A: I started writing a newsletter called Career Boost News about 6 years ago.  I wanted to offer more value to my clients and my network.  I started writing the material for the book about 3 years ago as I had something unique and valuable to share about the topic of work-life balance.  I was inspired by many of my clients’ challenges around their personal and professional priorities, and I wanted to offer them solutions.

Q: How long did the book take you from start to finish?

A: I developed the content of the book over a two-year period as I was offering teleclasses and live workshops.  To actually take that material and expand it into a book took about a year.

Q: Where do you write?

A: I wrote in my house – either at my office desk, or on my dining room table when I was ‘old-fashioned’ and writing with pen and paper.

Q: What’s the best thing about being a published author?

A: Sharing my information with a wider audience and being able to offer solutions to more people.

Q: Who are some of your favorite authors?

A: In the self-help genre: Martin Seligman, Marcus Buckingham, Marshall Goldsmith, CJ Hayden.  For my fiction interests: Ann Patchett, Ian McEwan, John Irving.

Q: Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?

A: I do hear from readers and other interested in work-life balance mostly through my 7 Keys Facebook page.  One common theme is that there is no easy fix for work-life balance challenges, and that small changes in your life and your perspective can have a significant impact.

Q: What are your current projects?

A: I am speaking, presenting workshops, running teleclasses and providing group coaching around my book’s content and work-life balance solutions.

Q: What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

A: Professionally, I coach individuals to achieve greater career and work-life balance satisfaction.  Personally, I play the piano, do yoga, just started tennis lessons, read and spend time with my son, husband and our beagle, Wolfie.

Q: How did you come up with your title?

A: The first part of the title, Your Work, Your Life … Your Way, just came to me.  I believe I was in the shower, thinking about what the book was about and it just popped into my head and felt like it fit.  The sub-title, 7 Keys to Work-Life Balance, evolved over time.  The initial teleclass I presented before I wrote the book was called Overcoming the 7 Barriers to Work-Life Balance.  With input from my editor, we decided to change the focus of the book, and therefore the title, to something more solution oriented and positive – thus 7 Barriers became 7 Keys.

Q: Is there a message in your book that you want readers to grasp?

A: That work-life balance is unique to each one of us.  We need to get clear on what matters most to us – our values, priorities and goals – and then make choices to support that.  I also want to re-frame the concept of work-life balance to be viewed as a journey that we’re on as opposed to looking at it as a destination we must reach.

Q: What’s the hardest part of writing a book?

A: For me it was getting to a place where I was ready to say ‘it’s done!’  There was always more I thought I could add – provide another exercise, share another case study, etc.  Getting to ‘finished’ was really tough.

Q: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

A: No!  Right now I feel pretty good about it.

What’s on your nightstand now?

Um, handcuffs and feathers. Ok Just kidding, feathers make me sneeze. Oh, ok what is really there is books, yes, these (I read voraciously):

50 Success Classics

Winning with People

If Nobody Loves You, Create the Demand

Men’s Health

Batman: Greatest Stories

What was your favorite book when you were a child?

Easy, Richard Scary’s Great Big Word Book followed by any encyclopedia set

Who are your top 3 favorite authors?

Wow, this is tough.

Winston Churchill (author of some of the greatest speeches of all time)

Randy Gage

Bob Kane

Honorable Mention:

Stan Lee

Wallace D. Wattles

Chuck Palahniuk

Did you ever buy a book just because of the cover and if so, which one?

Anything shiny. I love shiny. Ok, yes, The Millionaire in the Mirror. Wait, that was super shiny.

Was there a book that changed your life? If so which one and how did it affect you?

As a kid, the encyclopedia set changed my life. As I gathered knowledge, the world became simple. As I learned more and more, life just seemed to be easy. Knowledge is so under-rated.

As an adult I really liked The Greatness Guide by Robin Sharma, it was written exactly the way I like it. Short to the point and kick the facts.

Did you learn anything from writing your book?

I learned exactly what I wrote. That means that I sincerely took to heart what I was shown as I was writing the book. Your Human Spirit is absolutely amazing.

I also learned that typing a lot is not the best exercise.

What do you think makes a good writer?

A micropoint felt tip pin gives me the best handwriting. I like writers that tell the tale vividly and purposefully. I don’t like many descriptive terms as I probably already know what the writer is describing. I like them to get to the point. I also like fiction works that are farther out there than most. If is it fiction, I want it to be really fictional. If I read a fiction drama, and it could actually be real, well then somewhere someone lived it, they just did not write about it. So the tale would be even better if it came from the heart.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

I have realized that. I have always wanted to help people. Writing my thoughts is one of those ways to help spread my message.

Favorite quote from a book?

Oh wow, that is one tough question. I have a humongous book on quotes that people have said and everyone of them are awesome. I can’t particularly think of a specific one.

What’s the hardest part of writing a book?

I think the hardest part is conveying exactly what you want to say. You have to really construct the sentences differently. People reading do not get your facial features or your gestures, so you have to create the sentence with all of that in mind. You have to give the reader the experience like you are sitting right there next to them telling them what you wish them to know.

When and why did you begin writing?

I began writing songs when I was a small child. I loved music. Then I began writing fictional superhero stories as I loved comic books. I wrote these books out of a blog that touched the lives of many people. It really was amazing that my story caught on throughout the world when all I was doing was trying to keep outside family members informed.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I still don’t. I consider myself a storyteller that happens to have stories written down.

What inspired you to write your first book?

When I had a lady tell me that her entire office got together to read my daily blog and when I missed a day, she got really upset at me. When that happened, I knew I needed to continue and give as much as I could. That blog turned into Blessed with Tragedy, a bestseller.

Is there a message in your book that you want readers to grasp?

The main message is right there on the front cover.

You have everything you need to succeed inside you BEFORE you were born.

What books have most influenced your life most?

Encyclopedias and comic books. Knowledge and creativity at its finest!

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

I don’t think anyone writer influenced me at all. I liked short and sweet chapters as the majority of my reading is done in thousands of bunches a day and not in one long sitting.

Haha, now you can guess where some of my reading is done!

What are your current projects?

My current and greatest project is the Anytime Success Mentoring website at AnytimeSuccess.com and next years’ workshops and boot camps.

Positive Fathering – An initiative to get the Father to have a better life and do a better job than simply donating a chromosome

Make-a-Difference Mothering – This seminar helps the mother have a better life in all areas and be more attune to their children

Pull-Through-Parenting – The goals you had when you were married, all found and your goals for a better generation all realized

Reveal Your Success – The one for everyone. We inspire the spirit within and help you, as an individual be responsible for your own life and look to no one for your happiness and success.

Along with that, PreeMiracles.com, the World’s First and Largest Social Network for PreeMiracle Parents.

Do you see writing as a career?

No, I see the exchange of ideas and the teachings of the wisdom bestowed upon me my “career”.

If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

I did change everything. I wrote every chapter more than once, I deleted 35 chapters from the book. I was rewriting it again when I just said stop.

How long does it take you to write a book?

4 years, 3 months, 11 days, 7.5 hours, 16 minutes and 23 seconds.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I get energized about what I am writing that I write tons and tons that does not make sense. The tangents I go off on become other chapters or topics in a speech.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Read.

What does your family think of your writing?

It has given everyone in my family a little something to be proud of.

What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?

That I don’t know graphics design computer programs as much as some other people.

Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?

I hear from people that have read my book and/or heard me speak and it is an overwhelming amount of inspiration and love. I have been told that I have changed people’s lives and that is the most amazing thing I can be told.

As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?

A movie star. It is still possible!

Was there a book that changed your life? If so which one and how did it affect you?

Reading William Saroyan’s book, My Name Is Aram, about growing up as an Armenian immigrant in Northern California, made a great impression on me. I learned that life could be sad and happy at the same time and that the written word could really touch the heart. I felt a deep sense of joy and compassion for the quirky characters in Saroyan’s short stories. There was also this sense of magical wisdom that pervaded the nostalgic kingdom of childhood. I was, quite simply, filled with wonder!

Did you learn anything from writing your book?

I learned that writing is sort of like wrestling with one’s self. This wrestling match usually occurs in isolation until the day comes when you have to come out of your room and expose yourself. It can be a very humbling experience!

As for myself, I had to struggle with my lack of patience in the writing process itself. I also had to grapple with trusting my instincts and believing in my own capacity to bring some wonder into the world.

What inspired you to write your first book?

I was inspired by my topic: a public school that has saved lives, mine among them, for almost 40 years. I felt compelled to tell the story of this transformational experience so that others might benefit from demanding something different from their schools. I was also motivated by some of the prominent goals of the school:  to rediscover the joy of learning,  to seek meaning in your life and  to help create the world that ought to be.

What books have most influenced your life?

There are many, but I might start with Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Paulo Friere was not afraid to confront the truth about the educational system and its subservient role in keeping people down by protecting the status quo.

I’d also include Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness that revealed the depths of the human spirit and, of course, Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man which exposes the truth about the struggles for identity and freedom in a forbidding environment.

Of course, I could list 100 more.

As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?

All I know was that I had all of these quirky interests and no one seemed to take them seriously. I was like a lot kids growing up in the fifties and sixties. I felt isolated and anonymous. I needed someone to believe in me. As a result, I went off to college not having any real sense of direction.

As we know, one thing leads to another. I found my way to teaching from the back end of working in the schools as a bus driver and a custodian. I found that I liked being around kids so I went back to school to get my teacher’s license. Now, I could finally use those quirky interests as a teacher.

Here’s a nice irony: when I was working on my Ph.D. in education, I had to return to my alma mater and interview some professors. I hadn’t taken a single education class as an undergraduate, so here I was, asking where the education building was located!