I was in full-on rebel mode when I shot this video … because sometimes I hate marketing. What I love is helping people with their food and connecting with people.
My job this week is to talk about my new book, ON THIS BRIGHT DAY: A Year of Reflections for Lasting Food Freedom. I opened the book this morning and it says “Commitment over 51 percent.” Sometimes we don’t have to be fully committed to stay bright. We just need commitment over 51 percent. I also found a reading on March 22, from Pythagoras. “The oldest, shortest words, yes and no, are those which require the most thought.”
I’ve been thinking about my yes and my no around marketing my book. I’m obviously a yes for doing this vlog, because here I am filming it. And I’m a yes for this book getting into more hands. This book is powerful. This book is a little dance with the universe. The fact that I woke up this morning and the reading was about commitment over 51 percent was like the universe saying, “You don’t have to be all in. You just have to take a baby step.”
I am a big yes for our message: Bright Line Eating can create sanity, thriving, health, and well-being for so many people. I want that message out in the world—reaching millions of people. And that’s marketing. And I don’t love that.
Here’s something I’m willing to say: we are hoping that some folks will buy more than one book. Why? What would you do with extra books? I have some thoughts about that: donate them to bariatric surgery clinics. Or go to a Brightest group if there’s one in your area. Or bring it to your local library or local Little Free Libraries.
Or the best idea: save some to give to people in your life, people you may not even know yet, who struggle with food.
Some people have bought more than one book, and they’re on the leaderboard. I’ve been calling some of the folks on the leaderboard, just to get to know them. I called Sue Smith in England. She lost 110 pounds with Bright Line Eating and has been keeping them off for years. She started BLE nearly SEVEN YEARS AGO and never looked back. She takes Bright Line Eating to heart—that you have to stay in gratitude and service. She and others in Europe are reading the book now. If you go to onthisbrightdaybook.com, as Sue did, and purchase just one copy, you can download the pages of the book for September and October in PDF form. She gave me a pep talk—so thank you, Sue Smith.
The contest ends on Saturday, October 28. Also, at the bottom of the leaderboard page, there are social posts. Any time you post on Instagram and use the hashtag #OnThisBrightDay, our website includes the post. So that’s kind of cool.
The three top people on the leaderboard as of October 28, the last day of the contest, will get invited to come to Rochester, NY. I’ll call them in advance and we’ll craft our trip together. The top person gets all expenses paid. The next two get invitations, and they’re welcome to come. It’s going to be as good as a Disney cruise, but more economical. A dream vacation! We’ll have a blast.
The top twenty people will each get five signed nameplates with one inscribed just for them.
And everyone who buys five books will get to join me for Lunchtime Lives the week the book is released, which is October 24. These are online Zoom events where you can join me to eat lunch and chat. I’ve been lining up people to join me at the Lunchtime Lives. People like Ocean Robbins, founder and CEO of the Food Revolution Network. Also, Patty Gift, who is the head of Hay House, my publisher. We’ll talk about the inception of Bright Line Eating. Lucinda Blumenfeld, my agent, and the head of an incredible agency in Manhattan. Nicola Kraus, my writing coach and a multiple New York Times bestselling author herself, and Ashley Bernardi, the BLE public relations person. It’s all going to be a whole behind-the-scenes story about the book and the Bright Line Eating movement.
So I’ll continue to deeply wrestle with the question of how I show up in the world doing this authentically. Sometimes I love it. Am I doing it right? There are a lot of people suffering with food. Am I serving you as well as I could be? Is this marketing working? If I could just see you in person and sign the book and give it to you, that’s what I’d love to do. But I can’t do that. So I’ll do the next best thing and release this video.
