We’re very excited to announce that our much-loved book Soul Trader – Putting the Heart Back into Your Business celebrates its third birthday this month and has just turned three.
We want to thank the thousands of people who have bought, read and listened to the book …and everyone shared it, reviewed it, recommended it, bought it as a gift, attended our events, listened to our podcasts and talks.
We also want to thank everyone who was involved in birthing and building the book which has received wide praise, been translated into many languages and enjoyed by readers across 5 continents.
The story began around 4 and a half years ago when I met Liz Gooster who at that time had begun work as Editor at Large for Kogan Page which she was blending with building her own career as a business coach. Liz attended a business bootcamp at the British Library Business & Intellectual Property Centre at which I was one of the speakers and where I’ve been the business coach partner for many years. We chatted during the workshop and I invited her to my own business workshop at the centre. At that workshop where my 2 self-published books where on display Liz asked me if I intended to write another book. I immediately replied yes. The fact was I wasn’t thinking about it at that time but opportunities like that rarely emerge. I think the next day – or within a couple of days – I sent Liz an initial one page proposal for “Soul Trader – Building Your Business By Heart” which was based on a talk I’d given a year or so before. So the 7+ 1 principles where already in place.
Anyway things moved fast and within a few months I had started writing the book. I described the process of writing the book like being ‘under house arrest with friendly guards’. By that I really undertook writing it with real focus and discipline. But in fact, as with my book The Gift of Inner Success and all my audio talks it began with me going into the recording studio and speaking it chapter by chapter intuitively. I knew unlike some of my other products including the Become Who You Are audio talk that I couldn’t deliver the whole book that way as the word count I was given was far higher than I’d written before. But I knew that I could make a start. And in fact probably about 20% of what you read was that first instinctive talk. I had it transcribed and I was away and writing. In the end I wrote almost double the word count I was given. The one great thing about having to edit that down was that I did the major edit which meant that the publishers edit was very light indeed so the book you read is how I wrote it.
The real journey though has been the journey that the book went on after publication and now, three years on, I still feel that that journey has just begun. The birth of this website and it’s rich resources is part of it. But I have been touched, struck and moved by how warmly the book has been received and the number of people who have told me how much it has helped them. I remember clearly receiving a message on email or via Linked In by someone in Melbourne, Australia a few months after publication who told me that they had just bought it in a bookshop there as it had ‘called to them’. There have been many such stories.
The story that counts is yours and I wish you ever success year on year in your life and your business. Thank you for your time hear reading this and engaging with the book and the content inspired from it.
