In the Beginning 7 of 7
So we finally know how many Blog posts are going to be in this series :-) On the last blog post we got all up in the deets about the Lean & Love Audio Book, if you missed it CLICK HERE
Im super excited about this post because its about my 2nd first book🧐 Thats right I said my Second 1st book. You see I began writing this book back in January of 2021. Back then the working title was Contribution: The Key to Self Discovery and Freedom I still like the title cuz I know when I transitioned my thinking from Excelling & Acquiring to CONTRIBUTING; the landscape of my Omniverse became limitless.
I intended to frame that book to resemble something like Essentialism or 5 dysfunctions of a Team, 2 great books that I recommend. The goal was to share some of my personal stories and introduce the reader to a handful of key points that would help them shift to or embrace Contributing their gifts and talents to the world.
By October of 2021 I had cranked out about 5 chapters, I know thats a long time and no its not because Im some literary scholar. It took that long because I was still working full time traveling around the country supporting a cultural change.
Around that same time Jennifer Lacy and I had begun the 5S in Relationships Live streams, which you know evolved into a book, community and audio book. I decided to shelve the 2nd first book in order to focus on the Lean & Love book. Looking back it was almost exactly what needed to happen.
You see, my early approach had a targeted out come and I allowed that outcome to dictate the flow of the stories. This made sense at the time, but over the course of the Livestreams I learned that people valued the vulnerability I shared. At first I didnt understand what they meant by "youre so vulnerable up there" cuz Im thinking "Im just talking and sharing the dumb things Ive done". But thats what the #NoBS tribe appreciated, they found value in me sharing the raw & messy morsels of my experience.
This gave me confidence and helped me exercise this vulnerability muscle more and more. Truth be told it made things much easier for me because I didnt have to polish things up anymore, I could just share exactly what happened, how I felt about it and what I learned from it. And let people come to their own conclusions. 
That time I pumped the brakes on the 1st book was like training time for me. I developed new strengths and appreciations. When I picked it back up, I read that dusty manuscript and was like "what is this powder puff garbage" Dont get me wrong, the spirit of the book was true but I was "water skiing" the stories were lacking depth and the flow of the writing felt rushed. Rushed like middle school, Id meet a cute girl at a dance or something and right after I learned her name I was sprinting to 2nd base, that kind of rushed.
I want this book to be a transformational experience and I knew I had to open my mind to achieve that. The re-write began with me sitting at my desktop pounding away at the keys, but it was funky. I kept editing the stories in my head, wordsmithing the hell out the content and it still was lacking truth. So I shifted to using a speech to text approach. I learned this cheat code from my friend Donna Bender. This kicked down the door for productivity and more importantly the raw & real stuff.
I recording 20 stories in total, as I was "telling" the story to my phone and computer a peculiar thing happened. I was reliving the joy, disappointment, fear, embarrassment, pain, and triumph. It was like measures of sentiment that hadnt been resolved. Just so you know, speech to text software isnt great at translating your words if youre "ugly crying"
So that brings us to now! The paper & audio version of Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Be will be celebrated on June 23rd. The date is a special one because, provided I stay on the path, I will be celebrating 7 years of sobriety on that date.
Youre probably thinking "what the hell, I want to know more about the 2nd first book!"
You will, come on back for the next blog post😎
