I was chatting with a reader of my recent book (Unorthodox Success, Secret Shame) and they shared something with me.
“Reading about you wrestling with your shame made me reflect on where I had shame in my own life. I realized I’ve been too ashamed to admit I’ve been in an abusive relationship. I was too ashamed to admit it to anyone, including myself. Once I realized that, I left my boyfriend.”
“Hold on”, I responded. “You’re telling me you left an abusive relationship because of the things I wrote and you hear me talk about?”
“100%”, they declared.
I was stunned at this exchange. One, it was extremely humbling to be told what a profound impact you had on someone, to affect their life in that way. Second, my book was not about relationships. It was about me, and my own story. It cemented something I’ve been experiencing which is the counter-intuitive lesson of when you speak your story from a deep place it affects more people than if you spoke in a general sense.
I had already given myself the peace of “releasing” my book as opposed to “launching” it, of giving it a 10 year sales window and only evaluate its impact and success after 10 years, and of giving it a sales goal of 1, so I could feel peace in my life that there was nothing more that my book needed to do.
And with this single bit of feedback, I realize my book has already been worth it. No matter what happens now, I don’t even need to wait the 10 years.
I know I not only wrote the book I wish someone had given me years ago, but one that can impact lives profoundly, as it already has.
It was created from a place of effortlessness, starting with my writings here at the Frolic100, and an effortless 60 day book project. It was fun, energized me, and made me realize I’m good at this. And now it exists in the world doing its work without me having to do anything else. Propagation is a word I like to use to describe what I’m involved with these days. Of propagating connection and new thinking.
I used to spin records on stage, creating connection and transformation, and now I do it through writing and speaking on Zoom.
What changes for you if you lowered the bar so low on your next idea, that you only needed to affect a single person?
