The Success Guidebook is a self-help book designed to help readers find their definition of success and teach them the steps they need to achieve their idea of success. What inspired you to write this book?

​I was inspired to write The Success Guidebook because of my own personal journey and experiences and over the years as a master coach, I see patterns with my clients reaching out for help with the topics of change and success.

I think it is time for people to know they are already wildly successful. For example, I think Taylor Swift would want us each to know how amazing we are. Right now, she’s probably one of the most, if not the most, monetarily and chart-topping, successful young women on the planet. But that’s her success. What’s your success? Since we can’t all be Taylor Swift, for example, it’s time we start redefining success for our own authentic selves, as this one-size-fits-all-concept is not only outdated but unworkable. We’re all different with different needs and different things that make us unique. Success for me is different than success for you and different for those you know. It’s time we celebrate success in various ways. Success is so much more than data or dollars.

As the CEO and founder of Best Ever You, a multimedia company dedicated to personal development and empowerment, I felt a strong desire to share my insights and strategies for achieving success with others. I want to help people go inward, upward, and outward to see it, be it, and do it and to fully understand how you can live life most authentically and aligned to you. Also, I’d love to see people maintain and sustain your vision for what success looks like for you personally and professionally and feel proud and valuable rather than searching and seeking thing after thing and always feeling less than.

I have a passion for helping people reach their full potential and live their best lives, which served as the driving force behind writing this book. I want to help people be and feel successful without the overwhelming drive for whatever society defines as “success” that so often overrides so many aspects of our personal lives. I help people create a life where personal and professional success live together.

What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?

I teach my clients about gratitude, compassion, change, and success. These are four concepts that I always want to share in my books through my own personal stories, contributors, or through the exercises that help a reader implement what they’ve learned. This book is the 2nd in the Guidebook Series. The first was The Change Guidebook – How to Align Your Heart, Truths, and Energy and Find Success in All Areas of Your Life. This guided readers through the Ten Points of Change.

In the Success Guidebook, I guide readers through the Ten Factors of Success. I developed these factors during my many years of working with clients as a master coach and founder of The Best Ever You Network. They are the proven tactics of creative action to help you visualize, actualize, and amplify excellence and success—and make them last. Whether you are dreaming big to achieve the awesomeness within or making a pivot, this process can be used time and time again to achieve the results you seek.

My goal is to help you master the Ten Factors of Success so that you have the tools to actualize your dreams and goals to amplify professional and personal success. These factors can help you navigate, overcome stubborn obstacles, and harness the power to courageously move forward with clarity, a renewed purpose, and the confidence to build a life of bold and infinite possibilities.

One of the things that stood out to me about your book is that it does not define success; instead, it teaches readers how to identify their own version of success. How did you come up with the exercises that you teach readers to help them find their paths?

Prior to becoming an author and owning Best Ever You, I spent many years as a corporate trainer in the financial services industry. I have an extensive background in developing courses and training materials for people of all ages. I am always learning more in the field of teaching and coaching people and my mentors Gary Kobat and Barbara Wainwright also check my work, make suggestions, and guide me. I’m very grateful for their help. I have always really loved the idea of journaling and completing exercises like this as I think they reinforce learning, not only the materials but more about yourself as well. I also wrote them, so they don’t take up a huge amount of time to complete but are still thought-provoking. I didn’t include anything that I didn’t personally take the time to complete and find value in doing so.

What is one thing that you hope readers take away from The Success Guidebook?

My books are here to help us all be more confident and never feel alone or like you’re the only person going through feeling the way we feel at times. I’ve tackled two huge topics in my books: change and success. These are topics where people generally feel fear or feel less than or not enough. The topics are confidence crushers, and I want people to feel anchored and centered in their confidence and knowledge. I hope my books are added to your Best Ever You Toolbox and they help you harness your power and move toward a life with unlimited possibilities. I seek to give people their power back and place it in their hands. It’s time to move forward with clarity, renewed purpose, and personalized confidence to build a life of bold, brave, and infinite possibilities.

Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon

Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2024/05/26/celebrate-success-in-various-ways/

What Not to Forgive follows ordinary people struggling with the harsh realities of life and trying to do the right thing, even when it is hard and complicated. What was the initial idea behind this story, and how did that transform as you were writing the novel?

As a boy, I was a hero worshipper of my six uncles and father who served in WWII. I had hopes of serving in the military too. In college ROTC, I was recognized for my academic achievement and leadership potential. But a pretty dramatic neurological condition got in the way of my military dreams. On Veteran’s Day in 2018, I was inspired to write this book after watching a young Army veteran who served in Afghanistan sprint two hundred meters on his prosthetic running blade at my gym. I was disabled by my “neurodiversity” and he by serving our country. He was inspiring because what he had sacrificed did not hold him back.

I experienced some mystical force that morning that compelled me to talk with this man. What was his story? Would he be willing to share it? I’ve learned over time that many veterans don’t want to talk about their time in war. I was lucky this man did. We bonded immediately and he agreed to be interviewed at my home. During our first interview, he described in vivid detail the events that led up to him stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan. I found no anger or resentment in his voice … only the pride of serving his country. There came a part in the interview that he wanted me to know … that in Afghan there is no word for forgiveness. Yet, he had forgiven the terrorists for what happened to him. I immediately knew I had a story to tell.

It is often said that writing is more cathartic for the author than the reader. It was true for me because I had discovered that writing What Not To Forgive was a way to pay my respect to those who served, while not being able to do so myself. What I learned was that forgiveness, far from being easy, is complicated. I believe it is the highest form of love we can aspire to.

Your characters’ emotional depth stands out and allows readers to connect with their journeys. What ideas were important for you to personify in your characters?

I wanted my characters to be relatable, ordinary people who show humility and be able to examine their flaws. Each character had choices to make. Sometimes they struggled and faced the consequences of their actions. Throughout the book, I wrote with disarming honesty. This, I believe, contributed to each character’s emotional depth.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

The theme of forgiveness was foremost because it is complex. Forgiveness doesn’t mean just saying the words as many think. Forgiveness is an active, conscious act to let go of bitterness and resentment. Sometimes people think they have forgiven but they forgive the wrong way. They carry the grievance with them forever, though they think they let it go. What Not To Forgive is a work of fiction, but of course, it’s autobiographical too, in the ways that novels often are, by the people we have known and cared about, and cities and towns where we’ve lived our lives.

I suffer from a neurodivergent condition, similar in some ways to my character Frank Oglesby in What Not To Forgive. Though not life-threatening, I have experienced, over the course of a lifetime, the burden of exclusivity that comes from a socially awkward, sometimes embarrassing condition. I wanted to show, by way of Frank, that people who don’t understand can be scared and make false judgments. Seek to understand before being understood is one of Stephen Covey’s habits of highly effective people.

With Tekla, I wanted to explore how a young woman, who “had it all,” sought not to waste her gift of languages. She chose to keep up the family tradition of serving in the military. What price would she have to pay? There were safer ways she could have served her country. But she didn’t.

In her words, “she doesn’t suffer from PTSD but is bothered by it.” The blast from the landmine blew off one leg below the knee. She has scars she cannot feel while others are embedded in her soul. She is prone to look back on her “last normal day.” PTSD has her experiencing panic attacks and attachment issues. I wanted her to be challenged in her own path to forgiveness. Along that path I had a desire for her to experience love, a feeling she thought was buried in her past.

Friendship among characters is portrayed with not just honesty but also with loyalty.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?

That is a good question. It took four years to write my first book, a memoir, Montana Epiphany. The next six years were devoted to writing What Not To Forgive. Launching a new book into the world has taken time away from writing. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about my next book. What I’m mulling over is a book of short stories, about Montanans and the tough, dangerous work some do. I would write again using Montana as a canvas and focus on occupations that are unique to Montana … a smokejumper … a Butte miner or a helicopter pilot who flies rescue missions into the Montana backcountry. Four years is a reasonable timeline before I’d likely publish another book. There is always a chance that one spark of the right inspiration could lead to another novel.

Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon

Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2024/05/26/i-had-a-story-to-tell/

Romance in Evergreen follows a family meeting for Thanksgiving who have their celebration disrupted by the threat of an unknown assassin. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

This is part two of a trilogy so the setup was on target in book one. In this book, I was able to incorporate many things that I knew about Evergreen, NORAD and Cheyenne Mountain, the Denver Federal Center, and Colorado since once you live in the area for many years you learn a lot. Colorado is perfect, I think.

How did you come up with the idea for the antagonist in this story, and how did it change as you wrote?

The assassin is angry in book one, that both Kim and Nancy’s husbands died in a rollover accident while chasing after Kim. Thus, he takes it internally, and it angers him. He was no longer calm and cool, but out for revenge. That revenge meant Kim, Nancy, family, and friends suddenly became targets!

“What did you just say?” The senior officer (Special Agent Thompson) of the two men from Homeland Security, that both Nancy and Kim knew prior, repeated, “Rob and Liza Caldwell were taken out as a hit in Boston last night, and we think their assassin is the agent handler extraordinaire, who put out the hit job on the President, and on you, Kim, last November. The hit man’s name is Jeffrey Sanders, we don’t know any alias, ethnicity, or if male or female. Security cameras were disabled before the actual hit. Rob and Liza were asleep when it happened early this morning. A silencer was used, and neighbors heard their dog barking non-stop and became worried. The couple checked on them, found them dead in their bed, and called 911. The police detectives could tell it was a professional hit and called us. Special Agent Hughes and I flew directly here from Washington, DC. A note left at the scene read, ‘Two down, eleven to go’ and the eleven to go are most likely both of you, the President, and people unidentified. Make no mistake. The hit man will take out anyone with you, when, NOT if, they find you.”

What scene in the book did you have the most fun writing?

I loved writing about family and friends and how they interacted together and with other people. They each have unique personalities. Each one is warm and caring but can be a bit sassy with jokes.

Can you tell us where the book in the Heart of Evergreen series goes and where we’ll see the characters in the next book?

The antagonist at the end of this book, Dmitry Ivanov, plays a large part. Ginormous actually. That is all that I can write at this time.

Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Amazon

Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2024/05/26/unique-personalities/