When you do something famous, or different, or inspiring, people want you to write a book. But they want you write a book that “WILL SELL.” If you write something that only a few people will want, or can afford - what’s the use?

That’s the OLD way. That’s the way that suffocates. It’s the way that crushes spirit and destroys creativity. For months, more than a year actually, I’ve struggled with what “Staying Hungry” should be about. Everything everyone has told me it NEEDS to be, is really not anything that appeals to what I want to write about. So tonight, after reading “How We Choose To Be Happy,” by Rick Faster & Greg Hicks, it hit me - just write about what I WANT to write about, NOT what’s going to appeal to the most people, or make the most money, or that will convince a publisher to give me an advance that will let me move out of my van again.

This is the exact reason why I became fat -because I spent my life doing what others told me I needed to do, should do, or ought to do. If my weight-loss journey is going to be successful, my “do what I want to do,” journey needs to be successful.

When I realized that “I am a writer,” that meant more than someone churning out words for pay. My piece in Tim Russert’s book was about a deeply emotional time in my life. I never once considered whether it would “sell,” or what publishers would think. Writing from my core self was powerful enough to move Tim and his editor to select it for the book - but to also decide to add a chapter on forgiveness to the book. Would that have happened if I’d worried about what anyone thought? Probably not.

So I’m a writer. That means I write about what moves me. If I can make a living/money at it too, great. But more than that - writing is about expressing what comes from my core, my heart, my experience.

If you are an artist, an engineer, an accountant, a waitress, an athlete, a janitor - whatever you are/or do….do it from a place of loving what you do. If you don’t love it - then find something you do love and do it. If you’re happy and poor, it’s so much better on so many levels than being rich and miserable.