S2 Bonus - Beth Adele Long on Resilience in the Creative Process

00:00 • Meet Beth: engineer, mystic, and multifaceted creator

01:26 • Diving into Beth's dual book projects: memoir and technical writing

04:56 • The creative process: facing fear and embracing feedback

19:27 • Beth's journey from aspiring writer to embracing new forms

23:02 • Reflecting on a decade of growth and authenticity

24:52 • The ever-present magic in writing

26:34 • Advice to younger self: embrace the joy of creation

28:23 • Exploring the unknown: insights from coaching and writing

33:19 • Embracing failures as opportunities for growth

38:18 • The power of one-on-one coaching and fearless mastery

42:20 • Innovating publishing: the Spiral Press Collective

Leo

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

Okay, I am really happy to be joined by someone who I consider a friend, someone I've worked with. Beth, do you go by your full name, Beth Adele Long?

Beth

Yes.

Leo

Is that right? Okay. And so, Beth, by way of introduction, is an engineer by training and a mystic by inclination. I just absolutely love that description. You currently coach software companies in resilience engineering. You write memoir, travel blogs, and fantastical fiction. And you're a co-founder of Spiral Press. And we're going to get into each of those pieces.

You live in Portland, Oregon, with your dazzling husband and a beautiful patchwork family. Welcome, Beth.

Beth

Thank you, Leo. It's great to be here.

Leo

I have a lot to dig in with you. You and I have worked together in different capacities, and so I'd love to dig into all of that. But, I think there's something interesting about you as we talk about this season about creativity and creation and just being a creator.

You're someone I wanted to invite on because there's different pieces of that you have either been experiencing and going through, working through, or that you actually teach and coach. So, I wanted to bring in those things.

So, let's see. I'm trying to see where I feel called to start. Okay. So, you're writing actually two books right now. Yes? Okay. Tell us about those book projects and how that's going.

Beth

Sure. The first book is a memoir that I started in earnest a couple of years ago. I had a lifelong goal of being a fiction writer, specifically like science fiction, fantasy. And finally realized that I was really stuck because I had some things that I needed to work out on paper for myself that I kept trying to put into that. And so that led me eventually to writing this memoir. And so, with your help last year, I got a draft written. And now I'm in the revision mode with that.

And then the second book is called "Practical Learning from Incidents." And this is a very different book, nonfiction, but not as creative in the conventional sense. And this is oriented towards the software domain and helping people take a new perspective on how they understand their failures and learn from those in really deep and interesting ways.

Leo

Amazing. Yeah. So, like you said, two very different book projects. One is more like nonfiction and you're doing it as part of the work that you do. In your day job. And then you get to come home and be creative.

Beth

Yes.

Leo

And what I find, there are a number of things I find fascinating about that. One of them is most people find it daunting to take on one book project. You're like, "That's not enough for me. I need to take on two, just add to the challenge." So, tell me why you decided to take on two at once and what that's been like for you as a process, as a creative process.

Beth

Yeah. Part of it is I just, I have a habit of diving into the deep end first. And sometimes I regret doing that. But more often, it opens up interesting opportunities. In the case of these two books, I was already working on the memoir.

I joined this consultancy that I work with now about a year ago when I was already well into the work on the memoir. And one of the things my business partner said was, "We've got this book that we're working on." It was actually one of my dear mentors who passed away a couple of years ago.

I stepped into his role more or less at the consultancy and it felt really important to me to carry on Richard's work and see that into the world. And I thought, "Okay, I'm not the expert in this realm. But I do know how to write and I do know how to get a project moving along." So I decided to really own working with my business partner John and make this book a reality.

And there's a complementarity because there are very different projects, but the fear and uncertainty and insecurity and trepidation that you feel every time you sit down to deal with a project are the same, no matter what you're working on. And you can get some interesting perspectives when you're facing those emotions in different contexts, in the same day.

Leo

Amazing. Okay, so you just brought up a really big topic, the fear and uncertainty and trepidation. I love the language around that. You're noticing that in both places, is it different in each place?

Because one is like a personal one, but the other one is you know, carrying on the legacy of a mentor and doing some really important, like trying to make some big changes in the world. So does it feel the same sitting down to write each one of those? Or is there some differences you're noticing?

Beth

That's a great question that I hadn't thought about. The first thing that comes to mind is there is a "What right do I have?" sense with both projects. With the memoir, it's "Who am I, this random person, to just write a memoir? What have I done that anyone would care about?" I don't put that lens when I read someone else's memoir, but of course, I put that lens when it's my own.

And then with the learning from incidents book, it's imposter syndrome in the sense of "Do I know enough? Am I educated enough? Am I expert enough?" And I can say that's similar in both.

Leo

Okay. I'm fascinated by this as you could probably tell by now through these questions, because, but the reason is that it's like an A/B test. Do you know what I mean? You're doing two things at once and it's "Oh, okay. They're very different, but they're also very the same." And I'm curious if the differences manifest or if it's just actually it's the same.

Do you spend about the same amount of time writing them? Do you structure your week differently in terms of the writing? Do you need to structure the sessions differently? Tell me more about that.

Beth

Yeah. A huge difference is that the second book is collaborative. The professional book is very collaborative and the first book is just me writing what I want to write. Although in both cases, feedback is really important to me.

This is something that you know intellectually in writing, but it's very easy to say, "It's not ready." And one thing I learned doing software for years, I was in the software industry and you run projects and you realize, get it in front of people as fast as possible and find out what they're saying. So that's similar. And there's some degree of...

Leo

I'm sorry, can I pause you?

Beth

Of course.

Leo

Because I want to check in to make sure I understand what you're saying. That's baked into the philosophy of software development these days is get feedback, get it in front of people, get that feedback and build using the feedback. And you're saying that it's important to both of these books as well. Both of these, how does that work?

Beth

So, with the memoir, I did some writing to figure out what it was that I wanted to say and then distilled an outline out of that and put the outline in front of a couple of friends and got their feedback just on the outline.

Leo

Okay.

Beth

And then I wrote a draft and then before I felt like the draft was anywhere near ready when I was like, "I know I need to fix this." I just, with, again, with your help last December, just sent it out to two really good friends and said, "Will you please read this and just tell me everything that you like, you hate, is confusing?" and got their feedback.

And that's not necessarily the way, some people write that way, but I think it's very common in creative ventures to be like, "I have to just sit at my desk and write a book and then I'm going to get a developmental editor. But that's after I've gone through seven years of writing the book.” And I'm like, “I don't have time for that. I need to get it out in front of people.”

And if I think something's wrong that I know I have waited asking for feedback because I don't want to feel the gut punch of either someone saying, “This is wrong with your book.” And I'm like, “I already knew that I should have fixed it first” or something I didn't even think of, or something I really liked that they're like, “Oh, that didn't really work for me.” And I'm like, “I'm going to put those off as long as possible.” Is my normal way.

And so moving that pain as early as possible and accepting that and processing the feedback with the confidence that I can distinguish between someone's opinion that isn't aligned with what I want to do and someone's feedback that actually tells me something I really want to know. I want to get that as early as possible.

Leo

Yeah. And by the way, you've mentioned a couple of times, like with my help just to clarify for people I'm not actually writing the book with you. We were doing one-on-one coaching at the time. And you were a coaching client. And the great thing about that for me is I get to have a front row seat as I watched you create all of this and work with the feedback. And it's really fun. I get to cheer you on and just be a part of it.

And now you're in my Fearless Mastery program, which is a small group coaching program. Everyone's going through this together as a community and you're creating within that structure, but you're also training doing the coach training which you already do coaching, but this is deepening into that training like deepening into mastery, which is something I really acknowledge you for.

Okay. So, feedback, I got some questions on it, but just to look at the other project, how does feedback, how is it working on that side? How are you using it over there?

Beth

Yeah, it's actually a little easier on that side because with a technical book like this, there are clear goals that we're trying to achieve with this book. And we have a large community of people who really deeply understand those goals. And so we can go to them and say, "We're trying to achieve these goals. Does this book do that?" and give them the outline and get their feedback and then write chapters and then get their feedback.

And it is a little bit more analytical and clear-cut. It doesn't mean it's easier to do, but it's a little simpler to go through that process. So, it actually looks very similar in terms of “here's the outline, here's the draft, getting feedback really quickly”, and working as quickly as possible so that you're iterating as many times as possible and not sitting in a dark corner polishing infinitely.

Leo

I love that. Thank you for sharing both of those and how that's working. And just for anyone listening or watching this is something that I really believe in the power of and Beth does as well. And I love that you have the software background.

You've been in software development or worked in that field for years, so you really understand the power of it. And the power of doing that as a creative, as someone creating books or really anything. I think something that a lot of people maybe don't realize, because we're working with the old model of like you said, seven years, I'm going to write the book, and then I'm going to get some editing or some feedback.

A lot of people put the book out and then just “Okay, how's that going to land? Is it going to have any impact?.” But by developing it, with feedback, you actually see how it lands a lot earlier before it's ever published. And you get to “Oh, that didn't quite land right. It's not having the impact I was looking for.”

But I highly recommend that as a process. And I love that's something that we're in alignment with and you're sharing here. But the reason people don't do it, even though it is this powerful. If they even think of doing it, the reason they won't is because of something you mentioned, which is the pain of getting that feedback.

And you said, "I want to bring that pain as early as possible." But maybe you could talk a little bit about that because it's a very human thing to like fear getting that feedback “Oh God, what are they, I knew that already. I knew that was terrible.” Or I thought that was great. Like you said, and they didn't think it was so great. So talk about that pain a little bit and how you work with it.

Beth

Yeah. I realize when I'm describing this, I have my product manager hat on when I say, "Oh, we need to bring that pain as soon as possible." And, it's easy when you're managing a software project and you are like, "Come on, everybody, we should just put this in front of users and get feedback."

When it's my own stuff. I crumple, I'm getting better cause I've been working on it really intently, but I have had such a hard time asking for feedback. And you can ask even my writer's group. I'm in a writer's group and I would go literally a year or longer without sharing something in the group for a number of reasons. But a lot of it was just this if I write something, then I have to get feedback on it and I don't want to do that.

Leo

And simple as that.

Beth

It's just as simple as that. And yeah, it's been a lot of hard work just to train myself to even recognize how much that resistance is showing up, let alone to be able to work with it effectively.

Leo

What makes it so like scary or painful? And as you speak to it, I want to make sure it's clear. It's not just for you. This is pretty much everybody who's creating and putting stuff out there. So I'd love to hear just from your perspective, like what you've noticed about the fear or the pain of that feedback.

Beth

Yeah. The more I talk to people, I realized that what I experienced is very common, which is going through life with this deep-seated conviction that I'm just so fundamentally flawed and messed up and that all of the nice things that people are saying are because I'm really good at faking it or because they feel bad for me and they're being nice.

And that it's woven so deeply. And then when you get feedback, it's like the inverse of a good friend who wrote a piece about the red lenses, which are like the inverse of the rose-colored glasses, where everything gets interpreted as if it's good, then it's "I can't let it in because it just means they haven't seen through the facade." And if it's bad, it's just validating, "Oh no, there's something wrong with me." And it's this inability to separate myself from the work and to see it's two things. One, it's that, that way that we see ourselves and being stuck in that. And then it's also confusing me and my essential being for this thing that I made that came out of me, but is just a thing that I made.

Leo

Yeah, we so closely identify, especially when it's a memoir or some really personal project but even if it's a short story, fiction that you wrote or really anything, an essay, this is me putting my heart out into the world and like any criticism of it is like showing how terrible I am.

And then now that you've been like recognizing how like tightly woven that is into the fabric of ourselves and the work we're doing, is there any shift that you've been working towards in terms of like how you view it?

Beth

Definitely. So for a concrete example, I got feedback on the memoir at the beginning of the year, and I've, I saw, watched myself doing the same things I always do. I had, all of this feedback online and I was just like, cringing. It's "I don't want to look at it. I don't want to look at it."

And I just noticed that and when I sat down with my friends and got their feedback, I really tried hard. to let their praise absorb, to really take it in and let it really hear, "We like what you're doing. This is meaningful. Keep doing it." And then to take the criticisms as, "Ah, this is a reflection of skill or choice" and to see it on a screen instead of as if it was written on me.

Leo

That's so good.

Beth

And then same thing with the written feedback. It was like, "Okay, I'm going to pause beforehand and take a deep breath. I'm going to go as slow as I need, but I'm going to say, this is in the service of work that I hope will help at least one person out there. Who's had a similar story to mine and look above that fear to the long-term vision. And then it's okay, I can even if this is mud, I can wade through it because I'm heading towards something meaningful, and this is helping me get there."

Leo

I love that. "This is helping me get there." A lot of times the feedback, we see it through the lens, like you said, of "This is a criticism of me”, right? “This is a reflection of my worth." And yet what you're sharing is a perspective of this feedback, this criticism, whatever it is serving the bigger thing that I want, that I'm trying to do. This is in service of that, helping me get there. Which then we're going to be like, "Okay, give me more helpers."

Beth

Yes.

Leo

If in an ideal world the reality I'm, as you're sharing is a little messier than that. It's not like we can just change the lenses of our glasses and see it that way. But that's what you've been working with. And I love that. You don't have to go into a lot of detail. So what have you created? What has shifted in you as a writer from there that the earliest days till now, and then I have another question, but we'll wait for this, the answers to that.

Beth

Sure. Yeah, so I, I set the goal of being a writer. I think I was 14 or 15.

Leo

Okay. And so five years ago.

Beth

Yeah, exactly. And I, it was like when you're a teenager, like I wanted to be a foreign service agent or a marine biologist or this or that. And I settled on writing in part because I did get early successes in a way that indicated, "Oh, this is something that actually has some real traction."

I believe most people can become good at most things, but there are areas where we have a leg up, we have a talent and that felt like, "Oh, I've found my thing. So I'm going to follow this.” And I loved science fiction. I love fantasy. I love magic, real and imagined. I love anything that brings up a sense of wonder. And so I always felt really pulled in that direction and won an award straight out of college, went to a writing workshop.

Leo

Oh, you did? Yeah. Oh, cool.

Beth

It was called it was called the Asimov Award at the time. And I, it's been renamed and I can't remember what it's been renamed to, but it was

Leo

That's a big one.

Beth

Well, it's a it's specifically for undergraduate writers.

Leo

Okay.

Beth

Writing, writing science fiction. And the title of the piece that one was repeating patterns, which was just foreshadowing of everything I did in life for the next 20 years. And then I went to a science fiction writing workshop called clarion. That was amazing and got some short pieces published in small publications here and there.

And then my writing just ground to a halt. And there were a lot of reasons for that. Part of it was just, I had a lot of growing up to do, and that takes a lot of energy. And that's where my energy went to for quite a while.

Leo

How long ago was that? Did it ground to a halt?

Beth

I would say it really ground to a halt seriously, in my early thirties. I had gone through cancer. I'd gone through a difficult divorce. My dad got sick. It was just like a stack of things that that ended up pulling me towards work I really needed to do. And that wasn't writing for a good 10 years or more.

And then I started to, I went to Iceland a couple of years ago. I went to Iceland for a month. Which was amazing and was writing about my experiences as I was going to, sending a, like a newsletter to friends and everyone loved it so much. And I was like, "What if this is my thing? What if it's not science fiction fantasy? What if it's this other mode?"

And I'd also gotten some of that feedback from my writing group even before that "Hey, we love this. This is alive. This is juice." And so that got me to think differently and broaden my possibilities about what I could write. And I had written a novel, a draft of a novel that was as all first novel drafts should be truly terrible, but it was grappling with a lot of the themes that I talk about in my memoir.

And so all of these things added up to me saying, "Maybe I'm just going to write a memoir and see if that has traction." And it, it did. And by traction, I may mean that it felt like I was doing something meaningful when I wrote it.

Leo

That's awesome. Okay. I have two questions: after that 10-year break, does it feel like stuff was percolating? Was it like it needed to incubate for a little while before? I'm sure it didn't feel that way in those 10 years, but it felt like maybe there was something developing. And then it finally came out and it's "Oh, I need to get back to that writing because I've been developing something all this time."

Second question is, you talked about wonder and magic when that you like were so into, is that still something that is present as you write?

Beth

Yeah. So first question first. I think what was percolating was looking back on the writing I did in my twenties I like it. I don't look at it and think, "Oh, I can't believe I wrote that." And, I see the ways that I was trying to be something or I didn't know and accept who I was. And so I couldn't write fully from a place of authenticity.

And that's still something that, that I am working towards. It's not "oh, I have achieved authentic done," but I feel like I'm able to touch into that much more readily and come back to it when I stray from it. And so I think that's what needed to happen before I could come back to the writing.

Leo

Ah, so good. So good. Okay. Now the wonder question, wonder and magic.

Beth

Yeah. That's an, that's absolute, like more than ever. more than ever.

Leo

Oh, wow.

Beth

Yeah. And part of that is, it's really hilarious because my husband hates anything science fiction fantasy. He says that it's not a hundred percent true, but a lot of the stuff that I was

Leo

Like, why did you marry this guy?

Beth

I know... a lot of the stuff that just totally lights me up. He's "I have no time for that." And it the things that light me up are things that I think more than I did, even when I was younger reflect really important realities. So there is magic and wonder in the world, and the world is not what we think it is none of us actually see the world as it is. And things that remind me of that get me really excited.

Leo

Oh, that's so good. Yeah, that if you accept what you just said is true, then anyone who does get excited about wonder and magic is really waking up to what the world really is.

Beth

Yeah.

Leo

And I completely agree with you, thanks for sharing that. And it's so amazing how so many of us dismiss wonder and magic, like this thing that doesn't matter, and it's not practical, and it's all just fantastic. So thank you for sharing that.

Next question, if you could go back in time, and we could, it could be back to your 20s, could be the 15-year-old you. But if you wanted to, go back and deliver some advice, some wisdom, some tips, something like that that might help younger Beth on her writing journey as a creator, anything that you'd want to share.

Beth

Oh man. That's always tricky because you can, you can share wisdom, but if someone can't receive it, then it doesn't do any good. So it's but in the spirit of the question, I'll say I would probably go back to my younger self, I think, especially like in my late twenties and say, "It really is enough just to write what you want. It really is enough just to do something for the joy of doing it. And because it's what lights you up."

And I'd probably also say and I don't know if I would have been able to hear this, but I was so caught up in this fantasy of what it would be like when I could just make my living from writing and I don't have to do all this other stuff. And I wish I could say, "Stop thinking about that. Just earn your living, be a good family member and create for the joy of it. Not to get the lifestyle that you think is going to make you happy."

Beth

Okay. Great. So even if your younger self couldn't receive it, there might be someone listening or watching that can. So I'm hoping that lands with someone. Really good. Okay. I'd like to move on to your day job and the, not only the book that you're writing, but the coaching you're doing.

So I have to say there's a lot that I don't know about it. So I'm going to ask this question from a little bit of ignorance, but you asked me some questions at one point. I think they were you were testing using me as a Guinea pig. And the sense that I got was that they were about uncertainty and what I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Beth

You're right.

Leo

Okay. Tell me more about the work that you're doing there that's being put into the book, but also just the work that you're doing with clients and specifically about the unknown, what we don't know. Uncertainty. I'm really curious about that part.

Beth

Yeah. Thank you for asking this because when I was talking about magic and saying the world isn't what we think it is. I was saying that more from how we as humans make sense of the world, but it also really connects to my day job.

I work with people in the software industry, they're dealing with these massively complex systems. There's tons of jargon. And if I even scratch the surface, people's eyes just glaze over that I do not care about this unless that exact thing is my own day job. And even then, sometimes they don't care about it.

But what's, what is relevant to everyone about what I do is that we have a way of making sense of the world, figuring out what to do day to day. And, maybe it's managing a fleet of infrastructure on AWS for a massive website, and maybe it's figuring out how to get your kids to, soccer practice on Saturday while still doing the grocery shopping.

But in either case you have this model of the world. You have a model of, okay, here's who I am. Here's how the world works. Here's the strategies that are going to work for me. And when those models fail, when they don't line up with how things actually work, we experience something that we generally try to push aside as much as possible, which is some kind of failure.

So in the software world, it's what we would call an incident or an outage. And for us, it might be an argument with our spouse. But, in either case, there's this breakdown of. What we thought should work isn't working. And so what we do with our training and coaching and consulting day to day is training people how to set aside their prescriptive understanding of the world.

And it, funnily enough, it's actually a lot about storytelling. It's "Okay, if something went wrong, go talk to the people who actually dealt with that problem and ask them to tell you the story of what went wrong and ask them, 'Why did you make this decision? What were you thinking?' And always assume that it was in good faith and that they had a good reason for what they did." And when you're done doing that...

Leo

So not "What were you thinking?" like my dad used to ask it.

Beth

Thank you. Exactly. Not what we, which is usually the way the question gets asked. "What were you thinking? Why did you do this? Obviously you shouldn't have done that thing." And it's more "No, really?”

It's very much the attitude that I experienced when I work with you as a coach or when, we're doing things in Fearless Mastery, it's “Okay. So tell me more. Why did you push that button? Why did you call that person? Why did you not call that person?”

And when you talk to a lot of people and get a lot of perspectives. About what went wrong in an unfortunate event, you can start to build this collage that gives you very different perspectives from very different parts of the organization. And you start to be able to use failures instead of a sign that you messed up. They're just a sign that you're living in a complex, ambiguous, uncertain world. And that there's no way to fully understand that world.

And so you use those failures as like little dowsing rods “Ooh, there's something interesting over here.” And it's basically the same thing we were talking about with feedback. Can you stop seeing feedback as a sign that you are wrong? Can you stop seeing outages as a sign that your organization is flawed and instead just see it as, “Oh, this is information and I'm going to use it well to achieve my goals."

Leo

I love that so much. And I'm sure we could dive deep into this, but if you come out with that book, I'll promote it so that people can read that book. But just the idea of using the failures as you said, dowsing rods. I really love that because anyone who's creating anything is not only going to have failures as they're creating it, but afterward.

And that's actually a lot of the fear of creating is I'm going to put it out there and people aren't going to care about it. They're going to criticize it or it's not going to become an Amazon bestseller or whatever our failure fears are. And imagine that. That could happen and you could use it as a place of discovery. It's "Oh wow, like that's something new to learn and actually use that as part of the growth."

I really love that. Let me just get a quick example from you. So let's say I start putting out my writing or my videos or music into the world on a regular basis. Let's say a weekly creation goes out into the world. And my hope is it's going to go out there and all of a sudden it's going to go viral. I'm going to be TikTok famous pretty soon. That's my secret hope.

Or like all of a sudden, a big magazine's knocking on my door to do a cover shoot something. But I put it out there and it's getting very little like traction. Is there any way that I can take that kind of failure as a dowsing rod?

Beth

The first thing that comes to mind is it's hard when you're just putting things out on social media or you just putting it out there and you're just, don't have visibility into how people are engaging with it or why they're not. So here's where I think having…

Leo

That's the end of the story, right? I just put it out there and then nothing. That's the story.

Beth

Right. I think you have to have the courage to actively seek people and figure out learn how to get real useful information from them about: “Is this something that you want?.” There's lots of resources out there for different domains on how to do this, but it's back to product.

You're going to find your actual users and put the thing in front of them and ask them to use it and watch them use it. Find ways to don't ask them like, "Hey, do you like my thing that I made?" Of course, they're going to say yes because they don't want you to feel bad.

One way I love to do this as a writer of the more creative stuff is to go out and do readings because people will lie to your face after the reading and tell you how great it was, whether they thought it was but they will not lie to you during a reading. And so that is a way to get real-time feedback on: "Do I have people or not? Are they on their phone or are they locked eyes with me?”

You can feel that energy in the room. And that's not a cheap strategy for some people because public speaking is, can be very stressful, but there are ways to get that feedback. If what you want is to connect with people rather than just to have an outcome.

Leo

It reminds me of a stand-up comic going on stage and working out his material. Getting live feedback.

Beth

Yes. Yeah. 100%. Yeah.

Leo

That's so good. I had a friend Noah, who just did a webinar. And he talked about inviting a reader into his house and watching him read the book that he's been writing and he was wanting to cringe. He said it was intense, but I love that.

He got to actually see someone reading his book and that's something that I've incorporated as well. I didn't actually invite someone to my house. So that's the next level but I definitely really believe in watching people either read it or take it and put it into action.

Beth

I love that because if you talk to any writer, I know as soon as you say that sentence, watch someone read what you've written. They're just going to turn it like curl up into the fetal position. But this is the power of the work that you do and why I'm so grateful to you because you bring people back again and again to what possibilities exist.

If you let go of these fears, conditionings, habits, like the world is your oyster. If you're just willing to overcome your fear of seeing someone read your book, speaking in public, getting the feedback, then you can do anything.

Leo

So valuable. Thank you, Beth, for engaging in this discussion because I think it's really important. Before we close, I would like to touch on fearless mastery and working with me one on one. So why did you come into working with me one on one? What are your biggest regrets about that? No, I'm just kidding. What surprised you about that process? Is there anything that you want to share about that process? Tell us about the one-on-one coaching.

Beth

The reason is really easy. About a year and a half ago was sitting at my dining room table and I was reflecting on how long I had been telling everyone I want to be a writer and quit my job and how little I had actually done to move in that direction. And I thought, "Well, I can either get someone to help me figure out if I'm not doing this because I don't actually want it, or if there's another reason, or I can just give up."

And that day I got an email from you about one on one coaching. And I, I thought if anyone can help me, I think it's Leo Babauta and I'm just going to do it." And so I signed up and one thing that surprised me was how quickly things unlocked because I like, I had a conversation with you and like within two weeks I had just all this incredible movement in my life, which was partly coincidence, but partly I think also not, but...

Leo

I'll take the credit.

Beth

And I'm trying to think of anything, of what else surprised me. I think,

Leo

...or just anything you want to share about the process.

Beth

Definitely. Even though it was the reason that I decided to work with you. The fact that I have a complete draft of a memoir and I'm barreling through revisions in like month two of revising it, that actually did surprise me, like I worked with you to do that, but it still surprises me several months later that I was actually able to get to that point.

And I think it the simplicity of what it was that, that you helped me to see and do along the way. If I recap it it's not that complicated. It's just, you helped me do it instead of think about it and talk about it and dream about it.

Leo

So good. And then Fearless Mastery. Has there been anything about that? That's been really different for you than the one-on-one coaching. And yeah. Is there anything you're discovering so far in this round?

Beth

Yeah. Fearless mastery has challenged me a bit because I am not a group person in the sense that I can work with teams when there's a common goal, but when it's more social and we're going to support each other, I have a lot of resistance to that and it has been incredibly rich.

It has been really powerful to see my same struggles refracted through these lenses of people who are theater directors and composers and priests and all these different things, but they're all dealing with the same things that I'm dealing with. And so that, that ability to share the struggle and share the wins and be reminded that it is simple, even though it's not easy. Has been incredibly powerful.

Leo

Thank you for sharing that. Last thing I want to talk about, because you mentioned, working in a group and there's a collaborative aspect of that, that you have actually opened yourself up to, even though, it's challenging and you don't need to do it, you're actually collaborating with a kind of collective publishing mentality and project. So I'd like to hear more about what that is, why you decided to do it and anything else you want to share about that.

Beth

Yeah. So I'm co-founder of this called Spiral Press Collective. And it started, about a year and a half ago when there's a very popular fantasy author named Brandon Sanderson who had raised a bunch of money and basically started his own publishing company to publish his own books.

And I read about this and I thought "We could do this. I'm in this writing group. I've got one friend in particular, Seth, who's in the collective with me who had written his memoir, which is just gorgeous. And I was like 'you're trying to get people to publish this. They're all telling you it's really good, but it's too weird for us.' That's my calling card. Like too weird is like exactly what I want to sign up for."

And I just thought like, "Why are we waiting around for someone else to give us permission? To make this happen. We're, we have tons of skills and resources. We can hire people that don't have the skills we have. Let's just make it happen ourselves." And so that kind of snowballed into this collective.

A big part of the reason that I started this was wanting that freedom to be able to not just write the book, but design the cover, which Seth did and work with the artist to, lay out the interior and own the messaging and do the book tour and, do all the events around the book, all of which we've been doing.

And we look at each other routinely and we're like, "Do you know what you're doing?" "Not really." "Do you?" "Nope. I don't either, but we're still doing it." And, I wish I had a copy of the book with me. Cause it's just, I'll show it to friends and they're all excited about the collective and I'll, and then I'll show them the book and they'll be like "that's a real book. That looks really good." "I know it's it's real." Yeah, that's been really fun.

Leo

I really love, I'm glad that we got to touch on that because it really opens up possibilities for anyone who's not only writing, but just creating and might feel rejected by the professional publishing world or something like that. It's really tough to be knocking on doors and just keep getting a bunch of no's.

And sometimes our work is too weird. Like it doesn't fit in with the traditional things. And the great thing about these days is that doesn't have to be a limiter. But the possibility of banding together and helping each other to, to get our hands dirty with all of that. Like really opens up a lot for us. So thanks for thanks for sharing and letting us in a bit into that.

That's all the time that we have. I could definitely ask you a thousand more questions. You have so much richness to share, but I just want to say thank you, Beth, for spending this time with me, for sharing with us and for really opening up the possibility of thinking about of developing with feedback and being willing to use failure as dowsing rods. Like these are huge things.

And I want to say for anyone who is watching or listening to this podcast, I care about that kind of feedback. I want to know how you're using this in the real world. So please write back: [email protected] is the email. It goes straight to my inbox. I answer almost every single one of them, but I definitely read every single one.

And if you have anything you want to share with Beth, go ahead and write to that as well. And I'll pass it on to her. But otherwise, I would love to hear like what is coming up for you as you listen to these podcasts, what is resonating, what isn't, what makes you look at your phone instead of paying attention to it? And what's exciting you. So please write to me.

Beth

Thank you, Leo. This has been a joy.

Leo

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at [email protected].

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.