Clarity is kindness. Specificity is love.
I know it sounds cheesy. Hear me out.
Most of what I share here is about helping you level up your online presence and think holistically about your author brand. The root of that work is always clarity. Cut the fluff. Put the reader, or the potential client, at the center of what you say so they understand your message and your work.
So if clarity is the key, why is it so hard to practice?
For me, it’s because I never learned how to be specific. Really, honed-in specific.
A lot of brilliant people hover in vagueness because they don’t actually know what they want. I was one of them. I had a vision at times, but I would pull my punch. Sometimes it was doubt. Sometimes it was a limiting belief or an old experience. When I was younger, I’d pass on what I wanted so I didn’t make anyone uncomfortable. I thought what I wanted was asking too much, or that it was the wrong choice.
You can hear vagueness in how we talk. “I want to make somewhere between this number and that number.” “I want something like this for my website.” No decision, and no reason behind it.
Once I learned to be specific, which really means being intentional, everything got easier. It took me a while. Specificity is a gift to you and to whoever you’re working with. It means you know what you want, you’ve decided, and you’re moving forward. Knowing what you don’t want clears the way just as much.
I still lean on others when I’m unsure. But I also question my gut and ask what’s stopping me from knowing what I want.
Here’s what that looks like for an authorpreneur:
Not 10 to 14 clients. Pick 10 or pick 14.
Know exactly what you charge for your expertise, not a number built around how long things take.
Decide how many posts you’ll publish this week and this month.
Decide how many videos you’ll put out each week and each month.
Know your budget and what it can actually do.
Be direct and specific in your messaging, your emails, your posts, and your speaking.
Bring emotion when it’s needed. And stay open. Plans will shift, and you’ll work through some tension along the way. When you’re clear on what you want, a better idea doesn’t derail you. It sharpens your direction and deepens your intention.
Great athletes and performers visualize before a game, a concert, almost anything they step into. That visualization comes from intense intention, not only toward the outcome but toward how the outcome comes to life.
Clear visualization is specific. You see the colors. You see the game. You see your book on the shelf at the airport bookstore. How detailed is your vision? Is it written down? Do you talk about it? Do you replay it so often it starts to feel real?
I’ve been practicing visualization more over the past few months, along with being more specific in my work with author clients. It helps. My days go better when I visualize how I want them to go each morning, and I sleep better when I picture a good night’s rest each evening. Small things, practiced daily.
I know it sounds silly. We have an imagination for a reason. The more detail you bring to it, the more it reflects back.
Speaking of which, I’m about to fly up to speak and run an all-day workshop tomorrow at a small leadership retreat in Silverton, Oregon. I’ve visualized this talk over and over for weeks and rehearsed the specific stories I want to share. I’ll tell you how it went next week.
So here’s my question for you. What will you be more specific about today, this week, and in your work as an authorpreneur?
Keep going.
Hussein
