181: “Do I Need a Book Coach” with Ruby Fremon

How to Write a Potent Book

“My initial idea that I came to you with felt very external and your process helped me get to the internal idea… the soul level concept that needed to emerge.” – Ruby Fremon

Ruby Fremon is a coach who knew she would need a book coach while writing her book. She came to Authors Who Lead with an idea for a book and even had a detailed outline. However, during our first session together I told her that we’d just put it on the shelf for now. She was like, “Wait, what?”

That’s when we started the process to find her real message. One of her ideas that intrigued me was the gap she saw between what leaders were saying and what leaders were being. At that time she was calling it the potency gap and it seemed that no one was really talking about it.

Ruby feels this idea of potency really is the “unique medicine we all have to offer the world and ourselves,” and that it can only be accessed when were “being the fullest expression of who we are.” This is what is missing in leadership. Most leaders are just performing and not using their unique gifts or being who they are truly meant to be.

On this week’s episode of “Authors Who Lead,” I talk to Ruby about her book, Potent Leadership: Drop the Mask, Ignite the Real You, and Reclaim the Leader Within, potent leadership, and the personal transformation that writing her book created in her life and business.

Wearing Masks

Where do we learn to perform instead of just being ourselves? We are all told stories growing up, of being too much, not enough, being too big or being too small. We get told how to act or behave throughout our lives, so Ruby suggests in order to gain the affection of others we “slowly turn the dial down to conform to the perception that we think we need to fit in order to appease the people around us.”

As we start to dial ourselves down and perform and wear masks, we get disconnected from our true selves. Eventually, we don’t even recognize ourselves and feel out of alignment in our lives and businesses.

The Journey Toward Unmasking

In Ruby’s book she shows us how to create a safe space to allow ourselves to unmask, and she “takes people on a journey to uncover who you be, because that is the foundation for everything that you create in your life.” This journey to being doesn’t happen overnight because it’s a process of unraveling and getting to know yourself.

The masks that we’ve worn for so long feel safe to us. So when we start the journey toward unmasking we wrestle with the idea of trusting ourselves. Ruby feels that “cultivating a deep sense of self-trust” is crucial to openly being ourselves in the world. Traits such as perfectionism and type A personalities come from not trusting ourselves, so we always have to try to be in control of everything.

First Steps

The first step toward reestablishing a connection to self is to understand what is important to you. What do you value? In Ruby’s experience with clients, she’s realized that they don’t really know what they value. They think they do, but it is usually a perceived or projected value that they’ve picked up over the years from others in their lives.

From there you can take an audit of your life and see what in your life is aligned with these values and what is not. This inner work is something that you have to admit needs to be done. In order to face what needs to be changed in your life, you must be willing to face your shadows. We cannot help or lead others unless we’re doing our own healing work and leading ourselves first.

The Book Writing Journey

Even though Ruby’s finely laid out plans for her initial book changed a lot when we began writing, she appreciated the transformation it made in her book and her life. As she says in this episode, “Writing … is one of the greatest personal transformational journeys you could ever take because you’re faced with your crap. Like all the time.”

All of her self criticisms and inner critic showed up while she was writing her book, which she had to deal with every day. On top of that, the journey we took was much different than her practical self was used to. Between asking her to shelf her outline and starting her on drawing bubbles as an exercise, Ruby was feeling resistance. She finally just trusted the journey and it ended up helping her unblock herself and was the shift from just working on an external idea to working on an internal, soul idea.

Writing this book not only transformed Ruby but also took her business down the potent leadership path. She has a message that is now her legacy as she helps others find their own potency. If you have an idea for a book, keep in mind my greatest takeaways from my conversation with Ruby:

Writing a book is a transformational process. It will help you break away from the stories we tell ourselves so that we can be free to truly express ourselves fully.
Your book will help you get clarity on who you are and the message you would like to get out into the world.

What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Do you have powerful ideas you’d like to share with the world? Share in the comments below!

That’s all for this week. Your message is important, so get out there and write your book and let it transform you on the journey!