I spoke with the Expert Author Community about A Fraction Stronger
Quite simply, A Fraction Stronger would not exist without the Expert Author Community.
I was referred to Kelly Irving by my speaking coach. It was scary to join her community. To invest in my ideas. To commit to writing. But I am so grateful I signed up.
The community provides the method, the environment and the accountability to elevate work. It shifted my focus from writing a 'cheap and cheerful' book - as I originally told myself was enough - to producing a professional memoir that became award winning.
But most of all it was the community. The people I met. The ideas we shared. The encouragement extended and friendships forged.
So when the EAC asked to interview me about A Fraction Stronger, I leapt to say yes.
I am glad I did. The questions allowed so many fond memories to flood back. What writing about it only two years later gave the book. Which habits from 25 years of negotiating carried into a hospital bed, and which ones I had to manage. How the book’s 13 concepts became Finding Your FEET.
The interview made me relive many of those wow moments that life can provide. Like a day seven months after the book is published, when a photo arrives in my LinkedIn messages. Someone I worked with 12 years earlier, standing on top of Chachani in Peru. 6,057 metres. Not the sort of place you cart an extra 300 grams of weight to, or fumble around with freezing fingers to pull a random book from your rucksack. But there was Mike. Holding my book. His words: “Marketing or mental”.
Three other reflections that the interview surfaced:
Noticing the signals in how people communicate matters as much in a rehab gym as in a negotiation.
Self-reliance served my corporate career, but problem-solving in my head cost energy. Expressing my fears earlier enabled better answers sooner.
My bias towards humility potentially held the book back. I’m still learning to own what I’ve achieved, every day.
If you’re sitting on a hard story and wondering whether to write it, the last two questions are for you.
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