(inspiring electronic music)
- Hi and welcome to Between the Lines.
I'm Lea Woodford, your host,
and with me today is Susanne Liller.
You're an award-winning author of You Are a Heroine.
Now this book really, really touched me
because, of course, SmartFem.
This is really close to my heart!
- You're a heroine.
- Aw, well thank you.
But I wanna know what inspired you to write the book.
- Well, I have been working with women since 2000
and I've done different kinds
of workshops and retreats with them,
and what I was always amazed
to discover was they would tell me they lack confidence,
they have low self-esteem.
And these are women who are in C-suite,
in the top of their profession,
and they still feel intimidated, don't wanna speak up.
And so I was looking for ways to help with confidence
and I came across, in 2008, the Heroine's Journey,
which was called the Hero's Journey,
made popular by Joseph Campbell.
But I turned it around to have it reflect women's stories
and it's a way to show women that they already are heroines.
They've already taken the risk to leap over a threshold
where they don't know what's coming,
but it's that bravery to answer
what your heart is telling you to do.
And that makes you a heroine.
And yes, it's tough, things happen, you meet your dragons,
your personal dragons, but you get through it.
And then look where you are
(background music drowns out speaker)
You're stronger, wiser, ready for the next journey.
- What was really interesting about this book
is it's like a game.
(Susanna chuckles)
I've never seen that in a self-help book before.
Can you elaborate on the
game strategy? - Well, so,
I call them tasks because it's all sort of,
you know, when you think of the Wizard of Oz,
and Dorothy gets a task to get the broomstick.
So they're on a quest in the book and,
people reading it,
and the game that you speak about is one
that I use in my retreats and workshops
to help women tap into their intuition.
To ask where do I want to be in three years
and not have the brain kick in and say,
"you should be financially secure,
"you should, should, should."
But just to, I kind of lead them into a place
where it comes up organically
of what their life could look like in three years.
And women are amazed that things come up
that they never would have thought of
and I tell them, "Pay attention to that.
"See what comes up and maybe follow it."
- Let me ask you this.
Women tend to self-sabotage a lot.
I know you do the retreats.
In the book, how do you cope when,
we all have those negative self-doubts.
- Right.
- How do you cope with that?
- Yes, and so the term in the Heroine's Journey
is the Threshold Guardians.
So that's the voice in your head
that's saying you can't do this, you're not enough,
no one will ever read it.
And so, of course, it took me five years to write it.
That kept coming up in my head.
So I think the way that I cope with it is I listen,
I say, "Thank you for sharing.
"You know, get behind me."
And I put one foot in front of the other and keep going,
just, I never gave up.
And I think you have to believe in yourself,
as much as it can be hard to do that at times.
- It is really hard
and what was the hardest part of writing this book?
Cause it's an intense book,
it's a great book. (Susanne chuckles)
There's a lot of information in here.
- I think, Lea, I think it's just
what we've been talking about,
believing that it was worthy to be out there
and that people would read it.
And you know, I remember talking to my book coach,
the beginning, and saying I don't even want
to tell people I'm writing a book.
Because if you do that,
then you're raising their expectations.
And what if I decide it's no good
and I don't want to publish it?
So as I hear myself saying that,
I think everybody goes through this.
And I did it, and I finish,
and I even got an award at the summit.
(Lea laughs) And so,
don't listen to those voices,
those negative voices in your head.
- And we all have them.
- Yeah!
- They creep in at the worst times.
Now, how has writing this book changed your life?
- Oh, so it's given me confidence that I can,
if I look at myself and say,
I took a journey to write the book,
I met my dragons, and I came out the other end.
I accomplished it, it's given me more confidence.
But what's interesting is here I am,
at the brink of another journey,
because you publish it, you write it, you publish it,
and then it's now what?
- Right?
- Now what do I do? (chuckles)
And so I'm working on that, I'm hiring a coach to help me,
at your recommendation.
And you need help.
Now that's another message of the book is you're not alone.
There's so many heroines walking the journey path,
we're doing it together.
And it's one thing we really have in common.
If we wanna develop and become more evolved,
we have to make those leaps into the unknown,
which you've done many times.
- I'm still doing. - I know!
- I've slayed a few dragons in my time.
Let's talk about this cup you gave me, I love this.
And I love the dragon metaphor.
First of all, I'm a huge Game of Thrones fan, so--
- Me, too.
- (laughs) This was really a personal journey for you.
You got really personal in this book.
- Right.
- Can you share with our viewing audience a,
just, your experience?
Your favorite chapter.
- Okay, well, I guess one of the big aha's,
one of the things I tell women
to do is look back on your journeys
and you will realize how brave you are
and the courage that you've had.
And we tend to forget, we just keep going on.
So when I looked back,
one of my favorite stories is leaving my company
that I was part of for 12 years,
and starting a consulting business with a woman.
And we were going gung-ho,
we were hired back by the company
to actually do facilitation and mediation,
it was successful.
And maybe four months later,
she was telling me she didn't wanna be my partner.
And I say in the book,
I don't think I ever would've left my corporate job
if it hadn't been that I was leaving it with her,
and now I'm finding myself alone.
And it was rejection times 100,
but it was the best thing that ever happened to me
because I was able to boot myself up and do it.
And I proved to myself I could do it by myself.
But one of my dragons has always been you can't do it alone,
you can't do it by yourself.
And yes, we need a team to help,
but you also have to believe
that you can create your journey
and your life the way you want it.
- What is one piece
of advice you would give an aspiring writer?
- I would say not to give up
because those voices will get louder and louder,
you'll think it's--
- So true, so true! (Susanna laughs)
- And to get help.
And so I had a book coach at the beginning,
then I had an editor who really helped me,
and then I found the person who helped me publish,
Emerald Lake Books,
and they all helped me in their own way, yeah.
- Now Susanna, if you could go back and talk
to your 21-year-old self, what would you say?
- Stop caring so much about what everybody else thinks,
trying to fit, and realize
that you are own unique, precious self.
And just own that.
- Why do we-- - I wouldn't have listened!
I wouldn't have listened. (chuckles)
- Why do we do that to ourselves as women?
- Yeah, I don't know.
I think because all the magazines that, you know,
you pour over, and the movies and tv,
you're given all these examples
and you think that's the way I'm supposed to be.
You know, how many times did I used to straighten my hair
and iron it, you know,
because curly hair wasn't in when I was 21 years old.
And now I've accepted, I'm a curly-haired girl.
- And a beautiful curly-haired girl.
- Thank you.
- Did you ever experience writer's block?
- Yes and what I've done,
and this is another big help, maybe it was for me.
So Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way,
recommends three pages of morning pages,
just dumping on the page all your thoughts.
And it's a way to take all those critical thoughts,
dump them on the page to get rid of them.
She calls it vacuuming out your brain.
And I use that when I get stuck and it works.
I've also worked with my non-dominant hand,
asking a question with my right hand
and having my left hand respond.
- Interesting.
- Really interesting.
- So what's next for you?
- I'm working with a coach. (laughs)
- You know, it's funny, we all need mentors.
- Right.
- And I think so many women are afraid to ask for help
and you know, there are amazing people
that are willing to step up and help,
but you have to ask.
- Right, right, so getting my ask on
and working with a coach,
but what it is for me is how best to bring this forward.
Because I think it's such an important message
that women need to realize how brave they already are.
And not to point to somebody else and say,
oh, she started a company and I didn't, so no.
You have done things, you're a heroine, that's the message.
- I love that, I love that. - Yeah, me too.
- Thank you so much for coming on this show.
- Thank you so much for having me.
- You know, Susanna, how can our viewing audience get a hold
of you and your fabulous book?
- Thank you, well, so go to my website,
which is susannaliller.com.
And the book is there and how you can order it.
- You're on Amazon, too, right?
- And I'm on Amazon, yes that's another way.
- Thank you so much for helping women everywhere.
It's an important message.
Again, You Are A Heroine.
- Thank you, Lea.
- You are so welcome.
This is Lea Woodford with Between the Lines,
thanks for watching.