Welcome to 7 Minutes Sunday on the Switch Paper to Quick Podcast. I'm your host, Ayana Angel, and we're going to spend the next 7 minutes together, getting you filled up with inspiration and goodness to get your mind primed to achieve greatness as you enter the week ahead. At the end of last year, 2018, I roped myself into a new project. Yet a new project, another one that I did not necessarily need, but I was excited to take on.
So now here we are, a few days out from the launch of the new book, Quit Playing Small. I've talked about this before, but I just want to make sure I give the full background, all the details, not all of them, but some of them out there so that you understand where this is going because this book is about to be here next week. Right now, as I sit and talk to you, I am in the midst of making the final edits based off of the editor's edits, so final edits and updates, formatting, all that good stuff, because I decided to do the formatting myself this time on this book. This is my first time ever doing the formatting, but it's not as bad as I thought at all.
It's actually pretty easy. So when the idea for this book came about, it was because I looked at a similar book that dropped at the end of 2018, and I said, wait a minute, I have something like this already. I just need to add more meat to it so that I can feel really, really proud and confident about putting it back out there. Now, the process started off with me going to add more meat to a project that I had already released.
But then I said, I need to switch this up, give it a whole new name, give it its own identity, and that's how Quit Playing Small came about. And the reason I'm sharing this with you is because I really want you to understand that I am not a perfectionist. You don't have to be a perfectionist. When they say sometimes you just need to start, it's so true.
You may not get it right from the start. I didn't get it right that first time. I had a great idea. It worked at the time.
But the reason that I said I didn't get it right is because eventually I didn't feel confident in the project. I didn't want to push it anymore. So that's why I say I didn't get it right, not according to anybody else's standards, but my own feelings, right? So I don't, but the thing is I don't regret anything because that is what got me to the moment right now where I can release this body of work to you all that I'm super proud of, that I'm passionate about, that I know you're going to love.
And I poured a lot of effort and energy into it because when this book came to mind at the end of 2018, it was supposed to be out the next month in January 2019. I thought, yeah, I'll just knock this out. No, no, no, no, no. It took longer than that.
It required more, more effort, more energy for me. And that's okay. So now we're coming up on March. We're in March and the week is just now being released.
Sometimes it is a process and you have to be willing to go through the process. You also have to be willing to do the work and you have to be willing to be wrong or to disappoint yourself. Sometimes it will happen during the course of putting yourself out there, chasing your greatness, trying to achieve better. You will disappoint yourself.
And sometimes you'll even disappoint other people and it'll feel bad in the moment. You won't feel great, but you'll get over it and you'll come out and do greater and better things that make the disappointments feel less. Right. They won't feel so intense anymore.
And eventually you'll be able to laugh at some of them. So that has been the process leading up to Quit Playing Small coming out. I had the idea because I saw someone else do something very similar to what I had already done. And I said, huh, why couldn't I just revamp what I already did and do that?
Right. Then I said, oh, I'm going to be super ambitious and I'll get it out ASAP. That didn't happen. We're now in March and it's just coming out.
Plans got a little stalled. Then I started with One Direction with my book cover and realized that wasn't it. I was going to be simple. I wanted it to be just words and just really, you know, classic and simple.
And I said, no, that doesn't even feel right. So I had to change my direction, get a new designer. That took more time. I had to hire an editor whose turnaround time was going to be a lot longer than I wanted it to be.
That took longer. All these things are the process of getting out your dreams. It's not always going to be effortless and smooth and just the way you want it. But I do feel like it's worth it.
I absolutely feel like it's worth it. And to me, it's worth it because I want this book to encourage more people to go inside for answers. I want to encourage them to make improvements and mindset shifts that will enhance their lives. And I also want to encourage them to be open to new things.
And hopefully the Quit Playing Small book will help them learn something new. And because I know how our lives are set up, fast paced, short attention spans, I also want to Quit Playing Small to be super approachable, to read through. Because I know that, you know, we don't always have the kind of time to devote to ourselves that we would ideally like to have. So if this is the only thing that my girls are able to read first thing in the morning to get their day started off right or to get their mind in a good place or get them thinking about some things with regard to themselves, then I'm happy with that.
I would rather you have something to get you started versus nothing. You choose to do nothing because everything else feels so overwhelming, right? Standing alone, discovering a new way and exploring yourself, that's one of the bravest things that you can do. In its simplest form, Quit Playing Small means start showing up for yourself in every moment with intention.
Like you want to win. It's time to push yourself past those limits that you thought were there. I know that you're here for a reason. You listen to this podcast because you're already doing some of the personal development work.
You're going in the right direction. There's no window shopping over here. I know you ladies are my people and you're here because you're already doing the work. You show me that in all the ways when you comment, when you send me messages, when you leave reviews on iTunes, when you hop on Instagram live with me and we chat.
I know that you're becoming more and more aware of yourselves and how you show up every single day. You're growing. You're learning all these things. You're already doing the work.
And I'm so proud of all of you for that because I see it. I can see you. I absolutely can see you. And my goal is to simply to show up for you, to help you continue to be the best version of yourself.
And I really hope that this work that I'm offering to you helps even in some small way. you to continue your growth process and continue to do the work. Thank you so much for spending time with me this week. And I hope you have a really, really great week ahead next week.
You get some amazing things accomplished. You do some more growing, some more learning and understanding of yourself. And as always, be good. You do some more, really good.
Thank you.