How to Be Vulnerable in Sharing Your Story
“I didn’t expect the book to be a healing process because of all the things I’ve survived. I’ve done a lot of different kinds of therapy, so I didn’t really expect that writing would end up being healing.” — Mari Ruddy
Mari Ruddy is not only a celebrated endurance athlete, but she has also survived childhood trauma, breast cancer, multiple suicide attempts, and type 1 diabetes. She encourages and trains people with diabetes to be endurance athletes, and has run over forty-two triathlons herself.
In this episode of “Authors Who Lead,” I talk with Mari about her passion for being an athlete and how it led her to write her book, “Extreme Healing: Finding Your Inner Endurance Athlete,” that is currently part of a Kickstarter campaign.
Start With Vulnerability
It took writing her book for Mari to come face to face with all the trauma she had survived in her life. As she wrote it over ten years, she realized she wasn’t showing up in her own body. She hid her trauma, but now that she wanted to help others achieve their own inner and physical endurance, she would need to be vulnerable about all that she had gone through. She was then able to share with others how being an athlete took her out of “being a victim of all the things” that had happened to her.
Kickstarter Funding
When Mari decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign to fund the publishing of her book, she was almost crippled with old, familiar feelings of fear, shame, and embarrassment. But she worked through these feelings successfully, knowing she was stronger than when she was a child and these feelings would come up. Writing the book had shown her that she had survived so much and that she really was a strong, successful woman.
With her background in education, Mari is a “really intense planner.” When she set about planning the Kickstarter for her book, she went to several workshops and did a lot of research first. She learned ways to successfully lead a Kickstarter campaign, such as having a good strategy, an email list, and a good social media presence.
In this podcast, Mari also shares with us:
- More ways to make a Kickstarter successful
- How she will use her book to gain credibility and speaking engagements
- That it’s smart to ask for help in life and in business
- How important community is to be an author
- Other ways to spread your message: libraries, bookstores, audiobooks
- More ideas to market your books
- Why it’s so important to be vulnerable when writing your book
- One secret to getting your book done is signing up for an accountability group
- That leaders need a community where they can be vulnerable
What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Are you thinking about writing a book? Are you an author looking for ideas to reach more readers? Share in the comments below!
That’s all for this week. If you have a message inside of you that needs to be written, today is the day to start. Don’t delay — take action.
Episode Resource:
Connect with Mari here:
Instagram
Facebook
LinkedIn
MariRuddy.com
Kickstarter Campaign:
Extreme Healing: Finding Your Inner Endurance Athlete
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