What is stopping you?
So many things stop us from taking that first step to share our story.
For many writers, their biggest fear is “not being good enough” or that “my story is not interesting enough” or worse, that people will “judge” us and the position we hold in society.
Once you find the courage to share your story, the next step is to get it written down in a format that you can share. That could be a blog, a podcast, a speech, or a published book.
Being published can give you more credibility to your speaking profile as well as your ‘brand’. When you share with your audience, the “raw” you, they feel more connected to you and people buy from people they know and trust.
Why do we self-sabotage ourselves when we already know that our close friends do not judge us for our story, but respect and honour us for the journey we took?
Likely because at some point in our life, likely as a young child, we were told to “stop talking about yourself” or “not to be weak and show your vulnerability”. I certainly know as a Brit I was taught about the “stiff upper lip” from an early age!
My young adult mentor, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was known as the “Iron Lady” because she did such a good job of hiding her emotions and not showing her weaknesses!
I remember clearly going to business college in a full back cast following a major back operation and holding my head high, not to show any weakness to my class mates or the teacher (but dying of embarrassment inside because the cast was so bulky and ugly).
This continued into the workplace and I would never show my emotions in a mostly male dominated sales industry.
No surprise then, that I too, feared sharing my story! So why do it?
How many people have you helped already by sharing your story?
If you have overcome adversity in your life, whether it is as a cancer survivor, child abuse, learning challenge, disability or simply a seemingly “normal” life, we all know at least one person that has felt inspired and motivated by our story.
So why not share that knowledge with the world rather than just a few?
We are all very unique in our life journey and we all learn differently at different levels. One person may feel their story is not “special” enough because thousands of people have had the same experience, but ask yourself, was it the same? Of course not, we all experience our stories in different ways, so there is always someone you can help with “your” version of “your” story!
Sharing your story with the world in a published book will change your life forever. Just think how many people you could help!
So how do you get started?
There are a few ways you can introduce the concept of sharing your story and one of the easiest is to start a blog.
Many people have started blogs but those that have had an impact and get the greatest following are those that consistently blog every day (or at least 3 times a week). Before you know it, 500 words a day (maybe 30 mins of writing) is 50,000 words in 100 days!
Now you can turn those 50,000 words into a book!
Can it really be that easy to write a book? Yes, it can!
Add a good editor and a publishing coach and you are well on your way to be a published author! The best thing is, you already have a following from your blog!
To your writing success,
Julie
About the Author, Julie Salisbury
Julie Salisbury is the author of Around the World in Seven Years: One Woman's Life-Changing Journey and Founder of Influence Publishing and InspireABook coaching. She specializes in helping authors to write and publish their books as a strategy to live out their purpose to the full.
Julie is more than a publisher with over 13 year's experience in the industry. She draws on her product marketing career in the UK of over 20 years to focus on strategic business and marketing goals to reach a global market via traditional and online media and publicity, and through strong global distribution and sales. She has published over 200 authors in the last 10 years and her unique "partner" publishing model means the author keeps all rights and royalties.
Visit www.influencepublishing.com or email founder@influencepublishing.com for information.
