Ask the Author: Josh Hillis
Answered Questions (3)
Josh Hillis
So, for the last five years I've really been digging in on how to make weight loss more effective, kind, and professional. I wanted to know why diets didn't work for 90% of the people, and how to create a system that worked for eveyone.
I found some studies on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and emotional eating, and it really clarified things. I started to see that, for folks who stress eat, emotionally eat, procrastination eat, or tired eat, normal tools won't work. That's when I started diving in on the ACT stuff. I got so deep into the research that I went back to school for psychology, so I could learn how to actually read research LOL. Research methods became one of my favorite classes, and I eventually TA'd it, and even won a department award for TA'ing it.
I'm really passionate about taking cutting edge tools from psychology and making them available to people who are working on their eating. That aws the original genesis of the book.
The system in the book itself opened up from repeatedly going back to my client notes and looking at which coaching pieces actually made a difference. I found that the hunger and fullness cues I'd been teaching were great, but that most people needed more structure and guidelines at first, to learn them.
The book came from that research work (and one particular review I did on ACT and snacking), from looking at goal achievement research, motivation science, and at what was working for real clients in a simplified and structured way.
I found some studies on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and emotional eating, and it really clarified things. I started to see that, for folks who stress eat, emotionally eat, procrastination eat, or tired eat, normal tools won't work. That's when I started diving in on the ACT stuff. I got so deep into the research that I went back to school for psychology, so I could learn how to actually read research LOL. Research methods became one of my favorite classes, and I eventually TA'd it, and even won a department award for TA'ing it.
I'm really passionate about taking cutting edge tools from psychology and making them available to people who are working on their eating. That aws the original genesis of the book.
The system in the book itself opened up from repeatedly going back to my client notes and looking at which coaching pieces actually made a difference. I found that the hunger and fullness cues I'd been teaching were great, but that most people needed more structure and guidelines at first, to learn them.
The book came from that research work (and one particular review I did on ACT and snacking), from looking at goal achievement research, motivation science, and at what was working for real clients in a simplified and structured way.
Josh Hillis
Writing professionally is about writing when you don't want to. It's about sitting down and just cranking out work.
Writer's block is about trying to get it right. So don't bother trying to get it right. Just write. Write total crap. Every first draft is terrible, that's part of the process. You start with garbage, and just do more and more drafts until it's something really useful for people.
Lean and Strong, I wrote 2000 words per day until I was done with the first draft (about 80,000 words). Then I threw that draft away completely, and started over.
I did the same thing writing the second draft, just 2000 words per day. And it was better, more focused, solved more real problems, and was more useful for people.
After the second draft, I figured out how to organize the material in a way that it could be taught well. The third draft, really, was about that organization, and creating a useable system of the material. I took a bunch of good information, and made it read like a coaching system. That's when I figured out the five levels, 1) Don't Diet, 2) Eating Skills, 3) Meta-skills, 4) Mindset turning points, 5) Psychology.
The fourth draft filled out that framework. The fifth draft was putting in the 387 references, and explaining how they relate. The sixth and seventh drafts were from notes from my editor.
So, writer's block is about not being willing to do those crappy first drafts. The trick is to start, knowing it will suck, and continuing to write anyway. Knowing that writing is an iterative process, and that it's made better through repeated revisions.
Writer's block is about trying to get it right. So don't bother trying to get it right. Just write. Write total crap. Every first draft is terrible, that's part of the process. You start with garbage, and just do more and more drafts until it's something really useful for people.
Lean and Strong, I wrote 2000 words per day until I was done with the first draft (about 80,000 words). Then I threw that draft away completely, and started over.
I did the same thing writing the second draft, just 2000 words per day. And it was better, more focused, solved more real problems, and was more useful for people.
After the second draft, I figured out how to organize the material in a way that it could be taught well. The third draft, really, was about that organization, and creating a useable system of the material. I took a bunch of good information, and made it read like a coaching system. That's when I figured out the five levels, 1) Don't Diet, 2) Eating Skills, 3) Meta-skills, 4) Mindset turning points, 5) Psychology.
The fourth draft filled out that framework. The fifth draft was putting in the 387 references, and explaining how they relate. The sixth and seventh drafts were from notes from my editor.
So, writer's block is about not being willing to do those crappy first drafts. The trick is to start, knowing it will suck, and continuing to write anyway. Knowing that writing is an iterative process, and that it's made better through repeated revisions.
Josh Hillis
This summer, so far I've been reading Prosocial, and amazing book by Atkins, Wilson, and Hayes, about using Nobel Prize winning group design principles to create high performance equitable groups. It blows my mind. Pretty much everything I'd been taught about economics and group behavior was based on faulty assumptions. Add in, on top of that, a world leading evolutionary biologist *and* a world leading psychologist, and it's quite a book.
For fiction, I'm reading Ship of Magic, by Robin Hobb. I'm a huge Brandon Sanderson fan, but I read my way through all of the Stormlight Archive and Mistborn books, so I've been looking for a new author. I cranked through Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice trilogy and loved it. So, I think I have a new author to follow! Ship of Magic is the first book in the second trilogy. I like it, but I felt like it started rrrrreeeeeaaaaaaalllly slowly. I'm 279 pages into it, now, and just starting to really get into it.
I just barely have started How to Be an Anti-Racist, by Ibrim X. Kendi.
Last book on the list, for this summer, is True Refuge, by Tara Brach.
For fiction, I'm reading Ship of Magic, by Robin Hobb. I'm a huge Brandon Sanderson fan, but I read my way through all of the Stormlight Archive and Mistborn books, so I've been looking for a new author. I cranked through Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice trilogy and loved it. So, I think I have a new author to follow! Ship of Magic is the first book in the second trilogy. I like it, but I felt like it started rrrrreeeeeaaaaaaalllly slowly. I'm 279 pages into it, now, and just starting to really get into it.
I just barely have started How to Be an Anti-Racist, by Ibrim X. Kendi.
Last book on the list, for this summer, is True Refuge, by Tara Brach.
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