I hit “send” on the email. With a whoosh, the entire manuscript for Super Attractor was in my publisher’s inbox. 

Smiling, I said a silent prayer of gratitude to the Universe. 209 pages of my best methods for manifesting a life beyond your wildest dreams were now out in the world! 

Then I stood up … 

And my water broke. “Good timing, kid,” I thought, patting the baby bump that would become my son Oliver. 

And just like that, my husband and I were off to the hospital. 

Answer Your Creative Calling

A lot of people think that big creative projects — writing a book, creating a painting, composing a song — have to be done in a cabin in the woods. They think that they’d need to take a month off of work to finally write that poetry … or rent out a beachside shack in Bali to finish their memoir. 

But here’s the thing: Creative inspiration isn’t just found on the beach or on sabbatical. Your art doesn’t live there — it lives in you. Each of us has a channel of creative inspiration that we can tap into at any time. 

We can tap into our creative inspiration at a coffee shop, or on our lunch break between bites of a sandwich. And if you’re anything like me, you can have a huge surge of inspiration seconds before you go into labor. 

So if you have a big creative project in you that you need to get out, trust me when I say this: Creating doesn’t mean you have to stop living. Creativity can be a part of your day-to-day life, flowing all the time …  and you can take it from me! 

Turn Obstacles Into Opportunities

In February, I released Happy Days: The Guided Path from Trauma to Profound Freedom and Inner Peace. This is the ninth book I’ve written in 11 years, and it went straight to the New York Times bestseller list! 

When I was writing Happy Days, it was 2020. The world was in the throes of the pandemic.  I was hosting a weekly podcast, leading my team at work and caring for a toddler with zero supplemental childcare. I was witnessing life as we know it turn upside-down. But I didn’t let that hold me back. 

The world needed a book like Happy Days, just at the time that it was released. And I needed Happy Days! If I had waited for a less chaotic time to write this handbook for healing … I would still be waiting! The book’s profound methods, and my candid journey to recovery, would have stayed frozen in my head. And how the heck can I help anyone that way!? I’m so glad I responded to my creative calling.

Get Creatively Unstuck

So if you’re feeling at all creatively stuck, I can help you bust through your blocks! That’s where this episode of the Dear Gabby podcast comes in. 

In today’s Dear Gabby, I’m breaking down my entire creative process. This is how I wrote 9 books in 11 years, and how you can take inspired action to put your own art out into the world. You’ll learn: 

  • How to keep your creativity flowing … even if you’re under pressure to create (all my books have deadlines, and I stay inspired from intro to epilogue — I’ve got you!) 
  • The one thing I need to do so that every time I write, I feel like I’m doing a cosmic dance with the Universe (this may sound cheesy, but it WORKS … and it feels awesome) 
  • How to gain the confidence to unapologetically share your work with the world (everyone has some fear of judgment at first — but you can overcome it!) 
  • How to prevent burnout when you’re working on a big creative project (this is KEY — burnout leads to sloppy work!) 
  • My best advice for finding your true calling when you have TONS of creative aspirations 

Bestseller Masterclass

And I have more secrets where that comes from! Registration is now open for my Bestseller Masterclass! In this six-module course, I’ll give you the Gabby playbook for writing and marketing your bestselling book.

If I can write multiple bestsellers, so can you! I hope you’ll let me show you how. Register here!

Discover Your Creative Calling

It is such an honor for me to help others step into their creative power. As a mom, I want to instill in my son what my mom instilled in me. “You can create anything, you can be anything, you can do anything,” she would say. And my mom has done it all! On this episode of Dear Gabby, I share all about my mom’s amazing talents … including her knack for real-estate, her thriving bead business (yes, beads!) … and her entrepreneurial eye for CBD. 

My mom truly believes that every day is an opportunity to practice your art, whatever that art may be. And her passion for creating has had a ripple effect in our family! 

As I was recording this episode, I got a text message from my husband. He’d sent through a piece of beautiful rainbow art that our 3-year-old son Oliver had created. “FRAME THIS!” I texted back. 

Vibrant, whimsical, and full of life, Ollie’s art was a testament to what we can do when we create without boundaries! Kids create without fear of rejection, without comparing themselves to others, without wanting to get attention. They just open their hearts, tap into their creative channel, annnnd … 

Become a prism for beautiful rainbows to shine through! May we all learn to let our guards down, tap into our inspiration, and create like 3-year olds. 

I hope this episode of Dear Gabby inspires you to tap into the joy of creation, lower your inhibitions and unleash the masterpiece that’s within you — whether a rainbow, a TikTok or a bestselling book needs to come through. 

For more on following your creative calling, check out this video … 

Get More Gabby

The following are helpful resources and books I mention within the episode: 

Want to learn my secrets for writing and marketing your bestselling book? Registration is now open for my Bestseller Masterclass! Sign up here.

Want even more support? I created the Miracle Membership to help you design a spiritual practice you can stick to—so you can feel connected, supported and inspired every day. Each week I deliver brand new workshops, guided meditations, live group meditations, community connection, and so much more. Plus, it’s easy to access on your phone, computer or tablet. Click here to join.

My latest book Happy Days is my most important spiritual work to date. In the book, I share intimate details of my journey through trauma recovery, and I reveal the spiritual and therapeutic tools that I used to find profound freedom and inner peace. This book has the potential to serve you in many ways, and it can help you find the confidence and courage you need to express yourself authentically. 

If you feel you need additional support, please consult this list of mental health resources. I’m proud of you for being here. 

Transcript

The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

Hi there, Gabby here, this podcast is intended to educate, inspire and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I’m not a psychologist or a medical doctor an...

The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

Hi there, Gabby here, this podcast is intended to educate, inspire and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I’m not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from a psychological or medical condition, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

Over the years, I’ve witnessed so many of my readers and students go onto awaken a part of themselves that they never knew was there, a part of themselves that feels called to give voice to their stories and their experience. Or to bring their creative visions onto the page. And that’s why I decided to do something very special for all of you out there, anyone who has had the dream of writing a book or written a book before.

I wanted to share my expertise with you and so, I’m doing a free live training…LIVE…free live training called 4 Secrets to Your Bestselling Book. It’s an hour-long live online training. I’ll be sharing the only thing you need to prioritize making your book a bestseller—the only thing you need. I’m also gonna share some of the biggest mistakes most writers make and how you can avoid them.

And finally, I’ll be revealing the number one reason that you’re blocking your bestselling book and how you can fix it. These are some of my secret marketing methods for writing a book that’s gonna be widely read.

Head over to deargabby.com/secrets to sign up for the live training on May 11th. That’s deargabby.com/secrets—my free live training, 4 Secrets to Your Bestselling Book. How I went from zero writing experience to #1 New York Times bestselling author and how you can too. deargabby.com/secrets.

Hey there. Welcome to Dear Gabby. I’m your host Gabby Bernstein. And if you landed here, it is absolutely no accident. It means you’re ready to feel good and manifest a life beyond your wildest dreams. Let’s get started.

GABBY: Welcome back to Dear Gabby. I am in the studio today with my Samanthas. Samantha is the Samantha is like the Heathers, but they’re really Samantha and Samantha on my team. So we’ve got Sam who is our producer. You guys are probably familiar with Sam’s voice in the background at times or me just saying Sam, who’s next?

And then we’ve got Samantha, our social media and brand strategist who’s the most amazing addition to our team. She’s just a rock star. She’s also our like inside view into what people are doing on social, in TikTok, in this whole other world that we were unfamiliar with. So she’s just like this amazing ball of information.

My girls are in the house today with me, and we’re going to talk about the creative process. And they’ve pulled a ton of questions that I’m going to then just. It’s like interview style. I’m just going to answer these questions. These women, these beautiful women are going to offer me the opportunity to share about my creative process.

And for me, this is going to specifically relate to writing and publishing books. But for those of you who are listening and have other creative endeavors or your creativity has felt blocked, or you have been sitting on a creative impulse for years and you’ve been pushing it down. Or you want to take it to the next level.

This is your podcast. And so I’m going to share with you my secrets to allowing creativity to flow naturally flow with ease and flow freely in and out of my conscious awareness and my unconscious awareness. I think I’m creating things sometimes even when I’m sleeping. So you guys know that I’m always like, oh, I’ve got this idea.

And we all have that channel for free-flowing information. We just have to learn how to unlock it. So let’s take it away, Samanthas. Sams. There’s two; they have different names. Samantha and Sam. Okay. So why don’t we start with Sam?

SAM: All right. Well, I think let’s start from ground zero. When you have a creative idea or, or a book for you, where do you begin?

GABBY: I have said over and over again that I write my books for myself first. And then I know that when they have healed me, they will heal others. And it’s a very selfish profession, but it’s wonderful because I know that the healing impact that these books have given me just will absolutely translate to others.

So when I’m deciding to write a new book, which has been almost annually for the past 11 years, I’ve written nine books in 11 years. So that a year and a half in between the longest, I would really sit with myself and think about what is it that I need most right now; what’s going to feel elevating for me?

And also knowing that it’s elevating for me in that moment also helps because I’m not writing about something I don’t want to write about then. There’s a lot of books in me, but I don’t want to write them all until that energy is needing to come through. If I’d written Happy Days five years ago, it would have been really traumatizing and triggering for me if, and I wouldn’t have been able to, because they didn’t have the lived proof.

I didn’t have the spiritual proof of what it meant to recover and come out the other side of trauma. If I had written any other book than Add More ~ing to Your Life first, I wouldn’t have necessarily known what to write cause that’s where I was at then. So we write, in my case, I create from the place that I am in.

And so I’m typically looking at what is it that wants to come through me. What’s going to be joyful to come through me? What’s going to be healing to come through me? What’s going to soothe me and my soul? And that’s important because you never want to be pushing a creative project. And that’s why it’s really tough.

If you’re an artist and you’re on a deadline or you have a commission and you’re being pushed into it, that really blocks the, all the mojo, all your creative flow. And so we really want to allow, and the process of creating is allowing. It’s getting out of your own way. It’s being an expression of a creative force that’s moving through you.

And when you are truly in the flow with your creative force, whether it be writing a book or whatever it is that you’re doing, you feel almost like you’re taking direction and it feels effortless in many ways. So it does take a lot of effort. That effort feels more like commitment rather than something that you’re struggling to get done.

There is a brand that has always been in my ether. It’s this really hip brand called Moon Juice. And today I’m gonna introduce you to some of their incredible products for helping you relieve stress. We can’t stop stress from happening. And there are so many tools at our disposal to help us manage and honor our stress and befriend our stress and really curb the long-term effects that it can have on our wellbeing.

But we can’t just stop it altogether. Being alive is stressful. And recently I started taking Moon Juice’s Super You to bring my stress care to the next level and actually stop stress before it starts. So here’s the deal Moon Juice is the coolest brand. So, so, so cool.

And Super You is a potent, multi-adaptogen created by traditional Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine to help manage stress and improve energy, mood and focus. It has you completely covered with four different adaptogens that work together to help your body tackle whatever comes at it. Ashwagandha, which helps reduce irritability and increase calm.

I have used Ashwagandha for a decade. It was really, really soothing to me when I went through postpartum depression and I was really struggling with stress and anxiety. Rhodiola, which is a big one, helps reduce the fatigue that comes in after we’ve been stressed out for a while. Look into this further. It’s really good for your hormones as well.

Shatavari, it’s such a beautiful one, rebalances hormones and prolonged periods of stress that can affect PMS, skin, libido, irritability, lack of focus and more. Every single woman listening is like, yes, I need that. I need that. And Amla also known as the beauty berry helps protect skin from antioxidant stress and accelerated aging.

And we experienced this with the stress hormones that we’re really trying to manage at all times. And when those stress hormones get out of whack, we start to experience a lot of those negative symptoms. And every morning I take two capsules with a glass of water and I can immediately feel the difference.

I’m calmer, I’m nicer, I’m more focused and I have more energy and I have just this clarity to tackle the day, which moms we need this, business owners, we need this, human beings w need this. Whoever in the world is stressed out, we need this. And I also love that with just these two simple pills each day, I’m being really proactive about my stress rather than reactive.

So grab your two pills a day. Head to moonjuice.com/gabby and use code Gabby at checkout for 20% off. Your calm is your power, my friends to find yours, go to moonjuice.com/gabby and use code Gabby at checkout for 20% off.

SAM: So, what would you tell somebody who does have a deadline or who is working on a creative project that needs to get done? What’s your advice?

GABBY: I always have a deadline. I always have a deadline, so it’s not, I’m not unfamiliar with the deadline. I get that. I would say you would, when you have a deadline and you still want to maintain that creative flow, you want to make sure that you are keeping your channel open. And what I mean by that.

That you’re doing the practical work you need to do to create the stage in order for that free-flowing energy to come through. So in the case of writing a book, what I care about most upfront is the outline. And I go really into this. I’m doing a free live event live event. I’m going to get into this later. I’m going to do a free live event on four secrets to your best-selling books.

If you want to write a book that I’m going to share some of these secrets, but this one in particular is without an outline without a clear vision of where you’re going, you’re going to just write yourself in circles and with my outline. And the clear vision of where I’m going and the intention behind every chapter and the overarching intention behind the book, I can then riff between the lines.

I can then be in this cosmic dance with the universe. And I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s so true. You’re in a cosmic dance with the universe when you’re writing in the flow because you’ve created the structure around the flow. That’s why I love an outline for a talk or an outline for a book or an outline for a blog.

I just think that outline creates this structure and then within that structure, you can be free. And so that’s why I think it’s really valuable also to have intentions. I always talk about intentions. So thinking about the intention for every book, and it’s also in my free live event, my four secrets to your best-selling book, I’m going to talk a little bit about what it means to have a core message.

Because every book has to have an intention slash core message. And that could be the same for a painting project or for Samantha doing a Tik Tok video. That’s your art. They’re artists, a TikTok artist. Or for you, Sam, when you’re putting together a podcast episode or producing it, we always want to come back to intention and that intention is reflective of the core message.

You know, what is it that I’m trying to say here? And sometimes, you know, if you’re a musician to want to just like improvise or if you’re a painter you want to improvise. There’s something very beautiful about that. And in my case, that would be just like creative writing or journaling, or just letting it out onto the page.

That’s excellent too because so much beautiful stuff comes just out of the extemporaneous, just free flowing, creating. But when you have a deadline and you want to stay creative within that deadline, you want to have a clear vision of where you’re going.

SAMANTHA: Definitely. So once you have your vision, how do you overcome the fear of judgment? How did you find the confidence to share your work unapologetically with the world?

GABBY: You know, I think that throughout my career, I’ve only spoken from and written from where I was in that moment. And so I was never trying to be, or say, or teach anything that I wasn’t owning in my presence that I wasn’t fully living.

So with that came confidence because it was an expression of what I know to be true. And that would be the same way I would say to anyone, whatever it is that you’re creating create from the seat of your own safety; create from the seat of your own ability; don’t try to be someone you’re not in your book.

Don’t try to be someone you’re not on stage. Don’t try to be someone you’re not in the painting. Don’t try to, you know, start imitating somebody else’s reels or TikToks. I mean, it’s not terrible to like pick up from other people’s stuff, but… Finding your authentic truth in the creative process is such a beautiful way to just be confident in it because you can’t go wrong if you’re being you.

SAM: It’s true. It’s really true. We all stumbled for a minute there because it’s so true. So on that note, what are some things you do to get into that authentic truth? Feel that confidence. What are some things that have helped in your life?

GABBY: Hmm. Well, I meditate before I create, because whether it be a talk, whether it be sitting down to write, I set an intention for the process or I set an intention for the talk or for the audience I said, and they always have the intention back to have fun.

And then with that intention, I then often will sit silently for a little while just to. And if you’re a Dear Gaby listener, you’re not unfamiliar with what I mean by tuning in, you’re tapping into that ultimate creative force of love and energy that moves through you when you’re, when you get out of the way I check in also, I’m like what’s in the way?

Is there anything in the way? Okay. Did I? Is my day too packed? I know that my most creative time is in the morning. And so if I’m writing and you guys have been with me, I don’t know if you were Samantha, but Sam, you’ve been with me as I’ve been writing a book and you’ve helped me really manage my schedule at that time, too, when we’re producing things and we were just creating other things.

And so I’ve never written a book, like I’ve never like gone off and just been like by myself in the woods, writing a book, although one day maybe I will. I’ve always lived life, created other things in my career, traveled, parented, birthed. I literally was my water broke the night that I submitted my manuscript that’s so me, right?

So I was literally in bed, like finishing touches on the manuscript. I stood up and my water broke and I was like, good timing!

So, you know, I think that I’ve always been living while creating. And so that’s the case for most of us, it is because sometimes, we have a day job that we, that isn’t aligned with our creative projects. And so if that’s the case, the time that you create to be creative has to be uninterruptible. It has to be at a time when you are not exhausted. When you know that you’re really open to receive divine information and energy.

It has to be in a space that feels sacred to you in some way, you know, even if it’s a coffee shop, just like create the vibe and it has to be in a presence of non-judgment towards yourself. You have to just be completely free from self-attack in those moments, so that you can really let it out.

And so sometimes if you feel like you’ve got some michigas in the way, and you’re just really struggling to let it out, maybe you want to journal a little bit before. You can go to the Happy Days method of rage on the page. Just get all that yuck out of the, out of you so that you can allow the source of love to move through you.

And that will clear a lot of space before you create. We have to treat our creative work the same way we would treat the day job or the same way we would, even with more, it’s even more precious in many ways, so we have to really treat it with respect and over as a speaker, I treat by speaking with respect, I treat my writing with respect, and sometimes that means saying no. No, I’m not going to write today because I’m not my energy ain’t right. I would, might do way better writing in 30 minutes the next day, when I’m in that aligned state, than three hours the day before. And I said that to you before Sam, I’m like no more podcasts. We can’t do it. We can’t create any more today.

You know, just because I know that my channel isn’t open. I think our doubt or whatever it is, you have to have the boundaries for yourself.

SAM: I think that probably resonates with a lot of people who are listening right now and who have that day job and they want to do something creative and they feel like, how can I fit that time in my schedule?

And so I think that’s really relevant to just talk about that, like 30 minutes of like really creative time, that feels good is better than maybe two hours of time where you’re feeling blocked.

GABBY: It’s quality, not quantity because in that quality time, oh my God. So much can come through and you guys watch me. I mean, we, as a team create really fast.

When we’re tuned in. When we’re not, we start to like, you know, get sloppy or we get wires get crossed. And so you can’t be burnt out when you’re doing creative work. Can’t be.

This episode is sponsored by NutriSense. The coolest company; it’s a company that tracks your blood glucose levels to help you make changes that you can achieve and really, really meet those health goals. I’ve been really committing to getting my body back after this postpartum period that I recently went through and I am just trying to feel my best at 42 years old, which means moving every day in some way, eating right, and getting enough sleep.

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SAMANTHA: So I want to write a book, but I don’t feel like I’m an expert. How can I move through that block?

GABBY: Well, doesn’t everyone think they’re an expert these days, Samantha?

SAMANTHA: Maybe a lot of people.

GABBY: Listen, I wouldn’t write about anything that you don’t know. So for instance, I’m not a therapist, but I wrote a book about trauma. But I didn’t write it from the perspective of the clinical therapist. I wrote it from the perspective of the patient, the survivor, and with authority on these topics that are therapeutic topics because I lived them and used them.

And at the time I wasn’t even trained in them. So I was just writing about my experience. And so your expertise, particularly when it comes to non-fiction personal growth work, your expertise comes in your experience. But don’t try to write about something you haven’t experienced in your own unique way and do not claim to be an expert when you’re not, that’s just really that’s damaging for you and for the reader.

And you maybe think, well, I’m not an expert, anything. Well, you’re, you’ve been living your life. And this comes specifically for personal growth, but also for memoirs. And you’ve lived a life and that life that you’re living is a story you have to tell. We need to find ways to let that story come through us, whether it be through a podcast, whether it be through a film or whether that be through an art project, or whether that be through making furniture, you gotta just be where you are with it. Not trying to be anything that you’re not.

SAMANTHA: Great advice.

SAM: The whole time I’m just thinking about Samantha.

GABBY: So Samantha is so good on TikTok. She shares her guidance for like creators and young creators and people and…

SAMANTHA: Young people entering the workforce.

GABBY: Yeah. She does it in a way, one, she is a young woman. Who’s been in the workforce for a few years.

Right. She’s really excellent. Nobody try to…nobody try to find Samantha she’s our team member, but you can follow her on TikTok.

SAMANTHA: It’s @SammyPaul

GABBY: Follow @SammyPaul. And do you do, and especially if you’re a young person in the workforce, go follow Samantha, because what you do it’s so you.

SAMANTHA: Thank you.

GABBY: And it’s so where you’re at. And in 10 years from now, it’ll be something different, you know, but that’s where you’re at right now. You know, it was so interesting. I’m reading the book, Add More ING to Your Life. My first book that I wrote when I was 27 years old and I’m reading it for Audible right now, I never, there was one book I’d never sold the audio rights to.

And so I just did, and as I’m reading it, parts of it, I’m like, oh my God, this is so dated within saying things like take out your iPod and you know, maybe you type it into your Blackberry. So. Those kinds of things are dated, but the content I look back and I’m like, just because I’m saying it with a younger voice and it sort of more to a younger audience, it’s so deep, it’s so reflective.

And the funny thing is I’m looking back and I obviously was far away from having any IFS training. I’m listening to myself. I’m like, I am speaking the principles of internal family systems therapy without even realizing it. And it’s just amazing and so tremendous. So, but that was where I was then. And my voice was very different than, than where it is 11 years later. 12 years later.

So, you know, just speak from where you are and that’s your expertise. And you’re such a good example. That’s such a good example of that because Samantha is on TikTok and she’s sharing this real-life experience that you’re having right now that you’ve had. And it was funny, I caught her sharing this video about if your boss asks you to do too much and you don’t have the time for it, you just say, tell us what you say, what do you say?

SAMANTHA: So, so you go to your boss and you say, these are my priorities for today. And you ask them, which of these would you like me to reshuffle and reprioritize so that I can get this done for you today? And usually, your boss will say, oh, you’re already busy today. This can be a tomorrow task.

GABBY: Yeah. Yeah. And she’s done that with me.

I saw the videos. Oh my God, you did that with me. But when she did, she was so generous Totally. It was so easy instead of being like resistant or like bitchy or like annoyed, you know, so, but that’s so cool because that’s your, you know, that you’re living that so you can teach that. So you’re an expert in being, you know, being a young employee and being in the workforce in this day and age in your twenties.

SAMANTHA: Thank you.

GABBY: But that was such a good example of that.

SAMANTHA: Speaking of when you were writing your first book, how did you know that it was time to share your story? And how did you find, how did you start that? How did you begin that process and how did you publish your first book?

GABBY: So I wanted to write a self-help book, even when I was a cocaine addict.

I had a stack of self-help books next to my bed. I had Wayne Dyer and Louise hay and Shakti Gawain, Marianne Williamson, Deepak. I mean, they were just like lined up on my bedside table and when I’d be coming down from drugs, I’d be just reading these books and just thinking about what it was that I wanted to create.

I remember being at an after-hours party. I was with people I didn’t even know they’re my apartment; we’re doing cocaine. And I’m looking at that stack of self-help books. And like, I’m going to be a motivational speaker and self-help book author. And they were like, yeah, good fucking luck. You pass me a bump, right?

And then when I got sober, it was just so clear to me that was calling me for a reason. And that in my sobriety, I, I was 25 and I was in my case, living, not living the young person’s workforce, but instead living a young person getting clean and sober. And so that’s what I taught from at that time.

So I just started to be very unapologetic about my personal experience and share it openly. And my spiritual awakenings. And I started going to Marianne Williamson’s talks and my best friend, Mikayla, and I were like the youngest people in the room and we’d be like, oh my God, we were so into it. And like then seeing Wayne and I actually remember this day, I was standing, I went to the Javits center to see Wayne Dyer and he always had these books on the back of his table. He had a table behind him. Always, whenever you spoken, you have like papers and quotes that he wanted to read and books that he wanted to give out and he would throw them into the audience. And often they were his books, but every once in a while, he’d bring in somebody else’s book.

And so he starts talking about this young author, who’s writing about spirituality and she’s got this great book out and he just really wants to get behind it. And I’m thinking like, who the fuck is this girl? You know? And then he’s like Gabrielle Bernstein, the book is called, Add More ING to Your Life.

And I was like, shut the fuck up and I like stood up. And he’s like, Gabby, I think you’re in the audience stand up. And I stood up and I was like, oh my God. He threw the book into the audience to some young woman and it was such a big moment for me. And I think that that book came out of my… Not because I could write, I wasn’t a writer then. I had to find my voice.

I had to work with a writing coach to write that book originally, but I found my voice pretty quickly and I created an outline and I wasn’t, I wasn’t afraid. And I really have lived with this mantra, this Joan of Arc quote. I am not afraid I was born to do this. And then I could defy all odds.

I could write a book, having been dyslexic as a kid, having not had any literary education past eighth grade, having had not excelled in school at all, had a lot of PTSD that I wasn’t aware of. So it was really my brain couldn’t learn the right way. Couldn’t even write an email properly, but I taught myself how, because where there’s a will, there is a way. That’s a very good example of that.

Because I knew that this had to come through me, so I was gonna do whatever it took to learn how to do it. So then I think that’s a really important thing. If you hear, okay, she’s got nine best-selling books, multiple New York Times, bestsellers, and number one, New York Times bestsellers. And she stopped any literary education at eighth grade? maybe even earlier, because I was like, totally checked out.

Then, of course, anyone can write; anyone could create a podcast. Anyone could, anyone can create. There’s no boundary.

This podcast is sponsored by Better Help online therapy. Here’s the deal, guys. We all know that life can be really overwhelming, particularly right now. There’s just so much happening in the world. There’s just so many reasons to feel burned out. Our nervous systems are rocked, and we just feel that burnout on such a big level right now, and symptoms from burnout can include lack of motivation, feeling helpless or trapped, detachment, fatigue, and a lot more.

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SAM: Now that you’ve written a lot of books and you have a following you’re in a different place obviously than when you first started, but what can you say to somebody who doesn’t have a following and doesn’t, you know, have social media and nobody really knows who they are.

Like, how can they feel confident about getting there? You know, say I have a book that I already wrote, how do I feel confident in kind of spreading that message.

GABBY: That person has to come to the event, the 4 Secrets to Your Bestselling Book. It’s a free event. They’ve got to be there because at that event, I’m gonna reveal a lot of the marketing secrets that I’ve used for all of my books and really break downs some of the methods that are so important and impactful when you’re putting a book out into the world, whether you have an audience or not.

And if you have those foundational principles, very grounded, then the path will be clear for you. Go to deargabby.com/secrets. That’s also going to be in the show. And just sign up for that because I’m going to really reveal some of those methods and lessons, but much like the book writing process, the book marketing process is possible even if you have no marketing background.

Amazing things can occur that you may never have even thought possible with the right intention, right guidance. The inquiry. I mean, we’re here right now, building a YouTube channel. We don’t know what the algorithms are and we don’t know what to look for. So what are we doing?

We’re getting people to train us. We’re Googling it. We’re going to YouTube to find out. We are testing it. We’re investing our time in it. And that is amazing. Like you, you don’t have to sit around waiting to be picked or waiting for a publisher to publish your book. You can publish your own book. You don’t have to wait for a gallery to hold your art to just make art.

What is it called? What are those things called now? Where you can sell your art online.

SAM: Ebay? Are you thinking NFT?

GABBY: What the fuck is an NFT?

SAMANTHA: I don’t think we want to go into what an NFT is.

GABBY: Okay. We’re not going there, so there’s just stuff you can do, I guess, but I mean, but you can put your audio up on Tik TOK, and it can go viral. You can create a video with your own music and it can go viral. And I’m like, when you really have that boundaryless vibe of I can create anything. And I learned that from my mother, my mother.

I can create anything woman. My mom has, you know, she’s a real estate agent. She was, when I was a kid, she was a children’s musician called Fritzy’s treasure chest. And she’s like a beading company. And she like sells beads. And like at one point she went to like make CBD oils. And I was like, mom there’s regulations around that.

She was like making CBD bath bombs, like in her bathtub. And she loved it. I’m not one of those women is like, so out there. And so, so amazingly free in her creative force. My best friend Mikayla always just admired my mom’s mind. She’s like she had to, she just created. Just so unapologetic about it. And I learned that from her.

I mean, it’s one of the greatest gifts she gave me, she’ll come over and she’ll have this like series of artwork. And it’s like these bizarro little like features. And then like these, like really rainbowy kind of art things that she’s painted and framed. And then she has a little like version of herself in every single one, like blonde woman.

The sparking through the rainbow. And then sometimes my grandmother, who’s deceased. She’ll show up in their little pictures and she’ll come and she’ll, and it’s just, it’s incredible, but like the amount of detail and effort that she’s put into these projects, just because she just wants to create.

SAM: That’s amazing.

GABBY: She wants to sell these things. And she does, she goes on eBay and she sells her work and she sells her jewelry. And you know, but it’s not coming first. It’s like just the desire to create. And so it started with a desire to create. Then the audience will come.

SAM: Well, I love that too Gabby, because I think, you know, anybody listening, they know that you’ve written all these books and they’re looking at you this way, but it’s actually such a great example that you’re like, you can just nerd out and learn stuff. Like I’m seeing that in full force with YouTube.

And we’re just learning that we’re nerding out and it’s like Gabby Bernstein, you know, she’s written all these books and she’s done all the things, but she’s still learning and like you’re still nerding out and you’re still, and I think that’s like a really cool point is that even if you don’t know it, even if you want to write a script or make a movie or make a podcast or whatever, it’s, you can literally learn anything online.

GABBY: You can learn anything online.

I mean, you just gotta hire smart people. You surround yourself with smart people in my case, or just, you are a smart person and you just, you know, Marie Forleo, our sister Marie said it best. Everything is figureoutable. Just giving yourself that permission to just learn it. And if you want it, you know, you can’t learn anything you don’t want to learn.

I want to go back to school and I want to get a degree. And I want to, you know, really, I do believe that there’s a really good, like depth psychology school that my friend Elisa went to. And I want to do something like that because I want to. Do I have time to go back to school right now? Not necessarily, but I want to, at some point, there’ll be a season in my life.

I’ll do that. So you have to just, if you want to make it. Figure it out.

SAM: That’s actually another question that I was looking at our, as a producer of this podcast, I was looking at our apple reviews and some, you know, reviews that people were leaving and somebody wrote something about finding patience and how can they find patience and stuff.

And I think what you’re just saying is like a great tie into that is, you know, that you want to go back to school, but you’re feeling like right now is not the right time. And, you know, in this review, particularly, I think she feels frustrated cause she, she doesn’t know how to find that patience and how can she like be patient with the process?

GABBY: I think creative work requires patience because for instance like I knew in 2016 that I wanted to write Happy Days because I was living this memory of trauma coming forward. But I knew that I couldn’t then, and I had to be patient. I had to sit on that book for several years before it could come out of me.

We all know here, like our channels, like, you know, chugging along, everybody listening, go check out our on YouTube channel. It’s not fun. It’s like deep, but it’s awesome. And we’re sharing very unique videos that are topics that we don’t always share here and it’s different stuff. And so go to youtube.com/gabriellebernstein, our channel’s called Gabby Bernstein.

And, uh, it’s not hard to find and subscribe, but like right now we don’t know the magic sauce yet, but we’re figuring it out. Trucking along. And in a year from now, we’re going to be like, oh my God, we’ve got a million subscribers.

SAM: And we’re also being patient.

GABBY: Okay. Back to the patience. Right.

So the patience is so important because if we’re trying to push it. It’s just not going to be fun for us. It’s going to burn you guys out. It’s going to make us feel like we’re not getting enough done. It’s going to just, and it’s not going to give us the space to learn. It’s just going to feel very overwhelming.

And so taking our time and just dipping in and, and trying and messing around, trying new things and educating ourselves. Now while we were talking, my husband just sent me a text. We’re in Vegas right now while we’re recording this. Meanwhile, okay. We’re hiding in a recording studio. We are not the Vegas fans here.

No offense to those who love Vegas. But look what Zach just sent me. Zach picked out an app for my son where he can make art on the app. Okay. And look what Olly made. We’ll put this in the show notes.

SAM: Oh my God. Oliver.

GABBY: We’ll put this on the website on the blog links. It’s a rainbow. It’s literally like the best art I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

It’s all the brightest colors and it’s got some neon and some streaks and some I’m going to tell Zach to frame it, frame it. I always want to frame everything he makes, but that’s pretty epic. It’s really. I mean, talk about, create like a three-year-old yeah. Create without boundaries. There is you go there’s your message.

Create like a three-year-old because he doesn’t have, he doesn’t live in a world of boundaries. There’s some times where he says, I know how to, I know how to do it. You know, I can do it. And that’s when I look at him and I’m like, you can do anything, man. Just try, just do whatever. If you want to do it, you can do it.

It’s kind of the message. Unless it’s like jumping off the couch onto the corner of the table.

SAM: I was on the phone with you yesterday when he was trying to do that.

GABBY: Pretty much daily. I’m like, man, but you can do anything as long as it’s not dangerous for you or others, but I want to instill that same message that my mom instilled in me, which is that you can create anything.

You can be anything, you can do anything. You can have a lot of practices in your life and lots of different creative outlets and you can just be free in your creativity. So, yeah, be patient too. And these days, because of the internet, you don’t have to wait to be picked. You don’t need a publisher to publish a book.

You don’t need an art degree to be an artist. You don’t need to be like a photography background to take killer photographs if you have the eye for it. And I don’t want to disrespect industries because I think there’s some industries we’re putting the time in is absolutely necessary. Like the film industry or like the comedy industry, or even actors.

But it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t enter, even though it may be like, oh, people put like decades of their life into this to get to this place. But like, if you want to do that, find ways to do it.

SAM: Yeah. I think that’s a good point too, is that even if you’ve never done it before, or you feel like you’re too old or you’re past the point where you should be somewhere else, like now’s the time to do it.

And it’s possible, especially with book writing, you know?

GABBY: Exactly. I mean, everybody can write a book, but create to create. Don’t create with some expectation on yourself. Cause that will start to be a block as well.

SAM: How do you release that block? I feel like I need to write a book because I want to be an author and I want people to know who I am.

GABBY: This would be the moment to take a beat. Read Happy Days. I’m serious. Go read Happy Days. Undo the belief systems that you need something outside of yourself to feel complete. And write. All the while still. Write, but write for the joy of writing, don’t do any work thing because you think you want to be famous.

There’s a lot of that out there right now. A lot of people just want to be famous, you know, and there’s a bunch of bullshit, pretty cool shit.

SAMANTHA: Definitely, especially on TikTok.

GABBY: Seriously. A lot, a lot of people want to be who was, I was on one of those podcasts, which one was, it was the young, it was young women.

Was it scrubbing it? And I was on their show. Talking to me, they were on like some trip with these girls. And there were young women like yourself, Samantha, and they were TikTok influencers. And they were all at dinner with her. And they were just talking about like how miserable they were, because they were comparing themselves to other people.

And this young woman was, was mentoring them. And it was this grind of trying to get there. And I think that’s happening with most, all ages. You know, people are comparing themselves on social media and comparison is one of the biggest blocks to creativity because if Olly were comparing himself to somebody else, he wouldn’t have just made that amazing piece of art that I’m going to frame.

It’s true. The three-year-olds don’t compare. Yeah. I mean, once in a while, there’s a little bit, but for the most part, they’re just free to just do. Tap into your three-year-old self.

SAM: How do you set boundaries? You know, say you are on TikTok a lot, and you want to create an amazing TikTok channel.
Then you find yourself comparing yourself to everybody on there and it’s making you feel that misery or you’re feeling bad about yourself? What do you do? How do you get out of that cycle?

GABBY: Hmm. Read Happy Days. I’m literally serious because the parts of us, I talk about this in the Happy Days and throughout this podcast, with all these different parts of who we are, but the parts of us that need to be seen are parts that are responding from not feeling seen as children.

And so we are trying to protect ourselves from the feeling of not being seen by trying our best to be seen. And that’s a very vicious cycle. The more you’re like, see me, see me, see me, the less people want to see you. You can feel that tag me tag me energy coming. And so you don’t judge yourself if that’s where you’re at, but step back, almost step away from it.

Go do Happy Days, go do the practices in the book. Start to get closer to the child parts of yourself that are so desperate to be seen, because anything you create from that neediness is just not going to last. And frankly, it’s not in alignment with your super attractor power.

SAMANTHA: Not authentic.

GABBY: That’s exactly right.

If you want more of this conversation, cause I’m going deep, we’re doing a big live event. There’s going to be two screenings. They’re not screenings two lives two lives. I’m going live twice, peeps at May 11th at 1:00 PM Eastern and 8:00 PM Eastern. So we get all the time zones in there. Just go to deargabby.com/secrets.

It’s also going to be in the show notes and that’s where I’m going to reveal my secrets to becoming a bestseller. And this is something you just don’t want to miss. And even if you’re like, I don’t think I want to write a book, but I want to know more about my creative process. Like just go freakin’ join that link.

Deargabby.com/secrets, because it’s going to help you with whatever creative endeavor you have right now. And even if you’re like, I’m never going to write a book, just chill because you might. You might, both of you will write books. I mean, anyone can write a book.
SAM: And you never know what life is going to give you.

GABBY: You just don’t know. And I think that, well, you know, we’ll close with the example of being in your joy and doing what you love and showing up with a great attitude will only help you excel. I’m looking at both of them when I say that. Because they’ve done that. You both have done that.

All of our team truly show up with such devotion and commitment to this brand and the mission and have fun and they take care of themselves and it’s just whatever it is that you want to do creatively, just make sure that it’s fun and it’s bringing you joy and you want to be able to all of our team, we wake up on Monday mornings and no one has Sunday scaries.

It’s amazing. It is amazing because we’re creative and that creative energy is self-energy. It’s that resource undamaged spiritual higher self within us is that creative force. So join us for the party, guys. Deargabby.com/secrets. And thank you to the Samanthas for joining us today.

SAM: Thank you for having us.

GABBY: Leave us a review. Let us know if you like the Samanthas ‘cause it might have to be a thing.

SAM: Tell us what you think. And also in the reviews, ask your Dear Gabby question. We are going to do an episode soon that Gabby will answer all your questions.

SAMANTHA: Don’t forget to follow us on YouTube.

GABBY: Oh yeah. My handle on Tik TOK is Gabby Bernstein official at Gabby Bernstein, Instagram, and most importantly, subscribe to this podcast because this podcast comes out every Monday. We have so much valuable information to share with you. We are having so much fun, creating this. This is such a, there’s so much work to put into a podcast, but it doesn’t feel like work because we are creating out of joy.

Bye, everybody. Thanks for joining us.

If you made it to the end of this episode, that means you’re truly committed to miracles. I’m really proud of you. If you want to get more Gabby tune in every Monday for a new episode. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of the guidance or special bonus episodes. Your experience at this show means a lot to me.

So I really want to welcome you to leave an honest review and you can follow me on social media @GabbyBernstein. And if you want to get in on the action, sign up for a chance to be Dear Gabby’d live deargabby.com. See you next week.

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