#182: Notes from a Book Launch.
Lessons learned in the last three months.
I stood with my back to the lectern as the modest crowd disbursed, deep in conversation with my friend Kevin.
“It’s way harder to do these book talks than it ever was to speak to the masses in our corporate days,” I said to him, perplexed.
Kevin has seen me do both. He was the Chief Legal Officer to my Chief Operating Officer at our $4B defense contractor. I’ve closed deals with this guy at 2am, bounced around the dust of Kuwait with him in the back of a passenger van, and, more recently, clinked glasses with him over my signed book deal. And one month ago, he was responsible for ginning up half my audience at Octavia Books in New Orleans, the last stop on my tour. No mean feat when the talk is about loss.
Head cocked, he mused, “You’re not in a ballroom with a sea of faces. You’re looking everyone in the eye. And you’re not talking about revenue growth or margin expansion. You’re talking about loss.”
He paused. “I also noticed everyone wants to tell you their story afterward. Is that part hard?”
“Actually, no. That’s the best part. What a surprise.”
Like a coach watching last Sunday’s game tape, I’ve been reviewing the playback of the last three months: zig-zagging around Europe and the US, talking about coping dirty, ordinary magic, Bruce Springsteen, and a different kind of great. I’ve been cataloging the pleasant surprises and the sneak attacks. The plays I want to run again. The ones I want to retire.
Here’s what the tape revealed:
The nerves were a good sign. Speaking is one of my favorite things, and I’ve done it for decades with ease. The endless practice that corporate gave me was something I thought would port right over to these intimate settings. Nope. Because Kevin was right — this is very different than discussing revenue growth or margin expansion. It’s personal. And maybe nerves are the cost of doing something that hits so close to home. I’ll pay that toll every time.
And as soon as each presentation began, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. All that gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands faded, and I was telling my story to a room of people who care.
The brilliance was already in the room. I kept thinking it was exclusively my job to show up and deliver. The tape tells a different story. In Colorado, Wayne thought out loud about the moments he’d consoled best and handed the whole room new tools. In Portland, Ellie turned to a struggling stranger and said, “have you tried wailing?” — one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard in my life, and it didn’t come from me. In New Orleans, Carolyn shared books and wisdom like she’d been waiting years for exactly this room. If all I was doing was hosting a Loss Cafe where we cross-pollinate our tips and resources, that would be more than enough.
My friends were in the stands. I’ve had a decade-long struggle trying to put the nail in the coffin of my Lone Ranger tendencies. And you know, I think I might have done it — during the book tour, I saw my friend’s faces at every turn. Luanne and her daughter Natalie at the Bookworm in Edwards. My Amsterdam crew, out in full force. Kevin jumping in with the first question so the Q&A didn’t start with crickets. Reviewing the footage, I see evidence everywhere that I did not do this alone. Thank God, I’m finally getting it!
I was built for the stories. I knew the territory — talking about loss means you’re going to hear about loss. Yet I didn’t know how I would handle what might come my way. I needn’t have worried. For five minutes on a folding chair after every event, I listened, I nodded along, I hugged. It turns out being truly heard when life gets hard is rarer than it should be. And for whatever reason, I seem to be wired for the receiving end of it.
The book went places without me. This is the part of the tape I keep rewinding. My dad finding it on a Chicago bookstore shelf. Rebecca’s dad reading her copy from his chair. Lesley-Anne holding it up against the South African mountains near her home. I wrote this book and then let it go… and it went. There’s something casually staggering about that. Like a dandelion seed floating to who-knows-where, landing, germinating, growing.
I did my part, and I’ll continue to do my part. I’ll keep endlessly talking about it, speaking about it, pressing copies of it into peoples’ hands. But there’s something else I’ve learned, something a tad woo-woo: the book is on a path of its own. Reaching who its meant to reach, when it’s meant to reach them, in a way my playback tape will never reveal. And so, all the writing and revising and promoting and traveling and fretting led to this: a companion for life’s journeys through loss, meeting people when they need it.
And nowadays, that’s what I call success.
In gratitude and celebration and exhaustion,
P.S. I’ve made another video for the Loss Canon: The Books that Got Me Through. If you’re into books and/or videos, you can watch it right here: