It seemed so simple. There I was, sitting on the sofa with my wife, Kosha Joubert, and our good friend Deborah Lewin about a year ago, tuning in to my upcoming 68th birthday. I found myself saying, “I think it’s time I wrote a book! For my 60th birthday I lived my unlived life as a rockstar, and for my 70th it’s time to have a book out.”
It just seemed the obvious thing to do. I had written many articles over the years and been fortunate enough to have most of them published, and now it felt like time to write a book.
Initially, I wondered whether I needed to go off for three months to a writer’s retreat in the mountains of Nepal to create the conditions for the book to come through, but Kosha suggested I start by simply setting aside some mornings to write in my study at home.
I took her advice, and the book wrote itself in 4 to 6 weeks. It was an amazingly quick process. The ideas had been germinating for at least 10 to 15 years, and I already had a lot of material (workshops, trainings, articles) at my fingertips.
I found a great editor, who had worked with me before, and sent her the draft. When she wrote back that she thought it was an excellent first draft and already publishable, I started to cry and realised how vulnerable I had felt in sending out my first manuscript.
After getting close with three publishers, I decided to self-publish. As one wise and published author said to me, “Publishers are no longer booksellers. They are bookmakers and will require you to have a platform of your own anyway.”
In addition, I realised the book was ready to come through now, not wait 18 months to fit onto a publisher’s list.
AI helped me find a book designer and, over the next few months, he and I collaboratively designed the cover, with helpful feedback from a small circle of friends and family; then I uploaded the book to Amazon and pressed publish!
What came next was surprising to me.
A level of vulnerability that I hadn’t fully anticipated. It’s not that I am concerned about what people think about the book. I like it, many people like it, and I feel it will serve those who are called to read it. It’s more the nakedness of saying this is what I stand for, believe and attempt to live. There is a level of visibility but also projection that I had not fully anticipated. I think it is the projection that I fear most: ‘Ah, you are a mystic, a spiritual teacher.’ Am I? My own sense of myself is that I am a flawed human being, as we all are, doing my best to live consciously, lovingly and generously. This is simply an aspect of my contribution to life.
Slowly, I am starting to grow into the identity of being an ‘author’. I feel like a snake who has shed one skin and is in the vulnerable space before the next skin grows. Becoming an author is a rite of passage; an initiation. I am starting to lean into what lies across that threshold.
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‘Emergent Leadership – Applied Mysticism for Complex Times’ is available from the Phoenix Community Stores, Findhorn and from Amazon.
Please visit my website for more information.
Robin has extensive experience of leading and developing groups and individuals in a variety of settings including prisons, social work, police forces, communities, NGOs, multinationals and other corporations.
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