Book Journeys Author Interview – June 9, 2016
Dr. Angela Lauria with Nicole T. Harcourt, author of A Divergent Path: Reach Your Potential, Live With Soulful Purpose
Don’t feel you need to be like anyone else or let any self-doubt creep in and stop you from fulfilling your dreams.” ~Nicole T. Harcourt
Angela:
Well, hey everybody. Welcome back to Book Journeys Radio. You are in the right place. Today, we are going to be talking with newly-minted bestselling author, Nicole Harcourt. She is the author of A Divergent Path: Reach Your Potential, Live With Soulful Purpose. You can find Nicole’s book right now on Amazon wherever you are. Nicole, welcome to the show. Nicole, I know you’re there. I can see you… I can’t hear you. Let’s try and get Nicole on the line. Nicole, can you hear us?
Nicole:
Okay, can you hear me?
Angela:
Got you now! Awesome. Well, Nicole, let’s get things started by telling people about A Divergent Path. What is your book about?
Nicole:
Well, actually, they say you should never judge a book by its cover, but I actually think that in this case, it summarizes the book really well. So, I just thought that by just looking at the title, A Divergent Path… So, I’d chosen the word, divergent, because the book offers the chance to move the readers right from where they are, where they want, or need to go and how do they do that? Well, the book outlines seven principles, which I call, Walking the Pilgrim’s Path, and the reason people go on a pilgrimage – to discover their purpose and lead to their potential. Now, as they travel down the pilgrim’s path, the seven last transforming principles and techniques… actions they… as I also try to urge and hopefully inspire the reader through exercises I use in my coaching practice and also with success stories, and… and that change, which is a verb, requires an action, so that, in reading this book, we’re going on a life journey. The reader doesn’t only contemplates the principles explained, but also has the tools required to expedite them, and I really think that that’s the essence of the message that I want to get out there and also to my experience as… experiences that would… activating… as… you never reach your potential, and instead you just continue down the path towards unhappiness and dissatisfaction, and… what I call walking down the well-traveled path. And then, we just look at the cover and… because this is a radio show… It shows a woman reaching out into a dazzling bright light, and then… Thats my ideal reader reaching their potential by living with soulful purpose – a path illuminated forward by the… of lights of her vein. But, you know, it’s quite a… It’s quite a – to stand true – bit of… bit of work.
Angela:
Well, let’s talk about your inspiration for it. Why did you wanna write this book? Obviously, you have lots of experience. Uhm, you come to us as a coach yourself, also a life… I know you have been doing this kind of work for some time. So, how did you set a line – this book and this message?
Nicole:
I think it is because this is what most of my clients come to me for. That feeling, just satisfied in their lives. All they wanted to… in their lives. So, you know, just, again, going back to the word, divergent, as it… at any time, you could choose a different path. So… you may be going down a path, but you just want to, you know, take a few more steps and get further ahead or you completely wanna change your direction, and I think that the content really answers how you can do this. I really am answering what my ideal reader really wants and needs.
Angela:
And so for you, what were you hoping to get out of the process of becoming an author? Is your goal to attract clients, get your message out there… Why did you wanna do this?
Nicole:
I think that I want to get my message across. I think that, you know, I have a very strong message that I felt that lots of people wanted and needed to hear and that knowing that this book was – been out to reach an audience a lot larger than I could, perhaps… and also, you know… to bring something that I personally wanted to do for a very long time, and actually, I have a background in journalism. I used to work for The Financial Review here in Australia, and then I did a… degree in Communications. I actually took a year off at one stage, to write a book, and over that… over that… over that year I… and over that year, I wrote many books, but I didn’t complete any. So, I just… for me… for having this process was knowing for the past experience of saying you’re… in the past with all of the books been delivered to market that this process is the process that’s actually going to deliver my message.
Angela:
So, why do you think… You’ve started other books in the past, why do you think you were able to finish this one and in the past, you haven’t?
Nicole:
I think it’s because I didn’t have the support, and again, I say… again, I say the process. Because, I that without the formula, which you provide and you provide it through the weekly assignments, the Facebook communication, and then the weekly meetings with the editor, and then also your timing. That… that’s what’s most invited me and also… I had… I had to work to and then again working for a daily newspaper… I was used to deadlines, and I think that when I took the year out to do it, I really had to… any deadlines. All I had taken off a year, so I really had to it myself and timetable it. So, I think that… the whole aspect… I could timetable the process into my life, was what made me complete the book.
Angela:
Mmm. Love that.
Nicole:
Which, you know, it’s fine with me.
Angela:
Do you think that your journalism background helped with those deadlines, or was there, you know, some other… some other reason, because… I know that it’s not that your life calmed down and you suddenly had a ton of free time to work on this.
Nicole:
No. I think that the journalism background helped me in that I wasn’t too concerned about technique and I think that, maybe, from other people’s point of view coming into the program, that they may be thinking that this process, to write a book, is about having a technique, and, you know grammar, syntax, where… it’s just, not, and I think that… The way, again, that you are, along the process, is that you’re just following a formula and that I had support and I had the knowledge that in my grammar, syntax, never too great, which actually, well, duly, with my first edition, to be edited. You know, I have a few paragraphs changed or… which really made the book make so much more sense. I just had trust. I just had trust that I was in really capable hands and that I didn’t really have to worry about the technical side of it, even though I had the technical side – somewhat – but I didn’t worry about it, and I could just really concentrate on getting my message out there. So, you know, that was very comforting and, well, it was an essential path of leading out to complete the book.
Angela:
Love it. What were some of the obstacles that came up with you – came up for you – during the writing process? Where there any times you felt like you were stuck or you didn’t know what to do next, or how to handle something – writer’s block, maybe. Where did you get stuck and how did you handle that?
Nicole:
Well, it’s interesting because part of my business practice is to practice visualization and part of that process is to set a plan of how I was going to involve this activity in my life. What it would feel like everyday, wat time I would set aside. So it really wasn’t the actual process that I had planned for that. It was really lots happening around me. Firstly… Firstly, when I… I was so eager to get into the program and to start my book. I’d done my plan at the end of 2015, but 2016, and that was, write – write the book – write… finish the book. So, you know, I think it was four, or the fifth, that I contacted you guys, and luckily there was one spot left. So I was to become… applied to be into the program to start on the thirteenth. But in that part, in my excitement to start, I hadn’t… I haven’t planned or looked at the date of the actual launch. Well, I had looked at them, but I hadn’t really cross-checked. There was my husband, and I have two, you know, children and I actually fell into the Easter holidays, and on Easter holidays, we have a family ritual, and our family ritual is to go away. So, then I had to ask you, which you graciously obliged, that I could then move to the next launch. So, I was to complete my book in that… launch, which I was obliged to and then I was to come to the actual launch and then during the second part of the launch, during the second part, I found… became completely sick with pneumonia. I had my daughter in the hospital. So it really was external factors that were my biggest obstacles and I always thought, faced incompetence in knowing that, because of the outlines I was provided, and again, you know, the weekly check ins and the… work that I knew that this part was the easy part. It was sort of handling the external parts that was the most difficult task, and then in regard to writer’s block, I actually think that I had the opposite. It was more like writer’s run. I had a… I remember… with my editor when I had to do my… That was third or the second assignment, and I would do 24 pages. I’m gonna… of 24 pages, but for me, it was going through the information… pulling out stories that I thought relevant to the content, and then I also think that another… Certainly that did present itself, was tied to a block. I did have… I think I spent more time on the title than I did on the whole writing process. I really did.
Angela:
That’s amazing!
Nicole:
I know!
Angela:
So, how did you know… How did you know your title was right when you finally landed on it? How were you, like sure, that was the right one to go with and how to stop the process?
Nicole:
I knew that was the right one. Kate had really helped me get to that point. Now, I’d really wanted to know that… What I’d wanted to say is what my… read- was after… that my reader was looking for. So, my reader was looking for how do you reach your potential and the benefit was how to live with your soulful purpose and how do you do that. You know, you do that by being divergent; by taking a divergent path. So it just all clicked together and the day that that clicked together, you know, it was a big… It was a really good day, because I thought, okay, this is, you know, it’s all come together now and you know, I could really just sit back and just enjoy the process – really enjoy the process.
Angela:
Love that. What for you… What for you was the biggest surprise of the entire process of writing your book, getting it published, getting it out? What surprised you?
Nicole:
… What surprised me…? What surprised me was that it was easy. It’s that of all the tips and… I’ve had for that idea, and you know, fluffing around and all the excuses and procrastination that so… laid out to me, was so simple that I almost didn’t have to think about that. I just had to think about what my message was by following who my ideal reader was and to just being guided by the assignments, and knowing that every… that I was delivering, that I was getting closer and closer towards, you know, completion of the book, that… I think that… I think that surprised me – that… I just knew that, I, you know, this is gonna happen, that, you know, I was actually… and I think that what else took my by surprise is that how, you know, I just loved the process. I love indulging in the process. You know, I didn’t like… but you know, I really luxurise it – in it. And…
Angela:
Yeah, you can’t really labor over it when you only have three months, but you can choose to enjoy it or you can choose to suffer. That’s always a choice.
Nicole:
Yeah, that’s right, and so, you know, I did. You know, this is… I was completing it. Really, I was completing a lifelong dream to – to write a book, and so I really was sure to enjoy that. I also wanted to keep in mind that this is a meaningful… process more than a technical process and I’ve said before, and that any technical issues will be resolved by the editor. So, I do hate to be really concerned about my writing… I need to be more concerned with my voice than with my writing style.
Angela:
Mmm. Let’s talk about your relationship with God, the universe, spirituality. How did that play into it? Did that play a role for you? Were there times when you felt like you were being, maybe guided by some other force?
Nicole:
Well, it’s… That’s a good question because… now that I’ve read back on it, I think, “Wow!” You know, “This really…” Some of it really didn’t come from… come from me. This is a message that wanted delivered and I talk a lot about, within the book, getting in touch with your spirit’s soul and this spirit’s soul has the knowing and has the connection with the universe. As my spirit felt, it really came into play in delivering this book, because, you know, the way I think about it now, it’s, “Really? That’s especially good!” [laughs]
Angela:
I love that moment. I love that moment when you read your own book! You know, “I don’t know. You wrote that but she’s…”
Nicole:
[laughs] … that’s really good. So, I just absolutely, yes, think that there was, you know, components that you… I was being channeled somewhat, and again… back to the process, it allowed me to do that. It allowed me to have… because I had the support around me, and, you know, I could follow the path that you present- uhm… So, absolutely, it… I really feel that I was visited from my spiritual self and the process allowed me to connect with that.
Angela:
Mmm. I love that. Did you learn anything about yourself, your coaching, the offerings that, maybe, you give to clients through this process? Was there anything that changed about your business or about how you show up?
Nicole:
Yes. I really looked at the one way that you… My vision’s practice in the past has really been one on one coaching. So the whole part of the… My processes with you was awesome to say… how impersonal online can be… because I was a bit skeptical, you know, but I don’t really like to use the word skeptical ’cause a lot of skeptical persons – that might not be the right word. But I was more interested and aware of how much would be lost, or, would a connection be lost, but a connection was never lost and I actually saw how that I could bring my business processes to an online environment and not lose that personal connection and you’ve never lost that personal connection and you’ve inspired me to realize that you don’t have to live in the virtuality world, it can, you know, it can be reality and that you can still connect, and, that, you know, that this really is a way to… online, it’s a way to get your message out for a much larger people without losing the connection.
Angela:
Wow. I love that. There’s actually somebody in the program right now who taught me this technique that I think is so cool. She said, when she comes to our weekly calls or in the Facebook group, she takes notes on… She has a… She has a piece of note paper and on two-thirds of the paper, she writes notes about her book, and then she draws a line and on the right-hand one-third of the paper, she writes notes about how I’ve run the program, that she just, like, uses this program to like, learn how she’s gonna deliver her program and I thought that’s such a cool, like, metalearning and like, you learn, obviously the stuff about your book, or how you do your outline, or something really practical, but then, learning how to deliver your report is kind of an interesting other lesson.
Nicole:
Absolutely, and just also, just further to that, is that, in the program which… I wasn’t expecting and… was that… you’re not just learning how to write a book and I actually don’t think that you push this enough, is that you’re actually learning how to present your message out into the market through the offer that you’re going to provide. So this is not just a vital process. It was just as much a business process, and, you know, I think that the price is… will because when I had done the research to come into the program, I didn’t really… Wasn’t really thinking along those lines too much but that was a real bonus and it really is half of the message that you do deliver or, and that is that, you know, this is just as much about getting in- your offer out there into the world and what you do offer and- to them. What are your business processes so they gonna get… continue on when the last… of the book… will start to stagnate somewhat, that you know you are having, you know, that you are getting results from all the hard work that you’d written… you know, just again, the business side of it and I- that was completely unexpected to me… and very helpful.
Angela:
Yeah, that’s the underpromise and overdeliver. Let’s talk about that for you. Your book- we talked about what your book is… What is the… What’s kind of… If somebody reads the book, they like it, they’re looking for A Divergent Path, how do you work for people…? How do you work for people now, and if somebody loved the book, what would their next step be?
Nicole:
Well, I really offered to… components and part of my business now and that is to expand the one-one-one environment to group environment, so to make my offer, instead of just having a one-to-one personal coaching session, having a group interactive session, full of life… you know, a group session and therapy, almost… if I can just sort of discuss their… and have an open forum and learn from each other’s… learn from each other’s mistakes and how different people deal with circumstances and just like doing it in open learning situations, and then the other part of my business offering is coaching accreditation. So, again offering, that however, in a group environment, instead of one-one-one, and getting a group, uh, coaching accreditation, again, you know, as part of a group and I think that…
Angela:
Nicole, how do people find you? If they wanna learn more, obviously, they can go to Amazon.com and get A Divergent Path, how else can they find you?
Nicole:
Well, you could connect with me… at Facebook, nicoletharcourt at Facebook, which is my public profile. I also have a website, which has information about my coaching sessions and also about my coaching accreditations and that is at www.evolvedlifevision.com. So you can connect with me that way, or you can send me an email personally, which is [email protected].
Angela:
Love it. Evolved Life Vision. SO, is there anything that you wish you knew before you wrote your book that you’d like to share with people who may be thinking about writing their own book now?
Nicole:
I’d like to share that if you’re thinking of how you can get your message out to a live audience, and from the… effect from that is the actual business offer… that this is a process that really will help you and if you have… tried in the past like I have to deliver a book, and delivered nada for over a year, that if, you know, if you really have some things that you wanna say, then it’s your time and this process is… will help you, and I think that you need… If you are investing your time and your space to deliver your message, then you really need the best… to get your message out there, and that… all the… Author Incubator – it really will make it happen for you, and you know, and really… and then some. Because, you know, just… the results that I had throughout… the results that I’ve had, not just only from… there’s… from the book, but in the… section of that book, ’cause, you know it’s really, it’s really been amazing, and then also just to you, Angela, that I think that for any business to work, is, that you… you really put to much heart and soul into this work, and you know, you really…. to treat everybody individually, and, you know, you have the time and you have, you know, you really have the dedication, to making sure that everybody’s getting what they need out of the program, or, you know, that may be all different things, which, you know, you’re always available in those weekly calls or on Facebook, always to respond and to really help people, to, you know, get their book finished and get their message out there.
Angela:
Aw, I love that.
Nicole:
I’ve… and I just like to say…
Angela:
Uhm… Yup, go ahead.
Nicole:
And that is, just to anybody out there who is thinking about going into the process that, you know, this book is your message, and, you know, your message is really important, and that through this process that… Your voice will be heard, loud and resounding, and… true to your message, you know, don’t feel you need to be like anyone else or let any self-doubt creep in, stop you from fulfilling your dreams. Take action, and The Author Incubator will help you with this action.
Angela:
Aw, that’s awesome. Anything you’d like to celebrate? Your book came out recently, just within the last week. Anything that’s happened since your book has come out? Obviously there’s much more good stuff to come, but is there anything you’re particularly proud of that you’d like to share?
Nicole:
[laughs] I’m just proud that I finished it.
Angela:
Na-aww.
Nicole:
[laughs] No, I’m proud that I finished it. I’m proud of the results that I got and the interest that was generated. Uhm, I also know that you’ve got a big announcement, also in The Author Incubator about… the book to a much wider audience. It’s very exciting, and also, here in Australia where I’m trying to establish more of a presence, ’cause my presence had really been in the UK, and, well really, the USA, that I had maybe interest now and, you know, I wasn’t celebrating that – I want to celebrate.
Angela:
Yeah, that is definitely a lot to celebrate. Uhm, Nicole’s book was also a bestseller within 24 hours in several categories – meditation, new thought, self-help. She was in the top 100… She was selected by a traditional New York publisher, a publisher of 27 New York Times bestseller. They picked up, uhm, they picked up her book for a national contract. So, lots… to celebrate. Nicole, thank you so much for being our guest on Book Journeys Radio and congratulations on publishing A Divergent Path.
Nicole:
Thank you Angela. Thank you.
Angela:
And if you guys have any questions for how to get your book done, you can head over to TheAuthorIncubator.com.