Setting out on the path to wealth is like changing a set of spark plugs on an old tractor.
Once you’ve done it, you can move lots of earth.
Richard Branson, 2003. *
The next part of your journey along Success Road is to start work on creating your expertise.
Writing something is the easiest and best way to start. You must create a “Fountain of Wisdom” and encourage others to stop and drink from the crystal clear waters of inspiration.
Here is the best way to do it. Grab a piece of paper right now. Think of the subject you want to be an expert in and write as much as you can about that subject on the piece of paper. Don’t stop until you are exhausted. Keep going until you are physically unable to lift the pen to continue. If you get hungry, keep writing. Need to sleep or even walk the dog? Stay awake. Kick the dog. Write until you collapse with your head on the page.
If you need the toilet, don’t go. Wet yourself. You can always clean it up later.
If you have what it takes to sit and do something until it hurts, you are on the first step of the ladder of success. You are a grafter, someone who does not mind hard work.
Writing the First Chapter of your Expert Guide
Here is the very first draft of my own, highly successful expert guide, which made me rich. It is a guide on how to lose weight without exercising or dieting.
First Draft of The Fat Man’s Guide to not being Fat
Chapter 1 –Lose Some Weight
Losing weight is never easy. If you are reading this, it is quite likely you are a fat, idle, good for nothing layabout who likes nothing better than a Frey Bentos Steak Pie and 6 pints of Old Peculier in your local hostelry.
Why have you let yourself get in this state? What benefit are you to society apart from keeping whole businesses going by purchasing social mobility cars, fish & chips and oversize trousers?
Have you smelt the emissions from your bottom? No? If you did ever manage to bend over that far the stench would put you off being fat ever again.
A fat man sat on a chair in an office I worked at for less than 10 minutes. The chair had to be burnt it stank so badly.
Burden on society? You bet.
Not sure if you are fat? Take the following test:
Test 1
Run to your nearest takeaway and back.
(blank page – insert here)
Aha – got you. If you knew where your nearest takeaway is located you clearly have an eating disorder. Are you still alive after running to the takeaway and back? You are probably not as fat as you think.
Reading this having just suffered a heart attack from running to the takeaway? Bad luck, not only are you fat, you are one of life’s losers. Your heart was clearly weak and in need of an attack to stimulate the receptors in your ventricles.
The key to a happy and meaningful well being is contained within this book – YOU have the power to change your life and only YOU can make a difference to your miserable existence. After all, losing weight quickly is easy if you are an elephant suffering from dysentery.
No more children following you up the road throwing sausages at you. No more changing your trousers every time you flatulate. No more inevitable questions from your children as to why the fridge and all the food cupboards are bare all the time. No more embarrassment at Christmas when you eat 5 selection boxes in one sitting and make all the children cry.
YOU can change (when you have spent £14.99 on this book) and become a normal person again.
Make sure you have you bought this book – if you have borrowed it from the library I guarantee that it will not work. Take it back immediately. Go straight to your bookshop and order a copy. Write your name on the special “Fat Person ID tag”.
Put your hand on your heart and say every morning to yourself:
“I am not fat. I am me. There is no ‘m’ in fat. There is no ‘e’ in fat. I swear I will stop being fat as quickly as possible, or God or other deity (choose your own) can strike me down and cease the production of Mars bars forever.”
You can see from the extract above that the first draft to a book is always very rough and ready, but contains the kernel of your ideas and gives you foundations to build your writings on.
Expert Book Title
For most writers, titles come from bursts of inspiration.
Take Charles Dickens. It is rumoured that Oliver Twist was originally called “George Arbuthnot”. One day, Charles Dickens was at the fairground in Stoke Newington when he saw a helter skelter. His nephew, called Oliver, remarked to his uncle in passing that he wanted to go and do the twist again, like he had done the previous summer.
Ernest Hemingway was stood at a bus stop outside Kings Cross station, watching an old man trying to climb onto a departing bus. Unfortunately just as he reached out to jump onto the foot plate, the old man slipped, fell over and landed on his head. At the same time the clock on a nearby church started ringing out for 12pm. Rather than running to the elderly gentleman’s aid, Hemingway got out his diary and noted down “For Whom the Bell Tolls”.
My title for the weight loss book came to me in a flash of inspiration. I had already considered the following list:
- Lose Weight or Die (a bit morbid).
- Lose Weight or Die Trying (a bit macho).
- You are Useless and Fat. Lose Some Weight! (a bit insulting).
- Rediscovering your Penis – A Guide for Fat Men (excludes over 50% of the potential customers).
- Lard and Me Get Divorced (a bit obscure).
I settled on “The Fat Man’s Guide to Not Being Fat”. It describes the book perfectly. After all, the book is a guide for fat people showing them how to lose weight. Who is the Fat Man? This is an added mystery to lure the reader to buy the book and find out.
Formalities
Once you have started writing, it is now time to take the next step and put some formalities in place. If you are going to be an expert, you must make sure you have protected yourself from any financial losses that could arise. You just never know what may happen.
For example, let’s say you become an expert at making your own flying car. You write a guide on how to build the car and sell it.
Unfortunately, your first customer suffers terrible injuries when he attempts to take off because you forgot to include any wings in your design.
No doubt the customer will want some recompense for taking your defective advice. He could go for your house, your car, your wife’s wedding ring and all your worldly possessions. Your wife would throw you out, once she had attempted to kill you, your family would disown you and you would be left destitute.
However, if you set up a limited company the customer gets nothing. You shut the business, shrug your shoulders and walk away.
In my own successful venture, we set up The Fat People Company Limited. It is important to make sure you follow the various regulations and I have included a Board Meeting template below.
FREE SAMPLE BOARD MEETING TEMPLATE
A Company Ltd
Board Meeting – LOCATION HERE
Date: 8th June 2018
Present
- Bob Carolgees (chair)
- Hamish Macbeth
- Vladimir Putin
Meeting opened by Bob Carolgees.
Matters discussed:
1.
2.
3.
Vladimir Putin stated that there was the following resolution to be made. This was discussed, and it was resolved to:
1. Declare an interim dividend of £20 per ordinary share, totalling £10,000.
2. Total amount paid to shareholders to date for the current tax year (15-16) equals £26,250.
Signed
Bob Carolgees
Chairman
Keith David is a businessman from a small village in North Wales. He is the author of “The Fat Man’s Guide to Not Being Fat”, “How to Get Rich” and a couple of other self-help books. Best known for his dramatic rise to fame after inventing a dietary plan to lose 7 stone in a week, he is similarly fairly well known for his subsequent fall back into penury. His wife, Anwen David regularly hacks his blog entries and adds factual corrections. You can read Keith’s book on How To Get Rich by visiting Amazon here