Pamela Nichols: This Author Was Called To Write A Powerful Story, Healing Herself In The Process

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. So. All right, guys, this is exciting. We have been actively doing the do the thing find your voice challenge, and one of the dares that came out during the challenge was, if you were to write a book, what book would you write? And so many people have books that they're writing or books that they want to write or books that they didn't even know they wanted to write, but when they did that dare, they just said, oh, my gosh, that would be amazing if I could write a book like this. And one of our community members that's actually been in multiple do the Thing challenges said, hey, listen, I am a writer, and I edit books also, and I even reviewed them. And so she said, I'm willing to help whoever wants to do this. So we got together and we are co collaborating right now in creating the do the thing start a book challenge. And I decided that it would be great to have her come on and we could do a full interview in terms of her story and how she became a writer. So I'm so excited to welcome Pamela Nichols to the show.

Hello. So glad you're here, and I'm thrilled to be here. Looking forward to it. Stacy.

Yeah. And I love how you just totally stepped up. And I remember seeing it in the first challenge you were in when I think one of the people had mentioned and they wanted to write a book, and you had said it then that you were interested if anyone wanted help. And then the energy sort of happened with this one, and so many people are interested. I think it's really cool to ripple the challenge in this way. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm always drawn to people when they say they want to write a book, but they have no idea where to begin, because I remember that feeling very well.

Yeah, that's actually a perfect way to start. Let's go ahead and just, if you don't mind, just share your story and how all this came to be.

Okay. Well, I hadn't looked to write a book. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. We were having lunch one day, and I noticed she was just pushing her food around the plate. And what she. I don't remember what I said to her. I said something like, are you not hungry? Are you not feeling well? She says, no, I'm recovering from an eating disorder. And immediately. And I'm really embarrassed about it. But I remember the first thing I thought was, black people don't get eating disorders. And I got the idea of a book from that. The idea for your book will just come from out of nowhere. And that totally happened to me. So I had the idea for a book. I wrote the first book, and it was about these two friends, and they are different races. And the African American girl has an eating disorder. The Caucasian girl recognizes the signs because she has recovered from it, and she reaches out and tries to help. But then these other things come in. The girl has the racial thoughts that I had, and there are some religious trauma in there as well. Believe in God. And the book takes off from there. So, long story short, that's how I got the idea from a book. I was having lunch with a friend, one comment was made, and a book just exploded in my mind.

What do you think got it to explode? What about it really kind of lit that fire for you?

Actually, now that. If you asked me this at the time, I would not have been able to answer. But now I am a believer, and I was really, at the time struggling with some of the things that I was seeing and experiencing in church, some of the really harsh, extremely conservative thoughts that are really harming us, and some of the things we believe about the divine that are simply not true. And now that I look back, those two things collided, and it just reached that in me. And that's what I wrote the book about. Because there's a spiritual side to that as well.

Yeah, I love that. And I'm wondering too, because so many people can get struck by something, and then they can just go, okay, that's that. And then move on. Right. But you wanted to take it the next step. So how did that work?

Because in this journey, that is what that is. My most recent message, that when something goes off in me, that means something where. Where in my intuition and my gut feeling, those things mean something in our lives. So this book is the first in five books, and it's called the Inside out series. And the long answer to your question is, I honestly believe that everything we seek, we have inside of us already. Deep calls out to deep. So that's what that was. I no longer, when I get messages like that, I no longer ignore them. I no longer put them off. Something is happening. Some message wants to come up.

Yeah, it's so interesting that you mentioned that. I've been calling it my messages from the universe. That's it. Honestly, I didn't start seeing them until I'm 49 now. I think it's really been in the last year, actually, since I've been doing this podcast for some reason, maybe because of my voice activation or something. And I'm just curious for you, how did it start and when did that start?

It started for me. I'm a bit older, but I'm going to say within the last five years, I've really felt it. And only in the last two years have I really even gone deeper. I had an emotional trauma that happened to me about two years ago, and it started me on my inner child healing. I'm doing a lot of journaling, a lot of meditation. And those things are not, in some Christian circles, those things are not acceptable. But they have meant everything to me. They have absolutely changed my life. The belief that everything I need, I already possess, that I already have it in me is so strong in my life and has revolutionized my life. And when it comes to these books, like I said, this is a five book series and one character in every single story says the line, you have all that you ever need.

Yeah, I love that. I think that's such a good mantra to have with you because it's so easy to want to go outside yourself, to ask people for advice or questions. Questions or not. Trust your instinct. And once you get to the point when you're able to trust that, it's really freeing in a way.

And it's the trust thing. It doesn't mean that you won't require resources, but it means you go inside first and then outside, as opposed to outside.

Yeah, yeah, I really like that. I would love to talk about then. What was your next step? So you're seeing this, this message and you're like, okay, I'm going to act on it. So then what did you. What did you do?

Okay, so I wrote the book and I had no idea that it was going to be a series. I wrote the book, didn't know where to go. I just knew I was supposed to write this book. In the middle of writing the book, one of the characters just took on her whole life. And I mean, I was working so hard to tamp her down and stay on this focus. But her issues started taking over. So then I said, okay, well, I'm gonna do book two and put you over here, since you won't shut up. So there must be a story there. And there actually was, which I didn't even know. I just put that aside and finished this book. And then two thirds of the way, I realized what her story was. And again, it is in keeping with what happened in the first story. Something that's very, very, very personal and important to me. The second book deals with depression and suicide and the ways that that is handled in the church, in most churches. So often we see here lately so many famous people completing suicide. And, you know, you have the messages of condolences and care, which we should. But then every now and again someone starts with the they're going to hell or it was a selfish act, those kind of messages. And you know, in our houses of faith, sometimes you have those messages as well. So that is the subject of the second book.

That's so good. I love that idea of you hearing this other character and you realizing that she deserved her own story and you were able to honor her in that way.

She was a side character. She ends up becoming a close friend of the main character. And every time I turn around, I kept writing dialogue for her. And I do a little bit of backstory on everyone when I start my characters, when I introduce my characters, I have a sheet where I actually interview them. I know their voice, I know their hobbies, I know this, I know that, because that helps me move them through the story. And she just kept getting big. And so I remember once I just took out two and a half pages of her stuff because my story was going down another road and I just put it on a blank document. And then as I got closer to the end of book one, I opened that document up. And as I said, when I was moving her over to the other document, I didn't know what was going on. I was just trying to get control of my story again. And then I could clearly see the theme of mental health and the church coming in up. So I knew that would be book two.

Amazing. And so what. What had you done to this point to give you the experience to be able to even know what to do at this point with writing the book?

Okay, so I was a stay at home, homeschooling mom. I homeschooled three children. So I was accustomed to planning and documenting because I had to get my kids things together. And because I was a stay at home, Mom. I took a job at our local newspaper, and it's not a small newspaper. It was the Virginian Pilot, which at was like. I think it was like the second largest newspaper in Virginia. Anyway, so I took a freelance job writing articles for the newspaper. And oh, it was awesome. I worked from home. It wasn't a lot of money. I was just trying to make extra money for the swim lessons and dance lessons, and one of them had violin lessons. So I was just trying to earn extra money. And oh my gosh, the doors that opened for me, that really taught me how to structure a story, even though that was nonfiction. It taught me how to deliver words so that I would elicit the response from the readers that I wanted and what I wanted at the time, because I really wanted to connect with my readers so much that they would contact me for stories. And they did. As a freelancer, that's what you want. And they did. And many of the people, if you're on my Facebook page, I would say a good one third of the people on my Facebook paper are people that I wrote stories about or who referred stories to me over the decade that I wrote for the Genium Pilot. So I used those skills when I moved into the fiction, even though there was one or two other things I had to do to learn how to do to make that transition. But that's where it basically came from.

It's amazing. So pretty much you have the foundational experience from when you're homeschooling your kids and then you work for the newspaper, which is when you learned how to structure the story, deliver the words. And then it sounds like you almost built or that you did build a community of people that were following your work, that were then giving you ideas based on them falling in love with the way that you're able to write and connect with them.

Exactly, exactly. I was interviewed about two months ago. There was a young man who was born with cerebral palsy, and I wrote a story about him. He ended up becoming a second or third degree black belt and he started a cooking show on YouTube. And I interviewed him twice for the Virginian Pilot about. Oh my gosh, it had to be seven or eight years ago. When he found out I was writing, he reached out to me and then interviewed me. So that felt good because it went full circle. And he even talked about how he felt being interviewed in the newspaper in such a positive way.

Amazing. And I think people don't realize now I'm moving on to the podcast, but I don't want to yet. But I don't. I don't think they realize how meaningful that is. When you can connect to someone and then share something that's important to them, and then it's such an important way to honor somebody.

Exactly. Words matter and words can heal. And that's actually the name of my podcast. But, yeah, words matter.

Yeah. And so I want to go there next. But first I wanted to just talk a little bit more about the book. So I think a lot of people might have that idea of writing a book, and then just maybe they start with a rough draft of some idea, you know, with writing or whatever that may be, and then either lose motivation or their inner talk gets in the way and say, what do I have to say that anyone would be interested in? Or whatever comes up for them. I mean, I've heard a lot of different things as I do this work. And so I was just curious, how did you kind of break through the noise and be able to keep moving forward to be able to actually write your first book?

Oh, it was. It was a challenge because at the time, I was still homeschooling and writing for the newspaper. So I'm not going to say it was linear. I didn't. I didn't sit down on January 1st and say, I'm going to write a book. And then it was done by that year, actually. I think it took me two and a half years. Two and a half years and a few times in that I would have to walk away because I had so much going on. But the story was burning in me, and I didn't even know what to do after I got it written. But I just had a fire to write it. And then once I got into it, it just. These people are so real to me. I've already got three or four other series planned, and they're all going to come from the people in this book. Them or people related to them. But back to what you're saying. I just had to press on. This is literally what I wanted to do. I felt like I was called to do it, and I just had to find it in me to do.

What do you think if we go to the do the Thing formula and we're thinking about the why of why you wanted to do it. Why do you think it mattered so much to you?

The why to me is actually outside of the book. It goes to the other question you asked. At that point in my life, I was certain that I was hearing incorrect messages about God and who God is and how he functioned in our Life and how he views us. That is so important to me. I have been in church leadership before. I have seen horrible things in church. I have practiced horrible things in church. And it's very important to me that that is corrected and that is what my stories do. My stories are for people who don't have the white picket fence background. However, some of the inaccuracies and outright lies they believed about God are sinking their life. The girl in the first book, she has a picture of God that he doesn't like black people, that, you know, horrible things happen to us for certain reasons. And she. This is. These are messages she learned in church. And the second book is depression and suicide. And the main character, the girl from the first book, she believes that if she's a good Christian, any depression or mental health is a signal that she is not strong in her faith. And that is simply not true. The third book actually deals with spiritual abuse and physical abuse. I have a pastor who is beating his wife. His father beat his mother, and this is normal to him. He's used to hell at home and a fake heaven in church. And in the fourth book, it is just generational stuff. It is relationships. This gentleman, his wife passes, and after his wife dies, he finds out things that make him wonder. He finds out about her betrayal, and he's doubting everything he's learned about God because they were both Christians and they did all the right things, but it didn't turn out the way that it was supposed to turn out. So that's what it was. My why was at that time in my life, I was personally affected by a lot of inaccuracies that I saw in church and specifically about God. And I'm addressing those in fiction.

Yeah, I love this because it's basically this deep, powerful representation of your beliefs. That's where that compelling vision happened.

Right. And that's what keeps you going. The why. It has to be more than I want to see my name on the COVID room book. It has to be more than I want to write a book. There has to be a why that is so central to who you are. That's what's going to keep you writing. So then when my daughter became sick or when I got really, really busy, and even once my marriage fell apart, I took the time off as needed, but I always came back to it. There's no way I couldn't come back to it because this was my why.

Yeah, I totally hear you. I had something similar happen with do the Thing. I'm in the middle of writing that book. And it's been a while because it's been evolving as it goes since I've been really focusing on the podcast. And I realized just recently how important the piece of emotional well being is to do the thing. I think a lot of people talk about hustle culture and high achiever mindset, but there's not a lot of talk on doing it while also caring about your emotional well being. And so I realized to me, that's why this book has taken me so long to write, because even that distinction became clear. Because I want people to understand, to not do the thing out of comparison or people pleasing or someone else's thing. I want it to be coming from side of you.

Exactly. I really don't like this hustle culture thing. I find it so I don't know if dangerous is right. Unhealthy. Possibly dangerous, but certainly unhealthy.

Yeah.

Part of that. And I saw someone's. I was on Facebook this morning. You know, the memories come up where someone on my Facebook page, they literally had that thing at the end as you. We were coming out of the pandemic and it basically said something like, oh, you've had two years to do this. What has changed in your life? And I'm thinking to myself, some of us barely got through this last two years. Okay. Some of us have. I mean, some folks have lost their lives, some people have lost their livelihoods. Some people have lost family and friends. Literally. Yeah. I just, I'm not a fan of the hustle culture. Yeah.

And I think it's the matter of living through stuff to be able to then speak to it in a way. And it sounds like that's what you've really been able to do because you have these strong beliefs. And then now these are this representation of it. I think it's. It's so powerful. I'd love to hear on we're. So since you're familiar with the do the thing formula from you being in the challenges, I'd love to kind of. I guess I wasn't planning on doing this, but I'm thinking it feels. It feels right for me right now is to go through it. For the M in mindset, for the people that don't know do the thing formula is I'm game. And the eyes identify the why the M is mindset. I'd love to hear how you approached mindset while you were writing the book or if you've had a challenging book that you've written that you've had to overcome.

Yeah. Mindset is going to be so very important. When you first start writing a book, you're on cloud nine. You're thinking, oh, my God, this is great. I've always wanted to do that. And that's going to get you. You know, the excitement and the headiness of it is going to get you a little far. But then what's going to happen is you're going to open Facebook one day. You're going to see J.K. rowling, who sold billions of books. You're going to see someone who's written a book sort of similar to yours, and it's selling through the roof, and then it's going to sink. Your feel. Mindset is going to be very important. So just like you have identified your why, your why is going to seep into your mindset. My mindset has really been that whether this sells or not, even though it is, and it will do more, but whether it sells or not, I have got to speak truth to power in print. For me, I've got to put this down. My characters have voices, and I need to give voice to what they're trying to say, which is ultimately what I'm trying to say. So that's the mindset. I am the queen of the kingdom, so to speak, and I'm bringing all of this stuff to pass. This is my mindset. I don't have to do it like JK has done it. I don't have to do it like this person has done it. And that has been my struggle as well, because for a while, I was moving in a space where there were other indie writers, and they were doing thus and so and this and that. And at one point, I actually hired a book coach who was very, you need to do this, that, and the other. And I could never understand why I felt so deflated, because that was not what I was called to do. That pattern was not where I was trying to go. Where I want to go is new to me, and I will get there, but I had to have the mindset and the inner trust to follow myself. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I'm so happy right now that this is coming up, because I just was talking, talking to someone about this yesterday. I don't know if you saw, I posted in the group somebody's podcast I just set up. She's 73, and she's in her third act of life, and she's saying, I'm just starting. Right? Come on, you guys, follow me. I'm just starting at 73.

Right.

And I loved that idea. And she was talking to me about before. A year ago, she wanted to start her podcast. And she's talking to all these people about having them help her. And I was like, the thing about doing it yourself, which is why I was really working with her to do it herself and not hire some fancy consultant to do it, is because then you're following your instinct. You don't have other people in your head telling you their idea of what you think it should be, because then it's no longer yours. And it sounds like you really did that, too. And you have this experience of following your inner guidance, and so you didn't let other people decide what it should be for you.

But I came so very close because I actually had to rearrange my circle, so to speak, because like I said, once I hired this person, and oh, my gosh, she was not a kind person to either. It was almost one of those, do it my way or you're not going to be successful. And that was such a crazy message to me. I mean, how do you say that to someone about their dream? And so my inner why was going off in my head like an alarm. And that's when I realized, you know what? I'm just going to trust myself. I'm going to fall and get back up. But let me tell you what is happening, Stacy. Once I started trusting myself, all of these resources started showing up. Up. It's amazing where I felt like I was blocked before when I was trying to pattern myself after what I was looking at and the person that I hired, once I fired that and got on another path and got still, almost daily things have started showing up, and I count your group as one of them. It is amazing to me, we have everything we need inside. And once we recognize that, that get straight on our why and then get our mindset straight. The path is like, right before us. I don't even have. I can't. I know I'm not describing it well, but it is amazing to. To feel this.

Yeah. And I'm.

I love.

I love this, and I love that you're the one that's going to be running the Start a Book challenge with me because I think it's going to be easy for people to get in their head when they're doing this and starting a book, and they're going to be asking people's opinions about things. And I like that you total really get that point of you being able to trust yourself, because we're going to have to guide them to not care what we think.

Exactly. Exactly. And again, disclaimer. We're not saying don't ever seek direction or help because I sent you a copy of my podcast poster. Remember, like, what do you think of this? And it's okay, but you have to have started steps 1, 2, and 3 already internally before you seek it outward. So it doesn't mean you never seek help. It's just that you trust yourself. And when you're going to ask for advice, you're looking for that advice to connect with something that you already feel, already inwardly know, even if you can't tap into it.

Yeah, I absolutely love this. I think you're. You're really speaking to this. So, so. Well, this is so important for me because once you trust yourself, then you get to live into your purpose and then everything, like you said, shows up for you.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

So wonderful. Well, we're gonna continue with the formula because you're doing so well. We did the identify the why and the mindset part of. Part of I'm game. And now we'll go into goals. So the G name. So how did you. And how do you. I guess we can ask present and past goals you have, especially when you have so many things going on.

Exactly.

Kids and divorce and all this. How did you set up those goals to be able to achieve this?

Well, setting up my goals have. Has been fairly recently, actually. My kids are. My youngest is in her last year of college right now, and the divorce is four years out. And so I have more mental and emotional space. And I took some time off to do some inner child healing and some journaling, you know, to get my head right. And I was still writing all along, but I was giving myself the time I needed. So at one point, I know this sounds sacrilege, but I really didn't have goals. I was trying to heal emotionally and spiritually because the spiritual part was still going on. I don't go to church, so I was trying to give myself time to do the inner healing I needed while I was still writing. So at some point I was just still writing. So once I got to where I could breathe, then I set goals. So I have specific daily goals that I have and then I have. I don't know if you've read this book. It's called the 12 week year.

Oh, no.

Oh, it's awesome. It's awesome. What you really do. Now, if you're like me and you happen to be an adult who has ADHD and you easily get distracted and everything is shiny and bright and you, you have a lot of gifts and you like this, you like that, you like helping people. You will sink yourself time wise and that will hurt your brain and hurt your heart. So your 12 week year, what you're actually doing is you get more done in a quarter, you break your year down into quarters. So it's one thing on January 1st to say I'm going to have a book done by December 31st. Well, life starts happening and the next thing you know, it's October. You haven't even, you've done little more than write three chapters, okay? So then you're sunk. The 12 week year allows you to set your life up in quarters. Quarters. So what you do is for January through March, you have 12 weeks and then one week actually becomes a month. So for the first week I'm going to concentrate on Goodreads, getting, getting proficient on Goodreads. And then for the second week, I'm not explaining it well, but if you can look it up on YouTube, he explains it very well. And that is what helps me keep myself on track. I have my little notebook here and I write down what I plan to do for the month and then I write down what I plan to do for the day that's going to get me to the month. And so the long answer to your question is by December 2023, I have three main goals that I want to have happen. So under each of those goals, I write two goals for each of that two goals that leads to this one, two goals that lead to the second one, two goals that lead to the third one. And then all of my daily habits and work are geared toward those two sub goals. And those two sub goals are geared toward that main goal that I want to have done at the end of December.

Yeah, that is so good. I really like that. And then before you had the time and the space and the energy freed up, you weren't doing that then, right? You had just the energy.

I was not. I was not.

What I think is important for people to hear though, is that because you didn't have the time and the energy to be able to have such clear cut goal, you had a rough draft goal which was to write the book. And then you were able to then. Because what can happen is if someone's like, I'm too busy, I can't do it, they might shut the idea down. Right. But you didn't, you still had this idea, I want to write the book. And then it got there and I think that's really important for people to see is yes, you can get really clear and specific and yes, that is great. And you can also have a rough draft goal and not shut the idea down and go towards that goal.

One of my phrases I always say it's all about the energy. At some points in my life, my children needed my energy because my God, they couldn't read or write. I was homeschooling, so I had to homeschool them. And that was my primary goal. And at another point in my life, like I said, we were active in ministry, very involved in church, and I had responsibilities there. But I always found time to write. And then sometimes I did have to put it aside during the times when life got messy, but it might have left my hands, but it never left my heart, I'll put it that way. And I came back to it when I could. And I, I promise you, every single time I came back to it, the characters were waiting for me. I'm tell I know these people like their people.

Amazing. Well, let's, let's continue on. So we have now we're on the a. In accountability, is there any sort of way that you've held yourself accountable to be able to reach your goals?

Oh, that's a two pronged question. Because I tend to be someone that if I say I'm going to do something and I don't do it, I get really, really, really bad on myself. And some of my negative self talk has been so harmful to me. And that's not just for this. I mean, that's how I've been my entire life. So the accountability part in the past, accountability has always been a bad word for me because of the way that I saw it used and the way I use it against myself. Only recently have I found out that accountability is needed and necessary. So long story short, I don't have accountability in place. If you're meaning like writing partners or is that what you mean?

You know, it's actually, I'm glad you asked this question. It's kind of both because there's some people, like my boyfriend, he doesn't need anyone outside of him to hold himself accountable. He always follows through on the things he says. So if he wants to ride his bike, we have a peloton. He has one at his house and I have one at mine. The joke is he'll ride it no matter what's going on, right? And so he just says if I'm gonna ride in the morning, he's gonna ride for me. I need to have someone Virtual that I'm with in order to go. And so everyone's got different ways that they. They do it. It sounds like yours might just be internal. You have an intern accountable.

Right. That used to be very negative, and now I'm working to make it positive. It used to be if I didn't do it, oh my, my negative selft talk. I mean, I was hard on myself, but now I'm not. Now it's like, good job, I'm glad you did that. Or if I get on myself because I only wrote because I get up at 5 in the morning to write before I go to my corporate job. So if I get up at 5 and I lay in bed for a little while and I don't get to my computer until about 5:30 or 5:45, I used to just about cuss myself out, but now I'm like, okay, you laid in bed, so you must have been tired because I know that you like this, so you must have needed that extra time. Good on you for getting there. And you know what I'm finding out when I talk to myself like that, it just popped in my head because it happened to me not too long ago. Granted, I slept away or laid in bed for half an hour of my 45 minutes, but when I did, I did sit down for those last 10 minutes. The stuff that came up was impeccable. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing.

You're like rewarding yourself for being able to be kind.

Yeah, I love that.

I think it's so cool that you're evolving as you go through things and you're trying to be or you're working on being the healthiest version of yourself. So you're able to identify when you're not talking good and then you're celebrating the things that are good now. I think that's. That's really good.

I think you're making a good point. I think. I wonder and I hope it's not true, but I'm hoping that people aren't thinking, I can't do this because I'm not healed or because I'm not whole or because I have so much that I need to work on. You can do this. You can grow while you go. That just popped in my head. You can grow, right? You can grow. You don't have to be perfect to live your dreams if this is what you decided you want to do. But you still have a shit ton of work to do. I don't know if we can curse or not. You still have a. And you still Have a whole lot of inner work, and you are aware that you got this burning on the inside to write this book. Go and do it. Go and do it. You don't have to be perfect or anywhere near perfect to do what you feel called to do.

And I'd love to go through the E on the. The last step of the do the thing formula with education. And so how, when you went to tackle this for the time or even now, as you continue to write and then help others write books, how are you continually getting educated? And how did you maybe do it from the very beginning? I know you mentioned you had the job where you were working at, and so that was one way, but I was just curious if you had another strategy for that.

Okay. One of the things that I recognize about myself is, girl, I'm going to find what I need to find. Do you hear me? And this comes back to just my innate curiosity. And when I was writing for the Virginia Pilot, that's nonfiction. So before I print something, if I was writing a story about Northrop Grumman, which is our largest shipbuilder out here, my stuff had to be right. So I had to do a lot of research. So I know how to research. Secondary to that is I know how to set a process, and I'm really good at that. It's very important that you are able to identify and articulate what you're good at. I think a lot of times society tells us to tamp it down and don't pat yourself on the back, but you need to know what your strengths are. And I don't care what goes on in my life. I know how to search out what I need. I recognize it when I see it, and I know how to build a process to make it work in my life. I got some of that from the Virginian Pilot, but I got most of it from homeschooling my children. You know, all your kids are different. One who's very shy and one has this learning style. And then my teaching style is this, and my gifts are that. But I knew and I learned how to process it all so that I got the outcome that I needed. So what I'm saying here, where the education is, is when I feel like I needed to know something, I'm going to hit Google and I'm going to look for it. I'm going to get on Facebook and I'm going to look for it. And when I bump into it, I get a feeling in my chest, and I'm like, this is it. And I'VE got so many instances of that. I was paying so many people for book covers and. And then I ended up teaching myself how to make my own book covers, and they look amazing. And I'm giving my credit for that because I used to never do that. I learned how to format my books, and I'm still learning that. So long story short, and I'm going to go back to the first one, I know that everything that I need pertaining to this gift of writing a book, which I believe was given to me, everything I need to do that is already in me, and I keep going back to that. So when I go looking for a resource to fill a void that I don't have or something that I don't know how to do, I expect to find it and I expect to recognize it. And that just goes across the board. I am willing to pay coaches if I have to. I will take a class if I have to. I will partner up and find a mentor if I have to. But in the final analysis, I already have it. I'm the source. Anything else is a resource. That's what I'm trying to say. Sometimes it only happens. I just gotta. I gotta talk it through.

I love it.

I can't say. I can't say what I'm trying to say. I'm the. So that was why it was easy for me to fire that coach I was working with. Even though she. She sold a lot of books and makes a lot of money. What she was saying was not my truth, was not my reality, was not my path. I recognized that I was the source and she was the resource, whereas she thought that she was the source. You know what I'm saying?

You are so good. This is so good. Y. That's really good.

That's what I was trying to say. So I don't know everything, but when I see something that resonates and I see something that's going to work for me and I see something that I can put into my process to get me to where I'm going, to me, that's education.

Totally. And you know what? I'm so excited because now there's the second piece of the education piece, which is educating others. And now that's what you're stepping up to do with this new challenge that we have going. And it's so exciting, and I love that.

That's why when I'm in your group and someone said they did something like, yes, you can do that, because that's what I needed. I am trying to be. Actually, I Am. But I am trying to manifest what I needed back then when I was chewing my nails when I didn't think I could do it. But when these voices, these characters were. Were whispering in my ear day and night. And I kept thinking, I can't write a book. I can't do that. Even though I wanted to. To. I didn't have anybody beside me saying, yes, you can. The mere fact that you want to do it means that you're supposed to do it. And it's in there. And one of the things I do, one of my favorite parts, and it's fine with me if I get a manuscript to edit, and that's fine. But my favorite part is when someone talks to me. And because I have a service where if you can't get it out of your head, I help you get it from your head to the page is what I say, say. And they tell me. They start telling me about the story or telling me about what they see. And I'm telling you I can see it. And I just. It just starts coming to me. And they're like, oh, my God, that's exactly it. That's exactly it. Because I remember and I want to give to others what I did not have when I started.

It's so good. And that's part of that. Having that lived experience and now being able to, since you lived it, now you know how to activate the buttons and someone else to do.

Exactly. Exactly. It doesn't mean I'm an expert. I just. I just know this piece. And I still go back to that thing I said a few minutes ago. Give yourself credit for what you know. And a lot of us are not doing that. We play small in our life. We allow fear to take over. Our negative voice in our head is so loud. But give yourself props. Give yourself points for what you actually know. Give yourself grace, back off the negative talk, and then watch what happens. You'd be surprised. You'd be absolutely surprised. I think I've read it somewhere that we're only using 10% of our intellect, and that's. That's kind of frightening.

Yeah, I would love to hear also, what do you think somebody will get out of writing a book for themselves? And I'm thinking, whether or not they publish it, what do you think they will get out of that journey?

What they're going to find is writing your book is going to teach you things about yourself that you didn't know. Again, my. My writing is inspirational. It's Christian. If I never write another book, the ones I have written have taught me so much about myself. There's so many things that I had to cut off and there were so many things that I had to put on. And I. I can't think of another way I would have learned it outside of this book. And again, I'm writing in the Christian fiction, but I. There have been times that God has literally met me on the page. I'll never forget forget. I was sitting out on my patio writing, and this particular dialogue came up. At the time, I was 50, 52, actually. And my life didn't look the way that I thought it was going to look in my 50s. My kids were in college and my marriage had ended. I'm living in an apartment by myself. I'm sitting out on my lake writing. And I had the thought, man, I am not where I wanted to be at age 50. And I had that thought in the back of my brain. And as I had that thought, I was typing dialogue for my girl who was overcoming her eating disorder. And she was bemoaning the fact that this eating disorder has taken up so much of her life. She lost a large bit of her life. And the words that came out of my fingers as I was typing was, you're exactly where you're supposed to be. And I will never forget this because I am certain that came from God. And that was not about what I was writing. That was not dialogue. That was a message. There was a divine message to me. I will never forget that. So to answer your question, what you're going to learn from writing that book, whether you never sell it, whether no one ever reads it, you're going to learn so much about yourself that you probably would not have learned from any other way. Way.

So good. And let's talk about your podcast too, because that's starting. We had the do the thing start a podcast challenge that was going to be starting January 23rd, and then I postponed it because a lot of people in the community weren't ready to start a podcast. So that's where the find your voice challenge came up. And then one of the people that were like, hello, I'm ready now. I don't want to wait.

No.

So we did a mini zoom on that. And so you're one of the beta podcasts right now that's been created before the challenge starts. So that'll be exciting to see if you're interested in being a contributor to that one too. But I'm just wondering if you could just share right now what your podcast is and then what you're hoping to get out of it.

So my podcast is going to be called Healing Words, and our tagline is connecting excellent authors with responsive readers. When I tell you reading has literally saved my life. There were times and, and I've mentioned that here, because of the religious culture that I was in, I did not get mental health care that I desperately need for some childhood trauma because I was under the impression that requiring that care tantamount to weak faith, that if I truly love God, then my brain would work and I just had to pray more and be in church more and all that stuff. But absent that, books really, really helped me. And anyone who knows me knows that Anne of Green Gable is my favorite story of all time. There is so much, much in there, and I try to watch it, like once a year. The old PBS special. It makes me cry every single time. But anyway, books have just been a solace and a grace and a powerful help to me. And so even before I started working at Virginia Pilot, I was writing book reviews for them as a volunteer. I wasn't even getting paid for that. And I loved it. They gave me the books free for the last four years or so on Facebook. I always, twice a month or so, I'll write a book review about a book that I'm reading, and everybody responds, and I get a lot of great responses, and people go out and buy the book and they like it and they send me messages about it. So here recently, last three or four months, I said to myself, maybe I should do a podcast and actually talk to people who are writing these books. Because some of the most meaningful books I've read have been in the last year. The Midnight Library. That was my number two book from last year. It made me cry. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine. That book is almost my life. And I just wanted a way to continue to share amazing books with people. And so I thought, well, I'm writing these reviews, but what if I actually had a chance to talk to these authors? As an author myself, when I have been contacted by people, it's one thing when they write reviews on Amazon, but it's another thing when they tell me them. And I've gotten messages like, oh, my God, this part of the story was amazing. And then I'm like, I know, right? Let me tell you what was happening to me when I wrote that.

And I just love.

I know, I love that I had a reader say something to me about one of my books, and I'm like, I didn't realize that. And it's just amazing. So I thought that would be awesome. That is combining the writer in me and the reader in me in one thing. So I'm going to be interviewing writers. Writers. And we're going to talk about their books. We're going to talk about their book. They're going to share some meaningful things from their lives as it relates to their books, and then we're going to talk about other people's books. And I am just so freaking excited. I mean, I can barely hold myself in this seat. So that's what my podcast is going to be about. Healing words. It's going to be a place for writers and readers to meet.

So beautiful. I cannot wait. I cannot wait. It's going to be so amazing. I would love to hear what your number one piece of advice for the listeners on doing the thing.

Well, while he was talking, the thing that popped in my head was, be who you are. Be who you are deep down inside, before all the trauma hit, before you started receiving negative messages about who you were, not be who you are. We're audio recording this, but behind me, I have my vision board and I have be who you are up there because. Because I had to unlearn a lot of things in order to be who I am. And it's not a struggle. It's actually easier to be who I am authentically than to carry the labels and live out what other people have placed on me. I am a writer. I am a teacher. I am a speaker. Those things come naturally to me. It's a struggle only when I try to add in all this other stuff. Stuff. So when I hear do the thing, I hear do what you know, you were called to do. And it doesn't always mean that it's some big thing. It doesn't have to be on a stage. It doesn't have to be with a microphone. It doesn't have to be the podcast. It might just be, be the best mother you can be. Hug that baby. Kiss that baby. Spoil that baby. Clean your kitchen. Your kitchen doesn't have to be granite. And, you know, it doesn't have to have to be fancy. Be who you are and do the thing.

Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited about getting to work together with this challenge. It's going to be amazing. And you are just definitely an inspiration. And I'm so excited to have you a part of the community and now helping lead this new fun adventure for everybody.

I am so excited. I am so excited. And Stacy, when I came across your group, I am telling you I got that little heart thing. I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is what I was looking for. And I think it came within a week after me firing the life coach, you know, trying to take me down a path that I wasn't due to go down. So I just want to acknowledge and thank you for doing the thing because when I'm looking at some of the responses in the group, I'm like, this is amazing. This is absolutely amazing.

Yeah, it's this amazing way of people that have. A lot of people in the group were having lived that prescribed life that we thought we had to live and now having that. I don't know if you listen to Gregory's episode that I just did with him on Self Doubt, but it's really, really good. And he talks about, in life we have the feather, the brick, or the semi truck that comes, and that's how change happens. I think that's what happened to a lot of the people in the group. And now it's like, okay, it's time. I'm ready. Reset.

Yes.

Exactly where everyone's at.

Amen. It's wonderful. Yeah, wonderful.

Well, please share where people can learn more about you and. And also your books as well.

Okay, so my books are on Amazon under Pamela Nichols. P A M E L A N I C H O L S. You can find me on Facebook under the same name. And that's about it. My daughter has put me on the other platforms, but I don't understand this stuff. But you can find me those two places. I love interacting with readers. You can find me in your group. Send me a friend request and I'll be glad to answer.

Amazing. Thanks so much for coming on, Pamela. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for listening to the do the Thing podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. But even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the Thing. Do you have a burning question on Doing the Thing that you'd like answered? How about an inspiring do the Thing style story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all about it. Just leave us a voice message at dothing callcast co or email us@helloothethingpodcast.com.