I rarely tell my origin story about how I got so passionate about alignment, but I did a podcast recently where I talked a bit about the reasons why I do this (and told a story about sitting at a conference listening to someone say they had “data” about how outlining will make everyone faster… imagine my face).
And the podcast host let me coach his Strengths live on the episode, which was a lot of fun. Every time I coach someone for the first time, I’m reminded of why this work is so important.
We want the things we want very deeply. And those drives can cause us to listen to all kinds of voices (like that guy on the conference stage telling people he had data on how outlining makes everyone faster…). And if they happen to align with how we’re wired to function, then we’re lucky.
But if they don’t align… it can be quite detrimental.
So the passion I have to break down (question the premise–QTP) the advice we get as authors really comes from the fact that as humans, we can’t tell the difference between certainty and correctness. So if someone is very certain about what they’re saying, it’s a biological imperative for most of us to believe them. (Not everyone has this… thankfully, some people are wired to immediately question people who are too certain, and y’all save us as a species, honestly.)
In essence, I’ve dedicated my life to questioning the premise. Of everything. Because life often teaches us lessons that we would be better off ignoring, questioning, disconnecting. Life is often teaching us to be like other people, because we want what we want, and they have what we want. But too often, our own intuition is a better guide for more of what we want.
That’s a hard concept to get our mind around, because we’re so used to trusting other people’s certainty. But. We battle how we can, to make it possible to disconnect all the outside forces that want to spend our resources for us, in ways that only benefit them.
So a big thank-you to Nick & Doug for a great episode. And a great reminder, for me, of why this work is so important.
(Also, if you’ve never been coached by me before, about alignment in your author career before, we’re doing a new series on the Quitcast with some individual coaching sessions, and Nick is one of the first episodes. Coming in 2025.)
It was nice to think about the origins of this work, this morning. Good to sit with my coffee and remember back, as I’m getting ready for the release of yet another nonfiction book next week, to how this all began, and what’s important for me about this work.
All of you, and your success, and your author4life careers. I’m so grateful you’re here with me, and I’m here with you.
Love you all.
– Becca
