Just Tell Your Stories | Marie Quigley

Marie Quigley (00:00) so the first outline was just so big. And the first draft, I think I was on draft 72 by the time I'd sent the book in. But the first draft was very big, very filled with lots of research, academic papers, I'd done a lot of work. You know, it was very interesting. But the way I was writing and the topics I was writing about weren't actually what I would write, what I wanted to write about. So I would sit at my desk and I would struggle and I would kind of not find the right words. And so I put it down and then I'd go away and I'd walk. I'd walk every day around where I live. It's a beautiful area. Rain and shine, I'd walk. And I might come back to it a couple of weeks later and... attempt again, it was still not working. And then I went to bed one night and realised that I woke up with a sense of just tell your stories, just tell your stories. And then I came down and I wrote my first personal story. I realised, okay, this is how I can do it. I can share a story. can relate it to how it's impacted my coaching work. And then the flow started. And I think I had 10 lessons that felt in flow, but then I left it again and I walked for another two weeks. And I kind of went to bed at night and I would wake up the next morning and I'd see a gap. And, yes, I know there's a gap here now. This is the story that needs to fill the gap. And then there was another, so there were another five lessons came in. that emerged from me resting and letting the ideas emerge rather than sitting and trying to make them come out. And they're very vulnerable stories. it did, I did cross my mind, first of all, would people be interested? And second, you know, what's the impact of being so vulnerable with a reader that you've got no connection with? I'm talking to you, I feel comfortable doing that. But what about somebody reading it who's never met me before, it doesn't understand me. So I had to tap into my own courage to think, actually, your story is worth telling, you your life is worth sharing. So once I, again, worked through that, courage, vulnerability, it keeps coming up in my life, those two words, they make me braver. They make me more... able to step into things that I might not have done as a 20 year old. I certainly wouldn't have written this book as a 20 year old. I wouldn't have written it as a 40 year old actually and maybe not as a 50 year old. That's why I'm writing it in this later year of my life. And I think that's also because I've got, I've gained some experience. I think that's important. I'm not afraid to share that.