Who Tells Your Story?

When my husband Scott and I went to see Hamilton, I was sobbing at the end.

Not because of what Alexander Hamilton had done for our country. 

But because of what his wife Eliza did. 

Hamilton ends with the song Who Lives Who Dies, which was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda but is based on a book by Ron Chernow. The lyrics describe what happened after Alexander Hamilton’s death — how Eliza Schuyler Hamilton paid off her husband’s debts, created the first private orphanage in New York City, defended her husband’s reputation, got his writing published and remembered, and raised funds for the Washington Monument.

A pretty impressive story, right? 

But here’s the catch: Eliza wasn’t trying to impress us. Ron Chernow wasn’t trying to impress us either. Lin-Manuel Miranda might have been trying to impress us but what this song is really about is the difference between reach and impact.

Your reach is right now. It’s immediate — who you can reach today if you tried —friends, family, followers on social media, people who will read an article if you post it on Medium.

 A lot of authors I meet want (or need) to expand their reach, and that’s cool.

But what I like to direct clients to, as a thought exercise, is impact.

Impact is the future. It’s what you don’t always see or what you may never see.

Depending on how the afterlife works, Eliza may know that her impact traveled well beyond her death in 1854. Or maybe she knows nothing because she’s long gone. 

Whether Eliza is aware of her impact doesn’t matter.

What matters — both today and back in the 18th century — is her work. 

Many of us get into the work we do because we’re passionate about it. 

For example, I do what I do because books changed my life. 

My life is better because of nonfiction books and their authors, people correct in their belief that they had a message to share that could help others. People like you and me — people that these authors would likely never see, never talk to, never even get royalties from. 

I love books and know the power of the written word. And, as it so happens, I’m great at helping people put their wisdom and message on paper. 

By doing so, I create my own reach and impact.

My reach is primarily to my clients, who want to improve people’s lives.

But what I’m obsessed with — what I cry over in a room full of strangers — is impact. 

Impact — the readers I could be helping by helping people like you get book deals — is what gets me up at 5 AM every day, what keeps me going, what makes me motivated. I might never see these people, and they’ll likely never know about me. But that’s OK. 

Because, like Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, I’m doing the work because I love it and know that it has value. 

So when you’re working on your book, think — what’s the impact you want to make?

Who will tell your story?