It was my midlife crisis… Having never acted before (not even at school), I booked a theatre in Covent Garden, rehearsed for 18 months, and put on a one woman show playing all 17 parts. I did this mostly to get over the fear that had secretly crept up on me (that creeps up exponentially on a lot of us in our late 40s).
↪ It’s a type of fear that you develop a strange Stockholm syndrome relationship with, the one that makes you fall in love with the confines of a comfort zone, you know it’s toxic but you can’t seem to escape.
↪ I also produced the show on because I was tired of hearing that there is no market for a 50-something Asian woman. We are invisible. 😢
Doing the show was the most terrifying/exhilarating thing that I have ever done.
The play wanted to be a novel and I did everything I could not to write it -but I did and it took me four years. I was offered a fourth book deal with HarperCollins and for various reasons, had to turn it down. Fear faithfully accompanying me, whispering that it would never see the light of day if I turned down that deal.
As Elizabeth Gilbert says fear “is boring, because it only ever has one thing to say to us, and that thing is: “STOP!”
➡ Don’t let anyone define who you are and tell you what you can or cannot do.
➡ I have found trying to overcome fear before starting anything is pointless.
➡ Invite fear along the journey but don’t let it drive 😊
🚀 Paperback launch today in Germany 🇩🇪
More to follow…