You Have Survived Harder Things Than Finishing This Book

What Starting From Nothing Taught Me

When I started my publishing company, I had a hand-me-down desktop computer
(think 1980s TV set), my husband’s desk from high school that was so small I couldn’t
cross my legs underneath it, and, honestly, no clue how I was going to succeed.

I’d been fired from a large retail bank job, and with that job went half our household
income to pay our whole list of bills and all the insurance for a family of four.

I did NOT have cash, savings, a client roster, an actual writing project, or any idea what
these terms meant:

- Client avatar
- Sales funnel
- Email service provider
- Lead magnet
- Offers (as in products and services)

I DID have three published books and a lot of encouragement from my friends. I noticed
two camps:

I figured out two terms early on that have helped me succeed:

Learn and Lean

Learn: Entrepreneurs must keep learning. Creative writers must keep learning. People
who want to write and publish must keep learning. The more you learn, the easier the
work becomes.

I chose to learn every day. I read the Bible and the Harbrace Handbook first thing each
morning to build my spiritual and mental muscle, respectively.

Lean: In the first weeks, I spotted two camps of people when it comes to starting a
business.

1 - Scarcity-minded people who “just want what’s best for me.” These people used words
like consistent income, insurance policies, and security.

2 - Abundance-minded people said, “You were born for this!” They used words like
faith, risk, big dreams, independence, and FREEDOM.

I chose to lean on the people who spoke and acted out of faith, not fear. I still do.

I also chose to lean on experience. I didn’t have a successful run of entrepreneurship,
but I did have a successful run of surviving MUCH HARDER seasons of life. The tough
seasons of heartache, hopelessness, and hardships were the exact qualifications I
needed. They had nothing to do with publishing but everything to do with succeeding.
God designed seeds to create trees. Everything the tree needs is already in the seed. Why
would humans be any different?

If you are struggling to start writing, keep writing, or invest financially in your project,
stop and think. What have you already survived? When did you begin something new or
unknown, then struggle, then succeed? When did you take a financial risk that paid off,
big time? A mentor told me that God loves risk-takers. Another mentor told me that God
loves risk-takers because risk requires faith.

Gary John Bishop's second assertion in Unfu*k Yourself puts it plainly. We can have
faith in future success because:

WE ARE WIRED TO WIN.

Bishop doesn’t promise an easy road or a guaranteed outcome. He reminds us that the
body and mind are built to adapt, learn, lean on the right people, and keep functioning
even when the conditions may be confusing or difficult. That wiring did not skip you.
You have evidence of success sitting in your own history if you take a minute to look
back.
 

Find the Evidence

If you feel strange looking back at your own life, look at other people, especially
children, who are typically innately fearless until we adults impose scarcity thinking and
anxiety on them.

Raising Houston and Scotty proves this to me more than any business plan ever could.

Houston has spent years untangling fishing line, losing lures in trees, and figuring out
currents, temperatures, and trout preferences in Smoky Mountain streams. When he
was young, we were at the river often, and I taught him about my father’s fly-fishing
passion. He started with a cane pole on my mother’s farm, then graduated to a regular
fishing rod (button, then spinner thingy), then on to a fly rod.

Scotty’s golf passion started when he was an infant. For naps, I’d set his swing near the
living room window and turn on the golf channel (praying the swing and soft talk from
the golf announcers would lull him to slumber). From there, he progressed to Davy
Crockett Putt-Putt in Gatlinburg, then the public par 3 courses, and now his talent
merits a membership to a private country club.

What I see with Houston and Scotty are the following:

Interest, if not obsession

Education (They read and watch videos to learn from others.)

Commitment

Proximity (They spend time with other people who fish and golf and have similar goals.)

Consistent effort

PRACTICE

Faith that the work will pay off

They Keep Moving Toward the Goal

They don’t wait for confidence or security in their efforts. They trust they are wired for
success if they just keep showing up.
Writers do the same thing without realizing it. Every person who has raised a child, kept
a marriage together through a rough patch, or built something from nothing already has
proof that he or she can adapt under pressure. The doubt that shows up when you sit
down to write your book, start your business, or build the legacy you actually want, is
loud, but it is not accurate.

You are Wired to Win

The excuse I hear most often from writers who stall out is that other issues currently
demand their time and financial investment. Of all people, I understand how life
circumstances can throw us completely off course, but progress is progress. Showing up
can look different depending on current conditions, but if you never show up with your
time and investment, you will never complete your book. You cannot have the results
you want without doing what success requires in some capacity, consistently, over time.
Nobody is born wired to finish a three hundred-page manuscript. Babies can’t even
read. Your book does not need you to already be a finisher. Your book needs you to trust
that the same wiring that got you through your hardest season is available here too, and
that wiring fires when you keep showing up.

Your Next Step

If you are ready to stop waiting to feel like a finisher and start acting like one, a
Publishing Pathway Call with one of our Publishing Advisors is the right next step. In
fifteen minutes, you can talk through your project and what moving forward and
finishing looks like for you.

Schedule your Publishing Pathway Call here: https://calendly.com/d/cwzb-ggb-
pmx/publishing-pathway-call

Books live forever!

Jody Dyer
Founder and CEO, Crippled Beagle Publishing and Story Mountain Media