This week I’m talking with Marc Reklau about writing nonfiction books as an indie author.His book 30 Days: Change Your Habits, Change Your Life is a great nudge into life-changing habits which are great to make as an author. Find out more about Marc on his website https://www.marcreklau.com
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TRANSCRIPT STARTS HERE:
Kat
Well, today, everyone, I have with me Marc Reklau. Hello, Marc. How are you doing?
Marc
Hi, Kat. How are you? I’m doing fine.
Kat
Good. Me too. It’s a bit cloudy, but we’re doing well over here. So would you introduce yourselves to us and the listeners? Who are you, Marc?
Marc
Marc Reklau. Normal guy. Writes every now and then does a lot of Amazon ads. And thanks to that, I can live off my book. So it started all this year, it will be ten years when I was fired from my job for my nine-to-five job, which was horrible in its day, but turned out to be a blessing in disguise. And then I also had like a life coaching training done before just for my personal development, because I was hungry for personal development because my job was always the same thing. So I was fired and I had some savings. I said, okay, I’m going to be a life coach and I’m going to have a lot of clients and it will be fantastic. And in Europe we have two years of jobless welfare. So I said, okay, two years, I can concentrate on this. And I was always convinced that if you do something for two years, you can succeed, whatever it is, because two years is a long time, if you work every day for five to eight hours. And well, everything turned out differently. So during that time I said, okay, I’m going to write a book, I want to write a book. Because a coach with a book okay.
Kat
You’re following that formula, right?
Marc
Yeah, from all the coaches without books. And also it was very important for me to write that book. That was my first book. 30 Days: Change your Habits, Change your Lives. Because I noticed in my coaching training and studying successful people, they’re doing all the same things, like getting up early, practicing gratitude. So I found out a couple of habits that if you really do them, they will lead you to success, but just nobody does them. That was the idea of my book, to motivate people, to really give it a shot. That’s why my book is written, very simple. Because I just want to guide people to the end of the chapter where they have to I give them some exercise to do, which I know it will be fantastic if they do it for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. And that’s how that my first book came around. And to me it happened, what happens, I think to all of us, you finish one book and you already have ideas for the next book. So then I wrote a book about productivity. I was also like, the more you study, you get guided. For example, first it was all about habits for me and these exercises that helped me. Later then I said, “wow”, if I could be more productive. And it’s also something I do. So I practice this stuff and then I write about it. Yeah, exactly. It was productivity. Then from productivity I kept on reading books and I said, oh wow, happiness makes you even more productive. So with the same tools, if you are happier, you’ll be more productive. I said, wow, that’s great. So then I wrote a book about happiness. And then I said, okay, self-esteem, self-esteem. If you don’t have self-esteem, everything is more difficult. All the productivity or habits or whatever. If you don’t love yourself, it’s more difficult. So I wrote the book Love Yourself First, so it went from one thing to another. Now I have 13 books in English and 12 or 14 in Spanish. I don’t even know anymore because I have one co-authored and I have one with a publisher, but it doesn’t sell. So well at the end of 30, I think I have like 40 or 50 products on Amazon, and that’s enough to make a living as a writer.
Kat
Yeah, I would say so. So I picked up your book, 30 Days Change Your Habits, Change Your Lives, because I think for a while, I would say, like 2013, 2014, maybe it was ten years ago that personal development started becoming a big deal, right? And you realize just because you’ve been out of school for a while doesn’t mean you know anything. And I wanted to figure out a way to write, and I had young kids, so got on that bandwagon. But it’s interesting because if you don’t stay on it, you can quickly fall off again.
Marc
Absolutely. And there’s also something, you see, I’ve read self-help books since I was 16, so that’s over 30 years now. And that was the typical thing. I think that happens to most of us. So when I was bad and sad or unlucky in love, I read these self-help books. I got well, and then I stopped reading it. Life is always an up and down and a roller coaster. But then when I was 40 and a little bit wiser, I was like, what happens if I keep doing these things that are good for me when I’m doing good, right, and actually turn out I’m doing even better? That’s fantastic, right? Yeah, that’s the thing. Stay on the wagon, keep doing it. And for me, it was a little bit the same thing. As I told you before, when I did that coaching training, it was because I was working at my job already for ten years, and I didn’t get any training, nothing. It was a family enterprise. So I learned a lot on the job, but my brain was like, out of use, right, because it was like working the whole day and then go home to the television and that’s it. And on the weekend, binge some series, right? And then I was hungry or thirsty for knowledge, and I said, okay, they don’t give me training, so I can do the coaching training, and then I will be the one who gives the training because I will learn a lot. And it’s actually like that. So I learned a little bit about everything, and afterwards I did training in companies, on productivity, on happiness. But at the end, everything like this is already a little bit business. What always worked best for me was books. Funnily, because normally for nonfiction author, or especially in personal development coach, you earn your money with coaching, conference training, and not with books, but with me, it was the other way around. It’s okay. Yeah, it’s even worse because now I’m a total comfort zone because it’s going well. So I don’t have to do training and coaching because lying on the sofa or in the bed and doing Amazon ads is a lot more comfortable.
Kat
Now you have to find a bucket list item, right?
Marc
So everybody will find their way. That’s also something. So the self-help, there’s not no one size fits all. You have to figure it out. But there are some exercises that will just be fantastic for you, like gratitude. Or before the interview, we were talking a little bit about like, I’m doing my power naps, I’m sleeping a lot, is very important. I’m doing every day, I’m doing my 10,000 steps, usually in the morning. Today I did like, if I do 10,000 steps in the morning already, the whole day is already fantastic because this is like my thing I have to do. So I do it first thing in the morning. And walking does also so many good things for you. Your brain gets like I mean, I get ideas, I clear my mind. Zero stress. Even if I’m in a city right now, I’m in Budapest, Hungary, which is a city. When I was living at a beach, it was even better. Even in the city it works. Even in the city it works.
Kat
Yeah. I try to tell my listeners and the writers I work with to walk. And it’s interesting because last year I was really struggling with a fiction book I was writing. And you get in this rut where you think, if I just work harder on it, it will come. And yet one day I was like, I have to take the dog for a walk and I’m not going to listen to anything. And it was just like, I know this, and yet…
Marc
It’s what always happens to me. This is so fun because my girlfriend also, she’s the one who works hard in the family, and she looks at me and she says, I can’t believe it. I’m working twelve hour days. And the whole day you’re lying around and you’re bringing in some money, and I have to fight for the money, and you just to do it just comes and I say, yeah, maybe that’s the secret, right? Because of course, it’s like ten years already now. So I went through a lot of experiences. For example, I was there when I thought, I have to work, push, push, push, push, push. But then I also have this spiritual part in me who said, okay, if you push, push, push, push, and nothing happens, maybe you just have to lean back for a day. And finally, whenever I did that, it happened. My philosophy, I’m like, okay, I have to push. Because success is hard work. Nothing comes easy. We know it. It is the way like that. So I push to show like the universe or God or whoever to say, okay, look, I’m here, I’m pushing. But now I lean back and now you see that I’ve been pushing. So now bring, bring the good things to me. And usually it works. So, yeah, it’s like, what happened to you? So I think because you can learn this, just do it more often, or those who are listening to us, who are right in that phase now, where they push, push, push, and it’s just not moving forward. Relax, go for a walk. Yeah, let’s see what happens. And then if you make it a habit, this walk every day, I mean, it’s incredible. Every day I get new ideas. So now we have the mobile phone, so I write it in my mobile walking. Or I could tape it and it’s amazing.
Kat
Yes. And I think it’s interesting because a lot of this indie industry is driven by the American mindset of you have to work a lot.
Marc
You have to work a lot. Exactly. But you also have to find the pauses, right?
Kat
You have to find balance, right? Because working a lot doesn’t always produce what you think.
Marc
Balance is the magic word. So because I worked a lot, you can’t imagine how much I work. So I was also like, working five years without success. But sometimes that’s part of the success. You have to go through the desert and then it comes, and it not comes because of luck or something. It’s the result of these five years of work. But the earlier you find the balance, the better. But nothing will be gifted to you, probably. So there are no gifts on the way. You have to work hard, right? But you also have to relax. You have to take your nappies, you have to walk, maybe meditation. Practicing of gratitude is a huge thing that I do, so that’s as easy as writing down three things I’m grateful for every day, right? So for me, it’s ten now, because the gratitude practice, it rewires your brain, practically, to see more of the positive, to see more opportunities, to become more optimistic, less prone to depression, less headaches, better sleep. So all the good things, right, that we would I mean, if there was.
Kat
It’s so easy.
Marc
And it’s really that, and it’s not that I say it’s scientifically proven, so there has been lots of studies on the subject and that’s what comes out. So, I mean, if there was a magic pill giving us that, we would swallow it, we would now run to the pharmacy. So it’s really, it’s writing down three things that that you are grateful for every day. And again, it is the habit if you do it once and then don’t do it for two weeks. Probably not much will happen, but if you do it every day, I think miracles will really happen. After a month, two months, three months. I’ve been doing it now for seven, no more. I started in 2013. Ten years of gratitude practice.
Kat
Wow. So you write them down, like on paper?
Marc
Paper. They are gratitude journals. But I have a calendar. I just write it in there. Grateful for… And then you have to feel the gratitude also. So I feel the gratitude, I nearly get goosebumps. Because you have to put also the emotion in it.
Kat
Okay. You’re not just checking the box.
Marc
Exactly. And then it’s like, what am I grateful for? Right? It’s like grateful for my family, for my computer, for this interview. Because once I had a client, she was also very good in the gratitude exercise. And then we did a Skype, like with you now. Two weeks later, I saw her face. I said, when did you stop with the gratitude exercise? And she was like, oh, god, he got me right?
Kat
Oh, you could see it.
Marc
I could see it. And then she said, well, just after our last call, because it didn’t work. And that’s a little bit coaching. So in coaching, you don’t say you don’t give moral judgment. You are detective. So I was like, what happened? Why? How didn’t it work? Tell me. And then she said, yes, because I said, at least I have a house. At least my kids like me. I said, that’s not gratitude. That’s scarcity, that’s scarcity. Yes. And this works both ways. So that’s the main thing about our brain, about our brain and everything. It works both ways. So if I’m grateful for wow. Then these positive feelings come in. But if I’m, like, coming from a negative place, I can get sadder and sadder, because that’s actually also how sadness works. When we are sad. We concentrate on everything. When we are lovesick, then we hear the sad songs. Yes. And then it gets worse and worse and worse.
Kat
So you can go both ways.
Marc
Yeah. But the good thing is if you do the gratitude, or, for example, a great exercise to raise your self-esteem is in thinking of all the successes you had already, even the small things. Sometimes we let the small things pass by, and the small things are huge. Like, okay, I have kids, I’m bringing up kids. I went to college, I was living alone. All these things are awesome things. And when you think about those, you build self-confidence. You build self-esteem. And we have to use this to our advantage. Yeah. And when we are sad, we usually do it the other way around. I’m nothing. I’m a failure. I fail there, there, there. And then you’re going in there, and how do you get out of there? Well, when I’m in a situation like that, I know what so I know okay, if I want to feel better, I can also now feel bad. Sometimes we just have to feel bad. So if I want to be in self-pity and on the sofa, then I can lie on the sofa and sing and everything I did wrong in my life, and I could get very sad because I did a lot of things wrong. But then I said, okay, so that’s the option number one. I can be sad on my sofa. Option number two is I can go for a walk because only the walking already suits the hormones. Or I can go into gratitude because I know when I start remembering all the things I can be grateful for, I also reverse this sadness thing. So it’s a wonderful thing, really.
Kat
Yeah. It’s almost like your books are like a circle. Almost like you could almost start wherever, right, with anyone, because they’re all so interconnected. But I do like how the so I have the productivity one, but I haven’t gotten it to it yet. But it seems to me like starting with the habits will improve the productivity already. And then my productivity, once I read that one, will add to it, right?
Marc
Actually, wherever you go in, it will make you probably happier and more productive, because that’s the sense of the book, right? As we said, if you would go in for the self-esteem, well, then your self-esteem would probably grow if you do the exercises. So then you will also get more productive, more happy. Yeah, it’s like you said, it’s everything kind of interconnected. And for example, the chapter about gratitude is in every one of my books. I can’t leave it out. So sometimes people say, my reader say, well, there is a chapter about gratitude in all my books. Yes, because it belongs there. It belongs in every book.
Kat
Because we got to be reminded, right?
Marc
Yes. And because gratitude is such a huge part. And I even wrote a book about gratitude, and it’s a small book, and friends said to me, don’t do it. Your readers will be mad at you. It’s only 70 pages. And then it has like a 90-page gratitude journal in the back. And I’m like, I have to write it. I cannot not write this book because this is everything I know about gratitude, and I know it will help people. I’m not writing it to have another product on Amazon. No. I’m really writing it because a person who will get this book will probably improve their life. Because another thing is, I get a lot of emails from people who are in a very bad space and place, and they ask me, Marc, what shall I do? And I said, I can’t tell you because I don’t even know what I would do in your place, but I know you will get out of there. But I don’t know how, because I have not been there, but try starting with gratitude. And many times, these people, after four to six weeks, they write to me, say, well, the situation didn’t actually get better, but I feel happier now and that’s mostly the step to recover.
Kat
I want to talk because the scarcity mindset that you’re talking about, I really see it in the writing world. You have your books for five years. It took a lot of work to get those books to work, right? So the Amazon ads, I listened to you on Joanna Penn’s podcast, and you’re talking about how many times you had to refocus them and learn all that. It takes five years. And a lot of times we think, like, five years is so long, and I want it now. And our scarcity mindset is like, I didn’t write enough. I didn’t do enough. I don’t have enough books.
Marc
Yeah, mostly also where I can see this money, many writers.
Kat
I’m not making enough money. Yes.
Marc
And they don’t want to invest. Two examples, because it’s amazing, because the first one, I wasn’t I was jobless. So I got €800 of jobless money. So I had some savings to live, but still, $800.
Marc
A month? That’s not very much.
Marc
And then there was a BookBub deal, and it was €500 a month. And I had 800 coming in, 500 total. So with a scarcity mindset, I would say, I can’t afford it. I don’t know. Of course, I took the book deal because I knew how what they can do for a writer’s career. I had free downloads. I put my book, I paid €500 to get a free promo, and then I had 40,000 downloads. And from that, when it turned to paid, I was suddenly making $200 a day, and my $500 investment turned into $6,000 in the following three months. That was the start of my writer’s career. And then again. So it was going well for a while for me with my one book. But then, of course, I was spending more. And suddenly Amazon took away the organic visibility, and everything was going down. It was going downhill. And I had, like, half a year of my savings left. This is in 2018. And I said, okay. I have to do something. This can’t go, if it goes on like this, I have to go look for a job, and you don’t want to do that. So that was when I said, okay, where does my money come from?
Marc
80% of my money came from books. I said, okay, so I will concentrate 80% of my time on books. The 80/20 rule, right? And what can I do to sell more books? Well, I studied rich authors, successful authors, and I said, okay, what are they doing? Okay. They have many books. They have many books, like 20, 30, 40 books. They always have one or two books on promotion, because if you have 20 or 30 books, you can put three on $0.99, no problem, right? If you have two books, it will hit you. If you put one in $0.99, if you have 20 and they did the ads. So then I investigated, and I Marc Dawson’s Course once again. So I bought Mark Dawson’s course. I think it’s $900. I couldn’t even pay it at once because I was so poor. But I said, investment, I have to make this investment to move on to, to become better. That’s the abundance.
Kat
I can’t afford it. I’ll try it on my own. And I think it even goes into a bit of arrogance of like, you don’t know what you’re doing, and it’s okay, you’re going to actually end up spending more money, right?
Marc
Exactly, so I bought it with a payment plan. I couldn’t even buy it at once, so I bought it with the payment plan. Three months after that, the course was paid. So I was already making every month, €300 more before with the ads. And that was that. And then the thing is, again, and I only know that because I talked about it, and I have, like, a PowerPoint slide, and I was actually counting the month. So I started with Amazon ads July, end of July 2018. I hit $20,000 the first time in December 2019, I think. So I counted it 16 months. So that was also then I asked the crowd, I said, who of you in here? And they were all writers. I said, Would have done the same for 16 months without seeing a result. Because that’s another thing. Yeah, 16 months. I just was keeping on keeping on keeping on. I did. And it was really it’s like it always goes. I said, it’s like with the ketchup, when you have a bottle of ketchup and sometimes nothing comes out, and you go, everything comes out. And it was exactly like I was like, 1000, 2000, 3000, 3000, 3300, 34353 and then suddenly, boom. 81220 the last three months, before that. So again, persistence and not giving up. So what I want to say is this. Scarcity mindset and the things that you said, but also in investing, it’s bad, and I can see it in writers, probably also because there are some people or there’s this lecture that you can make money with nothing. It was like ten years ago, you write a book, you make a do it yourself cover, and then you put it up, and you will become a millionaire. And it doesn’t work like that.
Kat
It doesn’t work like that anymore. No. The industry changes always. Just like you said, Amazon changed something, and you have to be willing to roll with the punches, I guess.
Marc
And for me, the two key moments in my writer’s career was when I invested money, although I didn’t have it, actually, or I had it, but scarcity mindset would have said, no, don’t do it, try it by yourself. And I said no. Also, I always think like, I have to show it to the universe or to God or whoever, to the destiny. This is my sign. Look, I believe in myself, right? I’m paying this money because I believe in myself that this will work, that I’m smart enough to learn ads with BookBub, it was easy because of course you do your due diligence. And if you read and listen to authors who had a BookBub feature deal, I don’t know, I think for 90%, it was a game changer, of their career. So I said, okay, I’m going to risk it. Every now and then you have to risk also something, but you have to do your due diligence because there are also many people who sell something they can’t provide you. They’re just saying, yes, but okay, it’s like you have to find out. But that’s the scarcity mindset, as you said, sometimes it goes against us, I can or this or that. But we have also have it in mind when investing, and we have to believe. We have to believe in us. Nobody believes in me. I have the record that every Spanish literary agent rejected my book 30 days. I’m so glad they did, because now I’m rich and they would have taken it, I wouldn’t be, I think maybe.
Kat
Well, that’s really interesting because you’re European. You’re German.
Marc
Yeah, German.
Kat
So I lived in Europe for ten years. I lived in France and in Spain. The mindset there is a little bit different, right? There’s good and there’s bad for every culture, right? But you almost feel like the self-help culture is very American.
Marc
Absolutely. I learned I was nourished by the American mentality. Also in Germany, I have no success with my self-help book. And even in Spain, the books are selling. But if you mention self-help and that’s exactly the thing. What I always admired about the US, and I knew it when I was traveling in the US, and you go to the self-help department in the airport or something, people would look at you and say, oh, wow, he wants to work on himself. You go in Germany or in Spain, they will say, he has problems.
Kat
Yes, but they’re reading them, whether it’s on the Kindle so no one can see it, or whatever you have.
Marc
Yeah, I had a discussion on national radio where they were reading, like, practically burning me. They were burning me as a witch. No, it was like two psychologists, and then it was me, and they were so mean. So that’s why I’m not going on the media anymore, because they wrote me an email. Marc, we want to invite you to a roundtable to discuss the success of self-help in Spanish literature. I was like, hey, yeah, I’m coming. So I was pretty successful already. And then I came. It was not a roundtable, it was like me on one side and on the other side, I had two psychologists and one guy who was deeply damaged by self-help books. And then it was okay. Let’s ask Professor Dr. Samson. Well, I think self-help is the worst. Self-help is horrible. And then the next psychologist, yeah, they are all liars and fraud. And then come the third guy, oh, I spent so much money and they ruined me and annually. And then it was like so, Marc, now what do we say? What shall I say here? I can’t say anything anymore. You left it all clear.
Kat
Well, I think that goes really into you have to do the work, right? Like with your book, you always have those exercises and you say, now answer these questions.
Marc
And then the thing is, they say, well, self-help, self-help. But if you call it personal development, then it’s okay.
Kat
Then it’s okay, right.
Marc
But pyschologist have a problem with self-help, I think. And I’m not a psychologist, but I think already. And that’s why I always also wrote my book about self-esteem. Because for me, if that triggers you the word self-help, then you should look inside you and say, what’s up with my self-esteem? Do I don’t feel worthy to be happy or successful. And the important thing is exactly, it is self-help. Help yourself, do the exercises. Because, let’s be honest, probably nobody will help you. Maybe your spouse, if you have one, but who else will help you? When I was jobless, I didn’t have many people who helped me. Everybody, my friends turned away. I had my mother, of course. And that was it.
Kat
Yeah. Because nobody can support you, right, like, in the end. And no one can change your attitude to gratitude. They can’t write the book for you.
Marc
They can try to help you. But I can tell you, yeah, you depend on yourself. And that’s on one hand, it’s sad, but on the other hand, it’s the most powerful thing you have. If you only depend on yourself, not a problem. You can figure it out. You can work it out.
Kat
Yeah, even with little things. I mean, the greatest thing about your book and I have gone back and forth with personal development or self-help because I do think life gets very busy. You get out of your habits or you think you’re fine. It’s like that segue where you think you’re fine, so you stop taking antibiotics and then you get sick again. Last year, thinking like productivity. And in this industry, you have to write more books you have to do this. Well, in the end, people have lives. They either have a full-time job or a family or whatever and just working on your book every day. And I believe in writing every day, whether it’s journaling or just my creative outlet. But telling someone you have to work on your book every day. If you don’t know what you’re doing with your book is just going to make you miserable, right?
Marc
It’s the same thing when they say, I mean, if you’re rowing in the wrong direction, don’t keep rowing. Or if you’re digging a hole, don’t keep digging. So there comes the magic word “balance” again. And everybody has to know it from themselves. I heard all this and I tried. It doesn’t work. So I’m not writing a lot. I’m not writing every day while I’m I’m writing my gratitude. But in my books, I write two books a year and I write 25,000-word books. So in a month I get it done. And then I was also of course, I was in a moment when I said, because I also have this business mindset where I say, okay, what’s the better applying of my time, making more Amazon ads or writing another book? Because if I write it, my books don’t start well. They usually take like two years until they take off, if they take off. But if I do ten Amazon ads today, I will notice it in a week or two, I will earn more money. So that was also that thing. And productivity, it’s what we said before, sometimes less is more also.
Marc
That’s also productivity. Or what I always tell my girlfriend when we go in nature on a Sunday, her energy on Monday is like twice as much work done on Monday, because some people think they have to work on Sunday too. And then suddenly, no, go to nature, do something. Get your juices flowing, be happy. And then you will see that on Monday you will do twice as much because you recover. And we need recovery.
Kat
Recovering. Yeah, right. I know that there’s like this back and forth, right, in the creative mind. So you have these ideas and you want to get them done and you have goals, right? And you have projects that you want to finish. But ever since I started writing, reading your book, I was like, you know what I have? And I remembered back when I was doing my stuff, my productivity and my gratitude and all that, I had a goal of 1500 words a day because I had really little kids and I was constantly driving around, right? And I got that book finished in like six months, which was amazing to me because my first book took years, right? I mean, you’re also learning at the same time, right, and you’re doing all this stuff. And I remembered that I had heard somebody say, I always stop before I’m finished because that way the next day I know where to pick up. Which I thought, okay, this is kind of saying the same thing. So just getting down like, all right, between 1500 to 2000 words. And then I’m going to be like you said, happy that I got it done because you’re celebrating the small successes and I think that’s so key, because instead of I mean, it goes all into it, right?
Kat
Instead of obsessing of I need to write more. Well, now that I got 2000 words done, if I write 4000, it will be even better.
Marc
Many times it happens like that. The thing is also you have to be your best friends. You have to forgive yourself for all the times you fail. Because I fail all every day with my goals, I procrastinate and all this, but it’s okay for me, I give myself permission to procrastinate and do it, because I know at the end it will come together, it will be fine and that’s it. I don’t have to beat myself up about it. And that’s also something, I’m very, how do you say, forgiving towards myself. And I also think when this inner, I don’t know a good word, like gremlin comes, you know, that beats you up and everything says you are a failure. Why didn’t you do the 1500 words? Now just be your friend. Think of yourself like what would you say to a friend? Because you would never talk to a friend like that. You would say, well, no problem, you write them tomorrow. Well, talk to you like this too, and then that’s it. And you will be more productive on the long run. And so, for example, I noticed, I noticed in myself that I put too many rules for me, like, okay, I have to walk 10,000 steps and I have to write 1000 words, I have to drink two liters of water. And at the end it was like ah-oo-oo. It’s like the military, I mean, I’m free, this should be fun. What am I doing here? And then I analyzed what’s going on, right? Because I was always like had to do something. I said, that can’t be so plus the working time, right? Because the walking wasn’t something I have to do. But it didn’t count to the working time, right? Then I just said, okay, you know what? 1 hour, I walk 2 hours a day, 1 hour of walking is like 1 hour of work for me, because it does so much good for me. And then I have 1 hour in my schedule for relaxing. I can do whatever I want in that hour. And that counts also as working out for me, because I try to work like six to eight hours. But money counting is also an hour of work or sales counting. Yes, so now it’s all more relaxed and it’s fun again and I’m still getting things done.
Kat
Yeah, and you see your productivity, right? Because that goes into whoever wrote the four-hour workday or something. It really goes into how much time we waste on different things or beating ourselves up. But what do you think about multitasking?
Marc
No, it’s a lie. It doesn’t work. There are some incredible studies, multitasking, let’s see if I can get it. So first of all, I thought multitasking is a lie, that I give it right away. But then there is okay, there was one study. So when you have your email open while you’re trying to do focused work, it takes away, I think, ten points of your IQ. That’s the study. Yes! So imagine yeah, so I said, okay, I can’t afford it. I can’t afford to have even ten less, right? No, imagine. And then they also said if you smoke a joint, it only takes five points away. So imagine. Yeah, so the effect of having your email open, that’s multitasking, of having your email open while trying to do focused work, makes you lose temporarily, thank god, only ten IQ points. It’s worse than smoking a joint. And it’s the same. Like if you work, if you are 48 hours without sleep, then you say, I don’t know, last time I was 48 hours without sleep, it was like horrible. And that’s the state of your brain when you work with the emails open. So I think that’s a pretty damning statement. And I study from the University of London, if somebody wants to Google it. I don’t know if you use six or ten points, but I think it’s ten. I wrote it in the book Destination Happiness. I wrote it so many years ago. But it was always something that I brought to enterprises, to companies, so that they get aware, because in companies it’s wanted that you do multitasking. Although it’s like if you do one thing after another, like 1 hour for emails, 1 hour for that, 1 hour for phone calls, you will get a lot more done than with all this stuff happening. Because you’re not multitasking, you’re doing one thing, another thing, another thing, and the time to refocus. So let’s say you’re writing an email, then the phone rings, okay? You talk five minutes on the phone and then you go back to the email. You didn’t only lose five minutes on the phone, you’re losing another five to 15 minutes that it cost you to refocus on the task that you were doing. And that’s how I don’t know how it is today, but for the longest time, office work was done like that. And of course, nobody gets nothing done in an environment like that. So we as writers, we can build our walls or make our rules. So, for example, when I’m really in a high productivity mode, when I’m writing a new book or something, or I have to get things done, I turn off my mobile, I call my girlfriend, I look, now the next 3 hours I’m going to airplane mode and I’m gone. And then in 3 hours and then in those 3 hours, I get more work done than in six or seven normal hours. So that’s huge secret to productivity.
Kat
Yeah, I think it’s a really modern thing, right, to have to be available all the time to everybody. And this hyperactivity of just like you can’t ever settle or focus and especially if you’re writing, that’s a whole different, like writing a book, whether it’s nonfiction or fiction, that’s a creative side of the brain that if you get taken out of that, it takes so much longer. I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen it where you might be writing and then you come back and you feel like, no, what was wrong with me that day?
Marc
It doesn’t happen. No, it doesn’t happen. Because I’m so and I’m focused usually. So the thing is, and it’s also okay to fall out of habits. For example, during a long time I had like super habits. I was like, it was all super. But then if it goes too well, sometimes you fall back in old bad habits because I was so streamlined and everything was going so well that I said, okay, I can watch television from three to seven. And suddenly you create the bad habit of watching television again. Although, you know, it doesn’t do a lot good for you. So that’s what I wanted to say. It’s okay, we have to forgive us, we don’t have to be perfect. But I tell you, when I decide to go in productivity mode. So I say, okay, let’s write a book. Then I start and what I do is get up probably at 06:00 in the morning, write from six to eight or 2000 words, and then that’s done. And then happens what you said. Sometimes it’s 3000 words, sometimes in 4 hours. And I just have to do this 20, 30 times in a row and I have a book because I write short books, of course, but that’s one month of the year. So the rest of the year I don’t have to be like, always in high productivity mode.
Kat
Yes, exactly. And I like the book, the 30 Days book. Change your Habits, Change your Lives. Because it’s very small. Because a lot of times when we’re trying to change something about ourselves, we have to go through that time of discomfort, right? Like this, like you’re just kind of this nervous energy of discomfort. And if you put too many things on yourself, I think you even have a chapter about it. Just choose three things, because you could easily fall into I can’t do this or I am so bad.
Marc
Even further, you have noticed that every chapter of the book has one page maximum. One…
Kat
It’s really short, it’s really nice.
Marc
And that comes because I read so many self-help books and it’s incredible because everything is underlined and then when it says, do the exercise, it’s all blank. I never did the exercise. So I put this into my book. And then also many times I read books and the chapter was so long, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then after ten pages, you come to the end of the chapter. Now write down three goals are like, no, I can’t anymore. I’m totally exhausted from reading the 15 pages. So that’s why I also wanted to keep my book, the chapters, very simple, so that people so that my readers have the time and also they have the energy to do the exercises, because it’s definitely the most important thing, are the exercises. You can read and read and read, and you might feel good for a while, but if you do the exercises, that is when change will happen in your life. And yeah, I know it because I read for 25 years and didn’t do the exercises.
Kat
I’ve done that too.
Marc
And then when I started imagine with 40 jobless, I started doing the exercise. Now I’m 49 and I’m practically, I’m not financially free yet, because I spent too much on Amazon, but I’m much better than I ever thought I’m going to be.
Kat
You seem like a very happy man, Marc.
Marc
Yeah, happy and no financial worries, which was always my biggest worry most of the time.
Kat
Probably anybody’s, right? Money does rule our world.
Marc
Yeah. I could never imagine where I’m going to come. And maybe that’s another thing, because we talk a lot about visualization and this and that, and then some people just can’t visualize. I can’t also not visualize, but on the other hand, I say, hey, nine years ago, I could never, not even I didn’t have enough fantasy to believe that I sit in an apartment in Hungary paying not a lot of taxes, making money with my book. So sometimes it doesn’t matter. So what matters it is what you do every day, step by step. If you, every day do what needs to be done, the difficult thing will be to find out what is the things that have to be done. You will be fine in five or ten years.
Kat
I like that because visualizing sometimes like, what should I visualize? Because I don’t actually want to be on the beach doing nothing all day. I’m a hyperactive person. That won’t make me happy. And in the moment, sometimes you’re like, I don’t even know what will make me happy. So let’s just start at little things like writing down gratitude and taking a deep breath.
Marc
I’m taking a deep breath, too. My philosophy is the difficult thing will be to find out what are the three most important tasks every day. That will be the most difficult. But if every day you do the most three most important tasks of the day in one year, three years, five years, we will automatically be in a good place. There’s no other there’s no other way. And I like this because today is everything we have actually. And now when I look back at the end, it was everything was always happened today. Nine years ago, I didn’t say I want 50 books on Amazon or 40, and make that and that and six figures. No, I wanted to get 1000 words done. I wanted to get my first book done. I wanted to have a little bit more money so that I am not like this all the time, right? And then every day I did my stuff and five years, something’s got a lot different. So I’m not a coach, I’m not giving the multi-five figures conferences. But hey, somehow, sometimes life gives you these things in another way and it’s okay.
Kat
Right. You might find that you don’t want to, right? Like, if you want to live in Budapest, you can’t maybe do all the conferences in the US.
Marc
Two years ago, one and a half years ago, I couldn’t even imagine to live in Budapest. It was also like, just I’m a little jealous, things happening, you know, things happening. So this is also with goals. So I’m setting goals. I have set goals for ten years and I actually reached 80%, although they were so far out of line, you could believe it. But yeah, but ten years is a long time. And then it’s also so one goal was, I want a Porsche. But in these ten years, I said, no, I don’t need a Porsche because I’m living in the city center. And if I wanted one, I wouldn’t buy it, I would lease it. Because that’s a lot.
Kat
Because you’ve learned what you would do.
Marc
Yeah, exactly. You learn on the way and these things. But on the other hand, also, other goals were like, one day I want to earn what I earned in a year, in my nine-to–five job, in one day. And I thought, maybe it’s a conference or maybe it’s a great day on Amazon. At the end, it was a check for my Japanese royalty. But it happens. You don’t care where it comes from. You have the goal. And then the great thing was I had this goal for three years, so it’s not, I set the goal and then it will happen within a year. I set the goal and then it will happen sooner or later. I don’t know how, I don’t know from where it comes, but it will come. And I’m keeping working.
Kat
But you wrote it down so you didn’t forget. So that when it came, you get to celebrate it, right?
Marc
Exactly. Big time. Yeah.
Kat
I love that because I wanted to have you on, because I see this phenomenon happening in the writer world. And I do think that as your 13 books set up for people, it really has a lot more to do with habits and productivity and loving yourself and understanding how you work and all that mindset.
Marc
Yes. Self-knowledge. Yes, right?
Kat
And you said, like, five years past, ten years pass. But the thing is, those years will pass like they will whether we…
Kat
If you do nothing, exactly. What’s the worst that you I also always think, what’s the worst that can happen.
Kat
I’ll be in the same spot.
Marc
Exactly. So you might as well try. And you will fall. I think everybody, you and everybody who listens to us, when we look back 20 years in our life, the things that seemed catastrophes at the end probably were even great things that they happen to us. So as I say, everything happens for a reason, right? Or sometimes you make it. Maybe sometimes you make it. You change your perspective of something that happened 10, 15 years ago. I was fired. It was not nice in the moment, but now I just want to go to give my boss a hug, because I said without you, it wouldn’t have been possible, right?
Kat
Yeah, your perspective changes. Well, thank you so much, Marc, for coming on, because I really think that this is important to anybody. But even writers to realize little things will help them become more productive, be happier. Because what’s the point of getting ten books out there if you’re miserable and you hate your life and you hate your books? That’s not good either, right? So I will have the link in the show notes to your books and to your website. But thank you so much for coming on and talking to us.
Marc
It was a super pleasure. I hope we gave some value to the people. And it’s also okay to have bad days. Everybody has them. Even I have them sometimes. Just then, I don’t go to podcasts on my bad days. I dig in somewhere and then two days later, I rise again. So it’s totally normal. I studied happiness a lot, and it doesn’t mean that you have to be happy all the time.
Kat
All the time, right?
Marc
It’s these ups and downs and happier people just snap out quicker from the lows.
Kat
I like that definition.
Marc
That’s everything and you can do that. Tools of that are, for example, gratitude or walking around the block. Even sometimes it sounds like it can’t be that easy. It’s like, no, it can’t be that easy. Yes, it is.
Kat
Yes.
Marc
And the more even maybe not in the beginning, and also, don’t expect miracles after one, but if you’re doing it 30 or 50 or 60 times, I’m pretty sure that gratitude will work, the walks will work, and you will really enjoy it, and you will become more productive. And as I said, be your best friend. The world is tough enough out there.
Kat
Yeah. It’s so true. It’s so true. Thank you so much, Marc.