Why Smart People Struggle To Write Books
The Hidden Challenge of Turning Experience Into Teachable Wisdom
By the time he came to me, my client had been trying to write his book for about five months. "It's just not clear yet," he said to me, frustration plain on his face. "I have so much to say but somehow it's not coming out right."
This client had been in the banking industry for three decades and he was responsible for some of the greatest turnarounds in US and European banking in recent memory. He had tons of on-the-ground experience, oodles of stories, and he knew what he was talking about. He had earned the right to speak on the topic.
But he still didn't know how to put it all together. And that meant that any writing he did felt like spinning his wheels. Like he was getting "content" out but it didn't amount to anything substantial.
My client was an excellent problem-solver, but that skill was not useful here. He needed a different way of thinking.
The Transition from Fluid Intelligence to Crystallized Intelligence
Although he didn't know it, he was in the middle of a transition from fluid intelligence to crystallized intelligence.
Fluid intelligence involves reasoning and problem solving, while crystallized intelligence involves recalling stored knowledge that you've acquired over the course of your life and experience.
He had to go from top-notch secret weapon—the doer—to the person who shows others how to solve the problem. From the problem-solver to the teacher.
What he had to do was zoom out, reflect on the lifetime of experience, and learn how to teach what he knows. He had to unearth the crystallized intelligence he had earned throughout his successes and construct it in a way that made it possible for someone else to replicate.
This transition is brutal for high achievers. They're used to being the person who gets results, not the person who explains how to get results. But writing a book demands this shift.
After years of seeing this pattern again and again, I'm convinced that this is the core problem when writing a book (to be specific, a non-fiction, business, self-help or how-to book designed to teach people to do something). While the writing, storytelling, grammar, word choice might trip people up, the real challenge is working out a firm framework to stand on before you start writing.
Almost every hard-to-solve writing problem comes from a lack of thought about the framework of the idea, which includes fleshing out the assumptions, the limitations, and the outcomes (both good and bad) of a given way of teaching. As a book doctor who has seen multiple mangled manuscripts with very bad writing, this lack of deep thought into the framework is more often than not the core problem.
How to Solve It
1. Time Frameworks, philosophies, and methodologies that stand up to scrutiny and testing don't get slapped together in a matter of days. This is the kind of work and the kind of thinking that takes weeks, months, or years to crystallize. I'm not suggesting you wait years to write your book, but in an effort not to put the cart before the horse, you will have to put some time into thinking about a framework that works. Strong frameworks unfold over time. That doesn't mean you can't put one together, but expect to let it develop gradually rather than forcing it into existence.
2. Conscious thought and work You need dedicated time spent thinking through the problems your audience/customers/clients face, what they want, what you want, your experiences, what you know to be truth, the hidden truths under what you know to be true. When I work with clients, we do this in four 90-minute sessions spread out over about 45 days. We dig into the idea, wrestle around with it, and when we are finished you have a rough draft of a framework that you can then go test with your audience. I say rough draft because the work isn't done. You have to go into this with the understanding that your framework will evolve as you evolve, and you have to let it have the time it needs to do so.
3. A willingness to be curious Often, there is more to your core message than you think. One client thought he was writing about teams and how they can work together better, and he was, but there was a core theme to his idea that he took for granted: change, and how people respond to it. By helping him surface that core theme and get curious about it, he realized that it wasn't just an add-on. It was the underlying message behind everything he taught.
We can get distracted by the reasons people want to work with us, the on-the-surface problem that people want to solve for. We have to look deeper for the core principles and ideas that truly differentiate us from everyone else in the crowd.
4. Honesty Sometimes, we haven't earned the right to speak on a particular topic. This is an entire blog post in and of itself, but it's enough to say that this work requires that you are honest with yourself about where you are. Too often, people get sucked into the sexy idea of writing a book. Sometimes, an agent reaches out and tells them they should write a book, before the book was even a twinkle in the wannabe author's eye. It takes a lot of honesty to be able to say "I'm not ready."
The transition from doer to teacher and author takes more than the act of writing. It requires that you evolve how you think about your expertise.
Start by asking yourself: What do I do instinctively that others struggle with? What patterns do I see that others miss? What assumptions do I make that need to be spelled out for someone else to succeed?
Your expertise is valuable. But until you can teach it, you can't share it beyond the people you work with directly. Once you learn how to distill your hard-earned wisdom into something others can grasp and apply, you’ll finally be able to write about it in a way that truly serves your readers.
Interested in getting creative and writing support from a New York Times bestselling ghostwriter? Join Zenith, a weekly online coworking space.
Interested in learning how to work with me? Learn more here.
Like what you’ve read? This work grows when you share it, and I would be deeply appreciative if you would.