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I was lucky enough to interview author and writer, Martin Vidal, and pick his brain. I hope you'll check out the video or podcast and give this man some props. I hope you'll listen to one of my favorite interviews yet with one of my new favorite people. Here are some highlights to entice you to listen. On Martin's website he says that he loves to write and figure things out, which really struck a chord with me because that's what I do, too. Martin's Ambition Handbook is all about self-examination and self-transformation. And it’s a bit more of a holistic look at how to find success rather than a listicle. Decision making, the choices we each take, that seems to really matter to Martin and he speaks a bit to that and so much little On our own podcast, we have a thing we do on Fridays called BE BRAVE FRIDAYS where we try to share other people’s bravery stories, stories where they stepped out of their comfort zone or the box they’d been put in. It can be little. It can be small. It can be huge. Martin talks about one of the events in his life that he looks back on and thinks, “Whoa. I was really brave there.” Spoiler: It's that quarter-life existential crisis. Martin's other book, THE FLOWER GARDEN, is releasing soon and I got a bit of a peek and it’s just this lovely sauntering through the moments of humanity. He touches on narcissism, grief, love, so many things that matter. And in the podcast he tells us about how he moved from THE AMBITION HANDBOOK to THE FLOWER GARDEN? We also talk about a great memory in his piece “Social Anxiety Made Me Who I Am” that I think a lot of us writers can relate to. I remember at 9 years old when I did my first creative writing assignment. The teacher told us to write a paragraph or two starting with “I found an egg in the yard…” We had 30 minutes, if I recall correctly. I wrote three pages and would’ve gladly continued writing more. Whereas my anxiety had muzzled me, the written word flowed out in a torrent. The teacher loved my writing so much she insisted on reading it aloud. Once again, I went to hide in the bathroom while she did. He wrote in that same piece: But there’s something malfunctioning inside of me. I’m not afraid of people, but my body is. It tightens up; I lose my ability to focus, to be still — to be me. I can’t think of anything but to get away. Maybe one of the big reasons I adore Martin is that he really embodies the Nelson Mandela quote "Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." Where to find Martin: Why Your Writing Might Be Too Good to Be Popular https://martinvidal.co/social-anxiety Website: www.martinvidal.co Books: The Ambition Handbook Flower Garden On Medium: https://martinvidal.medium.com/ BE A PART OF OUR MISSION! Hey! We're all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we're starting to collect stories about each other's bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren't brave enough to use your name. It's totally chill. Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we'll read it here and on our YouTube channel. LET'S HANG OUT! HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER? MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST? JUST CLICK ON THIS LINK AND FIND OUT HOW WE CAN INTERACT MORE. HELP US AND DO AN AWESOME GOOD DEED Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness on the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE podcast and our new LOVING THE STRANGE podcast. We’re sorry we laugh so much… sort of. Please share it and subscribe if you can. Please rate and like us if you are feeling kind, because it matters somehow. There’s a new episode every Tuesday! Thanks so much for being one of the 261,000 downloads if you’ve given us a listen! One of our newest LOVING THE STRANGE podcasts is about the strange and adorably weird things people say? And one of our newest DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE episode is about fear setting and how being swallowed by a whale is bad ass. And Carrie has new books out! Yay! You can order now! It's an adult mystery/thriller that takes place in Bar Harbor, Maine. Read an excerpt here! The people who kill It's my book! It came out June 1! Boo-yah! Another one comes out July 1. And that one is called THOSE WHO SURVIVED, which is the first book in the the DUDE GOODFEATHER series. I hope you’ll read it, like it, and buy it! The Dude Goodfeather Series - YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones TO TELL US YOUR BRAVE STORY JUST EMAIL BELOW. Submit a form.