I PUBLISHED A FAILING GOOD BOOK!

This one is an overall success, but with components of failure to get there - just like my book says!

First: YOU SHOULD BUY MY BOOK! 

You can get physical or digital copies from Amazon and Barnes & Noble and at a couple bookstores around the Twin Cities. As of last week(!!), it's also available on Audible so burn those extra credits you have lingering there AND you get to hear my beautiful voice lol! It's also on iTunes, Kindle, and a handful of other places where you can find books!

Now, how did I get here? From a blog to a book in five years or less. Maybe that's a long time to some, so read through my path and figure out how you could do it quicker. I needed every step, but let's fast forward here.

In 2018, I took my depressive episode and started writing about it on Facebook. Realizing that my posts were longer than the generally standard few lines, I started a blog to deep dive into some of my stories and reflections on them. The blog name "Failing Good" was just a funny play on words, but as I posted more stories and dissected more of my recoveries from them, I realized that Failing Good could be a process. That if there's a good way to fail, I bet there's a BETTER way and that it could be articulated. 

2019 was for healing, and I did a lot. I thought I was better, and I was, but I had a far way to go from true peace and contentment.

2020-2021...we all know the shitshow and the blur that was the next year or two here. I will say, I thought about seriously becoming an author thanks to doomscrolling on this new app called TikTok that gave a much more authentic look into human experiences than I think most other social platforms had before it. I saw the lives and growth of other authors and it planted a seed in my head to say oh...I could do that.

2022: On the first week of the year, I did a therapy session called "New Year: New Motivation" from my favorite TikTok therapist, Matthias Barker. It was LIFE CHANGING. The whole week was great, but the highlight for me was a meditation session where we got to meet our "five year future selves."

The first self was me if I go the opposite of all my New Year's Resolutions. I eat like trash, keep smoking, keep drinking, ignore my kids, don't have money, stressed out, etc. In reality, I was doing the meditation in my living room, but in the plane where I would meet that future self, I stood up and went to the backyard. There she was, sitting hunched over and chain-smoking, either hung over or still drunk, and just heavy with stress and loss. She looked so sad, and it was all I could do to sit by her, put my hand on her back, and say, it's ok, you're doing your best, life is hard, take your time. There was no judgment or disgust, just pity and trying to convey hope that she wouldn't have to be there forever. I went back to the living room.

The next self was me if I absolutely did everything I resolved. If I ate right, worked out, made money, had the rockstar relationship, all of it. As I sat in my living room chair, she walked in from the hallway and sat by me in the same way I sat with my sad self. She looked RADIANT. Not even just skinny or wealthy, she looked so happy and strong and confident. She looked me in the eye and said "Honey, you are amazing, you are doing so great here, I really admire your strength and your doing your best." Wow, what a parallel and what a feeling. 

Next in the meditation, we watched a day in the life of our resolute self. She woke up in a beautiful home in the woods to a fresh cup of coffee her partner had made before he went out to do chores. She went to her desk to write (SHE WAS A WRITER!) and just exist softly without stress or concern for much else. She cooked and cleaned and worked outside, and at the end of the day, she cuddled on the couch to watch a show with her man and then have phenomenal sex before going to bed. Pretty great day, IMO.

So everything I have done since then has be to aspire to be HER. That was the year I started EMDR, got sober, quit smoking, changed jobs, ended my engagement, got a tattoo, and I wrote my book. For her.

The tattoo artist was another game-changer. In October, as we were together for six hours, I told her my idea for the book and said I had mostly finished and started shopping it, but I didn't understand traditional publishing or how to find an agent and all that, and I didn't want to settle with self-publishing. 

Why not? Self-published is still published. If your goal is to have a book out in the world on your own terms, that is absolutely the way to go. Game-changing paradigm shift.

So in November, I used #NaNoWriMo to finish and clean my book, learn all the ropes of self-publishing, and I fucking did it. I published on Amazon and IngramSpark to make my book real, and I did it. 

2024: After months of tweaking and more learning, I officially launched my book at a Galentine's Party for some of my favorite girlfriends in February. I got it on a couple shelves in the Twin Cities, including Barnes and Noble at the Mall of America, I recorded the audiobook, got it live on Amazon. HUGE deal!

And then I fell into a depression. It was a combination of kid issues, partner problems, seasonal depression, and everything else, but I stopped caring and stopped trying to do anything with it. Friends still read and bought and commented, but I didn't actively do anything else. Then, even as I pulled out of the depression, I felt paralyzed by what I wanted to do next. I didn't know if I should focus on writing, my government career, my real estate practice, or what. 

That was until I did psychedelic therapy in October and got pushed in the right direction. That is to say, I was pushed in all directions. I'm still doing everything and doing it all with strength and passion, including rejuvenating my writing and promotion of Failing Good!

So my plan now is to run Failing Good to its fullest extent through the end of the year. I'm talking to more bookstores, going to author events, and really owning the book with pride and admiration, and this is my favorite space to be in, and MUCH closer to my five year (now three year...) future self!