Too Fat for a Camel Ride

I climbed up the hill side to the cottage at the Kikar Lodge in Punjab, India. Finally, a few minutes alone! My husband was taking our one-year-old on a camel ride and I had an hour to do anything I wanted. I flopped onto the luxurious bed draped in the finest Indian silk fabrics and closed my eyes.

I wasn’t on the camel because the camel could not support my 315 lb. frame. Earlier that day we walked through the local market and a barker yelled to me: “Fat lady! We have your size! We have 5x! You come buy!” I thought I was going to Duh-EYE on the spot.

My marriage was a disaster. My weight was a part of the problem, but co-parenting from different cultures was not exactly smooth sailing. I felt like I had failed as a parent. My baby was covered in mosquito bites from head to toe and riding a camel. I’d never be able to keep this kid safe.

Oh, and a few weeks before I was unceremoniously fired from my fancy corporate executive job. The six-figure pay check was gone – blown up with a lot of my dreams for the future.

Just two years before I was at a healthy weight, I was happily engaged, loved my job. Now I had lost everything. I had no idea how I got here.

Alone in the room at this gorgeous resort all I wanted was to make it better. To go back in time. To save my job. To have not gained so much weight with this baby. To fix things with my husband.

I fished into my bag and pulled out a book: Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck. Chapter One: The Disconnected Self.

I needed to know what kind of job I could get that I would never get fired from and I believed this book would help me find it.

I started working through each worksheet learning about my social self vs my essential self. Finding out there was a connection between my body and my mind. Learning the causes of self-sabotage.

In just an hour… in a little cottage in North India… my life began to change. Years later I’d get to look Martha in the eye and tell her: “THANK YOU! Your book changed my life!”

What would it mean to you to change just one person’s life with your message?

The pain you have faced in your life….the challenges you have overcome. And the struggles that lead to your biggest lessons – these wounds have led to healing you can share with the world. Whether it’s one person or one million people – you can make a difference with your story.

And you can decide not to.

It’s really that simple. I know it feels complicated. I know because I’ve been there.

When you make the decision to make a difference, the opportunities that appear will change your life too.

Lately I’ve been looking at which of the books we have published have made the biggest impacts and I realized something – the most “This book changed my life!” emails didn’t go to the authors with the most powerful stories or even the ones that were written the best. The books that make the biggest impact are written as a gift to the reader and are loaded with practical advice and worksheets.

That’s why I’ve decided to look for more authors who want to write workbooks or books with worksheets and exercises in them! These are also the books that generate the most revenue for their authors.

Want to learn how to create your workbook or how we can create it for you? Just reply to this email and we’ll set up a time to talk.

Angela Lauria

Angela is the founder of The Author Incubator™ and creator of the Difference Process™ for writing a book that matters. The Author Incubator was ranked #275 on the Inc. 500 fastest growing companies and #60 on Entrepreneur Magazine’s Entrepreneur 360. Dr. Angela won the Stevie Award’s Coach/Mentor of the Year Award and her program, The Author’s Way was named Coaching Program of the Year and was named, by Entrepreneur Magazine, as one of the top 10 most inspiring entrepreneurs to watch – one of only 2 women on the list.