Erika RadisOwner at Working Moms of San Antonio

Radical Authenticity: How Rachel Pedersen Beats Overwhelm & Creates Big

22 Jan 2026 · 2 min

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1:54

In this interview, Rachel Pedersen shares the story of how she became an author. She describes a lifelong love of writing that began during her homeschooling years, where she would lose herself in books and once turned a three‑page assignment into a 26‑page essay. In 2020, while staying at entrepreneur Russell Brunson’s home, Brunson encouraged her to write a nonfiction book, challenging her to write 500 words each day until her 31st birthday. Despite initial fear of nonfiction, she persisted, checking in nightly with Brunson for reassurance. By the deadline she had produced a 60,000‑word manuscript, illustrating how consistent daily writing and external encouragement helped her overcome overwhelm and achieve a substantial creative output.

Chapters

So I wanna talk about your book a little bit and how you got there. So you, how did you make that jump into being an author and like what wanted, what made you wanna do that? Oh, I love this question. I wish I could talk more and more about books because it's my favorite thing to talk about. I was always a writer. I loved writing. It's my favorite way to communicate. I like to read written communication. I was homeschooled for many years and then I went to private school and I didn't have friends, so I got lost into books all the time. Just books, books, books. And I remember they would give us like a writing assignment and they would say, this is a 3-page writing assignment. And I wrote 26 pages and on page like 7, the teacher said, I'm done grading here. A+, you're good. Yes, you've done it. Um, and so the hallmarks are there for sure. Um, but then it was actually in, I want to say 2019. Gosh, 2020. 2020, I'm gonna say. Um, for some reason, my husband Paul and I were staying at, um, there's a, there's an entrepreneur named Russell Brunson. He's the founder of ClickFunnels. We were staying at his house for a few days, and he, he was like, you really gotta write your book. He's like, people need a book from you. Can you please write your book? And I was like, I'm so scared, Russell. This feels so nerve-wracking. I've written lots of fiction, but nonfiction is like terrifying to me for some reason. He said, just don't overcomplicate it. Just write 500 words a day from now until your 30— it was 31st birthday, and then you'll have a book by then. And I was like, okay, fine. And I would be Voxing him every night, and I'd be like, is it supposed to be this bad? Is it supposed to be cringy? And he's like, mm-hmm, yep, keep going. I kept going. Before you know it, I was at 60,000 words.