You know that feeling when you see someone else succeed in a way you want to succeed?
I call it the four stages of jealousy:
- Impressed: “Wow, what if I did that too?”
- Depressed: “I’ll never be that good.”
- Rationalization: “They got lucky.”
- Denial: (Act like it didn’t happen.)
One of my favorite mental models is to “Explore Your Emotions“.
Most people instinctively avoid their emotions, especially negative ones.
This mental model teaches you to stop and dig into why you’re feeling that way.
Especially for emotions like jealousy, this exploration can teach you a lot about your true desires.
For years, I’ve watched many people I follow online publish their first book.
You know the drill. All of a sudden there are a bunch of posts about a book launch. They post pictures smiling wide while holding their new book.
Their first post triggers that impressed feeling. Which leads to daydreaming about writing your own book.
The second and especially third one get irritating. They’re still talking about their book?
Your brain starts searching for reasons why they could do it easier than you. They’re already famous. They have followers. And a traditional publisher. Copying them would take years to decades.
So you rationalize it away and eventually act like it never happened.
I’ve traversed that cycle of jealousy many times over the last decade.
I’ve always loved to read. I devoured books as a child. I slowed down a lot in high school and college when I was forced to read. But now I’m back to reading or writing in most spare moments.
Those authors are many of my heroes. So I’ve long imagined holding my own book with my name on the cover. But then I would look down at the hundreds of pages in my hands and get lost in the idea of writing that much, that cleanly. And then I would give up.
That all changed on October 1, 2024. On that day, I decided that I was going to write a book. More precisely, I was going to write 1,000 good words per week for at least 20 weeks, the length of a short (~120 page) book. This strategy is pulled from another of my favorite mental models, “Systems Finish Goals”.
If I had focused on my 20,000+ word book goal for six months, I probably would’ve gotten to 5K-10K words of messy writing and then quit.
But because I focused on my weekly output, each week felt manageable and by the end of January, I had a 16,000+ word draft that I could share with friends and family and publishers. It only took one meeting, with Scribe Media, to find my publisher and start taking my book from draft to reality.
After 4+ months of work with my book coach, I had a solid 30,000+ word second draft. Now I could see clearly to a 40,000+ word, 200+ page book that I would be proud of for life. After doing that work for another 3 months, we officially locked the manuscript on September 25, 2025.
That’s when the fun part really started. We went through five rounds of cover designs to hone in on the perfect hardcover and paperback designs for this book. I reached out for key blurbs and early reviews. The notes I got back were so kind and further pumped me up to share this book with the world.
And I started getting emails every day sharing something new on the way to book launch. Here’s the final layout design! Here’s the official advance copy! Where should we ship your author copies?
Then, the moment I had been waiting for my whole life hit me in my inbox between hockey games:
“Your book is available for pre-order”
I waited to click the link to the product page until I got into my car. (There’s no crying in hockey!)
It was love at first sight. I saw my book, with its bright yellow cover, on Amazon with every other book in the world. Pride, and joy, and relief, at crossing off one of the biggest items on my bucket list.
You spend months staring at hundreds of versions of your book, from Docs to PDFs to printed drafts.
Then one day you see it online for sale and it really feels real.
The key details made me smile:
- Print Length: 222 pages (I never thought I could write a feature-length book myself!)
- Publication date: November 11, 2025 (The exact deadline I set for myself last year!)
- Author Name: Neil Thanedar (Wow, I’m actually an author. For real. Still doesn’t feel real!)
All-in, it took less than thirteen months for me to go from an idea to a book available to buy online.
The dream is now a reality for me!
Now, it’s your turn!
Have you ever dreamed of writing a book? If you start now, you can be a published author in 2026! I hope this post inspires a few of you to take the leap and turn your ideas into your dream book.
What would be the title of your book? Really dream about what phrase you’d most want to be associated with your name. This is a valuable exercise even if you don’t end up writing the book because it clarifies your true life’s mission.
I’d recommend everyone at least write one 1,000 word blog post about your biggest idea and publish it online. You’d be shocked at how many like-minded people will reach out to you from one well-written post on a specific topic!
(Positive Politics started with a 2,591 word essay I posted online in December 2023 titled “A Positive Agenda for America“. While most of those words didn’t end up in the book, you can already start to see where my ideas were going, especially in the top-ten list of bills we should pass in the next decade.)
Feel free to message me with any questions as you’re starting this journey. I’d love to cheer for you!
And if you’ve ever dreamed of getting into politics, check out my book!
Positive Politics is a rallying cry for a new generation of leaders, who I call ambitious optimists, to get into politics now and positively change the world.
Many ambitious optimists shy away from politics because they believe it’s all a popularity contest. But you don’t have to run for office. I recommend starting with activism anyways to learn how to change laws and minds first.
Imagine how different your life will be in ten years if you get into politics now. Even if you’re already rich and successful, I bet that your life will be more positively defined by what you do in politics than by any other work.
Politics doesn’t just add lines to your résumé; it adds lines to your eulogy. What could you accomplish in the rest of your life in politics? Let’s find out!