Nov 20, 2018
My guest is New York Times bestselling author, Sara Bliss. Sara has written 11 books. Everything from Hotel Chic at Home, to The Thoroughly Modern Married Girl. She's also co-authored books like Pretty Powerful and Beauty from the Inside Out with wellness and beauty guru, Bobbi Brown, Sara has some great ideas flowing. Her most recent book is where we're going to focus today. It's called Take the Leap, and it comes out in a few weeks, but it's currently available for pre-order wherever you grab your books. In Take the Leap, Sara actually interviewed people who transformed their lives for the better. These are people who went from a "normal" career, to find or create something they loved. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Book Take the Leap: Click Here INTERVIEW: Sara, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Thank you. I'm super fired up to be here. I love it. It's one of those where I love the title. What started you on the path to writing Take the Leap? I have written about so many different things, I mean everything from beauty, to travel, to health. But profiles have been the one consistent thing that I've done for almost 20 years. I noticed really early on that a lot of successful people had had these entirely different lives before they found their greatest success. I thought it was really fascinating because it basically tears through this myth that so many of us have, that all successful people somehow follow this linear path that they know what their passion is, or they start really young. Yeah, they were clear on it when they were five years old, right? Exactly. I think for those of us who don't feel that way or aren't on the path that they want to be on, it's super inspiring. I was a little bit lost in my own career, and kind of all over the place. I found these stories really comforting. I started collecting them. I would tell them to other people and everyone always had the same response, "Wait, I didn't know that. I didn't know that Carolina Herrera, the designer, didn’t start her business until she was 40." You know there are so many cool stories like that, and that's really where the idea came from. I love it. I couldn't agree more. I think as a purveyor of strategy, and I know you provide a lot of strategy in the book too, strategies are great, but I think people need more stories in strategy. Yes. Like if we have this story, then we'll figure out the strategy. I think that's what there needs to be more of in the world. That's why I was so excited about what you're doing with the book. Now, I see a title like Take the Leap, and I know the subject is all about getting that clarity and going for it. But one of the things I had to ask you is do you write this from the vantage point of always being a risk taker? Or, do you write this from the vantage point of maybe being risk-averse and having to learn how to take a leap like that? I am probably a little bit more of the latter. I'm a little bit of a homebody. I literally live on the same block that I grew up on. No kidding. That's amazing. That's awesome. At the same time, I ended up taking leaps in my career literally every week. That's how I've managed to stay afloat as a writer. I mean anyone who is a professional writer will tell you. The whole landscape of the job has shifted. When I started, it was not that hard to get a publishing deal if you were a well-regarded, not necessarily even famous, just you know, if you were a working writer. Now they really want you to have a huge platform behind you. What I used to get paid for a magazine article versus what I get paid now, those are like two very different numbers. So I had to really hustle and I developed this whole kind of branding side of my business where I did ghostwriting, or I'd consult with brands on everything from PR, I've launched websites for them, I help them with content. I wrote this books on hotels and have been covering tr...