I was at a conference once listening to the speaker talk about the different kinds of speakers and I remember the impact of what she was saying in my system...
There is the technical speaker- coming from a purely teaching standpoint. There is the informational speaker - teaching with some story, not quite as in-depth as a technical speaker but people are taking notes. There is the motivational speaker - you feel the endorphins coursing through your system ready to conquer the world when you leave, but the results are temporary and fade. Then there is the transformational speaker - the talk that literally changes how you see the world forever. This translates so brilliantly into authorship...and you get to decide what you want to be. I left that talk not with anymore desire to speak on stage, but with the knowing that everything I did, I wanted to be at that highest level of transformation, not just writing a book but writing a book that changes people. Don't write the safe book. Write the book that makes your heart beat faster and has your soul quivering with desire. Write the book you can't not write. Write the book that is a portal to transformation, not just information. The world has enough information. What is doesn't have enough of is messengers who will take that information and deliver it in such a way that the reader will never be the same after they put your book down.
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I don't want more people to purchase or buy my books. I mean I won't say no to that but it's not the sexy part of being an author for me.
You know what I really want? I want that next one person to pick up one of my books and be fundamentally changed by it. And there's a difference. There's a difference between how that book is written and how it's released into the world. There's a difference in the process behind the book. There's a difference in the energy that is put into it. There is an attention to the beauty of each word, and to how it is wrapped up and gifted to the world. When I work with people on their projects I desire the same for them. I want them to experience the soul shifting change that comes as they refine their divine message and deliver it onto the page. That's the good work. That's why I write. For that moment when I can feel the reader's life opening up in a new way because mine did as I scribed it in the first place... For 2 weeks I've been staring at the details... those little things that have to be put together for a project to be complete, for the book to be published.
Things like the back of the book, the dedication, the ad for the interior, typing the list for the publication checklist. Lots of things that would only take a couple of hours tops... And my heart glazes over every single time I look at the list... ugh... Then I remember, that perhaps I have to muck space around the little things. They will all get done, probably at the 11th hour, probably because I have no alternative to NOT doing it in that very second. Because for my friends who are not finishers, it's the boringness of the little details that stand in the way of completion, NOT the actual finishing. So I can choose to beat myself up and force myself to do those little things, or I can choose to do them at the last minute, like I will probably end up doing anyhow, but without the guilt or pressure. The book is still on its way, and the designer is still creating her magic. It's gorgeous and everyday I've been getting feedback from my early readers making this a truly exciting project to release... ...as soon as the flipping details get done Here's what's happening in Stacy-landia right now. I'm celebrating what I'm up to and while it looks like I'm super busy, I'm also celebrating that this is all coming from a place of great ease which is the best part of it all!
"Writing The Damn Book" book coming out in a couple of weeks. Over 3 x as many Book Angels for this one and it's amazing, I can feel the love Another writing retreat in the works with several people already interested in coming. My Energy "System" of Awesomeness has been CREATED (My clients know of it as my 4 Pillars...will share more on it later) Book for that started Book on Active Surrender half deleted to be in higher vibration and draft 2 well underway AND the struggle I've had in creating a class for Your Inner Council. Over. Why? Because it was never meant to be a class...it was meant to be a juicy retreat where we manifest the HELL out of our highest visions in a circle by intimately getting to know each of our council members and slingshotting each others' energy in the room. Page and plan for that in the visioning and creation cycle now. Ahhhhhhhh...that feels so good. Last year, my first 2 books came out. It was such an amazing feeling that I committed myself to really leaning into what being an Author and Publisher was for me. I set up my business to support my writing, to give me the financial freedom, time and space to dedicate myself to creating.
Writing books for ME is the best form of self development I have EVER done. In a lifetime of learning and practicing and playing in the world of self-help, writing & publishing is a paradigm shifter of epic proportions. Those who have written understand the journey into the soul that creating something with deep meaning changes internally. It exposes all insecurities. It forces you to get really clear on your message. It gives incredible insights into who you are in the world. It prepares you to be a long distance runner even if you're a sprinter. So as I prepare for book #3 to be released, I am already well into books 4 and 5 (Scrivener is my drug of choice). I promise you that at least one of these projects will be published this year as well. This is my deep work. This is my journey on paper. This is my passion and my fun. For those who are still waiting to write that first book, THIS is your time. No holding back. Dive in. The writing creates miracles... I resist systems.
I reject formulas. I fail at following. It wasn't always like that. I was very controlled. The idea of eliminating my to do list was paralyzing. Excel spreadsheets were my best friend. Then the work began and my pendulum swung to the other end of the spectrum. In order to create the business my soul was craving, I had to peel away the invisible layers of rules and 'ways' until I stood with no true systems, with adaptability and flow built into every day. It was hard work to change. I fought for control while I fought to surrender. I'm not perfect but I am fundamentally altered. But this year I could feel my pendulum starting to swing back to center. Not structured or unstructured but a beautiful balance. So I've been sitting with how that would look. I've been worried that adding systems or structures would crimp my freedom. How do I create a non-prescriptive system that supports me regularly and still appeals to my need for change and innovation and intuitive juiciness? How do I create conscious daily growth? What would it look like to live in a practically-sacred way? To support my path deeper. So I'm sitting on the plane to Houston, an entire row to myself, legs kicked up, journal on my lap wondering what I was going to talk about on stage. My energetic system unfolded in front of me, pen scratching on the paper, the sounds of jet engines and people rustling in their seats fading into the background. Four pillars, four elements creating balance in my life, four pieces of the puzzle coming together for scaling up my energy so my life and business can also grow exponentially. I revealed these 4 pillars on stage, fresh in my mind, newly birthed. That new concept smell was still intense. But I trusted it in the room. And then I set it down after my talk so it could to rest and grow. For the past few days, the feedback I've gotten from the amazing people in the room really showed me that this was it, this is the piece that we've been craving, a way of exponentially creating a more powerful spiritual connection and a truly magical way of scaling our inner and outer worlds. No hard lined system, just a fluid balanced way of turning up our awesomeness dials. My next steps will be to play with it more, really experience and track what shift in my own life as I plant these four pillars more firmly in my life. And then unfold it for you to take and try one in the upcoming weeks. Tomorrow I head back home. I miss my hubby and the kids...and I'm so grateful for being on your stage Allison, for it gave me the inspiration to flip my attention to what's been trying to emerge for some time. Is your business cobbled together?
I woke up with the realization that over the years my business has been cobbled together. I have a whole bunch of websites and even more urls. I have an email program, 8 different email addresses, a landing page site, 3 different website hosts, 5 places where my books are managed, Dropbox, iCloud, GoogleDocs, multiple accounts to have sessions with clients and a whole list of other pieces of software and hardware and whatever-ware. My business is a lot like The Burrow...lovingly grown over the years, piece by piece. It's totally functional, it fits lots of people, it's served my success very well, it's warm and comfortable and homey. It's a great place to go chill, but things get lost in the attic. There are rooms I haven't visited in a long time that are filled with dust and remnants of my business' infancy and childhood. It's not energy efficient. It doesn't make my life feel simpler. At the moment I see clutter all around me. And so I have all this comfortable cluttered house that's held together by nothing but magic... What I'm seeking is a new home. A streamlined house for my mature business. One that uses less 'wares', that has been swept clean and has a strong foundation. One where magic happens naturally because there is SPACE for magic to flow through. One that's simple and transparent. Meaning...I'm ready to upgrade my systems, and I need a brilliant strategist and a killer visionary with a ninja organizational mind to help me architect this, to go through all of my rooms and corners and make sense of it all. Who do you know that can help me with this higher level detailing? Because the Burrow is awesome and magical...but I'm so ready to move somewhere where the house isn't held together by MY magic, but where magic just lives. I was talking to a client last week about being all in or all out. We are each either 100% committed, water over our heads IN IT or we are 100% uninterested and don't even bother.
Which means those little steps we need to take between here and there (wherever there is) just look lame. For example, if I want to get healthy, I'm ALL IN - with a super clean diet and a workout schedule that exhausts me. Until one day, the lure of a cupcake comes along and I partake...which means that I am now ALL OUT of my clean diet which also means why bother exercising at all. Drive through anyone? I woke up one day knowing I needed to change my website. In four hours I had taken it all down, rebranded and wrote all new copy. All IN. I decided to hold a book writing retreat. Booked the hotel and launched a free writing course and started filling it in the same week. All IN. I was taking a course I was super excited about, 100% IN. But I had to skip two weeks in a row because of time conflicts, which then meant that I was 100% OUT of the course. Not, oh look, I'm behind and need to catch up - oh look, I didn't prioritize it for 2 weeks in a row so now I'm done. The grey area isn't compelling for me. 100% or go home. And if 100% feels like too much to bear, then I just stay in bed. Because why bother if it's half ass? Intellectually I get that one step at a time is the 'right' way to operate, or that a cupcake does not a healthy lifestyle end. I get that slowing down and doing a little at a time opens up great things. But 100% feels so much more natural to me. Either sprinting or laying on the warm cement soaking in the rays. So when I read things about commitment, about going all out, I get bored. That's natural for me. It's the very thing that propels me the furthest and it's the very thing that holds me back the most. 100% works both ways...so I seek more opportunities where my 100% IN outweighs my 100% out. Hell yes or hell no. I got off track... and so did my clients.
See I finished writing my book, "Writing The Damn Book" and then all I needed to do was give it a good edit and ship it off for proofing and design. That was 2 weeks ago. I'm on page 42. And yes, my writing clients were experiencing the same kind of slow down - those moments when we were dabbling instead of committing. It happens. They wrote to me... "Every morning I swear I'm going to write first. But instead, I start to get anxious about everything else that needs to be done. I say -- just one quick email -- and there it goes. The entire fucking day. This is the story of my writing life. I need a new story." And this..."I have been dabbling - at best. I have a list of things I am letting get in the way of writing the damn book...It's all excuses - in my pursuit of avoiding the truth of that sentence." Sound familiar? So together we got back on it. We're remembering why we write, and why we pretend it's not important in our lives to write, to move forward every single day. Because to write, "I will be who I was born to be...writing is not the luxury, it is the necessity." So I sit and I edit. There's no excuse in the world large enough to make me forget entirely that my mission is here, black and white, waiting to be loved and written and sent out into the world. It's not the sexy work. It's not the romantic vision of authoring. It's real - and if I pause to listen to my heart, I can hear it opening and soaring...THIS is the work. We all have it in us. Quit dabbling.... I'm not a factory.
I'm not automated or optimized. I'm not willing to stand down from my business and let the information be the 'way'. I'm not willing to sacrifice quality for quantity. But every day I see FACTORY MODELS getting fame and fortune and notoriety. I see people signing up for very expensive programs only to be treated like another number. I see people paying for systems and programs, classes and products that all have a formulaic map to follow. Awesome for them...for those who pay and get paid, for people finding their own paths. And yeah, some days I wish I could be JC Penny's or Target - they sell everything to anyone. But I'm not. I'm an exclusive boutique that people need to make an appointment with to come in and play. Sometimes it gets a little lonely. Sometimes I want to play like I'm a Macy's or Nordstrom, perhaps a little more expensive than Target but truly the same principle at the core...but again - I'm not. I'm a highly curated store with limited wall and shelf space and I'm selective about what goes in my business. Which sometimes makes me wish for a bigger space... Which also makes me feel like that'd just be more to dust... I don't like dusting. The thing is - because I choose to operate my business in intimate ways, to work with only a FEW people and to make everything I do personal and special, most people don't know I'm here or don't know what I do. It's not a bad thing - just an observation. I'm not flashy or BIG. I'm surrounded by large conglomerates or by people busily building a conglomerate or by people pretending to be one. I'm not them. I don't pretend to be them. I'm picky and personal and bespoke and not everyone likes me (although they really should...). Less is sooooo much more for me. One or two is sexier than 10,000. Having personal conversations is so much more fulfilling than selling some class on line. I keep having to remind myself that I do business differently. I am enraptured by simple even when I work like hell to complicate to fit in - only to remember... ...that not fitting in is what I do best. Cheers for my fellow boutiques, for independently defining and fiercely curating your own business experience. Sending love, freedom, independence and a willingness to pave the road less seen. |