Publishing is the dissemination
of literature, music, or information—
the activity of making information available
to the general public.
A little more about the publisher letter, and a little bit about the layout process of the magazine, and the “layout process” of your life. I published my first letter in October 2012. This was months after I had been laid off from my job of thirteen years as a manager for a pharmaceutical company and just four weeks after I took my savings and purchased a declining health magazine and began a new career as a business owner and publisher. This career change was certainly not something advised by my accountant, my parents, or my friends, who lovingly offered these cautionary words: “The financials don’t look good”; “What do you know about publishing a magazine?”; and “The timing really isn’t right.” They weren’t entirely wrong. To compound the risk, this transition was also around the time my husband was recovering from bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma), which had meant months of chemo plus radiation, followed by a liver transplant, and then many years of multiple surgeries to correct initial surgical errors. It was also just six years after my son had recovered from Landau-Kleffner syndrome, a rare epileptic disorder. To say the years prior to my involuntary career change (a polite way of saying I was canned) had been busy would be an understatement. To say those years reshaped my entire view on life, well that would be dead on!
The very first letter I wrote that bright September day was one that talked about risk-taking. I could speak about this from experience. I was walking away from a career that I’d started in my early twenties, one that I had been good at and had quickly become tied to my identity. I climbed that corporate ladder with a promotion every three years and was on a fast track to becoming an executive. Yet once I was let go, I made the decision that I could live without the big salary, without the company car (that kinda hurt), without the sales trips, and even without the accolades and promotions that pharmaceutical companies are famous for handing out. What I could not live without—or so I thought—was being busy. I don’t think I’d even considered slowing down because I couldn’t. I couldn’t “breathe and be present” because I was working on my laptop while drinking old coffee in hospital waiting rooms. If I wasn’t there, I was making quick calls home from airports to see how everyone was doing. I didn’t know it yet, but when I was “downsized”—even after all the years of blood, sweat, and sacrifice—the jackass who lowered the boom was really providing me a “get out of jail free” pass.
Back to writing. I had written as a form of private therapy since I was a child. After reading an essay I had written, my fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Schnide commented, “You will be a great poet! Or inspire one.” (Everyone should be lucky enough to have a Mrs. Schnide in their life). At Holy Trinity High School, Mr. McCloud asked, “Have you considered journalism for a career?” after grading one of my more sarcastic writing pieces. The truth is, no I had not. Writing was my secret weapon; it was simply for me, to be shared only when I needed an A! So I was a little tickled but somewhat nervous to write that very first Letter from the Publisher. I was writing what was akin to an inspiration piece—and it was fun.
After what I’d been through, I found these letters were a form of self-therapy. While I was writing for my readers, in all honesty, my real audience was . . . me. I was talking to myself, going through the life stresses I had experienced over the last few years, and basically reminding myself that, while it wasn’t the life path I had expected, I was surviving. I expanded my writing, with observations on my own experiences and observations on humanity.
When I wrote, I didn’t imagine that anyone—except for maybe my mom—was reading the letters (which is silly, the magazine had a readership of 55,000 people). Still, I was genuinely surprised when, within two days of the first issue of the magazine hitting the stands, my phone rang with a call from a woman who loved my letter—and it wasn’t my mom! I should mention here that while I wrote this first letter in September 2012, the first issue didn’t hit the streets until that October, and this call came in on October 26. I was actually in tears when I answered the phone. I had just taken this huge financial risk by sinking an enormous amount of money into starting a new career and building a nice office in my basement. I was ready to take on the world, but Mother Nature had other plans. This was when Hurricane Sandy—at the time the second costliest storm in United States history—decided to barrel through Long Beach, New York, leaving a third of my home, all of my office, and a large portion of my town flooded in four feet of sewage, sand, and seawater.
The woman on the other end of the phone began, “Hi, I am really sorry to call you, I didn’t think the phone call would go through but I am sitting here on a two-hour long gas line and I remembered I had your magazine in my car.1 So I was sitting in my car on line and I realized I had picked up your magazine so that I had something to read while I waited and I opened it to your letter,” her voice broke a little and I could her start to sniffle. “I guess I just want to say thanks, I loved it! It spoke to me, and you know, just thank you, you are right.” She hung up quickly, and I never had a chance to ask her what I was right about.
It turned out it didn’t matter what I was “right” about because what connected with her was not what connected with others. That phone call indicated two things to me: first, my written form of “self-therapy” was being read by more people than just my parents, and second, you should definitely pick up the free magazines in your yoga studios and grocery stores because you never know when you may get stuck in a two-hour gas line and need something to read!
There were times when I was overwhelmed by writing the letter. A month would fly by and I would think, Really? You need another letter already? I would panic, become agitated, and literally decide that I would rather sell this magazine then try and think of a topic to write about. I gave myself a trick. As a reader and a writer I am in love with the English language, so I made it simple: I would look to find inspiration or contemplation on what was happening in my life and I would not require myself to write a whole letter; I would simply choose a word—hope, love, inspiration, selfless—and then I would write from there.
I continued to write these letters each month, inspired by a quote, a news event, an event in my own life, a song, a memory, a word, whatever. The letters covered a range of topics including wellness, conscious eating, fitness, environment, love, self-discovery. I even wrote a letter about dog crap (come on people, pick it up!). I also continued to receive calls and emails each month. Not everyone loved the letters (check out the call I got in July). But most of the calls and emails were positive: “Great letter,” “Thank you,” “You really reached me.” I began to see that while we are all adults and we all inherently know what should be valued, more often than not, we forget. Too often we become busy and the reminders of who we want to be and how we want to love become Post-it notes that are stuck up on our vision boards, or Pinterest boards, or shared on Facebook only to be forgotten minutes later.
The hope for this book is that you read it (obviously), though not all at once in the same manner I have been known to gorge myself on leftover birthday cake. No, because while no one loves a binge (cake, book, or Netflix series) more than me, binging won’t work with this book. Instead A Year of Inspired Living should be read slowly, one letter a week, and savored more like a fine wine. I have left a blank page after each month for you to experiment. Ideally, you won’t just read this book, you will write it! There is ample room for you to write notes and reflections after each week. After you complete reading those three topic weeks, the fourth week, well, that is up to you. Write your publisher letter! Want to be really spunky? Take a real risk and put your letter up on www.ayearofinspiredliving.com and share it with everyone (nothing vulgar, folks).
One caveat: there is a fine line between self-help and bullsh*t. I do my best to keep the BS at a minimum. I tell you only what I tell myself. If you find you are reading what you think might be BS, stop judging and remember, these letters are from me to me and shared with you. It is my publisher letter to myself. They are precisely what I deemed necessary for me. There may be other times when you read a letter and it completely resonates (score!), and times when you may disagree wholeheartedly. That’s okay, too, that is what your pages are for. Write your letter!
A Year of Inspired Living 2 is filled with teachings. You’ve probably heard the saying, “Those who can’t, teach.” I don’t always agree with that, but in this case there is some truth. I in no way want my readers to think these letters come from a higher place. I don’t know more than you and I haven’t spent five years on an ashram focused on self-discovery. Although I search, I haven’t spoken to God; I am quite simply an everyman, focused on self-improvement . . . my self. My letters are my therapy, my reminder that I need to quiet my “internal crazy” and force myself to live an inspired life. The overwhelming response that I have received to these letters indicate to me that ya’ll got some crazy you want to quiet as well! I hope this book helps you on this journey and that with the guidance placed in here you live your most inspired year ever!
1. Days after the storm devastated Long Island, gas was almost nonexistent. People needed gas not only for their cars but also to run generators since the power was out in all of our towns for days, or even weeks in some areas. When gas stations did get fuel, the lines would stretch for miles.
2. Perhaps you have learned about this book in August, not in January where the book starts. NO PROBLEM! Simply start in the month you picked it up and go from there. The first chapter does not dictate the beginning, it is dictated by YOUR first engagement.