Hello, friends. Welcome to Level Up with Debbie Neal. I am your host. There is nowhere. I would rather be

than right here, right now with you. This podcast is all about leveling up in all aspects of our lives.

Thank you for being here. I am so grateful. I'm excited to be on this journey with you. Together,

we are leveling up. You ready?

Hello, my friends. Welcome back. So today's episode, this one is different because tomorrow, I'm actually really excited. I want to make an announcement to you guys. Tomorrow, my leadership book officially launches. So the title of the book is level up your leadership. And I've been thinking a lot about what I want to say,

like before this moment even happens, I probably could have done an entire episode on this,

but not just to promote the book, not just to celebrate the book, but to tell you the truth

about why I wrote it. And it really comes down to this. And that kind of gave me the inspiration

of the title for this episode. And so there's a cost to not leading. And most people never

talk about it. And I want you to really lean in with me today because this is not just another like,

oh, like feel good leadership conversation, which I feel like we never have on this. It's never

about feeling good. It's actually about feeling uncomfortable. This is the conversation that makes

you look at your life and look at your business a little bit differently. The one that makes

you evaluate where you are

and where you know that you're supposed to be. And so when I think about the background to my book,

so this podcast was birthed in 2021. So we are now currently in 26. So this podcast has been alive for five years. It's been amazing. And many of you have reached out and said, when is the book coming? When is the book coming? We're so excited. We need a book. You need to have a book. And I've thought about it. And maybe you can apply this to something in your life.

I've thought about, gosh, where do I even start? What do I have to say? How long will this take me?

Have you ever thought about like, how long will it take to grow to this level or this income?

Then I told my story myself, well, I've never written a book. I've never written a book.

How do you even do that? Like, you just sit down and you just write it all at once. And then the

insecurity that we all have inside of us. So one came out to like, what if it's not good?

And then the story I told myself was, I love to speak. I'm a speaker. I'm a trainer. I'm not a writer. Have you ever told yourself a story that like is just not serving you? You know, have you ever done that in your life? Maybe you've done that in your business. Maybe, maybe that you've told yourself a story about starting a new business, stepping out in faith and courage. And so I was speaking at a very

...