Episode Description:
In this episode of "What If? For Authors," Claire Taylor tackles the crucial topic of support systems for authors. Drawing from her experience as an Enneagram coach and author, Claire explores how to navigate the challenges of building and recognizing support in your author career. Whether you're struggling to find support or unsure if you have enough, this episode provides a compassionate and realistic approach to understanding and leveraging the support you have.
Key Takeaways:
Types of Support: Learn about the different types of support—personal and professional—and how each can benefit your author career.
Recognizing Support: Discover strategies to identify and appreciate the support you already have.
Building Support Systems: Tips on how to cultivate a robust support network, even if you feel you have none.
Enneagram Insights: Insights into how different Enneagram types might resist asking for help and how to overcome these limiting beliefs.
Practical Advice: Strategies for indie authors to start with minimal financial resources and gradually build up their support and resources.
Links mentioned:
Why Listen? If you find yourself feeling isolated or unsupported in your author journey, this episode offers a thoughtful and empathetic perspective on building and recognizing support systems. This episode is a must-listen for any author seeking to balance independence with the invaluable benefits of a supportive community.
Join the Conversation: Have a question or fear you'd like me to explore? Reach out to me at contact@ffs.media.
Access the transcript for this episode here.
Happy Writing!
TRANSCRIPT:
Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If For Authors. I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer myself. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, on basically any online retailer.
You can just Google the title and there it'll be.
Before we get into today's topic, I would be remiss not to mention that enrollment is now open for the next session of the Liberated Writer five week course. If you like this podcast, but want some more individualized advice and time to learn, this course is the very best way to get that. So it includes an IEQ nine test code and 23 page report to find your Enneagram type and subtype along with a bunch of, you know, Fascinating other metrics, some of which I've mentioned on the show before each week, I host two 90 minute group calls for all of the participants of the course on Mondays, we have a topical call with a group [00:01:00] discussion and reflections.
And on Thursdays, we do a Q and a about the week's material and the reflection questions. So you'll graduate from the liberated writer course with a clear understanding of what an aligned and sustainable author career looks like for you. And you'll know other authors who are walking the same path.
So I can't emphasize enough how big of a perk that last bit is. If you're tired of working on your author career in isolation, meeting people who are committed to this thing for the long run in the same way that you are is key to persisting success. And making everything just a little bit easier along the way.
So the course runs from August 26th to September 26th of this year, 2024. Uh, and registration closes August 19th. So if you want to sign up and join us, you can go to. Liberated writer.com, you'll see the option to read about the course or the retreat.
So if you would also like to join me for the retreat in October, there are tickets left for that, and you'll get a Liberated [00:02:00] Writer course ticket for August included in that purchase. So think about what your needs are right now, and then go to liberated writer.com to read more about each of those offerings.
I would love to see you at the kickoff call on August 26th. Let's dive into today's episode that asks the question, What if I have no support? That's our topic today. And now this is an important question because we all need and deserve support to be able to keep doing what we feel like we were put on this earth to do, uh, or even just to do things that we weren't put on this earth to do, but need to be done, like, you know, paying bills on time, picking the kids up from school, all that stuff.
There's a cultural aspect to this discussion that's important for us to note, which is that most Western cultures put a lot of value. Uh, in the individual's ability to do things on their own, I'm all about personal responsibility, but this sort of nebulous cultural value can often look like [00:03:00] people feeling inferior if they ask for help or if they desire support.
Support then starts to look like a luxury or even like a cop out more than a necessary part of being a human. We are after all social creatures were made to live in groups. It also makes certain people ashamed to admit where they have support as if that would diminish their individual achievement.
Individual achievement is definitely put on a pedestal in our culture. Is that right? Is that wrong? I don't know, but I think it's important to remember that this is not how everyone does things. all over the world. The reason it's important to remember that the way you do things is not how everyone does things, is to remind ourselves that we have options and that by and large, these cultural values that we've absorbed by osmosis are pretty arbitrary.
If they don't work for you, [00:04:00] you're not required to keep giving them safe harbor.
That being said, I really should acknowledge that some people don't have access to the kind of support that others have. A lot of financial support is going to be based on the household you were born into. I think if, if we could control what household we were born into, a lot of us would have made different decisions, but we can't control it.
So what I mean is that if you grew up in an affluent household, you're more likely to have a bunch of friends who are affluent. That means that your social circle has a whole lot more financial resources at its disposal. And so at least in terms of finances, you're going to be more supported, presumably, than someone who grows up in a working class neighborhood and whose friends are by and large working class people.
Now I say presumably because you could be affluent with a bunch of affluent friends and they could be stingy assholes, right? So this doesn't always shake out that way. And there's the added setback of if all of your friends are affluent, you need financial support. [00:05:00] There's going to be some shame associated with asking for it.
Now, I don't know that working class people would have a whole lot of sympathy and compassion for the affluent person who is simply too proud to ask for help, but it is what it is. There are other kinds of support though, and these other kinds of support tend to be really undervalued, but absolutely crucial to your continued pursuit of an author career.
This is support like mental and emotional support and generally just people cheering you on. That is really important. So this kind of support can go a long way toward making up for any sort of lack of financial support that you may have.
The great thing about being an indie author is that you can do a lot of it yourself now.
If you're doing a lot of it yourself, that is a disadvantage, but mostly it's a disadvantage if you're comparing yourself to the speed of other people, which I don't recommend doing. But you can make your own book covers to start. You can write your own blurbs. You can trade [00:06:00] off with someone who does editing for a service that they may need. The market is certainly more competitive now than it was back in 2015 and 2016. But learning those skills, even for free from YouTube videos, that's going to be a huge advantage.
That's how I started publishing for real cheap. And that's how many of the authors I know who started around the same time as me, got their career off the ground for cheap. If you're an indie author, you can always update your cover later when you have a better one to use. Or, , you know, you can make money off of your book with your DIY cover and then pay a cover designer with that and sort of work your way up.
Does it take longer? Yes. Is it a little bit more effort? Yes. And this is why it's really important to have people cheering you on.
So it is possible, but yeah, it's going to take a lot more work and it's super unfair that I'm asking the individual to take on the work because of certain systemic injustices. I get that. What I will say is that doing all of this yourself [00:07:00] can be really fun. Learning skills is a great way to support yourself. And it helps remind us that if everything goes to shit, we can still keep doing this all on our own. You can do this for zero dollars. It's hard, but you can keep doing it. So if you genuinely have no support, there's still a lot you can do on your own.
Okay, but that's not ideal, right? And most of us have support, whether we see it or not. So that's what I want to talk about. You have support, you may just not be seeing the support you have. And so bringing some attention to that can go a long way. So this may look like friends who cheer you on. This may look like a spouse who agrees to give you some time to write and work fewer hours at your nine to five, or maybe they encourage you to quit your job completely and write full time.
Not everyone has a spouse as supportive as that though. I've heard an unfortunate amount of stories from authors whose spouses not only don't support them in any [00:08:00] noticeable way, but try and undermine their dreams of writing books. Yes, really. I wish it was more of an anomaly than it is. If this describes your situation, then you're really going to want to listen to this episode all the way through.
You're going to need extra support from people who are not your spouse.
The kind of support that every author can benefit from having includes emotional support, like having friends outside of writing, as well as having fellow author friends. Teachers and mentors who are farther ahead than you can save you some time by helping you avoid making the the mistakes they've already made. And this can include the people who post on YouTube and other free content, as well as paid courses and coaching. I also encourage you to find a group of peers to meet with regularly.
These can be people in your same genre or people who are at the same basic stage in their career as you are. Bringing together a group of people with a variety of skills and life experience can be [00:09:00] hugely beneficial too. We want to find that mix of sameness, as well as various individual unique contributions.
So you can meet with these people weekly or monthly, and the benefit will still be huge, regardless of how long in between the meetings, especially if you have an ongoing conversation on something like Discord or Slack, and you can ask your questions when they come up. Now, the probability of a group like this becoming toxic over time is relatively high.
But you can do a lot toward guiding the conversation to healthier bonding topics than, you know, who you collectively dislike. That being said, being an author doesn't mean you have to live in a world of professionalism and don't even get me started on the concept of professionalism and who got a say in what it meant and who didn't.
But you can make these people both your support for your career plans and close friends. It's okay to blur those lines a little bit as long as, you know, maybe you don't want these to be your only friends because if shit goes south in the [00:10:00] writing industry, it can be really nice to have people who don't care about your career to go hang out with.
So that being said, you can make them your close friends if you trust them. Maybe don't disclose to authors you don't trust yet. And I say that as someone who has been burned.
There does lurk within this industry strains of envy that come out at interesting times. So just keep an eye on it, listen to your gut and accept that sometimes you will make the wrong choice. That's okay. Still keep making friends. When it comes to finding someone to coach you, it's okay if you just don't vibe with someone.
Don't work with them if you don't vibe with them. I have plenty of authors who don't vibe with me and therefore don't consume any of my stuff. I mean, I respect that. I don't vibe with me sometimes either, but there's also a lot of free advice out there and some of it is garbage. You've probably figured that out already.
Some of it is old and no longer relevant because industry [00:11:00] has changed so much and so on. I tend to prefer finding coaches and experts who aren't going to pretend that there's one path that works or even three paths that work in publishing, but rather those who are able to differentiate and individualize for the person they're working with.
No one can know for sure what the outcome of a particular decision will be, but people will try and sell you on the fact that they know exactly what will happen if you do X, Y, and Z. So look for the people who help you understand the situation better. and help you figure out how you like to decide things.
This is generally why I continue to do Enneagram coaching. And I mostly direct people toward Becca Syme and her strengths coaching, if the matter at hand isn't one that Enneagram really addresses. Cause both Enneagram and strengths show us more about how we work, how our brain works, how our heart works, you know, our emotions, how our intuition works.
And these both help us make better decisions for [00:12:00] ourselves. The more we know about ourselves, the goal with my coaching, at least is that one day authors won't continue to need it because they'll understand themselves well enough to make whatever decision makes sense for them at the time, and then feel comfortable handling whatever the outcome is.
Cause we cannot predict the outcome. Well, we can guess at it, but. we can never guess at it with a hundred percent certainty. So the outcome is always an unknown. If your coach is giving you a set process that doesn't feel very individualized, they probably haven't done a lot of the work unpacking their own biases and starting to see the lens that they're looking through.
So maybe their process happens to work for you, and that's great. But if it doesn't, that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you. So when I say that you probably already have support and may not be recognizing it, what I mean is that there are people out there who will support you, but you may not have been fostering these [00:13:00] connections enough for them to show up when you need them.
So it might be time to start thinking more about that. Giving help and assistance to others for the sake of receiving it isn't a super healthy pattern, so that's not what I'm talking about. . But there are other benefits to showing up for others besides simply safeguarding your future and hoping that they'll show up for you if a shit storm blows in.
For one, showing up and providing support for others helps to remind us that we have more than enough. It gets us out of the zero sum game mindset, uh, where we can sometimes believe that other authors are our competitors, which in, I guess, a very broad sense, I think there's an argument to be made for that.
But we don't come into direct competition with any particular author. So we can realistically pretend none of them are our competition and not only be happier, but also come into no ill effects from that thinking. If anything, this industry could use a whole lot more solidarity among authors to collectively take on some of [00:14:00] these larger systems and models that are making it more and more difficult to be an author.
Anyway, when you show up for someone else, it signals to your own mind that you have something to give. You have something to offer that you're not all used up, that you don't only have what you need and nothing more. And it shows you that certain things like love and compassion and connection are renewable resources.
Now, the only caveat I would put on this is for Enneagram ones, twos, and sixes. Who are known as the compliant types, which means that you're trying to earn what you want through service, duty, and responsibility to other people. So that impulse to give with the hope of receiving. is going to be extra strong in ones, twos, and sixes.
Now, this isn't bad. It's just something to be mindful of because what can happen is that you can give more than you have the energy to give and commit to more than you have the resources to commit to. And then there's this hope that others will reciprocate so that you don't run [00:15:00] dry. If you're dealing with others who are not compliant types, which is most people, that hope is going to fall flat.
And then in comes the bitterness, the resentment, the anger, the mistrust, and all those insidious emotions that are very unflattering and that erode connection with others. So that will start eroding your support if you don't stay mindful of that sort of impulse of being compliant. If you're an Enneagram type 4, You're known as the withdrawing types.
, so something you might be doing that erodes your support over time from others is absorbing the support and not reciprocating. And I'm not just talking about reciprocation to the ones twos and sixes who really want it. I'm talking about everyone. you have to put a reminder on your calendar to reach out to the people who are supportive to you. and ask what they need, then do that. Do that. Uh, you will erode the support that you have available to you. If you don't [00:16:00] consciously balance this withdrawing impulse.
Others may not even know if you like them or not, frankly, if you're a four or five or nine. So it wouldn't be the worst thing to tell people explicitly that you like them. You probably do like them. And if you do let them know, cause you may not be giving off those signals. And those signals are really important to create the kind of connection that lasts and that makes people show up for you.
Now, if you're a 3, 7 or 8, you're what's considered an assertive type. So if you find yourself lacking support, it's probably because you are frankly terrible at giving off any hint that you even need support. Seriously, 3s, 7s and 8s take on a pattern of simply going for whatever it is that they want rather than waiting around to, you know, for the thing to kind of mosey their way.
And so, if you're a 3, 7 or 8 You look like a real go getter and your lack of trust that what you need will come to you without concerted effort on your part, [00:17:00] it shows through to others. They may fall into a pattern of assuming that if you need help, you'll just ask for it. But that lack of trust that the help will even show up when you need it, , even if you ask for it.
is probably going to dissuade you from asking in the first place. So you can see the miscommunication that happens here. And then it can reaffirm your belief that no one will show up to help when you in fact had people showing up and they, you were probably turning down their offers of assistance. So the help is showing up, but you aren't showing interest.
And then that confirms your existing belief and so on. So the assertive, compliant, withdrawn types are known as the Hornavian groupings, by the way, if you want to look up those. I find them really fascinating in how they show up in our business, especially our marketing. Do we go out and find the readers we need?
Do we take the approach of service for our readers? Or do we hope that the readers will come find us? Really interesting to think about. I'll probably do an episode [00:18:00] on that later.
Okay, so there are two types of support that we can look for, and that's personal and professional. Personal support is free. So it's your friends, your spouse, your siblings, if they're chill, your neighbors, your online friends, teammates, and so on. You can think of it as like anyone who would just drive you to the airport for free if, you know, they live within your area.
If you struggle financially, this is the type of support that you can look to to get you pretty far in your daily life and your career. Okay. It can go a long way towards our general well being and the more well being we feel, the more energy we have to put towards our career and the more open we feel to new options.
So that's all great. And then there's professional support. And that includes coaches, editors, doctors, a virtual assistant, any sort of teachers, and these are people that we pay. The reason we pay these people is because they know more about what we want to learn. Or what we need than our friends and family and or neighbors generally [00:19:00] do.
So we're paying for expertise. But for some of us there's an emotional component to this. It can be nice to say pay a therapist so that when you talk for an hour straight, you don't feel like you're burdening them. You've paid them. Fair exchange. If you're someone who has internalized that pattern that your thoughts and feelings don't matter, this can be really important.
You might find that your personal support, your friends, family, etc., that that sort of turns into you listening to other people all the time, but you just can't seem to break through to talk in depth about your own life in the way that you may want to. So professional support is great for that. Now, here's the thing.
When I poll authors about which one, professional or personal, they feel more comfortable building, it's usually split down the middle. And that's fine. I think it's important simply to recognize which type of support you feel more comfortable going after and getting for yourself. The problem is if you don't feel comfortable building personal [00:20:00] support, but you don't have the finances for professional support, then you're kind of in a bit of a pickle, right?
That's where I would say you might want to do some inner work to make it easier for you to connect, , to personal sources of support. And the Enneagram is a great guide for this. You can go pick up a book like the Enneagram Guide to Waking Up. And that's a great place to start. That's by Beatrice Chesna and Uranio Pais.
so yeah, you might want to do some of that work to, uh, sort of loosen up some of the blocks you have to creating personal sources of support. Or okay, if you can, focus on a single type of professional support that will then help you feel more comfortable building personal support, a therapist, something like that.
And then finally, the last skill we could all use is learning to ask for help. And this is difficult for almost everybody, some types more than others. So let's round out this episode by spelling out at least one limiting belief of each type [00:21:00] that keeps them from asking for the help and support they both need and deserve.
So listen for your type and see if this resonates with you. Here are the limiting beliefs. If you're a one, the belief might be I should be able to do this on my own. False. If you're a type two, the limiting belief may be, I don't need help. They need help. Also false. All of these are false. So I won't keep saying it at the end, but all of these are false beliefs that may be keeping us from getting the support and building the support that we want and need.
Type three. Here's the belief. Needing support is a sign of failure. Type four asking for support opens me up to rejection. Fives. If they support me, I'll have to support them. And [00:22:00] implied here is that they will never stop asking me for my time and resources.
Type six. I can't trust others to support me. Type 7. Having support will tie me down. Type 8. Needing support means giving up power. Type 9. I don't want to be a bother to anyone else. So each of these limiting beliefs around help, and false beliefs around help are a result of our ego's desire to be completely self sufficient.
And it really shows that cultural value of rugged individualism shining through. You don't have to do it on your own, y'all. More than that, you're probably not doing it on your own as it is. Instead, you, you're likely not recognizing the support you've had along the way to get to where you are. Be that friends who hype you up, free learning resources, or [00:23:00] any of the things I've mentioned so far in this episode, why it's important to recognize this isn't just a humble ourselves, which is, you know, , a great tool from time to time, but also to bring our attention to the fact that we have more support than we may recognize.
The best thing we can do to keep that support and develop it more is to feel and show gratitude for it in whatever ways we can. What you don't value tends to disappear from your life.
So to answer the question of what if I don't have support? I'll say that you probably do have more support than you're recognizing, at least available to be developed, but we can always benefit from more. So maybe today's the day when you start asking yourself where you can use gratitude and the belief that you have something to share with others to cultivate a rich life of interconnectivity.
There's no better way to start taking the kinds of manageable risks that pay off big time for authors [00:24:00] than to remember that you will be okay. And still have people to support you in various ways. If the outcome doesn't turn out to be what you wanted it to be. Having support, but more importantly, recognizing the support we have lowers the stakes on every decision and allows us to go after what we want from our career with less fear of what will happen when the unexpected happens.
So that's it for this episode. And don't forget about one source of support. You have this podcast. Seriously, this counts as support. Add it to the list. And I have a lot of other ways I can support you in your author career at ffs. media, or you can email me at contact at ffs. media. And I can help you sort through what support would be best for you right now.
Thanks for supporting the show by listening to this episode. I hope you'll join me next time on What If for Authors.