5 questions to ask when youre NOT feeling qualified or an expert and wondering if what what you have to share is important.

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Have you ever felt that you're not qualified or not an expert in your field to be writing and publishing a book? Have you ever wondered if what you have to share is important? Hi, my name is Shelly Hitz. I'm the creator of authoraudienceacademy.com an author coach on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. But I know that sometimes if you don't overcome some of these mindset issues, you may never finish your book. You may never cross the finish line of your book. And so that's why I want to share this with you today. I'm so excited to actually walk you through these steps and not just talk about them. We're going to be working, so get your pen and paper out and. And let's do this. All right, so this is all about digging in to five questions to ask when you don't feel that you're good enough, you don't feel qualified or an expert in your field or that what you have to share is important. So today is going to be a like action session. This is like going to be like a coaching session with me. So, so I want you to do the work. I want you to actually get out your note taking device or your notebook and we're going to go through these questions. I'm going to give you about a minute to get these done on the video and I want you to actually think through these things. I recently was working one on one with one of my author audience academy members and she had some of these issues of just wondering if she was good enough. And so I walked her through the steps and I thought, you know, I really think that this would be helpful for all of you, for all of you to really hear and listen. And if you are an author audience academy member and would love to have a 30 minute session to pick my brain, just email me and we can talk about how that works. So let's dive in. So the first question, I'm not really going to do a full one minute on this because this should come pretty easily. I just want you to write what is your topic? Like what is the topic you write about? And I'm gonna show you real quick my screen so you can see. This is the mind map. I do mind mapping typically when I work with clients and what I find and I've done it on paper like I'VE done coaching sessions in person, and I'll just write it out on paper. But it helps me because I'm a visual learner, but it helps me to really see, like, okay, what is it that I'm gonna talk about? And these were, like, the different questions that she wanted me to help her with in that 30 session. Angela is one of my Author Endings Academy members, and so I created this mind map for her, and it's actually she gave me permission to share this in the academy. So if you're an academy member, you can listen to our session. But I had her go through some of these questions, and it was just really interesting to see what she shared. Now, the second question is, who is your target audience? And I went into a full in depth training on this in my platform challenge. If you have not signed up for that challenge yet, you can sign up@shellyhits.com Platform Challenge. It's day two, but I just want you to take a minute and I just want you to write out, like, who is your target audience? Age, gender, you know, just anything that goes to your target audience. And I want you to write this out. I want you to think about this, because some of these questions are going to help you. Then as we go forward, you're going to see how it all fits together. All right, so now the third question is, what is your experience in this topic? Why are you writing about this? Now? I'm assuming that you have experience, that this is a valuable topic, this is a valuable training, and this is something that will really give value to your readers. If you're just sharing some regurgitated thing, if it's not really something that you have personal experience on, then you may struggle with feeling like, am I an expert? But, you know, I mostly work with nonfiction authors. You have experience. And when I was working with Angela, she was just like, yeah, you know, this has changed my life. This has been the experience I have had. And so I want you to write that down in the next minute. What's been your experience with this topic? You know, what has caused you and motivated you to want to write about this? All right, awesome. You know, it's something that you have experienced, you have been through, you've lived it, you've done it, you've experienced it with your kids, your grandkids, and it's something that you can share with the world. And when we're writing books that we have an experience and that it has changed us or it has given us something like travel. I love it. Travel and adventure. It gives us something and it gives us joy and new experiences and so, so, so exciting. All right, then the fourth question is, how has it transformed your life? It could be big or small. And would what you've been through help someone else your experience what you've been through? How has it transformed your life? And then is it applicable? Would it apply to other people? For Angela, this was really a turning point in our conversation when I was coaching her one on one. And coaching really is about asking good questions. And so I was just asking her questions. And when we got to this point of how has it transformed your life? She was just like, whoa, it has transformed my life. It has made a difference. It has done amazing things. I mean, it's not just a small transformation. It was a big transformation. And when I asked her, would it apply to someone else? She's like, yes, definitely, for sure. And all of a sudden I could just see this like, ooh, excitement of like, yeah, like, it has changed my life, it has transformed me, it has done amazing things. And yes, this is for other people as well. They can also have the same transformation if they apply these things and apply these steps. And so it was really neat to watch her just transform literally before my eyes. When we start realizing, like, what was the transformation? Depending what book, what type of book you're writing, it could be different. But when we really dig deep into that area and you may even want to do some more brainstorming later, that's really good information that you can then use in your book description, in your marketing. And what it can do then is it can give you information like, yeah, made your life and your child's life richer. That's verbiage and words that you can use in marketing. And it built their self confidence. That is something that you know you can use. But how many parents want that? How many parents want that for their children? And so it's definitely an amazing thing. And then the fifth question is, what is your definition of an expert? Write down what your definition of an expert is and then we'll share a little bit more about that. One of the things that when I was working with Angela, we kind of worked out was like, the definition is knowledge, experience, and your results. You know, what is your definition of an expert? It might be different, but the knowledge you have, the experience you have, the results you have gotten. And it doesn't mean that you have to be an expert in everything, you know, having the experience and having the results. And so sometimes we think in order to be an expert, we have to know everything. For instance, Angela, she's writing a Christian living book and she was feeling like she needed to be an expert in theology and all of these things. And I said, is your book about theology or is it a theology book? She said no. Said, is your book based upon your experiences and what you've learned from the Bible and from God personally and all of that? She's like, yes. I said, do you have experience and results with what you will be writing about in your book? She said yes. And it was just like, woo. This whole thing just lifted and was like, wow. Yeah. And will it transform people's lives? Did it transform your life and will it transform other people's lives? And she's like, yes. And I could just feel the excitement building and you know, I was like, whoa. Yes. You know, and so I think like many times we just get these mind blocks of I'm not good enough, my book is not good enough, I'm not an expert, I'm not sure it's going to impact anyone's life. And that is stinkin thinkin'. If you're a follower of Christ, it can literally be lies of the enemy, a spiritual attack keeping you from publishing that book. And so we need to overcome these things with what is the truth? And that's what working through these five questions will help you do. It will help you work through what is the reality? What is the truth of the situation? The truth of the situation is I believe like 99.9% of the people watching this right now, you have knowledge, experience and results in the area that you're wanting to write your book in. And you have things that you can share with the world. You are an expert because of what you've been through and you have information that can change people's lives. Like, I just believe that most of you are in that place. There are people out there publishing like really bad stuff. Like not, like, not, you know, bad as far as like perverted or whatever. I mean that's definitely out there too. But I mean just low quality, like low quality stuff. And yet I know that most of you, most of my followers, you're not like that. You have an experience, you have results, you have this burning inside of you to share with the world. But then there's so many doubts, there's so many fears, there's so many things that are holding you back. And so I want you to overcome those things. I want you to take the next step. And I always say, you know, inching forward every week, you know, it's not always about that big leap. Now, sometimes you will have a big leap. You know, I've had weekends where I went away for the weekend and finished a first draft of a book, did that with forgiveness formula. Sometimes you will take the big leap in a week, but most weeks it'll just be you inching forward, inching forward, inching forward, inching forward. What is the very next thing that you can do right now, this week to move forward in writing, publishing, or marketing your books? And how can you, like, really see the truth of what this situation is so that it can help you overcome some of these mindset blocks? And that's what I want to help you do. And so I'm excited that you joined me here today for this. Just kind of like a little coaching session that I was able to do with you. I saw the power that it had with Angela and I wanted to share this with you and have you actually go through the steps. What I've done is we have gone through five different questions and I'll just do a quick recap of the questions and what we did was one minute sprints. I love doing these where you actually write it out. You actually take action. You're not just taking in more information, but you're moving forward. You're taking action. So let me just show you those five questions and we will recap really quick. All right. So not feeling qualified or an expert? You know, maybe wondering if what you have to share is important? The first question is just what is your topic? So let's just understand, like what is your topic? What is your book about? And then second of all, what is your target audience? Or who is your target audience? And if you have not defined it clearly, I have a full training on this in my platform challenge. Shellyhits.com platformchallenge Day 2 Make sure you know who your target audience is and then what is your experience in this topic area? What experience have you had? And number four, how has it transformed your life? So how did it transform your life? And could it relate to other people? Can it transfer to other people? And then finally, what is your definition of an expert? Because you may be thinking that an expert needs to be something that you're not, when actually an expert is just simply someone who has knowledge, experience and results. So if you've had experience and results in your area, this is definitely something that you can write and publish about and just helping you get unstuck in these areas. I think that's why a majority of people never click publish or Never move forward with their author platform, with their marketing, with the things that they could do to reach more people with this message, this message that you've had an experience, you've had results, and now other people can have results, too. I have done that as well. There was a time in my life I had struggled with an addiction as a Christian woman. And it was an addiction that not many people still to this day talk about, but at that time, no one was talking about. And it was an addiction to pornography. And, you know, I walked through a step of healing. I went to Christian counseling. I had accountability partners. I did all the things that, you know, I needed to do, filters or whatever. And I was able to get to that point of freedom. And I remember, though, I still struggled with that stinking thinking of stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did you do that? You knew better. Or, like, the regret of the past. And I just beat myself up over and over and over again. And so stinking thinking can come in many different ways. Ways. But, you know, we can replay the words people said to us. We can replay the regrets of the past. And I remember one day I just was listening. I was driving down the road, listening to Christian radio, and the song came on History. And I'm trying to remember who sings that. Jeremy can't, maybe. I can't remember. And then it was just talking about your sins, your things, their history. They're no more. If you've asked forgiveness, God has forgiven them. They're in the past, they're forgiven, they're gone. But so many times we still hold on to those things. Well, I just started crying because I just knew, like, God touched my heart, knew that that was what I'd been struggling with. I'd been stuck, and I had been feeling like I'm sensing that God was wanting me to reach out and help teen girls in a lot of the areas that I had struggled with. And I was like, no, no, no, I can't do that. I can't. You know, I can't help other people because I've done these things. You know, I'm not qualified. I'm not good enough. Because what Christian woman struggles with this gross sexual sin? And who am I like? I made those mistakes. I have those, you know, things like a scar, and God can't use me. And yet that's exactly, you know, some of the things that God has used the most in my life are my mistakes, my regrets. And I have actually written a book for Christian women who struggle with pornography. Did I want to write that book? No. Am I an expert in how it affects the brain and all this stuff? No. But I have experience, I have results. I am free today. And I had to though, have that turning point to be able to really move forward in helping others. Because until I could really accept in that particular instance, it was accept God's forgiveness and forgive myself, I wasn't able to move forward. So sometimes there is definitely something that we have to move through. Other times it's just life, you know, it's just life of just feeling that fear or feeling not good enough or feeling overwhelmed or all of those things. And that's why I love having Author Audience Academy because it's a community. It's not a digital product that you download and you figure it out on your own. It's a community where we support each other. I pray for my members by name every week. And you know, that's a place where we can get support. We can be honest. A question I asked in the group today is what is your number one fear regarding writing, publishing and marketing your books? And it was really interesting. And you know, I think we all have some of those common fears. I have a friend that talked about when you're in the middle of it, it's like a moni. But when you're on the other side of it, it's a testimony. When I was in the middle of my struggle with pornography, I wasn't telling people. I wasn't talking and going around telling people. I had maybe two or three people and my counselor, that was it. It was not something I was sharing. But now that it's a testimony, now that I'm free and I'm on the other side, yeah, now it's something that I can share. And sure, the enemy wants to say, shelly, you shouldn't say that because people are going to think differently of you. They're going to think badly of you. They're going to think you're some whacked out pervert or they're going to think you're this or that. And it's like, yeah, sure, I want to hide that, sure I don't want to talk about it. But when I share what God has done in my life and how he's freed me from that and how he healed me from sexual abuse when I was younger, that was probably a root thing of feeding some of that sexual addiction. But when I talk about those things, I talk about the forgiveness, of forgiving my. The person who sexually abused me and forgiving my grandma's murderer and forgiveness. And you know, when I talk about those things. They're like, oh, wow. If Shelly can get there, she can walk through this. It gives me hope. And so when we share our testimonies, it gives people hope. And that is what I encourage you to do. You know, when you're in the middle of it doesn't mean that you necessarily have to share with the world. When you're on the other side and you have results, you have experience, you have knowledge, you have walked through it. That is nothing to be ashamed of. You're forgiven, you're free, you're healed. And now it's just a scar. You know, it's just a scar and you can then share it with others. So I don't know if you guys can relate, but these were a couple of the fears my members shared. That there's not enough time for everything. Anyone struggle with that? That there's not enough time. Another one is that my book isn't good enough. We kind of talked about that a little bit today. But it's even a step further, like your book, your actual manuscript. And you do want it to be the best that you can have it to be. But there is a thing with perfectionism where sometimes perfectionism will stop you from the paralysis of analysis and all of that. I mean, I think we all can get bogged down with things at times and at times. And that's why I'm teaching the Author Automation system in authoraudienceacademy.com is so you can set things up, put them in place, and then you don't have to be thinking about it every minute of every day. I'm actually going to be teaching a webinar here in just a few minutes, so I need to hop off for my members on the first step of the Author Automation strategy. I want to close with this encouragement. Your story matters. Somebody needs to hear your story. Or if you have experience like my experience in self publishing, I could have kept that to myself and I could have just went on my merry way. I could have continued as a physical therapist. I made a decent amount of money. It was a rewarding career. It wasn't something I hated, but I wanted to share it. What is something that you need to share? Your story matters. And I encourage you. Do what you need to do to overcome these obstacles. If you need to hire a coach, if you need to work with someone, do it. It doesn't have to be me. It can be whoever resonates with you and whoever you really feel can help you in this area. Let me just pray for you real quick and then I need to hop off and start my other training for my members of Author Audience Academy. So God I just thank you for everyone that is here live or listening to this training and I just pray that you would give them what they need to overcome any obstacles in their mind that they have regarding their book, regarding publishing, regarding marketing. I pray that you would overcome these obstacles in Jesus name. I pray you provide everything that they need, everything that the encouragement. I just pray that you would just bubble up joy right now in their heart towards their book that it wouldn't be a dread or that it wouldn't feel like it's sapping out the joy, but they would just have a joy knowing that what they are sharing matters, that their story matters and someone's life will be changed as a result. And Lord, we just leave those results up to you. I just ask that you help us each to be obedient in what you've called us to do. And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you so much for joining me today and I will see you next time. Bye bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.