was like being in Vegas, but we were winning every time!  We are making a difference while paying for the cost of books (which is not cheap, I might add)!

By the 15^th our fans could download the electronic copy of the book! By the 16^th the “look inside option” was active on the site and the books were delivered to Newark, DE ready to ship to all the stores and to everyone’s homes who pre=ordered the books right in time for the holidays.

Stay tuned…  Writing a book and self publishing it in 10 days was only the first of many blessings that happened to me during these two weeks.  I have a few other amazing opportunities that landed in my lap including two more book deals—a Top 40 Under 40 Actor out of Ottawa and an NBC10 news anchor, among a few other exciting adventures.

Remember, it’s your legacy you are living.  You make the choice how you decide to spend it!