Neuroscience of Coaching – Episode 20
Embracing Fear in Writing to Build Resilience (Ally Machate)
Ally Machate: I honestly don’t think there’s a way to write a good book that isn’t personal. Because if you’re not writing from the heart, whatever the subject is, even when it’s full of science, you know the person who’s writing the book is really the lens through which the reader is receiving whatever is in the book, whether that’s scientific information or a prescription for weight loss or a story. Right? So you, as the author, are going to feel vulnerable.
Dr. Irena O’Brien: Hi, I’m Dr. Irena O’Brien, and you’re listening to Neuroscience of Coaching. I’m a cognitive neuroscientist with almost 30 years of study and practice in psychology and neuroscience. And as the founder of the Neuroscience School, I teach coaches and other wellness professionals real world, evidence-based strategies to use in their own practices. In each episode, I invite a seasoned coach to discuss a topic that affects our field. And together we provide you with science-based tools to help your clients reach their goals by working with their brains to create results that last.
Depending on what survey results you read, around 75% to 85% of people say they want to write a book. Coaches in particular are usually aware of the value of a book in promoting their thought leadership in business. But yet the vast majority of people never actually follow through on this. Countless unfinished books sit in computers everywhere. Many others are never started. And of course, this extends to articles, blogs, and all other forms of writing.
This conflict between desire and action, the fear of sharing your writing, comes down to the primal fear of rejection. As soon as we put our writing out into the world, we face the very real prospect of criticism, insults, and other negative responses. And of course, our imaginations can make what we fear seem ten times bigger or worse than it likely will be. Far from merely being the voice of the self-critic in our minds, this fear of rejection is actually hardwired into our brains. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes perfect sense.
When you consider human life tens of thousands of years ago, survival greatly depended on being part of a group, tribe, or clan. Together, they were stronger and safer than any one person alone. So being shunned and cast out of your group was literally life threatening. To survive meant becoming acutely aware of the signals of other humans as to your acceptance among them. This psychological system is often called the sociometer, as our minds take in the many hundreds of cues and signals from people around us.
These are processed through two parts of brain. The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, the DACC for short, and the anterior insula. What’s fascinating is that these two regions are also associated with physical pain, which partly explains why we speak of being hurt when we’re rejected. The levels of activity in these two regions is also indicative of a person’s overall level of sensitivity to rejection. And unfortunately, all of our sociometers are biased toward false positive responses to a greater or lesser extent, meaning that we tend to overestimate the threat.
This often causes us to worry or feel anxious unnecessarily. That’s because, in addition to fear of rejection being hardwired, our predictive brains come into play here. Our past experiences, especially from childhood, can increase or decrease our hardwired sensitivity to rejection. The good news is that hardwired doesn’t mean helpless. Psychology provides proven ways we can mitigate or overcome our fear of rejection, especially when it comes to fear of sharing our writing.
So for today’s episode, we’re going to dive more into the neuroscience of this topic and lay out some clear tactics you can use to get more of your writing out into the world. And I’m honored to have with me for this conversation bestselling author and publishing consultant Ally Machate.
Ally Machate is on a mission to help authors make great books and reach more readers. A best-selling author and expert publishing consultant, Ally has served small and big five publishers, including Simon and Schuster, where she acquired and edited books on staff. Her clients include authors with such companies as Simon and Schuster, Penguin Random House, Rodale Inc. Chronicle Books, Kaplan Publishing, Sourcebooks, and hay House, as well as many independently published bestsellers. As founder and CEO of the Writers Allie, Ally and her team lead serious authors to write, publish, and sell more high-quality books.
So thank you so much, Ally, for being on my show today.
Ally: Thanks so much for having me. It’s my pleasure.
Dr. Irena: So before I get into our topic today, could you share a bit more about your journey and how that led to your coaching today?
Ally: Yeah, sure. So I am the consummate book nerd. I have always loved books. I started reading at the age of three, and my mother loves to tell people how I would make books out of crayons and construction paper and, you know, quote unquote publish them and give them to friends and family. So reading and writing has always been a big part of my life. And as I got older, I found ways to express that and to help other people express their own. I was on the editorial board of the literary magazine; I worked on the school newspaper.
And I grew up and went on to go work at Simon Schuster, one of the big five publishers. And in all the years that I’ve been working in the industry. It’s been more than 20 years now. I can’t even hardly believe that number. But I I’ve just seen so many people who have really interesting things to share, great perspectives, great programs, great systems, and they really struggle with a lot of things that are tactical or practical around writing a book. But also one of the biggest ingredients I find really comes down to mindset, and that where their mindset is at and what they’re struggling with emotionally and mentally just so significantly colors the whole experience.
Dr. Irena: Thank you, Ally. So, what in particular made you want to explore this topic for our conversation today?
Ally: I’m a really big believer that mindset is kind of everything. Mindset sets your expectations, and the way that you see a situation, the way that you interpret your experience really creates your reality. And I find that is something fascinating about myself. And as an online entrepreneur, I’ve been exposed to a lot of resources around mindset, and I don’t feel that as much of those resources make it to people from that context of being an author or that context of books. It’s a lot of emphasis around business owners specifically.
But becoming an author, especially when you choose to publish a book, is kind of a business in and of itself, a business within a business, you know, for many coaches. And it’s something that I feel really passionate about talking to more authors about and making more people aware of how that mindset and how they’re thinking about things is really interfering with not only their ability to find success and achieve the goals they want with their book, but also to just enjoy the process and appreciate it from a creative perspective.
You know, writing and publishing a book can take months, sometimes even years. And what a shame to spend all that time in agony instead of enjoying it as a creative process. So I really just welcome and so happy to be talking to an expert in neuroscience like you about, you know, what’s going on there and how we can help people to free themselves from some of that.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, I’m really happy to talk about that with you today, Ally, because you are right. Most of what we hear is about how to progress or how to change mindset in business, and we don’t hear enough about it in other areas, like writing. So, as I said in my opening, our brains are hardwired to protect us, which causes us to be hypersensitive to rejection, almost avoiding it at all costs. So what experience do you have in helping writers work through this to achieve their publishing goals?
Ally: So, one of the things that I talk to writers a lot about is some people will call it writer’s block. I don’t particularly like that term because I think it makes it a little too precious. Like it’s something that only happens to writers or is specific to writers, right? When it’s really a very human thing to feel creatively blocked or to feel that fear of rejection is really what it is deep down that fuels that feeling of being blocked.
When I talk to new authors who, you know, by the time I talk to them, they know that they want to write a book, right? They’re coming to me because they’ve either started writing it or they’ve been thinking about writing it. And I hear certain worries or fears get expressed pretty commonly. And so there’s certain things that I kind of have these conversations about over and over again. For example, for coaches especially, they feel like they have something to say, they have something they want to share, but they worry, you know, who cares what I have to say? I’m not some huge best-selling person,
I’m not Oprah. I don’t have some enormous national platform. Why would anyone care about what I have to say? Or, you know, maybe they’re looking at a particular type of book and they see, well, bestselling author so and so has already written the best book ever on this subject. You know, do I really dare to add to that conversation? Is what I have to say really worth putting out there when that great book is already out there?
And, I mean, the answer is yes, you should absolutely put it out there. People do want to hear what you have to say. And yes, it is worth putting, putting your ideas and your thoughts out there, even if your very favorite big best-selling author has already written what you think is maybe the perfect book on that subject, you undoubtedly have something to add, and there are undoubtedly people out there who want to hear your unique perspective.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, exactly. I can identify with that. I haven’t written a book, but when it comes to writing articles, yes, I am getting over that, and I do write them. But, you know, I write articles about neuroscience. So I double check and triple check to make sure that what I’m writing accurate, that nobody can come back against me and say that, no, what you said is wrong. Yeah, so it’s a bit of imposter syndrome, too. Right? And we already had a guest on a little while back where we talked about imposter syndrome. So what’s your personal experience with fear in putting your writing out there?
Ally: So early in my career, I did a lot of editing, but I also did a lot of writing. And in particular, I did a lot of ghost writing, and, you know, ghostwriting is kind of a tricky animal, because on the one hand, you know, your name is not going to be on the end product. So you might imagine, well, since I’m not the one who’s going to be exposed, it’s not going to be my name on the book. So if it ends up being terrible, you know, I’m not the one that people are going to hate or say nasty things about.
But oddly enough, despite that fact, of course, I still felt very nervous. And what you said just a moment ago was really true for me as well. I double checked and triple checked any statement that I made that might have smacked a statistic or scientific research, anything that I realized as I was writing it that maybe I had been taking for granted. Interestingly enough, the book that I was working on at the time was a lot about mindset as well, and how we think and thought discipline, and it was something I definitely struggled with.
I wanted to do a really great job for my client, of course, and also just the pride of having created something wonderful, whether your name is on it or not. I mean, I certainly feel very much like I have ownership of those projects. It was very scary to send the material off to the editor who was waiting for pages, who had the power to say, you know what? At any time, this just isn’t the book we really wanted. We’re just going to cancel this project, right?
I used to work in publishing. I know that that happens. It’s a terrifying thing to be afraid that your work might be so terrible. They just cancel the project and don’t even give you a chance. Of course, that didn’t happen, but I definitely had that fear. And, you know, even for someone who’s a professional like I am, and having been on that side of the table as a writer, I experienced everything that I know that my clients are experiencing.
I had to walk away when I got really upset that the editor didn’t understand something I was trying to do or not take it personally when she didn’t like a whole section that she wanted to cut out that I had really thought was great, you know, all those kinds of things. So, you know, being an expert editor does not absolve you from the kinds of fears and self-esteem issues and imposter syndrome that any writer has.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. What comes up for me as you were talking, is that these are normal reactions. Right? I already said earlier that it’s hardwired, but what most people want, I think, is to get rid of that fear. They don’t want any of that fear there, but that fear is always going to be there. So that’s something that you have to work through.
Ally: Yeah, absolutely. It does not ever go away. I’ve read interviews with top, top best-selling authors who have written, you know, hundreds of books, who have gotten tons of awards, who are making millions of dollars, and they still share very similar stories of thinking their editor’s going to hate their latest book. Or what if the reviews are terrible? Or what if this one isn’t as good as my last one?
I mean, everybody deals with it, so I think knowing that is helpful. Having that context, for me, at least, is helpful when I feel those things, to remember this is just a part of it. It’s not actually my inner self warning me away from something dangerous. You know, as you were saying earlier, it’s a very evolutionary response, but it’s not a real danger. And I’m feeling something everybody feels.
Dr. Irena: But when we’re in the throes of that fear, we forget. Right? We forget that we’re not the only ones. We tend to think that we’re the only ones.
Ally: Absolutely.
Dr. Irena: We’re suffering from that fear of rejection, but we’re not. Everybody has a touch of that, at least.
Ally: Everybody. Everybody. And I think knowing that is also really helpful, too, in that you can remind yourself, right, this is something everybody feels. It’s not some sign from the universe that I’m doing the wrong thing. It’s not some mystical sign that I shouldn’t bother writing. Well, if I’m this scared and I’m feeling this unsure about it, then maybe that’s just the sign that I’m not ready to do this. Well, it might be, you know, let’s acknowledge that possibility. Sometimes that’s true. But more often than not, it’s just fear.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, it’s just fear. So one of the ways to get more comfortable with fear of rejection is to put yourself into situations where there is some possibility of rejection. So I have a story. It’s not about writing, but it is about how I started, like, years ago, doing teleseminars, and I was terrified to do them, but that was the easiest way to start because nobody could see me. It was at the time when everybody was doing teleseminars, and all they could do was hear me. Some of them did not go that well.
And then I progressed to doing webinars. And I remember just being afraid of having my face on video. I didn’t even want to be on video. And, you know, over the years, it’s gotten easier where I don’t really think about it anymore. Right? So the fear has lessened. Of course, I get a touch of nervousness before I start. Even before we record a podcast, I am nervous about it.
Ally: I think that’s one of the things that’s really magical about the writing process, is that that kind of practice run, if you will, is sort of baked into the process if you allow it, because you write it. And for many people, the first people they show that draft to might be a business bestie or a spouse or someone in their mastermind group or their coach. And you can get some of that early feedback where it’s a slightly less threatening environment. You have a person who, you know, cares about you, who’s not going to be really mean, even if they don’t love it. You can kind of test the waters there. That’s part of the process.
Then when you move on and you work with, say, a professional editor, one of the really wonderful things about that is you, again, are sort of training for the possibility of getting bad reviews or having people say things about your book down the line. But it’s a one-on-one private relationship where your editor might say things that are very difficult. Of course, a good editor is never going to be mean to you. You should never work with somebody who’s berating you because you made a mistake or because you know something about your book can be better.
Our job as editors is to help you achieve your vision in the most encouraging and supportive way possible. To be honest, but certainly not cruel. But that is a way where you can sort of get exposure therapy a little bit to someone giving you criticism and telling you what parts of your book may not be as strong or as good as you thought they were in a place that’s pretty safe. You know, nobody else sees that except for you.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. My experience with a larger piece of writing is my PhD dissertation. And, you know, that went through many iterations with feedback before it was finally published. And one thing about my advisor was that you never felt threatened by his feedback, even though he was very rigorous, you never felt threatened because he would word it in a way that you would just welcome it. So a lot of it is how the feedback is given.
Ally: Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And that is a real gift and a real skill, which, again, in my opinion, a good editor develops and knows how to give criticism in a way that only feels supportive that you are helping this person to say what they really want to say in the best way possible. And most importantly, that the author feels that, too, that they feel like they are being helped to achieve that goal. And all of that can be really great practice for when you finally put your book into the world and you are then exposed to the criticism of people who don’t know you, don’t care about, you sometimes don’t even give their real names online.
Dr. Irena: Well, there are a couple of things that can be really powerful. One of them is acceptance. Right? And so accepting that this is the way you feel and, like, just name it, that you have this fear, and what that does is that it reduces the emotional charge of that just by naming it and acknowledging that this is how you feel, it doesn’t mean that you have to like it. All you’re doing is saying, yeah, I’m feeling some fear right now. So it reduces the emotional charge, but it also reduces amygdala activation when you do that. So that is really a powerful way to reduce that fear and reframing. But you must know about reframing.
Ally: Sure. I mean, in that circumstance, or at least for me, you know, when I was ghostwriting and I was working on projects, for me, the reframing was often about reminding myself that we were all on the same team, that we all had the same goal of trying to create, you know, the best version of the book possible. Reminding myself that we were all working together by choice. Right? The author hired me as their ghostwriter. The editor acquired the book because they like the book.
You know, all of these things came together for very positive reasons, and I think that kind of reframing was always very helpful and also just, you know, again, reminding myself, this is the process for me. There was a special kind of funny irony, you know, again, because being a professional editor, feeling those things and saying, oh, yeah, you know, this is what my clients feel like when I send them a marked-up manuscript, and now I’m getting a taste of my own medicine was also really helpful reframing and just sort of diffusing any of the charged emotions around that.
Dr. Irena: Do you help people write creative books and also with nonfiction?
Ally: Yeah, absolutely. We work with clients who write all kinds of books, all commercial. We don’t work with academic titles, but we work with a range of authors, everything from children’s picture books to novels, memoirs, business books, almost anything we work on. I’m the CEO of this company, and I’m leading my team, but in the beginning, it was just me, and I did also work on a wide variety of books.
Dr. Irena: So is there a difference in the fear of rejection or the fear of feedback between people who are writing creative book versus the people who are writing a nonfiction book?
Ally: I find that authors are sort of universally worried about the same things. But when you’re writing a book for a business purpose, you know, if it’s related to a launch or if it’s going to be a tool to help you get speaking engagements or to attract more clients, I think there are some unique versions of how the fear expresses itself, if that makes sense. You know, a person who’s writing a novel, they want people to like the book. They’re often really putting a lot of their heart and soul into the story, especially with first books, many people write semi-autobiographical novels. Their first couple of books, a memoir, is straight up autobiographical, you know, so that’s a very vulnerable place to be.
People who are writing nonfiction, I think, are similarly vulnerable. But for them, there are also business concerns. There are also worries around ruining their reputation or putting something out there that people are going to find or feel is derivative and therefore not want to work with them, and their business will just sort of fall apart or implode because they wrote this horrible book. So I think the fears are the same. They’re just maybe slightly different expressions as far as what they’re worried is going to happen if people don’t like the book.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, I would have assumed that it was more of the creative people writing creative books that they would be have more of a fear of rejection because it’s more personal. But I guess they’re all personal, whether you’re writing a nonfiction or a fiction book.
Ally: Yeah. I honestly don’t think there’s a way to write a good book that isn’t personal. Because if you’re not writing from the heart, whatever the subject is, even when it’s full of science, you know, the person who’s writing the book is really the lens through which the reader is receiving whatever is in the book, whether that’s scientific information or a prescription for weight loss or a story. Right? So you, as the author, are going to feel vulnerable. I don’t think you can write a good book without it being personal in some way.
Dr. Irena: That’s interesting. So we’ve already talked about reframing, acceptance, and I increasing our exposure. Right. And then take constructive rejection as a learning experience. Do you have any other ways?
Ally: Yeah, I think that there’s some benefit to, you know, going back to what we said earlier about how sometimes that fear is pointing to a real, perhaps lack of experience or a sense of not quite being ready. There are ways that you can shore up any potential weaknesses. If you’re feeling that imposter syndrome, that you’re afraid you’re going to put something in your book and someone’s going to tell you that’s not true, that’s wrong, that’s not how it is. I mean, go ahead and do that extra research. It’s only going to make your book better.
And if it makes you feel more confident because you’ve taken the extra step to really make sure that the ideas that you’re putting out there are backed up by other people, that’s a good thing. You maybe don’t want to overdo it by having every single thing in the book cited and attributed to someone else. Of course, ultimately a person’s reading the book to get your ideas and opinions, but you can make yourself feel more confident by doing that extra due diligence. There’s never anything wrong with that.
There’s also never anything wrong with getting a little extra practice. If you feel very nervous about writing in particular, because it’s not something you really have experience with, maybe you’ve mostly written emails, you know, to your clients, but you’ve never written anything in a long form. You can do things like join a critique group; you can form a group. Or if you’re already in a business mastermind, maybe get together with some other people that you already have relationships with and start small is another version of what we talked about earlier by sort of exposure therapy.
But, you know, write a chapter, write a long article, or what we would call a white paper. Right? Something sort of in between that’s longer than a blog post, but shorter than a book, and share it with somebody that you trust and get some feedback, get some opinions. More often than not, you will find that nothing is as bad as you think it is, you know, and that constructive feedback. I personally have always found the revision process the most enjoyable part of the process because when you get good feedback, when someone gives you an idea that you had not thought of before or spots a weakness, it can be really invigorating.
I feel like at least in most creative processes, certainly in writing, there is always a role where collaboration becomes really important to create something amazing. It just seems to be, how, to use your phrase, how we’re hardwired.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. So collaboration, it’s like a double-edged sword, right? We want to collaborate. We want to be social. At the same time, we have this fear. So you had some really great ideas about, if you’re lacking some skill or lacking some practice in writing, how to start the writing.
Ally: So another really great trick. If you feel just nervous about writing a book, maybe you don’t feel particularly practiced. You don’t feel like a very strong writer. There are plenty of people who have sort of backed into writing a book on purpose by accident. And what I mean by that is you could write, say, a blog. You know, if you have an outline for what you want your book to be, you don’t even have to really call it writing a book. You can write a series of blog posts that over time will essentially make up the rough draft of your book.
Now you’re not going to just take those posts and, you know, dump them together into a word document and hey, you have a book, right? It’s a slightly different format, but you can get 80% of the way there without ever really telling yourself you’re writing a book. That little mental trick could be really helpful. If the idea of writing 300 pages worth of text is really intimidating.
Dr. Irena: That is a great idea. And actually that’s exactly how I built my program. It was originally a membership program and I was just creating masterclasses on topics that I think coaches would be interested in. And after 14 of these, I realized there is program here.
Ally: Exactly.
Dr. Irena: And if I had started off to write program, it would have been highly intimidating, but it was just one module at a time. So do you have a particular story of a client or someone who comes to mind related to our conversation today?
Ally: Oh gosh, so many. I can think of one I think that probably is a common experience with coaches. Maybe your listeners can feel this is something familiar for them. I had a client some years back who had been teaching for quite a while. She had been teaching workshops. She was a relationship coach, and the vast majority of her work, she did some one-on-one coaching, she did some couples coaching, but most of her work was done in the context of these intensives, these live in person intensives. And she wanted to write a book.
And she really struggled in the book with feeling like, first of all, she started out not wanting to put anything that was in her workshops into the book. She wanted the book to be wholly new and original material. And as her book doctor, at the time, that’s the role that I played in that particular instance. I had to really talk her through and get her to sort of come around mentally to the idea that having content in a book was not going to cannibalize her workshop income.
You know, people weren’t going to read the book and then look at her workshop and just say, oh, nah, I already read the book. I don’t need to go to that. In fact, the opposite is actually the reality. Most people experience an increase in people who want to work with them when they write a good book that reflects their work. Now, does that mean the book should have been a transcript of her workshop? No, but the idea that they needed to be completely separate was really just a giant obstacle she was creating for herself, and it was really causing problems for the book.
There was a lot of contexts that her ideas were missing because that context was in the workshop. So we got over that hurdle, and the book started to evolve, and it was getting much better. And then we had another issue pop up where she started to worry. Well, not just that it would cannibalize the workshops, but that anybody who had taken the workshops at this mailing list that she had accumulated over the years, basically that she felt she had built this fan base that was now going to be useless, because when the book launched, she didn’t think anybody who had already worked with her would want to buy the book.
So now we had put some of the workshop content into the book, and she thought, well, why would they buy the book? They already did the workshop with me, so I don’t have any fan base. I don’t have anything to start with. I have this mailing list that’s totally useless. And so, again, it was a lot of conversations around how that’s not actually true. You know, that’s a fear. But again, in reality, the people who had taken the workshops, who had experienced this incredible transformation in their relationships, thanks to her, absolutely wanted to read the book.
They wanted a refresher, in some cases on the content that they hadn’t heard, you know, in some cases in years, because she’d been doing this a long time. I don’t think anybody has ever had an idea that didn’t benefit from some repetition. Right? It’s really good to be reminded of the things that you’ve learned. And also, she was able to do more and add more into the book because it was a different format, tell more stories, add more exercises, have more resources than she could pack into a few hours sitting in a room with people.
And, in fact, that proved out to be true. When she published the book, almost everybody on her mailing list bought it, and she hit instant bestseller status. So there were a lot of those types of things that we worked through together. And I’m very gratified to say that every one of those fears was, in the end, proven incorrect, and she was able to take that book and go back out on the road and really refresh her whole business.
Dr. Irena: I love that story. So finally, is there anything else you’d like to say to our listeners?
Ally: I want to touch on comparisonitis. I know this is something that people struggle with across the board, but I think it’s especially true with people who are struggling to write their first book. They look at perhaps dozens of peers. You know, any coach, right? Ask any given coach. They can look around and tell you ten of their coach friends who already have a book and they feel behind and left out because they don’t have a book yet. But sometimes they’re looking at people’s successes from the outside and what they’re afraid of is that their success won’t match. And that’s really challenging when you try to compare yourself to only what you’re seeing on the outside. Right? Because there’s so much that’s going on behind the scenes that you may not be aware of.
And I’d like to remind authors that you’re not competing with the biggest bestseller in your category. That’s not your competition. Right? You don’t have to compete with the person who has 200,000 people on their mailing list and a tv show and is Oprah’s best friend. That shouldn’t stop you from writing a book because you aren’t that person and you feel like you can’t compete with that person. Give me any bestseller in any category, and I’ll show you ten other books that are practically the same book. Right? Written by other people.
There’s plenty of room in the market. People are constantly looking for new solutions, even to the same evergreen problems. And readers rarely buy just one book on a topic. So there is room. And you don’t have to hold yourself back because you think that mega best-selling author X has already done everything. And since you can’t compete and you can’t achieve those same results, that clearly means that you shouldn’t be an authorization. It’s absolutely not the case.
Dr. Irena: And that’s the danger of comparison, is that we tend to compare ourselves to people who are, let’s say, at the top of their game or who are the elite.
Ally: Absolutely.
Dr. Irena: Which is very few. And we are going to fall short or we feel we fall short when we compare ourselves to them.
Ally: Yeah. And I think the antidote to that is that acceptance that you mentioned. You probably are going to fall short if you’re comparing yourself to someone at the very top of their game, probably will fall short of what they achieved now, because right now you’re not in the same place, and that’s okay. And you need to be clear about what success looks like for you instead of letting somebody else’s success becomes your measure or your bar that you feel like you need to get to.
Dr. Irena: So that’s a perfect way to close out the show today. Thank you, Ally. So what’s the best way for listeners to learn more about you and what you do?
Ally: They can visit our website. It’s thewritersally.com. we have a blog with resources and some great free downloads that you can get. And of course, if you have already drafted a book and are ready to start talking about editing and publishing, there’s a form they can fill out for a free book strategy call with me.
Dr. Irena: So thank you for that. And Ally, I’m so glad you could join me today. This was such a great conversation on such an important topic.
Ally: Absolutely. My pleasure. Thank you again for having me.
Dr. Irena: Thank you, everyone, for listening today. If you’re feeling strong resistance and fear toward putting your writing out there into the world, I hope you’ve discovered some helpful ideas and tools in this episode. Remember, fear of rejection is universal. No one escapes the feeling. All we can do is dance with it, feel the fear, accept it, and put ourselves out there anyway.
In addition, keep in mind that we can minimize sensitivity by putting ourselves in a position to be rejected more often, especially when it comes to goals that are meaningful. When we continually experience the reality that rejection is rarely as bad as we fear, we become more immune to it. Even if the anxiety doesn’t fully go away, we become more brave in the face of it, and in doing so, we end up contributing more of our gifts and talents and knowledge to society and making the world a better place.
I’m Dr. Irena O’Brien, and you’ve been listening to Neuroscience of Coaching. You can find out more about me at neuroscienceschool.com. Neuroscience of Coaching is a part of the Mirasee FM podcast network, which also includes such shows as Just Between Coaches and To Lead is Human. This episode was produced by Andrew Chapman. Danny Iny is our executive producer, and Marvin del Rosario is our audience editor.
To make sure you don’t miss great episodes coming up on Neuroscience of Coaching, please follow us on Mirasee FM’s YouTube channel or your favorite podcast player. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a comment or a starred review. It’s the best way to help us get these ideas out there to more people. So thanks and we hope you’ll join us next time.