You Should Write A Book About That™

You can do something as simple as buy a house and write a whole novel around it. We think we need these epic tragedies or great successes to justify writing as our unique selves. Look around!  There is material happening everywhere and self-awareness is key to developing a commentary and a narrative about your life. When we tune in creatively, the world is real time offering us endless amounts of material. Let that endless monkey mind work in your favor and get it down in the computer.  In today’s episode, host Kim O’Hara shares her creative journey writing about her house buying experience and her first year as a single woman homesteader in Los Angeles. Called a mix between Pema Chodron and Anne Lamott (which makes her blush), Kim shares how she allows life to unfold over the year and makes a point to write about each experience from a gunman on her roof (and the crappy boyfriend who never checks on her), to an evolving and spiritual battle with nine foot palm fronds. She doesn’t miss a bit of detail and peppers in comedy, as well as her continual struggle with faith, fear and loneliness. 

Don’t wait ten years to start writing about your emotions and observations while they are happening real time, especially if you have taken a leap in your life. For Kim, buying a house was a huge accomplishment, and her trials and tribulations that range from micromanaging growing grass to stray cat management gives courage to others to step up and make a leap as homeowners, or whatever area in their lives that calls for meaning!  Go towards what makes you happy when you write, and what thematically fills your writing cup, instructs Kim. Your desire to land your experiences on paper will be infectious and equally connect with your readers. 

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Start writing about those relationships.  If you are like host Kim O’Hara and her guest dating coach Kindra Murphy, you have a lot of material to reap!  So stop worrying about whether someone is your person, and get honest about your own patterns and relationship with intimacy.  The right special someone will come when your emotional house is in order.

We are in a time when the essence of spontaneity in romantic relationships is waning with the Facebook stalking, constant texting and this subterfuge that is actually codependent behavior.  Then when you are ghosted after being smitten with the smothering of early attention, you feel all the bad emotions of being dumped… even in a relationship that hasn’t even gotten legs. Relationships could use some time in between the messaging and checking in to build the solo self. 

In today’s podcast Kindra Murphy, returning for a second time on the show, shares tips on how to prevent false intimacy in relationships new or established. We get really clear on what texting should truly be used for. As a writer, personally, host Kim O’Hara admits she is uncomfortable answering honestly to the "How are you?" text. What are they expecting?  A paragraph?  She and Kindra agree, if someone really cares about how you are they would be calling on the phone and making plans. 

The best action when it comes to finding that special someone is to continue to  look at ourselves and our behavior in relationships what  our actions are that in some way keep us safe.

You can watch the video portion of the podcast on You Tube at https://youtu.be/ky4mBzXB7WQ

Jae Wu helps a lot of women who are the primary breadwinners buy houses, whether they are in a couple, a divorcee, or a single woman.  It’s no wonder they are attracted to Jae as a realtor as she is a strong woman who has created a whole life after coming to this country as a Korean immigrant woman who has had to fight through Asian prejudice.  Some stories don’t end as happy as hers, but she made a choice to choose positivity over lingering in the past. She came to this country at 7, and her parents worked 24/7 to run convenience stores in Maryland.  She was given the responsibility to raise her sisters. She broke away at 18 and came to Los Angeles and never looked back.  She has spent the last 26 years helping make people’s dreams come true in real estate.

She wrote a book about her journey, including forgiveness and closure with her mother, who was a victim in a miserable life she didn’t choose. In the process, Jae found a life that was a complete opposite of what she grew up with. She chose to be unique and different and crafted the message of Speak Out Loud, and Keep on Moving to have impact for all women in the world who need to believe they can have the fullest best life of their dreams.  We battle a lot of head crap that leads to negativity, versus not letting doubt and fear enter into our psyche at all.  Stay in the positive view of your life.

Don’t forget to check out my class Own Your Authorship where you can step into the power of your story before you even take the plunge to write a book.  astoryinside.com/own-your-authorship.

Mike Savas has always been on the go. He spent ten years on the road managing tours for mega bands like Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses, Janet Jackson, Katy Perry and the Rolling Stones to name a few. He had already traveled many countries prior as a university student. Typically as people get older, they think to “settle down.” But Mike is not going in that direction.  In fact, right now he is taking on 12 countries in 12 months learning 12 new skills. Because he believes we all have the power to curate our lives by riding the waves of opportunity that come our way… And we are going to explore what he means today on the show.

Ask yourself as you listen to our conversation, what is your relationship with risk?  How can you have your life be less stagnant?  What if we asked you to be just a little bit more curious about your desires. Jumping in a plane and heading to Kenya to be a ranger on the Serengeti seems dramatic, yes, but we all need to take a look at our limitations, and our dreams, and ask… who told us they were impossible or too big?

Mike plans to write a book of his experiences, and knows in order to do so, he has to deepen. I have currently instructed him to pour his heart out on audio files to me!  Keep your fingers crossed, because with all this travels, he dives into tribes and communities, and then leaves. He is on the rollercoaster of love, and loss, connection and parting.  Sounds like the next Eat, Pray, Love to me!  You can watch the video portion of the podcast on You Tube at https://youtu.be/AkcC0buEkeA.

As always, follow me on IG @astoryinside for updates on my new webinar, From Someday to Author: Three Keys to Unlock Your Dream Book in Under 8 Weeks.

You can learn more about Mike’s adventures at savasonthego.com and on Instagram @savasonthego.

Jude Weber has been through it and back. She’s dealt with childhood trauma and a mysterious illness that had her bedridden and in large amounts of pain for 3 years before getting a diagnosis: her largest organ - her skin - was failing. You could say she made a miraculous recovery, but Jude doesn’t. She attributes her recovery to taking responsibility for her health through tapping from her background as an Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) practitioner.

In today’s episode, she discusses how her previous trauma led to her tapping, her previous denial of it, and explains what my own tapping session with her was like. Check her out at www.judeweber.com

I love my listeners and want to know more about you!  Especially if you think you would be a good guest on the show!  Drop me a line at [email protected] and tell me your story!

We also love surveys.  If you could fill out the survey so we know what you love about the show, you will be entered for a free Amazon gift card!  astoryinside.com/survey

Show host Kim O’Hara reprises her popular episode The Bigger Message in the Book and this time it is part 2 with more detail on building the foundation of your book and your mindset as an author.  Learn how as a first time author you can benefit from forward thinking to create the right mindset to write a successful book. Also hear what happened when she took her own book back from her traditional publisher and stood in the power and purpose of her voice and message!

Kim warns about writing books too fast or without a system or process.  You can end up with a doorstopper book!  She also gives the 3 Keys to Unlock your Dream Book, a sure fire system she sees work over and over with her clients, and her participants in her 8-week cohort Own Your Authorship.  If you are interested in joining Kim live every week with 12 other aspiring authors, go to astoryinside.com/own-your-authorship.  Or see her free training at astoryinside.com/join-me-as-i-train-live

As you can see, Kim doesn’t leave any stone unturned when it comes to making sure you go out of the gate with that book with the strongest footing, to battle away those cunning brain games that keep you from writing. 

If you subscribe to our podcast, you can be delivered bite-sized interviews with incredible people with a story to tell each week who will inspire and educate you in areas of money, relationships and health. Please also review us and share this podcast, but more importantly check out these recent episodes from amazing guests Aiden Moore talking about finding your soul Carl Jung - style (get your head out of celeb news and find your soul!) and Karuna Rawal, an Emmy winning executive who has mastered the art of balance and motherhood.

Thank you for listening! 

So what do you do when you are in a successful career as a professional bassist working with the likes of Justin Timberlake and Bono and the Edge on Broadway (Spiderman Turn Off The Dark) and then suddenly you realize you are not as happy as you should be? Especially when you are called to research the works of Carl Jung? Existential life crisis or miraculous pivot?  What Aiden Moore randomly discovered was researching Jungian philosophies was more intrinsic to the life he was leaning towards living than he could have ever expected.  In this bite-size interview he gives us a great purview of how we can look at failure and loneliness…. Or the loss of soul from childhood.  When was the last time you looked at what you loved from childhood and reconnected with those dreams?

Aiden also has the daunting task of reading all Jung’s body of works to create a comprehensible digestible book of his own perspective. He feels positive he can make it happen after some time in Jung’s volumes of works, especially since he is making a timeline of his life and how Jung’s philosophies have come into play. 

We also talk about him as a past performer, and performing now as more of a speaker with a mission and a message.  Will it feel the same?

You can catch him in a couple places sharing his wisdom - His Facebook Group -https://www.facebook.com/groups/jungschool as well as his web site at http://www.aidenmoore.com

And I am killing it this month with my webinar From Someday to Author: Three Keys to Unlock Your Dream Book in Under 8 Weeks.  This is a jam packed free live training on how to get from desire to yes with that book!  Register here for this event every Thursday!   https://www.astoryinside.com/join-me-as-i-train-live/

We intellectualize our grief.  Imagine if we went into our heart?  According to Charlene Gorzela, Advanced Grief Recovery Specialist, moving into the heart is the key to recovery from our grief. She also knows people need to be listened to as they process their grief. How much do we listen in our day to day lives to others?

No time in modern history could be more important to process so much grief…which is coming up for many of us after going internal for the last year plus.  We can see the patterns in our grief and what they have held us back from discovering. Charlene is candid as she explains how long she went without a strong romantic relationship until she did the grief work on her dad, and then met her life partner. 

Through the Grief Recovery Method, we can heal our collective grief and Charlene  provides simple practices to personally start to peel back the layers.  A very upbeat person who always has her hands into something new and spiritual, Charlene is interested in tackling grief in a loving upbeat way - a “heart with ears” approach. 

One of the cornerstones of the practice is to get free from unresolved/incomplete grief to a powerful sense of resolve/completeness in their  relationships and feel a sudden change in their lives.  A big follower of the human potential movement, Charlene’s goal is  to help free the griever to live a  life beyond their wildest dreams.  

She also has a podcast called Grief Recovery Now with Charlene Gorzela and I was even a guest!  You can listen to my show here!  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/uncovering-sexual-abuse-trauma-with-kim-ohara/id1506839988?i=1000502444710

Are you burning to write a book but can’t seem to get out of someday? If you are interested in going from Someday to Author with your book,  I am holding a FREE LIVE TRAINING on May 13th at 11AM.  Click this link to sign up, but act fast as this is coming down in just a few days!  https://www.astoryinside.com/join-me-as-i-train-live/

Performance anxiety can take down even the most talented creative… if they don’t have the foundation and purpose behind their art.  People who write books battle performance anxiety every week when they are putting together their chapters.  That one chapter was amazing, but will I ever write a better one?  Was that my whole swan song? Podcasters and performers could feel the same way.  Someone tells you that they loved your interview last week and immediately the voices go, that’s it.  You’re done. From now on it’s downhill from here.

So how do you keep creating and moving along despite these ever present voices?  Believe that what you are putting out in the world has more purpose and meaning than how you may feel creating it. You can be insecure as hell but if you think that the message or the song or the idea needs to lands to hundreds or thousands of people, your performance simply can’t stand in the way. You get quiet and rise to the occasion.

In today’s stand alone episode, I take a break from interviewing fascinating people and instead contemplate and offer solutions for this often defeating affliction of performance anxiety. I tell a story of recording a simple video for an ad of a program I am passionate about, and how that passion at the end of the day got me doing a clean take despite internal and external circumstances (or in my mind, forces against me proving I had no right to sell this product!  Not true!)

If you enjoyed this podcast, and would like to see me in a live free training on May 13th, From Someday to Author: Three Keys to Unlock Your Dream Book in Under 8 weeks head over to my IG @astoryinside for all the details. And if you have a book you are dying to write and want to know more about me as a coach, sign up for my newsletter at astoryinside.com. 

To say Karuna Rawal has won a lot of awards is an understatement, and she brings to our conversation today a well-rounded view of why Adweek named her the 2021 Trailblazer Working Mom of the Year. I am always curious what it takes as a woman to artfully achieve leadership while simultaneously raising kids. If you think motherhood will hold you back, guess again. In 2019, Karuna was recognized as one of Forbes CMO NEXT 2019 50 Game-changing Marketing leaders who are re-defining the CMO role. In 2015 she won 14 Lions at Cannes Festival  including the coveted Titanium Lion, an inaugural Glass Lion for promoting gender equality and an Emmy for Outstanding Television as the  lead strategist on the wildly successful P&G Always #LikeAGirl campaign.  Currently, she is the Chief Marketing Officer for Nature’s Fynd, a food-tech startup where she is commercializing a new-to-the-world sustainable alternative protein that can help feed the world. 

Originally born in New Deli, India where her dad worked for the Indian government, Karuna moved to Egypt as a young girl,  and then lived all over the world which is how she learned to adapt. Her grandfather had a house near a famous beach in India called Elliot Beach that she would walk to, and was tickled to read that Kamala Harris also had walked on that same  beach near her own grandfather’s house! 

When Karuna became a brand manager for the first time, she got pregnant and there were not many women successful at juggling both career and parenthood. Still, she raised her kids through her entire ascent in business and leadership. While she credits her success to adaptability, pivoting, and supportive bosses, she emphasizes building a really strong team, both at home and at work.  Balancing priorities has also been key to her ability to expand in her career.  She has learned, don’t look back at a day but at the month.  Everything may not be perfect, but looking back, she strove to evaluate without carrying any guilt. We don’t have time as women to be in guilt!

When I asked her what is the next glass ceiling women have to break, she said, women of color are not in enough leadership positions or in business.   How do you bring more diverse voices to the table? She even ponders why shouldn’t the whole Supreme court be women.

All of the women who are contemplating staying working at home after liking the work life balance in Covid, Karuna worked from home for many many years in her career.  There is a way to make this model work, and moms are incredibly efficient.