Konichiwa, Genki Deska. Welcome to the Wabi Sabi podcast. This is episode number 122.

Now you guys noticed, I did skip a week last week for book launch. Book launches have become

increasingly tougher for independent authors and writers.

So thank you for those of you who downloaded, spirited on Audible originals.

It took every ounce of my energy and effort in my body to get this book out there.

It took roughly two years to do the outline,

another year to sell it, and then three years to write it. And it's still a process. And nothing is perfect. Wabi-sabi. Today what we're going to talk about is the really dark side of media, social media, and being a public figure and what it is actually like.

When you come out with your seventh book, it's not your first rodeo, so you have a lot of different eras in which you can compare your book launch to.

You can also look at the climate and read the room. As I've tried to recently, it's been

increasingly harder for me to grow without a platform or a show behind me.

So I want to talk to you directly as you are also more than likely and independent without a show or a

platform or like a machine behind you.

The last time I had that, I believe I was at Shape and Men's Fitness, now Men's Journal.

And I clearly don't have that anymore. So once I decided to actually retire from that gig a while ago as their food editor at large, which was, you know, it was rough to do.

It was like stable income for a really long time for me. But I think when you branch out and you start doing things on your own, you allow yourself to

have more freedom and more grace for yourself, more time for deep thinking, creativity,

the arts. You know, writing is an art form and it takes a very long period of time to dive in and to also speak your truth.

And no matter how many awesome reviews you can get after your body of work is released out into the world, whether it's a show, an art collection, a fashion collection,

beauty line, a book, a magazine article. It really could be anything. You can have one person

write a review out of a hundred and you will listen to that one person in their horrible review

of you and your work. And you will take it personal over the 99 other positive people.

I'm here to address this from a standpoint of mental health and wellness today because I want to share with you what I've learned over publishing for almost 20 years now.

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