So I stopped doing that. Now I’m like a ravenous tiger with a fresh steak – get away! Mine! I’m going to get this done!

A friend called me last week, crying about how hard it was getting her first book published on Amazon’s KDP platform.

She told me she had been so proud of herself for having written and illustrated it, and got a great cover, but now she felt stuck and a hair away from giving up.

It turned out all she had to do was reformat the book from a .doc file to a .pdf, and it would upload to the platform just fine.

She said she’d only now come back to trying to publish the book after three months – three months!!!! – of discouragement and self-doubt.

She said one of the hardest things was that her best friend kept telling her to give it up, stick with her 9-5 and stop trying to make waves.

Her best friend!

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

She said she felt like a failure and imposter.

I asked her, “what does not having the right file format have to do with self-doubt? What does it have to do with imposter syndrome?”

She looked gobsmacked when she ‘got’ it – it has not one thing to do with any state of self-being-ness! Not one!

It was that she simply didn’t know what format to use.

I invited her to call me sooner next time! Who needs to wade through so much internal crap? All that time wasted in self-flagellation, and she could have had her book up and running and making money a full three months ago!

So I said to her:
STOP GIVING UP ON YOURSELF!

Especially before anyone else can!!!

I told her to tell her friend to either wise up and support her, or get lost. That person was useless – she was absolutely zero support. It’s a fake friendship. Where was the sincere love or comfort?

I think friends are about what-can-I-do-to-help when times are hard.

I think friends are about do-you-need-an-ear, and what-if-you-did —— suggestions you might not have thought of.

I think friends are about did-you-rest-today, and do-you-just-need-to-take-a-walk suggestions, because our minds work best when we are relaxed, and she certainly was not relaxed!

I told her, you can DO this.

Because you are smart, experienced, and have a lot of value to offer.

Get the hell away from people who only want you to exist on their I-give-up, I-only-want-to-slide-along level.

Allow yourself to rise into a level of creativity and fun that will pull like-minded others into your circle!

Life is good, no matter how dismal, dreary and deadly it might look to you right now. Even though part of the world is utterly falling apart.