Taboo Business Questions has been a work in process for over five years. I started reading business books when I was twenty and found many of them fascinating. I especially loved Dave Ramsey’s books and how he was able to turn his own Taboo Topic (personal financial struggles with debt) into an empire.
I began jotting notes down for various inspirations I had about that time, too. There really wasn’t ever a thought of turning these into an actual book for quite some time. It’s interesting, though, looking back on things, I wrote most of what became the first chapter on Hiring while working in the mortgage industry and for an accounting firm. It was from these experiences that I really began to understand that small business owners don’t know how to ask about hiring. I still didn’t think I was going to write an actual book though. I just had a bunch of random thoughts written out.
My inspiration to turn these thoughts into an actual book came from meeting my first “serial entrepreneur.” He had written a book and built a company around it. I remember meeting him and thinking to myself, “He’s a pretty smart dude. I bet I could figure out how to write a book.” I actually asked him about his process and how he did it. His advice was, “Just write. About anything. You’ll start to see patterns and your thoughts will come together. But you just have to write.”
So, I did. I spent my weekends, week nights, and early mornings before work writing. I’d write about anything business related. I wrote quite a few business blogs for the accounting firm I worked for. I wrote blogs for IA Business Advisors. I wrote blogs for some of our clients. Whitepapers. Business strategies. Business plans. Marketing strategies. Anything.
During the process of writing this book, I was finishing my bachelor’s degree at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois. I went through their Business Management and Leadership program one Monday night at a time for almost 3 years. I had to write five to ten page papers almost every single week on top of reading the materials. All the while, I was working full-time as a business consultant. Writing for school taught me how to formulate my thoughts into a cohesive manifest.
That’s what I began to create. I had all these random business thoughts. All these different topics that I wrote about, basically out of frustration. My notes, as I reflected on them, were more like an angry journal. I noticed that my notes sounded more like complaining about certain things business owners didn’t do in their business and refused to talk about it. When I noticed this trend, I thought I might be on to something. I remember talking to a few close friends in the business world about it; trends of things that business owners didn’t want to talk about. I got some encouragement there and decided to start formulating the name of my book.
The first few renditions were terrible. They were way too wordy. I think my first one was, “If only business owners would try and grow their business by listening to a consultant.” Like I said. Terrible. I’ll never forget finding Taboo in the thesaurus. Sure, I had heard it and used it before. But it’s a fairly rare word. I let it rattle around in my head for a while wordsmithing. After about 6 months, I landed on Taboo Business Questions.
The New York Trip
I’ve been about 90% done with the book for almost a year. I couldn’t find the time to get it done. Life was a little crazy, work was very busy, and I just couldn’t block off the time to do it. After talking with IA’s Sr. Managing Partner, Dr. Brian Smith, about the book and how close I was to finishing it, he decided I needed a trip to get it done.
We talked about this trip for about a month before I got “The Email.” The email was from Dr. Smith and it said, “Matt, I think you need to get away. Maybe Florida. Maybe Georgia. But, you need to go somewhere and finish your book.” So, I did just that and landed on New York. I had never been, and I thought I would find inspiration in the financial district. It was just what I needed.
On this 3-day trip to New York, I knocked out all the remaining pieces to the book and proudly submitted a complete manuscript to the editor. Sitting back in the office chair of the Business Center at the Doubletree Hotel in New York, I smiled to myself. I had just written a book.