2011 has been, and continues to be, a strange year for me. I’ve had the luxury of being able to work from home for most of my adult life — for many years as an editor and copywriter and someone who helped authors get booked on radio and TV shows across the country, and for the last few as an independent Internet marketer. “My own boss,” so to speak.

But back to the changes I’ve seen in 2011. Because I work from home, it’s always been assumed that one room in the house I share with my wife and three children (two girls and a boy, oldest nine, youngest two) was “mine” — as in, for me to work.

This has necessitated some sacrifices as you might imagine. But over the past year or so, I’ve been, more and more, giving “my spaces” to my kids. So where I used to have a full wall of built-in bookcases dedicated to books on copywriting, sales, marketing, writing, etc., etc., that eventually dwindled down to a few shelves, and then, eventually, simply to one shelf, where only the most important and oft-referred-to titles resided. Things like Robert Cialdini’s Psychology of Persuasion and Dan Kennedy’s The Ultimate Sales Letter. (As well as my prized collection of autographed baseball memorabilia, including a card and ball signed by Bobby Thomson, from the 1951 New York Giants, of “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” fame).

Believe me, this IS all headed somewhere that’s relevant to you…

So anyway, I’ve moved home-offices twice in about 18 months — from the coveted “corner office” I used to occupy, to the less-prestigious “spare bedroom” and now, finally, to an even smaller and even-less-prestigious “den” in an otherwise-unused part of the house. (If my wife and I have any more children, I’ll wind up in a closet.)

Long story short…I have a lot less space for my “stuff” than I used to.

So A LOT of the books and other material that has made an impact on me, however profound, has been packed up and moved into our basement. The rule was, if it wasn’t referred to regularly, it had to go. I know there’s something to be said for that approach. The whole “simplifying” your life thing. And generally I don’t have much, if anything, to complain about in that area.

Recently my older daughter was asking me about something that I knew I had packed away and sent off to basement storage (a video game, if you must know), and being the ever-eager-to-please father that I am, I set aside a few hours one day and started rummaging.

I sat in the basement, next to the washer and dryer, and went through all of the accumulated professional tools that I deemed worthy of keeping, but unnecessary for daily use. It was like a trip down memory lane, mostly, and the vast majority of the stuff I picked through was rightly there — available if need be, but not necessarily something I needed to put my hands on every day.

But one thing wasn’t. There was one book that I should NEVER have packed away. A book by Og Mandino called The Greatest Salesman in the World.

Mandino’s life is a fascinating story of redemption. He served as a bombardier on B-24s during World War II and flew 30-some-odd missions over Germany (some with Jimmy Stewart, the movie star, who was a B-24 pilot during the war).

After the war, unable to find work, Mandino became a salesman, failed quickly at the profession, and became an alcoholic. As a result, his wife left him, taking their young daughter with her. It was immediately after this that Mandino, a totally broken man in every sense of the word, nearly committed suicide.

Hardly an auspicious beginning to a career that would make Mandino one of the most celebrated motivational speakers and writers in the world. But that’s exactly what happened.

Mandino’s life was changed…completely…by reading. By books. He sat for hours in the library, reading W. Clement Stone, Napoleon Hill, Emmet Fox, and others.

And this is the first thing that I wanted to mention (but it’s not at all the main point I wanted to make today) — books change lives. You know that, and I know that.

It was a book — a NOVEL — that made me choose to be a writer, which led to my job as a political speechwriter, which led to my job as a copywriter, which led to my job as a book marketer, which led to my “job” as an Internet marketer.

All because I read that book. (Incidentally, if you were wondering, the book that “started it all” was This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald.)

I don’t want to get to “mushy” here, but it can be a fascinating and enlightening exercise to take an hour or two and think about the path you took that brought you to where you are. They’re seldom straight lines. Just a thought for a rainy day.

But back to what is undoubtedly Mandino’s most famous book…

If you couldn’t tell from the title, The Greatest Salesman in the World is designed for, you guessed it, people in sales. It’s a parable. A motivational text. A set of 10 rules to live by, billed as the 10 secrets to success not just in a sales career, but in life. It’s all couched within a short story about ancient merchants, camels, caravans, castles, the spice trade and far-away lands.

Although Mandino died in 1996, the book continues to be a favorite and is still in print around the world, with many millions of copies sold.

Here’s the story of the book’s creation, as told by Dave Blanchard, CEO of The Og Mandino Group…

(Quick note here: This video kind of freaked me out a little bit, as Blanchard’s tone and his telling of this story made it sound somehow, I don’t know, “religious,” or a bit like a recruitment film for a cult. And the fact that the 10 principles are called “The 10 Scrolls” doesn’t help. Kind of gave me the heebee jeebees. But get past that. It’s an interesting story about how Mandino wrote one of the most popular motivational books in history.)

So anyway, I first read the book years ago. It’s a book that makes an impact IF you read it and IF you apply the principles within, and IF you try and live your life (mostly) by these 10 simple rules. And I don’t just mean for salespeople. I’m not in sales (at least not directly), and if I was, I guarantee you my kids would be emaciated, not just skinny.

I read it again over the Thanksgiving holiday and realized that there are many basic principles I needed to get back to in my business and my life — principles that Og talks about in the book.

And as often happens when you read, watch, see, or hear something that makes an impact on you, you want to share it with the people you care about. So I thought now would be the perfect time, and I came up with a bit of a plan…

I know that many people, and authors are no exception, like to try and rededicate themselves at the start of a new year. And often, amidst the craziness that is December and the holiday season, we tend to lose focus a little bit.

So I thought what better way to help us all prepare for the new year than by going through this book and highlighting what I feel to be particularly relevant to success as an author.

AND I wanted to offer you all something special from me personally to help you make 2012 your best year ever. But we’ll get to that later on.

For now, here’s my plan, and I hope you’ll join me on this…

 
Starting today and culminating on December 31st, I’ll be going through The Greatest Salesman in the World, principle by principle (or “scroll by scroll”), and posting what I hope are relevant and timely insights and tools that can help anyone have more success in this business we’ve chosen.

There are around 32 days or so until the end of the year, and there are 10 principles in the book, so approximately every 3 days I’ll try and get a new incredibly insightful and life-changing entry up here (joking about that last part, of course). But in all seriousness, I do strongly believe that there are some incredible things we can take away from this work — things that will help you have more success as an author and, yes, sell more books.

I’ll do my best to do it justice.

I hope on some level that you’ll find it useful.

Look for the first installment in a couple days.

Speak soon,

Chris

P.S. I would really appreciate it, if you start to find this series useful, that you share it on Facebook or Twitter, email it to your friends and colleagues (buttons to do this are below), link to it from your blog or website, or get the word out in any way you see fit. Thanks!

P.P.S. I’ll have the news for you on that special thing I personally want to do for you in a few days. Stay tuned!