Marc Reklau: «Knowledge is useless if it isn’t applied»

This article was originally published by Carme Escales on May 19th for Spain’s fourth-biggest newspaper “El Periodico”.

In the large library of Amazon, there are almost four million books with nothing happening to them. But to about 15,000 of them something is happening. Among these, there are great bestsellers that resonate throughout the world, such as The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, a phenomenon from the Japanese Marie Kondo, who was also interviewed on this page. And there are other books that, without publisher or promotion backing them, also manage to become best sellers. Marc Reklau (Esslingen, near Stuttgart, Germany, 1973) is the author of one of them. Being unemployed, he wrote 30 days. Change your habits, change your life.

In Premià, three blocks from the sea, he wrote, edited and climbed to the top of sales with his method to create the longed-for life.

– And your life changed… 

Actually, it had already changed. That’s why the book was successful. I was already applying the habits of my book, that’s why I know they work.

-Another self-help book, one could say…

Since I was 16, I have read many self-help books. At 23, I told my mother that I could write my summary book.

–Now, do you think that there was something left to say? 

No, and yes. I almost wrote the book for myself, for people like me, who have read a lot of self-help, but they lack the most important thing: they lack the doing. What has been learned is useless, if it is not applied. That is the key.

– How did you start doing? 

Starting from a personal mini-crisis, in 2012,  having done everything that I had done – a degree in International Business; studied abroad in Spain (Erasmus Program); working for Disney in Orlando, and for a book printer in Barcelona – I was not happy. My brain needed something. My CV did not reflect who I am. So I went to see a coach when they still did not have a bad reputation.

-How did you choose him?

I researched well and talked with friends, I went to the first free sessions of two or three and worked with the one with whom I had the best feeling.  A master who lives what he preaches – someone who suffers stress can not teach time management. In a couple of sessions, my life improved so much that I decided to prepare myself as a coach at the Instituto Europeo de Coaching in Barcelona.

– What did you learn?

That time is more abundant than we think, but we spend it badly; that everything is stronger, when you put emotion into it; that you have to give a solution to each problem, not a problem to each solution; that you have to have a plan and do something every day by focusing on it; that hard decisions often lead to fantastic outcomes; that uncomfortable questions make us aware; that the so-called failure – unemployment for example – is not a shame, but an opportunity to self-reflect and find our place again; that patience is the best company on the road to a dream, and that the secret of success is perseverance: doing something every day.

– What did you do to sell 13,000 books and have more than 100,000 downloads?

My success started by giving away 40,000 e-books for free. And I applied the powerful exercises that I write about in my book every day. With just a couple of them a day, you already notice changes. I went out every morning to walk by the sea,  giving thanks. Gratitude is the starting point of abundance, we always have something to be grateful for: the reins of our lives. And from selling 20 books a month, I went on to sell 200 a day.

– So many self-help books and no one who writes about helping others. Are we building a planet of selfish people?

It may seem this way. But experience tells us that only when I’m well, can I be better in relationships and at work. Peace starts in oneself. It doesn’t makes sense to travel to the third world to help, when you don’t even greet the neighbor. It is incongruous.

– And your personal experience, from jobless to Amazon bestseller, lead to your second book. 

It’s about the marketing that I applied. The Productivity Revolution is the third book. Seeing results (www.marcreklau.com) encourages to help by sharing what works.