February 6, 2024 • 37 mins
Quitting can be a superpower, in large part because the plot of the story moves when the hero of the story takes action. But how do you know when to quit something and when to stick it out? In this episode I explore the answer by sharing one thing I’m quitting and one thing I’m keeping around, in spite of (sometimes) wanting to quit.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pick up the pieces of your life, pulled them back
together with the words you write, all the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun When
you write your story, you get the words and said,
don't you think it's time to let them out and
write them down and cover what it's all about and write,
(00:24):
Write your story. Write you write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, friend, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
This is Ali Fallon. I'm your host, and on today's episode,
I want to talk about quitting. I have been thinking
about this a lot lately. I talked about it on
Instagram the other day. It seemed to really strike a
chord for people, so I wanted to bring the conversation
here to the podcast too. I came home from improv
class last night really frustrated. I've been going to improv
(00:52):
class every Monday night, almost every Monday night for over
a year now. I started taking improv classes just kind
of on a whim intuition that this was something that
would be really good for me, that it would push
me out of my comfort zone, that it would maybe
offer me some more freedom in creative expression. In particular,
I wanted to feel more freedom when I stood on
(01:14):
a stage. So I do that a fair bit in
my career. Stand on a stage and deliver a keynote message,
stand on a stage and teach a workshop of some kind.
And I feel mostly like I've gotten to a place
where I'm comfortable on a stage. But when I get
on a stage, I feel like I've got to follow
the script.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And what I really wanted to get.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Out of the experience of improv was the ability to
add live, the ability to be in the moment, to
break free of the scripts, to say what comes to
my mind, to practice and play and try things and
be a little bit more creative in that space where
I felt like I was really confined, and I knew
deep in my gut that improv was going to offer
(01:55):
that to me. So I signed up for a Level
one improv class here in National Tennis, a Third Coast
comedy club and funny side story. But since I've signed
up for that class and I've talked about it on
Instagram a bunch of times, I've had a handful of
Instagram followers who are also here in Nashville who've signed
up for improv, and they have had so much fun
and had a similar experience to what I've had, just
(02:16):
that this is like a massive, massive tool for personal
growth and for adding more play and fun into your life,
and for breaking your patterns of perfectionism and all kinds
of other stuff. So if you're here in Nashville and
you're interested in that kind of thing, definitely look up
Third Coast Comedy Club. If you're not in Nashville and
you're interested in this kind of thing, I'm sure that
(02:37):
there is a theater in your area. Well, I guess
I can't be one hundred percent to where I don't know,
Like in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas, maybe there's not
a theater. But in most major cities there will be
a theater that teaches improv. And if there is an
improv program around you, I would highly, highly recommend taking
a Level one improv class because it's really for everybody.
There's something for everybody in the Level one improv class.
(03:00):
But when I tell you that the night I walked
into my Level one improv class, I was terrified, that
is the understatement of the century. In fact, maybe i'll
share that video at some point. It's a terrible quality
video because it was like six twenty or whatever in
the evening in January, and so it's just dark in
(03:21):
my car. You can hardly see me. But I did
flick on a light and took a video of myself
before I walked in, talking about how I was feeling,
and I'm on the verge of tears. I'm absolutely terrified,
and yet I did it. I got on my car,
I walked in. I met this group of people that
I knew I would be with for eight weeks. We
played games. That's really what improv class is. You play
(03:42):
a bunch of games, kind of rapid fire, back to back.
At least that was my experience in that first level.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And it was fun. I had a good time.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It definitely took me some time to warm up to
the idea of being more free in my expression and
saying the first thing that came to my mind. But
when I could get myself in the mindset of we're
just here to have fun and to play games, I
really did enjoy it. And so when I finished with
level one, I decided to go ahead and sign up
for level two. There were a handful of people in
(04:12):
level one who also decided to go on to level
two who I had connected with in my class, so
I felt like there was this added measure of safety
and comfort that now these are the same people I've
been playing these games with for eight weeks, and now
we get to move on to level two together. And
then when the opportunity came along to go from level
two to level three again, there were several people in
(04:33):
my class who I had now been with for sixteen weeks,
who were like, come on, let's do level three together.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
This will be fun.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And as I sat back and thought about it, I
realized that the reason I had come into this experience
in the first place was to experience more freedom, more joy,
more playfulness, more spontaneity in my creative expression, in particular
in the sort of way that I speak or share
myself in my life. And I felt like I had
made some progress there, but that there was still more
(05:00):
or freedom to be found. And so I was like, Okay,
I'm all in, let's do level three. And I did
not expect myself to do level three. I didn't expect
myself to do level four. I really didn't expect myself
to make it to level five. And then now I'm
in level six, which is the final training level at
our training center, and when you complete Level six, you
(05:21):
can audition to be a part of a troop, and
that troop can perform regularly on the stage. And to
be clear, I don't have any intention of performing regularly
on an improv stage. That's not why I came into
this process in the first place. Although you know, crazier
things have happened because I never thought that I would
get to level six either. But that's not my intention
(05:41):
for being a part of this process. I just wanted
to say that somehow. Now I have been in improv
classes for over a year. It's been a year and
a couple of months. We will wrap up with a showcase,
a couple of showcases, actually in March. We do three
shows in March. I have a show scheduled in February,
so I will do a bit of performing on the
stage regardless of what happens after Level six, with the
(06:04):
same group of people that I've been with. Some of
them I've been with for over a year. Some of
them we kind of merged to groups about halfway through
the process, so some of them I've only been with
for six months or so. But it's been a really,
really fabulous, enriching, wonderful life changing experience. And at the
same time that I say all of that, I came
(06:26):
home from improv class last night feeling really down. And
this has happened to me a couple of times. After
a really rough night at improv improv classes on Monday night.
I came home last night on the verge of tears.
I was telling my husband, I don't know what I'm
doing here. I don't know how I got to level six.
It feels like I'm the weakest player in my class,
which you know. My husband was like, are you being
(06:48):
self deprecating? Do you think you're measuring this correctly? I
do think there's a potential that I'm being somewhat self deprecating.
And also I think I am at a detriment in
large part because many of my classmates attend improv shows
a few times a week. They're all performing regularly, and
for me, as a mom of two kids with a
(07:11):
full time job, getting away for three hours on a
Monday night is about the ceiling of what my life,
the container of my life can hold, and so to
get away again another night a week to go see
an improv show, or a couple times a week to
get away again for rehearsals and performances just isn't realistic
(07:32):
inside of the container of my life right now. And
so I'm at a detriment because I'm not practicing as
much as the other people in my class are practicing.
But essentially what my husband and I unpacked last night
when I came home because I was feeling really down.
I was feeling like I'm dragging the rest of the
class down. I'm the weakest player in my class. I
don't even understand why I'm in level six. I don't
(07:53):
have any kind of an intention to be a part
of a regular troupe or perform regularly at the improv theater.
And so my husband was just asking me, well, what
was it that made you want to do this in
the first place, Like why are you doing this? And
I thought that was such an important question. I wanted
to talk about that a little bit on the podcast today,
about coming back to your why to make a decision
(08:16):
whether to stick with something or whether to walk away,
because the other side of this coin that I feel
like is really important. And I'll come back to that
improv story in just a second, But the other side
of this coin is I think a hugely hugely underrated
skill in our culture is being willing to.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Quit something halfway through.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I don't know about you, but I grew up in
a culture where the attitude was if you signed up
for something, if you committed to something, if you said
you were going to do something, you didn't back out.
You didn't quit, you didn't stop halfway through. You didn't
let your team down, you didn't let yourself down. You know,
you followed through on whatever you committed to. And I
(08:57):
do believe that that's a really, really valuable skill. With
someone brought this up on Instagram, and I think this
is a valid point that, in particular, when you committed
to a group of people to do something and if
you backed out, you're backing out would negatively impact or
affect the group, then it's important to think about that
and to take that into account. I also think that
(09:19):
there's value to be had in just following through on
a commitment you made to yourself, just to prove to
yourself that you can do that, just to prove to
yourself that you have the discipline and the fortitude and
the sticktuitiveness that you need in order to complete a
difficult task, and to prove to yourself that just because
(09:39):
a hardship arises doesn't mean that you're going to bail
out at the last minute. And also, I want to
just add to the equation that since I learned that
from the time I was really young, and I kind
of have that commitment piece down, like that's built into
my bones.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I don't know if that's true for you.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Maybe you're younger than I am and you come from
a younger generation, and maybe that that wasn't instilled in
you at such a deep level the way that it
was for me. But for me, because I have that
commitment piece down and I've got the sort of internal
I don't even know, it's like an internal guilty voice almost,
that's like, you don't quit on this. You don't bail
on people, you don't bail on yourself, you don't quit
(10:18):
halfway through. I think there's so much value to be
had in going back to your why and asking yourself,
why am I doing this? And is this serving the
purpose that I wanted it to serve? And if it is,
then great, let's overcome the obstacles at hand and stick
with this thing. And if it's not serving the purpose
(10:38):
that you hoped it would serve. Then let's utilize this
much underrated skill of being able to quit. Let me
give you a quick example, and this is the example
that I shared on Instagram. Let me give you a
(11:00):
quick example. And this is the example that I shared
on Instagram. But I had said to myself that I
was going to run a half marathon in the first
quarter of this year. I ran a ten k in
August of last year, and it was a really fabulous
way for me to kickstart my physical health journey after
two back to back pregnancies, and I had fallen out
(11:21):
of a routine of working out regularly. And I just
feel my best in my body when I'm moving my
body almost every day. Like I don't have to be
running a long distance every day, but when I am
going for long walks or moving my body every day,
I feel so much better about myself. My mental health
gets in a better place. So I knew I needed
a goal to put on the horizon to kind of
(11:43):
kickstart that journey for myself again. So I planned the
ten k. I ran that in August and then kind
of kept up with my running as long as the
weather held out, and then as soon as the weather
got cold, which in Nashville isn't really until like December.
Once the weather got cold in December or I just
was like, Ooh, I'm not really feeling this anymore. I
(12:03):
kind of need another goal to put on the horizon
to keep me motivated. So I decided I was going
to run a half marathon. I picked the half marathon
in Chattanooga because I thought, Oh, this will be so fun.
We'll take the whole family to Chattanooga. It's a two
hour drive from Nashville. We'll do a fun weekend there.
Maybe we can meet a set of grandparents there who
can help us kind of wrangle the kids while we
(12:24):
do this race. My husband decided he was going to
do the full marathon. I was going to do the half.
We were going to go to Chattanooga and make a
whole weekend of it. This was going to be really fun. Well,
then in December I got sick back to back, I
don't even know what, some virus, stomach bug. I was
sick for over three weeks and missed a whole big
portion of my training. So when that happened, I was like, Okay,
(12:46):
I'm not going to be ready to run by March
third that was the Chattanooga race, so I figured I'm
going to have to pick a different race. So I
started looking around to see what was available and realized
that the Music City Half Marathon, which happens in Nashville,
is April twenty seventh. I was like, perfect, that gives
me an extra six or eight weeks to complete my training.
(13:06):
That'll give me more time. This will be great, Let's
do the Music City Half Marathon. So I talked to
my husband about it. We pivoted our plans, decided that's
what we were going to do, and I was back
on track. I was, you know, back It's still freezing
cold here in Nashville. So I was back at the
gym on the treadmill, doing my running plan. And one
January morning, a freezing cold January morning, I'm dropping my
(13:28):
kids off at why Play, which is the childcare at
the YMCA. They're kicking and screaming the entire way. I
am able to sue them and get them, you know,
to feel comfortable where they are in their space. Then
I go get on a treadmill. I'm about to run
six and a half miles on a treadmill, and I
just get started running on the treadmill, and I'm like,
(13:49):
why am I doing this? Like what what am I doing?
And I just stopped the run. I started walking on
the treadmill, and I started thinking to myself, like, what
that's my reason for doing this in the first place.
Why am I doing this? Because it doesn't feel fun
right now? I don't want to do it anymore. And
am I just sticking with this because I told myself
(14:10):
I would do it And I'm afraid of what it
means about me if I quit? Or am I really
doing this? Because this is important to me and it's
aligned with my values and it's aligned with where I
want to go in my life. And I started to
just think about this as I was on the treadmill
and kind of peel back the layers, and I realized, like, Wow,
this isn't serving my purpose anymore. Like I just drug
my kids to a childcare kicking and screaming they didn't
(14:32):
want to go. We could be doing something different this morning.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I don't have to be.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I mean I also could take them and I could
go on the treadmill for thirty minutes or go, you know,
lift some weights for thirty minutes and still get some
exercise in and then go do something else with the kids.
So I was just there on the treadmill. I'm like
checking in with my body, asking my body, does this
feel good to you? Is this what you want to do?
And just realizing like, no, I don't want to run
(14:57):
six and a half miles on a treadmill. That's not
it doesn't sound exciting to me at all. What I'd
rather do is do a shorter workout, maybe get on
an elliptical, lift some weights, Go pick up the kids,
go grab a chi or a coffee, take them to
the park, you know, bundle up, wander around at the
park for an hour or so, and then go home
and do lunch, a nap.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
So that's exactly what I did.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I finished my workout, I picked up my kids, we
got in the car, we went and did something fun.
And it just got me thinking about this idea of
giving ourselves permission, not just permission, actually of embracing the
amazing skill that it is to tune in in the
present moment with what is true for you right now
(15:40):
and to make a decision that's in alignment with that,
rather than adhering to a commitment that you made to
yourself a week ago or a month ago, or a
year ago or whatever, just tuning in to the present
moment and paying attention to what is true right now now.
I'm not saying that there's never a time when sticking
(16:00):
with your commitment isn't important. I said, I'd come back
around to the improv story, and that's where this story
comes in. As I was talking with my husband laying
in bed last night, I realized that what was really
coming up for me in this level six of IMPROV
is insecurity, feeling stupid, feeling lesser than It's the same
(16:22):
old patterns of perfectionism that have been with me for
as long as I can remember. So what's coming up
that's coming up as tears last night was my limitation.
It was my old way of being in the world.
It was my frustration with the process that I had
asked for, which was a process that I knew would
(16:42):
break down the walls that I had that were keeping
me confined, that were not giving me the freedom that
I wanted to have. When I was speaking in front
of a group of people, you know, even this podcast.
When I started this show, one of the insights that
I was given about this show is that it was
supposed to be just me in a microphone in a room.
(17:04):
Not that I would never interview a guest, because I
have had guests on the show and I will continue
to have guests on the show, but that the majority
of the episodes were supposed to be just me on
a microphone. And I think a big reason why that
intuition came through was because this is my growth edge
right now, is can I give myself the freedom of
expression in this environment that I feel and that I
(17:27):
have when I sit down to the page to write
a lot of times when I'm working with authors to
take their story out of their head and put it
on paper, they experience the blocks that I feel on
a stage when they sit down to the page. I'm
not saying I never experienced those blocks, but I just
have enough kind of grease in the wheels in the
(17:49):
writing thing that I don't experience that as much or
as intensely anymore. But put me on a stage with
no plan, or put me in front of a podcast
mic with no plan, and I'm like a deer in headlights.
I mean, I don't have that same feeling of a
freedom of expression. And I worked with an author one time,
who was a really gifted public speaker, actually still is
(18:11):
a very gifted public speaker. You could throw that woman
on a stage in any condition, with any audience of people,
with no plan, no prep, no idea what she's going
to talk about, and she would just crush it. She
just has that way about her. She also has been
doing this since she was really really young, so she's
had a lot of practice. But then sit her in
(18:33):
front of a computer or put her down on a
piece of paper, and she was experiencing a lot of
these blocks that I'm talking about. So that was her
growth edge. And for me doing this podcast, the way
that I'm doing it just me and a microphone is
my growth edge, and it's part of how I'm learning
how to let the insights come through in this setting,
or how to give myself the freedom to express in
(18:55):
this setting. And so improv is that for me, the
why why am I doing improv? The why for me
is to cultivate more freedom of expression, to give myself
permission to just let it be messy, to break through
the walls of perfectionism and be a human being. And
that's the why for me doing this show, to doing
(19:17):
this podcast and hopefully you get something from it along
the way. But the reason I bring any of this
up is when you're in a situation where you're bumping
up against your limitations, you're bumping up against your patterns,
your old way of doing something. When you're doing a
thing that just doesn't feel good to you, it doesn't
feel good in your body, You're not having fun anymore.
(19:38):
There are a few different ways that you can look
at this. One way is the way that I was
looking at my improv circumstance last night. I came home,
I'm frustrated. I'm on the verge of tears. I'm crying
to my husband. I'm not having fun anymore. I don't
want to do this anymore. What am I doing here?
This is such a waste of time. I'm dragging everyone
else down. And in that set of circumsts, chansays, the
(20:01):
truth was, the truth in that present moment was it's
not that I want to quit improv. The truth is
that improv this experience is bringing up. It's bringing to
the surface the exact limitations that I've wanted to break through,
the exact patterns that I've wanted to break out of
(20:21):
and leave behind and the exact opportunity for growth that
I asked for. And that's a little bit different than
the half marathon training, where my body was literally saying like, no,
I don't want to do this, Like why have you
put me in this box? This doesn't feel good to me.
The why for the half marathon training wasn't about completing
(20:41):
a half marathon. The why for the half marathon training
was to motivate myself to get outside, which I wasn't doing.
I was on a treadmill. It was to motivate myself
to get my body moving every single day, which you know,
I mean, that's a whole other story. But what was
happening a lot was I was doing these training runs
and feeling kind of cratchety the next day because I
(21:04):
wasn't yet in really great shape, and so I would
feel pretty cratchety the next day and not even want
to go do anything. I would just want to sit
on my butt all day. So I'm like, can I
ramp down the training and instead of training for a
half marathon, can I just do the things that are
going to grow strength in my body and create longevity
and you give me that feeling of just being strong
(21:28):
in my body. That's what I'm actually looking for instead
of training for a half marathon. So the reason I'm
bringing up any of this is just to say that
this is how you can look at a situation in
your life when you're thinking about quitting, is to bring
yourself back to the why why did I do this
in the first place? And I think this is a
really really valuable tool when we're talking about writing your story,
(21:53):
because when you set up on a journey to write
your story, for some of you, this is going to
be a decade long journey. For some of you, it's
going to go much faster some of you. You know,
I teach my workshop, my writing program called a book
in six months, and authors come into that program, you know,
in January, and by July they have a finished manuscript.
So you can write a long story a really short
(22:14):
amount of time. And for some of you, it's going
to be a longer process than that. So I think
it's really important to be able to bring yourself back
to your why why did I start this in the
first place when you bump up against your limitations, when
you feel like, oh, I'm so bad at this, I'm
not a good writer. Other people are better writers than
(22:35):
I am, And that's just that's just the facts. That's
not me being self deprecating. That's just the facts that
other people are better at this than I am because
they have been practicing for longer and they're logging more hours.
You may feel like that as you sit down to
write your story. May that may come up for you.
And the question I would have for you is why
(22:56):
are you doing this? Are you doing it because you
want to be the best writer in the world, or
are you doing it because you want to see yourself
more clearly? Are you doing it because you want to
sell a bunch of copies? Or are you doing it
because you want to understand the lessons that your life
is trying to teach you. Are you doing it because
you want to win an award for the book that
(23:18):
you've written, or are you doing it because you want
to share your experience with the people who are close
to you. So understanding the why behind writing your story
is so valuable and important to keeping you motivated through
the whole process. I'm going to share one more story
(23:45):
with you that gets at this theme that I'm talking about.
It's also a really vulnerable story that's very close to
my heart, so I hesitate to share it, but I
also don't hesitate to share it because that's exactly what
this venue, this platform is for, is you encourage authentic
self expression. That's exactly what I am inviting you into
in the writing process, and it's what I believe this
(24:08):
podcast is inviting me into. It's the reason that this
podcast is in my life is to teach me how
to do this and specifically how to do it when
I'm alone with a microphone. So I'll start with the
exciting part, which is an exciting announcement that I have
given on Instagram and I've shared with my email list,
but I haven't yet shared with you here on the podcast,
(24:30):
which is that I have a book coming out. It
is called Write Your Story No Surprise. It'll be out
May seventh of this year, and it is a book
that teaches you how to take a story from your life,
an experience from your life, and turn it into three
to five pages a written story that you can feel
proud to share. And for you, sharing might mean sharing
with one trusted person, a therapist or a loved one.
(24:52):
And for you, sharing might mean sharing on Instagram or
sharing in a book club, or sharing to a church group,
or sharing with your five closest best friends, whatever sharing
looks like for you. It can be different for everyone,
but sharing is a really important part of this process
to write the story and then share with others. I've
taken a little bit of a different approach with this book.
(25:13):
I've taken a different publishing approach, which I honestly should
schedule a whole other episode to talk about the publishing
approach that I've taken, because I did this specifically to
very my publishing experiences so that I could speak with
some authority when I'm working with authors trying to help
them publish their books, that I could share here's what
(25:34):
my experience is like in traditional publishing, Here's what my
experience is like with hybrid publishing. So I'm publishing with
a publisher called Forefront Books, which is a hybrid publisher
here in Nashville. They are a really, really well respected
hybrid publisher. They've published a ton of New York Times
bestselling books in the last year. In twenty twenty three,
they had a bunch of the New York Times list
(25:54):
and just worked with a ton of other really well
respected authors. Jonathan Murk, who started for from worked in
the traditional publishing world for a long time and is
just a really trusted voice and trusted person in traditional
publishing and in the publishing world in general, and so
I have the utmost faith in their process and in
their distribution and all of the things that authors worry
(26:17):
about when they're publishing a book. So I'm really, really
really excited to get to be working with them. The experience,
and like I said, I'll schedule a whole other podcast
episode to talk just about what that process has been like.
But the experience has been absolutely phenomenal, totally on par
with my traditional publishing experience, and just his team is
a class act and very very good at what they do.
(26:39):
The other really exciting thing about this book is that
it is on an imprint of Forefront called story Brand
Books story Brand. If you don't know about story Brand,
I worked with story Brand for a really long time,
traveling and teaching keynotes for them, teaching small group workshops.
The founder of story Brand is my friend Donald Miller,
who is also a very accomplished author, and he figured
(27:00):
out a way to use narrative frameworks to teach businesses
how to talk about what they do, and that's what
story brands mission and purposes. So story Brand Books is
the imprint that my book will fall under, which means
that I have the rocket fuel of the story brand
community behind me. I also have the support of Don Miller,
(27:21):
which means a lot to me, both professionally and because
he's such a good friend. He wrote the forward for
the book. So there's so many exciting things happening around
the Writer Your Story book. The reason I bring this
up is I wanted to say that I was having
a conversation with my publishing team at Forefront and they
were talking about which category the book should fall in,
and the most obvious category for the book to fall
(27:44):
in is the writing category. Like when you're thinking categories,
we're thinking you walk into a bookstore and what section
of the bookstore do you go to find the book?
And everyone was kind of like, well, it makes the
most sense. Write your Story is a book about writing.
You're teaching people how to write three to five pages
about their life, so we should put it in the
writing section. And I was adamant about this, and I'm
not adamant about everything as it relates to my creative endeavors.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
But for this, I just knew that. I knew that.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I knew that this was not supposed to be in
the writing section. It was supposed to be in the
self help section. And one of the reasons why I
knew this is I have been inside of this massive
pivot of how I carry myself in the world, how
I show up as a person on Instagram, how do
I show up as a teacher and a leader, how
do I show up as an author in the world,
(28:29):
and how do I run my business? And I've been
in the midst of this massive pivot that has been
a bit of a dark night of the soul because
the transition and the change that's been happening has been
I've been a little bit in the dark about it.
I don't know if you've had an experience like that
where you can feel that a massive shift is happening,
but you don't fully understand it yet in your conscious mind,
(28:50):
and so you're just like, Okay, I guess I'm along
for this ride, and hopefully one day I will understand
what's going on. But I talked about on last week's episode,
or I guess it was two weeks ago. I talked
about a little bit about what this has looked like.
You know, It's looked like deleting five thousand emails without
ever reading them. It's looked like firing all my employees.
It's looked like shutting down prepared to publish, which was
(29:13):
my main kind of signature online course. And at the time,
I didn't fully know why I was doing those things.
I was doing them because I was trusting the intuition
that was coming through in the moment, the same way
that I knew to take improv classes, the same way
that I've known to cold plunge. I was just trusting
the insights that were coming through in the moment. And
now that I'm getting to the end of this transition
(29:36):
in my professional life, I'm starting to see the what
and the why. And this is why I said coming
back to your why is so important, because here's what
I've realized. This is me condensing three maybe four years
of life teaching me a lesson down into one controlling idea.
Here's my controlling idea, which is that I don't want
(30:00):
to teach people about publishing. I do teach people about publishing,
and I'm fine for that to be part of what
I talk about, but my why for why I do
what I do. What gets me out of bed in
the morning isn't about getting someone published. It's not about
getting someone on the New York Times List. It's not
about helping someone sell a bunch of copies of their book.
It's not even about because I've had a lot of
(30:21):
experiences like this that haven't really like hit the nerve
for me, where I worked with someone who anybody would
be like, oh my gosh, you got to work with
that person, and like, as human beings and people, I'm
really impressed by these people and love the experience of
getting to work with them, But like the fame element
just didn't do it for me, Like it didn't hit
(30:43):
the nerve. It's not the thing that gets me out
of bed in the morning to be like, oh, I
get to work with such and such a person. I
sort of feel like you could put anyone in front
of me, and the thing that I want to do
in the world would be the same, whether that person
was famous or lived in obscurity, whether that person was
a well known author, or whether that person is writing
(31:04):
their first book. And so I said, I was going
to boil this down into one sentence and this is
not really one sentence, but essentially, the publishing piece doesn't
matter to me. What really matters to me is helping
people understand their lives through the lens of storytelling. So
it makes sense why I would want to write a
book called write Your Story, why I would want to
have a podcast called Write Your Story that is about writing.
(31:26):
I mean, that's so much of my expertise has been
in the writing and publishing world, and it's hard for
me to let that go because I can kind of
rest on those laurels a little bit. It's like, that's
what I'm known for. Ali Fallon is a book coach.
She's a publishing coach. She's a writing coach. And I
think how I really want to show up in the world,
who I really want to be as a teacher is
more about helping you really listen to your life and
(31:50):
really see yourself clearly, and really understand what your life
is trying to show you, and understand who you are
and your purpose in the world and why you really
matter to see your path clearly. That's more of what
I want to do than the publishing piece. And I'm
not saying that I'm going to blow up the publishing piece.
I'm not saying I'm letting go of it completely, but
(32:10):
now that I'm starting to understand this transition that I've
been in, it makes sense why my intuition said let
go of Prepare to publish, because this is not about publishing.
This is about something different, It's about something bigger. So
I'm still helping people write books. I have a Book
in six Months now, which is a lot of similar
concepts to Prepare to Publish. You know, a Book in
(32:33):
six Months is now my signature online course, and it's
very similar to Prepare to Publish, except for the price
point is lower, and it's all group work, and the
shift and focus and an energy can be really felt
inside of the course that you belong in that group,
whether or not you want to publish a book, everyone
in the group is writing a book. Some people want
(32:54):
to publish, and I happen to be a expert in publishing,
and so I can offer a lot of insight and
feedback about my experience in publishing and kind of give
people that path. But there are a lot of people
inside of that group who don't want to publish a book,
who are just writing for their family members or writing
for themselves or writing to process and understand more deeply
what they've lived through. And that is the part of
(33:18):
it that feels like it gets me out of bed
in the morning.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I get so.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Motivated by that. I get so excited. I am in
my purpose, like I'm in my dharma. However you want
to say that when I'm doing that work, and then
some people publish their books, and that's great, and I'm
pumped for them like that feels like really practical advice
that I can offer to people who are on that track.
But I feel, even personally about myself if I never
(33:44):
published another book, I would keep writing forever because writing
is such a phenomenal tool that has offered me everything.
It has given me a new lens through which to
see myself, to see the world, to see other people,
to see the life that I'm leading. It's such a
powerful shift. It's such a powerful tool. I don't know
(34:05):
where I would be without it. And I just feel
so honored and grateful to help them overcome the blocks
that are in the way of them utilizing the tool,
and it gives me so much life. It gets me
out of bed in the morning. It makes me very
excited so so I'm grateful to have you listening. I'm
grateful to have you along on this journey with me.
I hope that you got something out of me sharing
(34:27):
three personal stories from my life today. And mostly what
I hope is that you're reminded to go back to
your why and that you give yourself permission to quit
something that's not working for you anymore. Even if you're
going to let people down, if it's out of alignment
with you and where you are in your life right
this minute, then your presence inside of that container is
(34:50):
not actually helping the group that you're with. I'll say
one more thing and then I'm going to wrap up.
But I don't know if you've had this experience before
where you have a scheduled plan, something that you're supposed
to do with someone else, and you want to cancel,
but you're like, if I cancel, I'm going to let
this person down. They've been looking forward to this for
months or whatever weeks. We've had this on the calendar.
(35:11):
I can't change it now that would inconvenience so and so.
And then something happens where either you reach out and
say it sort of like toss out the line like
what would you think about canceling these plans? Or they
reach out and say like, I'm so sorry to do
this to you, but I have to cancel, and you
just have that alignment, You have that realization in the
(35:32):
moment that actually both of you didn't want to do it.
It didn't work for either of you, and I just
I want us to start to think in that direction
as it relates to sticking with something or quitting, when
you really think through your why and you realize I
don't want to do this thing. When it's out of
alignment with your priorities and who you are right in
(35:53):
that moment, it is also out of alignment with the
person that you are doing it with. For example, I
told my husband and I thought I was going to
disappoint him because he wanted to run the full marathon
and I was going to run the half and we
were going to have a whole thing. And I was like,
I don't want to do this anymore, and he was
like me neither. It was like that fast. He was like,
I don't know what we were thinking, Like, I don't
want to train for a marathon. This is going to
(36:13):
take hours and hours and hours of my time. I
hardly have any spare time as it is. I don't
want to take more time away from the family. And
we were just like high five, moving on, Okay, no
half marathon in April, and it was just such a
beautiful moment of realizing, like, actually, when we can be
honest with ourselves, even if the other person, even if
it's not that easy in every circumstance, it always is
(36:35):
a gift to the other person when we give them
the fullness of ourselves. That's a great place to end
the episode. It's always a gift, always, always, always a
gift to the other person when you give them the
fullness of yourself. So I hope this episode is a
gift to you. To the best of my ability, I
just gave you the fullness of myself. I'm going to
keep on breaking through those locks and limiting beliefs, and
(36:56):
keep on shedding the layers of perfectionism that keep me
from telling my truth. I'm gonna keep on giving you
the fulness of myself. I hope you have a lovely day,
and I'll see you next week.
Pick up the pieces of your life, pulled them back
together with the words you write, all the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun When
you write your story, you get the words and said,
don't you think it's time to let them out and
write them down and cover what it's all about and write,
(00:24):
Write your story. Write you write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, friend, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
This is Ali Fallon. I'm your host, and on today's episode,
I want to talk about quitting. I have been thinking
about this a lot lately. I talked about it on
Instagram the other day. It seemed to really strike a
chord for people, so I wanted to bring the conversation
here to the podcast too. I came home from improv
class last night really frustrated. I've been going to improv
(00:52):
class every Monday night, almost every Monday night for over
a year now. I started taking improv classes just kind
of on a whim intuition that this was something that
would be really good for me, that it would push
me out of my comfort zone, that it would maybe
offer me some more freedom in creative expression. In particular,
I wanted to feel more freedom when I stood on
(01:14):
a stage. So I do that a fair bit in
my career. Stand on a stage and deliver a keynote message,
stand on a stage and teach a workshop of some kind.
And I feel mostly like I've gotten to a place
where I'm comfortable on a stage. But when I get
on a stage, I feel like I've got to follow
the script.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And what I really wanted to get.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Out of the experience of improv was the ability to
add live, the ability to be in the moment, to
break free of the scripts, to say what comes to
my mind, to practice and play and try things and
be a little bit more creative in that space where
I felt like I was really confined, and I knew
deep in my gut that improv was going to offer
(01:55):
that to me. So I signed up for a Level
one improv class here in National Tennis, a Third Coast
comedy club and funny side story. But since I've signed
up for that class and I've talked about it on
Instagram a bunch of times, I've had a handful of
Instagram followers who are also here in Nashville who've signed
up for improv, and they have had so much fun
and had a similar experience to what I've had, just
(02:16):
that this is like a massive, massive tool for personal
growth and for adding more play and fun into your life,
and for breaking your patterns of perfectionism and all kinds
of other stuff. So if you're here in Nashville and
you're interested in that kind of thing, definitely look up
Third Coast Comedy Club. If you're not in Nashville and
you're interested in this kind of thing, I'm sure that
(02:37):
there is a theater in your area. Well, I guess
I can't be one hundred percent to where I don't know,
Like in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas, maybe there's not
a theater. But in most major cities there will be
a theater that teaches improv. And if there is an
improv program around you, I would highly, highly recommend taking
a Level one improv class because it's really for everybody.
There's something for everybody in the Level one improv class.
(03:00):
But when I tell you that the night I walked
into my Level one improv class, I was terrified, that
is the understatement of the century. In fact, maybe i'll
share that video at some point. It's a terrible quality
video because it was like six twenty or whatever in
the evening in January, and so it's just dark in
(03:21):
my car. You can hardly see me. But I did
flick on a light and took a video of myself
before I walked in, talking about how I was feeling,
and I'm on the verge of tears. I'm absolutely terrified,
and yet I did it. I got on my car,
I walked in. I met this group of people that
I knew I would be with for eight weeks. We
played games. That's really what improv class is. You play
(03:42):
a bunch of games, kind of rapid fire, back to back.
At least that was my experience in that first level.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And it was fun. I had a good time.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It definitely took me some time to warm up to
the idea of being more free in my expression and
saying the first thing that came to my mind. But
when I could get myself in the mindset of we're
just here to have fun and to play games, I
really did enjoy it. And so when I finished with
level one, I decided to go ahead and sign up
for level two. There were a handful of people in
(04:12):
level one who also decided to go on to level
two who I had connected with in my class, so
I felt like there was this added measure of safety
and comfort that now these are the same people I've
been playing these games with for eight weeks, and now
we get to move on to level two together. And
then when the opportunity came along to go from level
two to level three again, there were several people in
(04:33):
my class who I had now been with for sixteen weeks,
who were like, come on, let's do level three together.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
This will be fun.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And as I sat back and thought about it, I
realized that the reason I had come into this experience
in the first place was to experience more freedom, more joy,
more playfulness, more spontaneity in my creative expression, in particular
in the sort of way that I speak or share
myself in my life. And I felt like I had
made some progress there, but that there was still more
(05:00):
or freedom to be found. And so I was like, Okay,
I'm all in, let's do level three. And I did
not expect myself to do level three. I didn't expect
myself to do level four. I really didn't expect myself
to make it to level five. And then now I'm
in level six, which is the final training level at
our training center, and when you complete Level six, you
(05:21):
can audition to be a part of a troop, and
that troop can perform regularly on the stage. And to
be clear, I don't have any intention of performing regularly
on an improv stage. That's not why I came into
this process in the first place. Although you know, crazier
things have happened because I never thought that I would
get to level six either. But that's not my intention
(05:41):
for being a part of this process. I just wanted
to say that somehow. Now I have been in improv
classes for over a year. It's been a year and
a couple of months. We will wrap up with a showcase,
a couple of showcases, actually in March. We do three
shows in March. I have a show scheduled in February,
so I will do a bit of performing on the
stage regardless of what happens after Level six, with the
(06:04):
same group of people that I've been with. Some of
them I've been with for over a year. Some of
them we kind of merged to groups about halfway through
the process, so some of them I've only been with
for six months or so. But it's been a really,
really fabulous, enriching, wonderful life changing experience. And at the
same time that I say all of that, I came
(06:26):
home from improv class last night feeling really down. And
this has happened to me a couple of times. After
a really rough night at improv improv classes on Monday night.
I came home last night on the verge of tears.
I was telling my husband, I don't know what I'm
doing here. I don't know how I got to level six.
It feels like I'm the weakest player in my class,
which you know. My husband was like, are you being
(06:48):
self deprecating? Do you think you're measuring this correctly? I
do think there's a potential that I'm being somewhat self deprecating.
And also I think I am at a detriment in
large part because many of my classmates attend improv shows
a few times a week. They're all performing regularly, and
for me, as a mom of two kids with a
(07:11):
full time job, getting away for three hours on a
Monday night is about the ceiling of what my life,
the container of my life can hold, and so to
get away again another night a week to go see
an improv show, or a couple times a week to
get away again for rehearsals and performances just isn't realistic
(07:32):
inside of the container of my life right now. And
so I'm at a detriment because I'm not practicing as
much as the other people in my class are practicing.
But essentially what my husband and I unpacked last night
when I came home because I was feeling really down.
I was feeling like I'm dragging the rest of the
class down. I'm the weakest player in my class. I
don't even understand why I'm in level six. I don't
(07:53):
have any kind of an intention to be a part
of a regular troupe or perform regularly at the improv theater.
And so my husband was just asking me, well, what
was it that made you want to do this in
the first place, Like why are you doing this? And
I thought that was such an important question. I wanted
to talk about that a little bit on the podcast today,
about coming back to your why to make a decision
(08:16):
whether to stick with something or whether to walk away,
because the other side of this coin that I feel
like is really important. And I'll come back to that
improv story in just a second, But the other side
of this coin is I think a hugely hugely underrated
skill in our culture is being willing to.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Quit something halfway through.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I don't know about you, but I grew up in
a culture where the attitude was if you signed up
for something, if you committed to something, if you said
you were going to do something, you didn't back out.
You didn't quit, you didn't stop halfway through. You didn't
let your team down, you didn't let yourself down. You know,
you followed through on whatever you committed to. And I
(08:57):
do believe that that's a really, really valuable skill. With
someone brought this up on Instagram, and I think this
is a valid point that, in particular, when you committed
to a group of people to do something and if
you backed out, you're backing out would negatively impact or
affect the group, then it's important to think about that
and to take that into account. I also think that
(09:19):
there's value to be had in just following through on
a commitment you made to yourself, just to prove to
yourself that you can do that, just to prove to
yourself that you have the discipline and the fortitude and
the sticktuitiveness that you need in order to complete a
difficult task, and to prove to yourself that just because
(09:39):
a hardship arises doesn't mean that you're going to bail
out at the last minute. And also, I want to
just add to the equation that since I learned that
from the time I was really young, and I kind
of have that commitment piece down, like that's built into
my bones.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I don't know if that's true for you.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Maybe you're younger than I am and you come from
a younger generation, and maybe that that wasn't instilled in
you at such a deep level the way that it
was for me. But for me, because I have that
commitment piece down and I've got the sort of internal
I don't even know, it's like an internal guilty voice almost,
that's like, you don't quit on this. You don't bail
on people, you don't bail on yourself, you don't quit
(10:18):
halfway through. I think there's so much value to be
had in going back to your why and asking yourself,
why am I doing this? And is this serving the
purpose that I wanted it to serve? And if it is,
then great, let's overcome the obstacles at hand and stick
with this thing. And if it's not serving the purpose
(10:38):
that you hoped it would serve. Then let's utilize this
much underrated skill of being able to quit. Let me
give you a quick example, and this is the example
that I shared on Instagram. Let me give you a
(11:00):
quick example. And this is the example that I shared
on Instagram. But I had said to myself that I
was going to run a half marathon in the first
quarter of this year. I ran a ten k in
August of last year, and it was a really fabulous
way for me to kickstart my physical health journey after
two back to back pregnancies, and I had fallen out
(11:21):
of a routine of working out regularly. And I just
feel my best in my body when I'm moving my
body almost every day. Like I don't have to be
running a long distance every day, but when I am
going for long walks or moving my body every day,
I feel so much better about myself. My mental health
gets in a better place. So I knew I needed
a goal to put on the horizon to kind of
(11:43):
kickstart that journey for myself again. So I planned the
ten k. I ran that in August and then kind
of kept up with my running as long as the
weather held out, and then as soon as the weather
got cold, which in Nashville isn't really until like December.
Once the weather got cold in December or I just
was like, Ooh, I'm not really feeling this anymore. I
(12:03):
kind of need another goal to put on the horizon
to keep me motivated. So I decided I was going
to run a half marathon. I picked the half marathon
in Chattanooga because I thought, Oh, this will be so fun.
We'll take the whole family to Chattanooga. It's a two
hour drive from Nashville. We'll do a fun weekend there.
Maybe we can meet a set of grandparents there who
can help us kind of wrangle the kids while we
(12:24):
do this race. My husband decided he was going to
do the full marathon. I was going to do the half.
We were going to go to Chattanooga and make a
whole weekend of it. This was going to be really fun. Well,
then in December I got sick back to back, I
don't even know what, some virus, stomach bug. I was
sick for over three weeks and missed a whole big
portion of my training. So when that happened, I was like, Okay,
(12:46):
I'm not going to be ready to run by March
third that was the Chattanooga race, so I figured I'm
going to have to pick a different race. So I
started looking around to see what was available and realized
that the Music City Half Marathon, which happens in Nashville,
is April twenty seventh. I was like, perfect, that gives
me an extra six or eight weeks to complete my training.
(13:06):
That'll give me more time. This will be great, Let's
do the Music City Half Marathon. So I talked to
my husband about it. We pivoted our plans, decided that's
what we were going to do, and I was back
on track. I was, you know, back It's still freezing
cold here in Nashville. So I was back at the
gym on the treadmill, doing my running plan. And one
January morning, a freezing cold January morning, I'm dropping my
(13:28):
kids off at why Play, which is the childcare at
the YMCA. They're kicking and screaming the entire way. I
am able to sue them and get them, you know,
to feel comfortable where they are in their space. Then
I go get on a treadmill. I'm about to run
six and a half miles on a treadmill, and I
just get started running on the treadmill, and I'm like,
(13:49):
why am I doing this? Like what what am I doing?
And I just stopped the run. I started walking on
the treadmill, and I started thinking to myself, like, what
that's my reason for doing this in the first place.
Why am I doing this? Because it doesn't feel fun
right now? I don't want to do it anymore. And
am I just sticking with this because I told myself
(14:10):
I would do it And I'm afraid of what it
means about me if I quit? Or am I really
doing this? Because this is important to me and it's
aligned with my values and it's aligned with where I
want to go in my life. And I started to
just think about this as I was on the treadmill
and kind of peel back the layers, and I realized, like, Wow,
this isn't serving my purpose anymore. Like I just drug
my kids to a childcare kicking and screaming they didn't
(14:32):
want to go. We could be doing something different this morning.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I don't have to be.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I mean I also could take them and I could
go on the treadmill for thirty minutes or go, you know,
lift some weights for thirty minutes and still get some
exercise in and then go do something else with the kids.
So I was just there on the treadmill. I'm like
checking in with my body, asking my body, does this
feel good to you? Is this what you want to do?
And just realizing like, no, I don't want to run
(14:57):
six and a half miles on a treadmill. That's not
it doesn't sound exciting to me at all. What I'd
rather do is do a shorter workout, maybe get on
an elliptical, lift some weights, Go pick up the kids,
go grab a chi or a coffee, take them to
the park, you know, bundle up, wander around at the
park for an hour or so, and then go home
and do lunch, a nap.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
So that's exactly what I did.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I finished my workout, I picked up my kids, we
got in the car, we went and did something fun.
And it just got me thinking about this idea of
giving ourselves permission, not just permission, actually of embracing the
amazing skill that it is to tune in in the
present moment with what is true for you right now
(15:40):
and to make a decision that's in alignment with that,
rather than adhering to a commitment that you made to
yourself a week ago or a month ago, or a
year ago or whatever, just tuning in to the present
moment and paying attention to what is true right now now.
I'm not saying that there's never a time when sticking
(16:00):
with your commitment isn't important. I said, I'd come back
around to the improv story, and that's where this story
comes in. As I was talking with my husband laying
in bed last night, I realized that what was really
coming up for me in this level six of IMPROV
is insecurity, feeling stupid, feeling lesser than It's the same
(16:22):
old patterns of perfectionism that have been with me for
as long as I can remember. So what's coming up
that's coming up as tears last night was my limitation.
It was my old way of being in the world.
It was my frustration with the process that I had
asked for, which was a process that I knew would
(16:42):
break down the walls that I had that were keeping
me confined, that were not giving me the freedom that
I wanted to have. When I was speaking in front
of a group of people, you know, even this podcast.
When I started this show, one of the insights that
I was given about this show is that it was
supposed to be just me in a microphone in a room.
(17:04):
Not that I would never interview a guest, because I
have had guests on the show and I will continue
to have guests on the show, but that the majority
of the episodes were supposed to be just me on
a microphone. And I think a big reason why that
intuition came through was because this is my growth edge
right now, is can I give myself the freedom of
expression in this environment that I feel and that I
(17:27):
have when I sit down to the page to write
a lot of times when I'm working with authors to
take their story out of their head and put it
on paper, they experience the blocks that I feel on
a stage when they sit down to the page. I'm
not saying I never experienced those blocks, but I just
have enough kind of grease in the wheels in the
(17:49):
writing thing that I don't experience that as much or
as intensely anymore. But put me on a stage with
no plan, or put me in front of a podcast
mic with no plan, and I'm like a deer in headlights.
I mean, I don't have that same feeling of a
freedom of expression. And I worked with an author one time,
who was a really gifted public speaker, actually still is
(18:11):
a very gifted public speaker. You could throw that woman
on a stage in any condition, with any audience of people,
with no plan, no prep, no idea what she's going
to talk about, and she would just crush it. She
just has that way about her. She also has been
doing this since she was really really young, so she's
had a lot of practice. But then sit her in
(18:33):
front of a computer or put her down on a
piece of paper, and she was experiencing a lot of
these blocks that I'm talking about. So that was her
growth edge. And for me doing this podcast, the way
that I'm doing it just me and a microphone is
my growth edge, and it's part of how I'm learning
how to let the insights come through in this setting,
or how to give myself the freedom to express in
(18:55):
this setting. And so improv is that for me, the
why why am I doing improv? The why for me
is to cultivate more freedom of expression, to give myself
permission to just let it be messy, to break through
the walls of perfectionism and be a human being. And
that's the why for me doing this show, to doing
(19:17):
this podcast and hopefully you get something from it along
the way. But the reason I bring any of this
up is when you're in a situation where you're bumping
up against your limitations, you're bumping up against your patterns,
your old way of doing something. When you're doing a
thing that just doesn't feel good to you, it doesn't
feel good in your body, You're not having fun anymore.
(19:38):
There are a few different ways that you can look
at this. One way is the way that I was
looking at my improv circumstance last night. I came home,
I'm frustrated. I'm on the verge of tears. I'm crying
to my husband. I'm not having fun anymore. I don't
want to do this anymore. What am I doing here?
This is such a waste of time. I'm dragging everyone
else down. And in that set of circumsts, chansays, the
(20:01):
truth was, the truth in that present moment was it's
not that I want to quit improv. The truth is
that improv this experience is bringing up. It's bringing to
the surface the exact limitations that I've wanted to break through,
the exact patterns that I've wanted to break out of
(20:21):
and leave behind and the exact opportunity for growth that
I asked for. And that's a little bit different than
the half marathon training, where my body was literally saying like, no,
I don't want to do this, Like why have you
put me in this box? This doesn't feel good to me.
The why for the half marathon training wasn't about completing
(20:41):
a half marathon. The why for the half marathon training
was to motivate myself to get outside, which I wasn't doing.
I was on a treadmill. It was to motivate myself
to get my body moving every single day, which you know,
I mean, that's a whole other story. But what was
happening a lot was I was doing these training runs
and feeling kind of cratchety the next day because I
(21:04):
wasn't yet in really great shape, and so I would
feel pretty cratchety the next day and not even want
to go do anything. I would just want to sit
on my butt all day. So I'm like, can I
ramp down the training and instead of training for a
half marathon, can I just do the things that are
going to grow strength in my body and create longevity
and you give me that feeling of just being strong
(21:28):
in my body. That's what I'm actually looking for instead
of training for a half marathon. So the reason I'm
bringing up any of this is just to say that
this is how you can look at a situation in
your life when you're thinking about quitting, is to bring
yourself back to the why why did I do this
in the first place? And I think this is a
really really valuable tool when we're talking about writing your story,
(21:53):
because when you set up on a journey to write
your story, for some of you, this is going to
be a decade long journey. For some of you, it's
going to go much faster some of you. You know,
I teach my workshop, my writing program called a book
in six months, and authors come into that program, you know,
in January, and by July they have a finished manuscript.
So you can write a long story a really short
(22:14):
amount of time. And for some of you, it's going
to be a longer process than that. So I think
it's really important to be able to bring yourself back
to your why why did I start this in the
first place when you bump up against your limitations, when
you feel like, oh, I'm so bad at this, I'm
not a good writer. Other people are better writers than
(22:35):
I am, And that's just that's just the facts. That's
not me being self deprecating. That's just the facts that
other people are better at this than I am because
they have been practicing for longer and they're logging more hours.
You may feel like that as you sit down to
write your story. May that may come up for you.
And the question I would have for you is why
(22:56):
are you doing this? Are you doing it because you
want to be the best writer in the world, or
are you doing it because you want to see yourself
more clearly? Are you doing it because you want to
sell a bunch of copies? Or are you doing it
because you want to understand the lessons that your life
is trying to teach you. Are you doing it because
you want to win an award for the book that
(23:18):
you've written, or are you doing it because you want
to share your experience with the people who are close
to you. So understanding the why behind writing your story
is so valuable and important to keeping you motivated through
the whole process. I'm going to share one more story
(23:45):
with you that gets at this theme that I'm talking about.
It's also a really vulnerable story that's very close to
my heart, so I hesitate to share it, but I
also don't hesitate to share it because that's exactly what
this venue, this platform is for, is you encourage authentic
self expression. That's exactly what I am inviting you into
in the writing process, and it's what I believe this
(24:08):
podcast is inviting me into. It's the reason that this
podcast is in my life is to teach me how
to do this and specifically how to do it when
I'm alone with a microphone. So I'll start with the
exciting part, which is an exciting announcement that I have
given on Instagram and I've shared with my email list,
but I haven't yet shared with you here on the podcast,
(24:30):
which is that I have a book coming out. It
is called Write Your Story No Surprise. It'll be out
May seventh of this year, and it is a book
that teaches you how to take a story from your life,
an experience from your life, and turn it into three
to five pages a written story that you can feel
proud to share. And for you, sharing might mean sharing
with one trusted person, a therapist or a loved one.
(24:52):
And for you, sharing might mean sharing on Instagram or
sharing in a book club, or sharing to a church group,
or sharing with your five closest best friends, whatever sharing
looks like for you. It can be different for everyone,
but sharing is a really important part of this process
to write the story and then share with others. I've
taken a little bit of a different approach with this book.
(25:13):
I've taken a different publishing approach, which I honestly should
schedule a whole other episode to talk about the publishing
approach that I've taken, because I did this specifically to
very my publishing experiences so that I could speak with
some authority when I'm working with authors trying to help
them publish their books, that I could share here's what
(25:34):
my experience is like in traditional publishing, Here's what my
experience is like with hybrid publishing. So I'm publishing with
a publisher called Forefront Books, which is a hybrid publisher
here in Nashville. They are a really, really well respected
hybrid publisher. They've published a ton of New York Times
bestselling books in the last year. In twenty twenty three,
they had a bunch of the New York Times list
(25:54):
and just worked with a ton of other really well
respected authors. Jonathan Murk, who started for from worked in
the traditional publishing world for a long time and is
just a really trusted voice and trusted person in traditional
publishing and in the publishing world in general, and so
I have the utmost faith in their process and in
their distribution and all of the things that authors worry
(26:17):
about when they're publishing a book. So I'm really, really
really excited to get to be working with them. The experience,
and like I said, I'll schedule a whole other podcast
episode to talk just about what that process has been like.
But the experience has been absolutely phenomenal, totally on par
with my traditional publishing experience, and just his team is
a class act and very very good at what they do.
(26:39):
The other really exciting thing about this book is that
it is on an imprint of Forefront called story Brand
Books story Brand. If you don't know about story Brand,
I worked with story Brand for a really long time,
traveling and teaching keynotes for them, teaching small group workshops.
The founder of story Brand is my friend Donald Miller,
who is also a very accomplished author, and he figured
(27:00):
out a way to use narrative frameworks to teach businesses
how to talk about what they do, and that's what
story brands mission and purposes. So story Brand Books is
the imprint that my book will fall under, which means
that I have the rocket fuel of the story brand
community behind me. I also have the support of Don Miller,
(27:21):
which means a lot to me, both professionally and because
he's such a good friend. He wrote the forward for
the book. So there's so many exciting things happening around
the Writer Your Story book. The reason I bring this
up is I wanted to say that I was having
a conversation with my publishing team at Forefront and they
were talking about which category the book should fall in,
and the most obvious category for the book to fall
(27:44):
in is the writing category. Like when you're thinking categories,
we're thinking you walk into a bookstore and what section
of the bookstore do you go to find the book?
And everyone was kind of like, well, it makes the
most sense. Write your Story is a book about writing.
You're teaching people how to write three to five pages
about their life, so we should put it in the
writing section. And I was adamant about this, and I'm
not adamant about everything as it relates to my creative endeavors.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
But for this, I just knew that. I knew that.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I knew that this was not supposed to be in
the writing section. It was supposed to be in the
self help section. And one of the reasons why I
knew this is I have been inside of this massive
pivot of how I carry myself in the world, how
I show up as a person on Instagram, how do
I show up as a teacher and a leader, how
do I show up as an author in the world,
(28:29):
and how do I run my business? And I've been
in the midst of this massive pivot that has been
a bit of a dark night of the soul because
the transition and the change that's been happening has been
I've been a little bit in the dark about it.
I don't know if you've had an experience like that
where you can feel that a massive shift is happening,
but you don't fully understand it yet in your conscious mind,
(28:50):
and so you're just like, Okay, I guess I'm along
for this ride, and hopefully one day I will understand
what's going on. But I talked about on last week's episode,
or I guess it was two weeks ago. I talked
about a little bit about what this has looked like.
You know, It's looked like deleting five thousand emails without
ever reading them. It's looked like firing all my employees.
It's looked like shutting down prepared to publish, which was
(29:13):
my main kind of signature online course. And at the time,
I didn't fully know why I was doing those things.
I was doing them because I was trusting the intuition
that was coming through in the moment, the same way
that I knew to take improv classes, the same way
that I've known to cold plunge. I was just trusting
the insights that were coming through in the moment. And
now that I'm getting to the end of this transition
(29:36):
in my professional life, I'm starting to see the what
and the why. And this is why I said coming
back to your why is so important, because here's what
I've realized. This is me condensing three maybe four years
of life teaching me a lesson down into one controlling idea.
Here's my controlling idea, which is that I don't want
(30:00):
to teach people about publishing. I do teach people about publishing,
and I'm fine for that to be part of what
I talk about, but my why for why I do
what I do. What gets me out of bed in
the morning isn't about getting someone published. It's not about
getting someone on the New York Times List. It's not
about helping someone sell a bunch of copies of their book.
It's not even about because I've had a lot of
(30:21):
experiences like this that haven't really like hit the nerve
for me, where I worked with someone who anybody would
be like, oh my gosh, you got to work with
that person, and like, as human beings and people, I'm
really impressed by these people and love the experience of
getting to work with them, But like the fame element
just didn't do it for me, Like it didn't hit
(30:43):
the nerve. It's not the thing that gets me out
of bed in the morning to be like, oh, I
get to work with such and such a person. I
sort of feel like you could put anyone in front
of me, and the thing that I want to do
in the world would be the same, whether that person
was famous or lived in obscurity, whether that person was
a well known author, or whether that person is writing
(31:04):
their first book. And so I said, I was going
to boil this down into one sentence and this is
not really one sentence, but essentially, the publishing piece doesn't
matter to me. What really matters to me is helping
people understand their lives through the lens of storytelling. So
it makes sense why I would want to write a
book called write Your Story, why I would want to
have a podcast called Write Your Story that is about writing.
(31:26):
I mean, that's so much of my expertise has been
in the writing and publishing world, and it's hard for
me to let that go because I can kind of
rest on those laurels a little bit. It's like, that's
what I'm known for. Ali Fallon is a book coach.
She's a publishing coach. She's a writing coach. And I
think how I really want to show up in the world,
who I really want to be as a teacher is
more about helping you really listen to your life and
(31:50):
really see yourself clearly, and really understand what your life
is trying to show you, and understand who you are
and your purpose in the world and why you really
matter to see your path clearly. That's more of what
I want to do than the publishing piece. And I'm
not saying that I'm going to blow up the publishing piece.
I'm not saying I'm letting go of it completely, but
(32:10):
now that I'm starting to understand this transition that I've
been in, it makes sense why my intuition said let
go of Prepare to publish, because this is not about publishing.
This is about something different, It's about something bigger. So
I'm still helping people write books. I have a Book
in six Months now, which is a lot of similar
concepts to Prepare to Publish. You know, a Book in
(32:33):
six Months is now my signature online course, and it's
very similar to Prepare to Publish, except for the price
point is lower, and it's all group work, and the
shift and focus and an energy can be really felt
inside of the course that you belong in that group,
whether or not you want to publish a book, everyone
in the group is writing a book. Some people want
(32:54):
to publish, and I happen to be a expert in publishing,
and so I can offer a lot of insight and
feedback about my experience in publishing and kind of give
people that path. But there are a lot of people
inside of that group who don't want to publish a book,
who are just writing for their family members or writing
for themselves or writing to process and understand more deeply
what they've lived through. And that is the part of
(33:18):
it that feels like it gets me out of bed
in the morning.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I get so.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Motivated by that. I get so excited. I am in
my purpose, like I'm in my dharma. However you want
to say that when I'm doing that work, and then
some people publish their books, and that's great, and I'm
pumped for them like that feels like really practical advice
that I can offer to people who are on that track.
But I feel, even personally about myself if I never
(33:44):
published another book, I would keep writing forever because writing
is such a phenomenal tool that has offered me everything.
It has given me a new lens through which to
see myself, to see the world, to see other people,
to see the life that I'm leading. It's such a
powerful shift. It's such a powerful tool. I don't know
(34:05):
where I would be without it. And I just feel
so honored and grateful to help them overcome the blocks
that are in the way of them utilizing the tool,
and it gives me so much life. It gets me
out of bed in the morning. It makes me very
excited so so I'm grateful to have you listening. I'm
grateful to have you along on this journey with me.
I hope that you got something out of me sharing
(34:27):
three personal stories from my life today. And mostly what
I hope is that you're reminded to go back to
your why and that you give yourself permission to quit
something that's not working for you anymore. Even if you're
going to let people down, if it's out of alignment
with you and where you are in your life right
this minute, then your presence inside of that container is
(34:50):
not actually helping the group that you're with. I'll say
one more thing and then I'm going to wrap up.
But I don't know if you've had this experience before
where you have a scheduled plan, something that you're supposed
to do with someone else, and you want to cancel,
but you're like, if I cancel, I'm going to let
this person down. They've been looking forward to this for
months or whatever weeks. We've had this on the calendar.
(35:11):
I can't change it now that would inconvenience so and so.
And then something happens where either you reach out and
say it sort of like toss out the line like
what would you think about canceling these plans? Or they
reach out and say like, I'm so sorry to do
this to you, but I have to cancel, and you
just have that alignment, You have that realization in the
(35:32):
moment that actually both of you didn't want to do it.
It didn't work for either of you, and I just
I want us to start to think in that direction
as it relates to sticking with something or quitting, when
you really think through your why and you realize I
don't want to do this thing. When it's out of
alignment with your priorities and who you are right in
(35:53):
that moment, it is also out of alignment with the
person that you are doing it with. For example, I
told my husband and I thought I was going to
disappoint him because he wanted to run the full marathon
and I was going to run the half and we
were going to have a whole thing. And I was like,
I don't want to do this anymore, and he was
like me neither. It was like that fast. He was like,
I don't know what we were thinking, Like, I don't
want to train for a marathon. This is going to
(36:13):
take hours and hours and hours of my time. I
hardly have any spare time as it is. I don't
want to take more time away from the family. And
we were just like high five, moving on, Okay, no
half marathon in April, and it was just such a
beautiful moment of realizing, like, actually, when we can be
honest with ourselves, even if the other person, even if
it's not that easy in every circumstance, it always is
(36:35):
a gift to the other person when we give them
the fullness of ourselves. That's a great place to end
the episode. It's always a gift, always, always, always a
gift to the other person when you give them the
fullness of yourself. So I hope this episode is a
gift to you. To the best of my ability, I
just gave you the fullness of myself. I'm going to
keep on breaking through those locks and limiting beliefs, and
(36:56):
keep on shedding the layers of perfectionism that keep me
from telling my truth. I'm gonna keep on giving you
the fulness of myself. I hope you have a lovely day,
and I'll see you next week.
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