You’re Wrong About . . .

Your big break.

Let me explain. A favorite podcast of mine is You’re Wrong About hosted by Sarah Marshall. In a recent two-part episode on Karen Carpenter (#1 and #2), Sarah — along with her producer Carolyn Kendrick — talked about something that I find super relevant to entrepreneurs and experts like you who want to be published authors.

Instead of one big break that pushes someone into the limelight, Sarah and Carolyn argued, there are usually 40 little breaks before that no one ever sees. That’s what happened to Karen Carpenter, what happened to megastars of the self-help and entrepreneurship world like Brené Brown and James Clear, and what could happen to you.

Brené Brown wrote three books before her breakthrough TED Talk in 2010 thrust her into the spotlight. James Clear wrote his newsletter on habits for six years before publishing his New York Times bestselling book. 

And there are probably dozens more examples I could share just from my career alone. 

But my favorite is Kathleen Peddicord. She started her own business, Live and Invest Overseas, in 2008 after working for more than two decades as Editor-in-Chief for the International Living Group. 

When Kathleen began marketing and promoting herself, she focused on sending helpful weekly emails and over time built up an email list of thousands. Next, she hosted large conferences for people who wanted to move and retire overseas. That caught the attention of a publisher — which led her to me. While at Penguin, I edited her first book, How to Retire Overseas, which was published in 2011. Since then, that book has gone on to become a consistent seller with more than 20,000 copies sold, creating the foundation for Kathleen to write another six books in the past decade. 

I hope you can see in these amazing stories that you don’t just get one big break — but instead, get to make choices that lead to these teeny tiny breaks that build upon each other. That’s how you become a bestselling author like Kathleen, James, or Brené. 

Or a superstar like Karen Carpenter.
Because most of the time, you’ve only just begun. (Sorry — couldn’t resist.)