Hey Reader!
On the afternoon I got laid off, I slunk off from the Zoom call with HR, grabbed yesterday's half-drunk glass of water, and slumped down on the couch to watch Bluey with my daughter.
She was two, and she snuggled right into me while giggling at something Bandit said to Bingo.
And I nearly lost it right then because that hadn't been happening much lately. I'd been working 60-plus hours a week for a company that—I was just now realizing—saw me as a budget expense.
No matter how much revenue I brought in—almost 10x my salary—I still wasn't enough of an asset to keep.
I was so freaking mad. So freaking sad. So freaking ashamed.
So freaking tired.
But over the course of the next week, I came to—slowly, painfully—realize that if I didn't value my own time and my own value, nobody else would either.
And later that evening as my husband and I stood in the kitchen having a "20-seconder" (a 20-second or more hug when one of us is feeling stressed, sad, burnt out, or upset, because science told us it was a great idea), he suggested... maybe I don't go look for another corporate job.
Maybe I... take the side business helping authors that I'd been building for almost 10 years at that point... and make it a full-time-thing.
And build it in a way that pays our mortgage but also supports our lives.
I told the whole story, including the harder year that came right after, on The Luxe Leap with Réland Logan.
Listen to the 7-minute clip:
(Or listen to the full episode.)
So I built my business around that. These days:
- My workday runs from 9 to 2.
- My nights and weekends are mine.
- I only say yes to work I actually want to do and I show up fully for it.
It's also why I teach writing a book the way I do.
The people I work with are running businesses, serving clients, and raising families. A book plan that needs 5 am alarms or all your weekends asks you to make the same trade I walked away from that afternoon, so everything I teach is built to fit into the time you already have.
The biggest time-waster I see in book writing is spending months on a book that doesn't lead anywhere. The book gets finished, and then it doesn't bring in the clients, talks, or sales it was meant to, because nobody decided where it should lead before the writing started.
So on Wednesday, November 11, I'm teaching a live workshop called Open the Right Doors.
You'll work on your own book the whole time, and you'll leave with:
- Your book's Strategy Stack, and what it could bring your business
- The step your book covers right before your offer
- Your book funnel sketched out, plus the money math for it
Come live if you can. You'll do each exercise during the workshop, and then I give live feedback on what people share and answer questions as they come up. That's the part a recording can't give you.
Your book bestie,
Holly
PS — If you only have a few minutes today, play the clip on your next walk or drive. ▶️ Listen here
