OMG.

OMG.

OMG.

I finally, finally, finally get to tell y’all what I’ve been sitting on for weeks now. I can’t even describe how hard it is for me to have good news and not be able to share it. I am not good at keeping happy secrets. I can keep ugly secrets (I just forget them), but when something awesome happens, I want to shout it from the rooftops. I want to tell everyone I know and even some people I don’t know. I want to take out a billboard in Times Square! So, it was with extreme effort that I kept my mouth shut on this one (unless you’re a long time client, in which case I probably told you. I can only be so strong).

Ready? Here we go:

I just got signed by Hay House. My book, tentatively titled “Deliberate Receiving” (Surprise!) will be published in June 2015.

Go on. Take a moment to breathe. Or maybe that’s just me.

That’s right my puppies. You will soon be able to find me at the bookstore, and share me with all your friends and relatives. So when they ask you what this Deliberate Receiving stuff is all about, you can just hand them a full explanation all bundled up in what I assume will be a kick ass package. “Here,” you will say, “just read this.” And read it they will. And happiness and shininess shall spread to all the puppies in the land. And there will be many smooshy hugs. And yes, I get a little weird when I get excited.

Now, if that weren’t exciting enough on its own, the whole thing was made infinitely better by HOW it all manifested. Because, and I cannot stress this enough, I did NOTHING to make this happen. Not a damn thing. Except, that is, follow my intuition. Here’s how it all went down:

Why this took so long

I actually announced that I was writing a book well over a year ago. I think the first time I wrote about it, I was planning on writing a weight loss book. I thought I was done with that journey. Ah bless (I’m not done, but I’m getting there). Anyway, after that, many of you lovely puppies kept bombarding me with book related questions, notably, when the hell was I finally going to bring it out? Well, the problem was that I just wasn’t receiving the inspiration to write it. I was as baffled as you. I could feel the book coming (several actually), but I just never felt like writing it. It turns out, this was because 1.) I was trying to write the wrong book and 2.) the timing wasn’t quite right yet. There was much awesomeness which needed to unfold first. And unfold it did…

Because I know better than to push these things, I took the lack of inspiration as a type of inspiration (doing nothing is always the hardest for me), and sat on my laurels. Ok, I did a bunch of other stuff, like run my business, but I didn’t work on the book. Then, a very helpful and lovely lady called Awesome Amy (the Awesome part is not part of her legal name, but it should be) contacted me just to see if she could be of any assistance to me in terms of publishing a book. She was an editor, you see, and wasn’t asking me for anything. She just wanted to help.

Recognizing this as an opportunity, I scheduled a call with her, where she proceeded to give me tons of great info on publishing a book, including on how to self-publish it, which is what I was planning on doing.

Why wasn’t I looking for a publisher?

I’d already decided against looking for a publisher. You see, here’s the deal: when you build up a certain amount of traffic as a blogger, and once you have a bit of a platform, large publishing houses will often contact you with a book deal. The problem is that they don’t really do anything for you. They don’t help with publicity or marketing, don’t help you get your message out there. But they do take a huge chunk of your proceeds. Basically, they want to get a piece of your pie without giving much in return. There is always the prestige of having a book professionally published, but in today’s world, that’s not worth nearly as much as it used to be. The whole thing just felt off to me and I wanted no part of it. I’d decided that I could get my book out there myself.

But then, Awesome Amy casually dropped the name of her employer into the conversation: Hay House. Well, this was a bit different. Hay House, founded by the one and only Louise Hay, is a publisher dedicated to sharing the message of weirdos energy healers like me. They are the publishers of Abraham-Hicks. These people get me.

I played hard to get – but not on purpose

Now, you’d think that I just jumped on that shit like a drowning man jumps on a life raft, but, I wanted to feel my way through this, see what happened. How could I know if this was my next opportunity or just a pre-cursor? I had to follow the path a bit further. And so, I did nothing. I was, after all, NOT a drowning man looking for a raft. I know how to swim.

At the time of our first conversation, I was knee deep in tons of work. I had the book planned for months down the line. I had decided to write a book about the Law of Attraction, not weight loss, but wasn’t yet sure what format it would take, how much to include, etc. I was still in the planning stages. And so, I sat on it and waited for more to happen. For months. The ball was in the Universe’s court.

Enter my trip to London. When Awesome Amy the Awesome Editor saw that I was coming to the UK, she invited me to come to the Hay House offices and meet the team. Now, that was a clear sign for me and of course, I said yes. I want to point out, once again, that all I did was react. I did nothing proactively here, because I was never inspired to.

The meeting/love fest

So, there I was, entering the Hay House offices in posh Notting Hill in London. I wasn’t dressed posh. Would I feel out of place in a lawyer type office? Would it be all glass and steel and pin stripes and hushed conversations? Hell no. It was friendly and warm and well, everything you’d expect Hay House to be. We all crowded into the board room for a meet and greet. There was the Managing Director, the Director of Publicity, Social Media, Events, and some other people (forgive me!). I honestly wasn’t nervous. First of all, I’ve been in thousands of business meetings in my life (thank you, old, corporate days), and I KNEW that whatever was about to happen would serve me, no matter what it was.

As soon as I was about to start talking, the office dog, a huge, sweet bulldog, barged into the board room and made a beeline for yours truly. It was as though he was giving me his stamp of approval. The team apologized and assured me that he had never done anything like that before (I guess he knows a fellow happy shiny puppy when he sees one!), but for me, this was like the Universe going, “and here’s another big old sign…!”

After that, it basically turned into a love fest. I described my business and what I feel I’m here to do (watch out world, I’m coming for you, and you shall feel the power of the smooshy hug!), and they described how they supported their authors in ways the other publishing houses can’t even dream of. There’s a reason that there are tons of people out there who will buy pretty much anything Hay House brings out. No other publishing house has built that kind of relationship with their readers. At that point, it was pretty much a done deal for me. I was going to follow this path wherever it took me.

Meeting the big guy

Next up, I had to meet the big guy – the president of Hay House, Reid Tracy. Think I had to do anything to make that happen? Hell no. The Universe arranged it all. As it happened, he was going to be in London in two weeks and, oh my goodness, an hour had just opened up in his schedule (that day. Seriously)! Could I come back on those dates? I whipped out my trusty iPhone and, well, wouldn’t you know it, yes. I was able to travel that very weekend. Would I like to also attend their two day Speak, Write and Promote event as a guest of Hay House? Why yes. Yes I would.

All I had to do was book my flights and hotel.

The meeting with Reid went off without a hitch, although, I’ve got to tell you guys, that man has a poker face like none other I’ve ever seen. And I used to deal cards in Vegas. He gave nothing away. He also didn’t want to know much about me (it seems the team had already briefed him, so I had to say very little. Again, how awesome is that??). What he did want to know was, was I ready for the big time? Was I ready to brand myself and step it up? Why yes, yes I was, seeing as I’m in the middle of doing that anyway (this is also why that has been taking so long. The Universe knew there was valuable input coming my way. Shit’s moving much faster now…).

I was told the next day that I would be getting a contract, pending negotiations, of course. I never submitted a book proposal, I never contacted any publisher, I didn’t even have to set up a meeting on my end. It all came to be easily and elegantly.

What I did along the way to keep the manifestations rolling

Other than this being THE AWESOMEST MANIEFSTATION OF MY LIFE! (ok, one of them, but it’s in the top 5%), I wanted to use this as a case study, because it so perfectly illustrates how to work a larger manifestation that’s unfolding over time. Throughout the weeks and months it took for this to unfold (I had a Peru trip in the middle of it, not to mention the time it took me to process that, during which I couldn’t even think of the book), I kept doing (and not doing) some crucial things that kept me aligned with what I wanted. I want to share these steps with you:

1. I never got stressed out about it. I never made Hay House or a publishing contract responsible for my future success. They were not my “one and only”. I KNEW that I would be successful with or without them and if they were the perfect partner for me, things would line up easily. If things didn’t line up, a better path was out there. I never made the HOW more important than the WHAT. This was especially important when I couldn’t read Reid’s reaction. I felt the meeting had gone well, but he’d given me nothing in body language or verbal feedback. Although I totally trust my intuition, when it comes to really important stuff, the physical feedback helps. When a bit of nervousness came up, I soothed myself by remembering that whatever happened was for the best. It worked.
2. I followed my intuition, even when it said to do nothing. I will not pretend that this was easy for me; I like to take action. Not doing anything, especially for months, is not comfortable for me. But, I also KNOW that just because I’m not being called to action doesn’t mean nothing is happening. And let’s face it, I could never have orchestrated this.  Any of it. Ever.
3. I took advantage of opportunities that presented themselves (I said “Yes!”), but without ever assuming that this next opportunity was “the one” that would make it all happen. I just looked at it as the next thing. Whatever the outcome, it would be perfect.
4. I had fun. Before every step, I said to myself “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s going to be fun.” And it was. I decided to go with the flow and have no expectations other than that I was going to have a good time. Expectations cause us to limit our definition of success to a narrow set of events. If success comes another way, we tend to be disappointed, taking us out of alignment with what we want. The key is to focus on the big picture and let steps along the way be whatever they need to be.
5. I celebrated every little step along the way. Even though I made no one event responsible for the outcome I wanted (which is ultimately not to bring a book out, but to get my message out there. Even the book is a means to an end…), I did a big old happy dance every time something awesome happened. And there was much to celebrate. The only thing that kind of killed me was not being able to do so publicly, but I soothed that by happily imagining how great it was going to feel to get to write this post – to announce the contract and book to my puppies. And here I am, writing this post now! Weeeeee!

So, there you have it – the story of how I manifested a publishing contract with Hay House. Tadaaaaa!

More info on the book

Obviously, I’ll be keeping y’all in the loop on all the details from now on, but here’s what I know so far: The book is due on October 6^th and will be published June 2015. It will be basic (but not shallow) explanation of how Deliberate Receiving actually works, from the ground up. That means, people who have not been studying LOA for years (muggles) will be able to understand it. Of course, you know I’m not going to hold back with practical, in depth info, so even those of you who know the deal will get a lot of out of it. This means that not only will regular readers of my blog enjoy the manuscript, but you’ll finally have that book you can hand your friends and family when you want to explain to them this stuff you’re always so excited about. Yeah, I’m kind of looking forward to having that book myself.

There you have it. I have shared my happiness. If I smoked, I’d light up a ciggie about now. I think I shall treat myself to a cookie instead. Because, well, cookies.

Is there anything specific you’d like to see included in the book? Now’s your chance to speak up! Let me know in the comments!