Do you dream of breaking free from societal expectations? In a world where she was constantly overlooked, Leigh Lincoln found her voice in the most unexpected of places. Now this unapologetic author challenges women to embrace their true selves, and prioritize personal growth, despite facing the conflicting pressures of conformity and authenticity.
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Show Notes | Transcript“I don’t care what your passion is. Go find it. Go use it. Go change the world.” – Leigh Lincoln
Joining me on Live. Love. Engage. is the talented author Leigh Lincoln. With a passion for crafting emotionally impactful novels, Leigh’s work aims to inspire, uplift, and ignite meaningful conversations. Having dedicated over 30 years to homeless and poverty advocacy, Leigh brings a unique perspective to our conversation about personal growth and fulfillment. Her journey and experiences have led her to empower women to find their voices and redefine societal rules. With her profound insights and relatable storytelling, Leigh’s presence promises to offer our audience enhanced self-awareness and a deeper sense of fulfillment in life.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Cultivate self-awareness for personal growth and fulfillment.
- Embrace authenticity to enrich your relationships.
- Harness the power of love for personal and professional success.
- Live life to the fullest by seizing every opportunity.
- Pursue passions and embrace growth for a fulfilling life.
Related Live. Love. Engage. episodes you may enjoy:
Sarah Walton’s Secrets to Empowering Women Entrepreneurs
Mentorship Secrets for Success with Author Christine Van Horn
Empowering Women Leaders with Pattie Grimm
Resources:
Connect with Leigh here
Join the Soulful Women’s Network here
Send me a message here
☕ Support the podcast here
❤ Love this episode? Leave us a review and rating here
Connect with Gloria Grace: LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:29 – Gloria “Grace” Rand
Are you ready to redefine the boundaries of your life and career? Well, if so, today’s edition of Live Love Engage is for you. And first off, I want to say Namaste. As I realized, I normally start my podcast off by saying that, and I didn’t do that. So, Namaste. I am Grace Rand, the light messenger and holistic business guide. And I’m delighted to be with you today and to also have a guest. And we are broadcasting live on Facebook and LinkedIn today. And I am so happy to be back doing live interviews in the new year. So I want to tell you a little bit about our guest today. She is an author whose passion lies in crafting inspiring novels that impact readers on a deep emotional level. And her name is Leigh Lincoln. And she aims to inspire, uplift, and provoke thoughtful conversations. And she also believes that no one is too old not to adapt, to evolve and to achieve something more. And she says that all women can find their voice, no matter who they are or what they do. And we’re going to talk about that in a moment. But first off, I want to bring Leigh onto the show and welcome you officially today to live love engage.
00:01:51 – Leigh Lincoln
Hi. Thanks for having me.
00:01:54 – Gloria “Grace” Rand
I’m so glad you’re here, and I’m really curious to know more about you. But I did want to start off, as I said there, to talk about a little bit about why you really do believe that it’s important for women to find their voice and make their own rules. So why do you say that?
00:02:17 – Leigh Lincoln
Well, we, as women so often are told we are “just.” And you can fill in the blank with whatever that is. We’re just a woman. We are just moms. We are just whatever. And then that puts us in a box, and it often limits us and limits what we think we can do. And society has a lot of rules for women that we’re supposed to follow and how we’re supposed to look and act, right? And a lot of times, if women are forceful, loud, brag about their accomplishments, then they’re told that they’re pushy or rude or aggressive. And that isn’t true. No. You should be loud. You should be proud. You should know who and what you are, right? Yeah. And you shouldn’t let people tell you any of those things. You should know who you are. You should know what your passion is, and you should be out there screaming to the world what you can do, and you should be able to change the world because of it.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Now, I’m curious about something because I definitely, I 100% agree with you. Number one, and I can feel your passion about this. So is there a particular reason, is this maybe close to home about why you feel this way, I wonder? And maybe that fits into why you started to write books, perhaps you could kind of touch on that.
Leigh Lincoln
Yeah, the whole reason this kind of got started was because I didn’t set out to become an author at all. So I used to do homeless and poverty advocacy for 30 something years, and I was at a community meeting one night. Well, to back up a little bit, I worked in homeless shelters. I was on all these committee meetings and helped low income families, blah, blah, blah, whatever. The list went on. So I was at this meeting one night, and the topic was really interesting to me. I had something I wanted to say, but the guy who was running the meeting pointed to the politician, to the businessman, to all of these other people, and he just ignored me. So at the end of the meeting, I went up to this guy to try to get my point across, and he shut me down in a hot minute. And instead of listening to me, he gave me 50 excuses why he didn’t want to listen to me. I was just a mom. I was just a woman. I didn’t have the right background, the right education, blah, blah, blah. Right. It would have taken him less time to listen to me than it did for me to hear his excuses. And I went home that night, and I was just so frustrated and angry because it had hit me like a slap in the face that this guy was not the only one who just ignored my opinion. It had happened over and over and over again, but it was just this wake up call. Like, what in the world? Why do I keep letting people do this to me? And so I went home that night, and I just started. I pulled out a notebook because I was a homeschooling mom at that. Not only was I a single mother, I was a homeschooling single mother. So I pulled out a notebook, and I just started journaling out my frustrations. And three months later, or something like three months later, I looked at what I’d written, and I had accidentally written a novel, because at some point, I flipped from writing about myself to writing in first person perspective from a homeless woman because I’d worked with so many homeless women. And I can see why I did it because there’s a lot of parallels between feeling ignored like I did, because a lot of homeless women just are completely ignored. They hide in the shadows. And so I can see why I did it. I don’t know when I did it, but I just completely flipped. And I wrote my first novel, Road Home. And I was just like, okay, nobody’s going to read this because everybody’s been ignoring me for all these years. Why would anybody read it? So I thought, I’ll clean it up a little bit, throw it out in their universe, see what happens. Maybe I’ll sell 10, 15 copies, maybe 20 if I get lucky, right? Raise a couple of bucks for charity. Life will be good. But here’s the thing. You publish a book, all of a sudden you’re an expert. It’s a thing.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
That’s wonderful, isn’t it?
Leigh Lincoln
Yeah.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
So what did that mean for you, though? What impact did that have on now suddenly being called an expert?
Leigh Lincoln
Yeah. So I still didn’t have the degree everybody wanted. I still didn’t have the job experience. No, nothing else changed in my life except for now. I had this published novel out there, and so all of a sudden, I was getting asked to speak on homeless and poverty issues. All of a sudden, everyone wanted my opinion. It was kind of crazy. And I was selling these books like hotcakes. It was, like, kind of insane. And it took me a long time to really see myself as different because I’d been told I wasn’t anybody for so long that even I had kind of internalized it without even realizing it. And so it took me a while to really grasp what had changed. And so after a few months, people started saying, well, you really need to write another book. And I was like, well, why? I’m not an author, right? Because it took me a long time to accept that as part of my identity. And so here’s the thing. And again, at the beginning, right, I said that we need to really figure out who we are and claim that because we allow other people to tell us what we are for so long, right? And I did. And I was just like, wait, no, I’m just this quiet little mom, right? And so it took me a long time. It was years before I really got up the courage to write another book. And when I finally did, I was like, who’s really going to read this? Because it’s kind of out there and weird. But then people loved it. And I was like, okay, then I guess I’m going to claim this I’m an author thing, right?
Gloria “Grace” Rand
I think you should.
Leigh Lincoln
And now I have five, so we’re just rolling.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Oh, my gosh. Wow. Well, so many things are going through my head right now. And number one is, what do you think it took to really make that switch in your brain to finally say, okay, yes, I’m going to claim this. I am an author. Was there, like, one particular moment, maybe, where you finally said, okay, I’m going to do this, or what do you think?
Leigh Lincoln
Well, I think a lot of it was just the validation I was getting from others as part of it. People just kept saying, it was a really good book, my first one. But part of it was me realizing that I had a lot to say, and I’d just been bottling it up for years. And part of it had to do with me changing my entire life. I moved from one side of the country to the other. I started doing things for me and not for anyone else, like I’d always done my entire life. If I wanted to do it, I did it. And so part of it was just. I switched my entire mindset to, I am valued, I have purpose, I have meaning, and I need to just do what I want when I want it for myself, for a change, and not constantly be always thinking of others. And I think if I had done this earlier, I would have been a better mom, I would have been a better volunteer, doing all of the things I had been doing for years if I had put that focus on myself earlier. And I’m not saying you need to be selfish, but I am saying that that is a key point, is you need to figure out how to take care of yourself. Because I realized I was drained. I had just literally poured myself out for others and had never taken care of myself. And so I think that was a big part of that switch, was realizing that you can’t just give yourself to others all of the time, because then there’s nothing left. You have to refill it. You have to keep refilling yourself. So I hope that makes sense.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Yeah, it does, 100%. And I love that you made that point, that you really did have to start putting yourself first. I think as women, we’re so often caretaking is sort of more of our natural tendency, because even if you’re not a mother, even if you haven’t given birth, if you don’t have, if you’re not a parent, you still probably, maybe you had siblings you took care of, or maybe even took care of your parents, but in some way, most likely, you’ve taken care of somebody in your life. And we often do that. I think we just wind up being these. It’s our natural tendency to want to take care of everybody, but then we forget that we have to take care of ourselves first, because if we don’t, and I preach this all the time to my clients, if you don’t take care of yourself first, then you’re not going to be able to take care of anybody else either. So you really have to do this. One of things you mentioned which I’m just in awe of is the fact that your books were so well received, shall we say. I guess it sounds like you didn’t have too much of a hard time necessarily getting them in the hands of other people. And it’s interesting timing, because this morning I received an email from one of the people on my list, and she’s saying that she writes fiction and that one of her challenges is being able to market her books because her publisher doesn’t do a whole lot for that. So how has that been for you? Did you self publish? Do you have a publisher? How have you been able to get the word out about your books?
Leigh Lincoln
I’m kind of a unicorn. I self published my first four, and I did something that very few authors don’t. Most authors do not do what I did. I kind of hit the road because my child was grown when I wrote my first book. I’m older. I am not a spring chicken here. So I had all this time on my hands, and so I traveled a ton, and I went to all these crazy events like farmers markets, craft fairs, whatever, where there weren’t any other authors. And I sold my books at all these crazy events, and that’s how I sold so many. And then I did some speaking engagements, which also would sell quite a bit, and I’d hit up churches and all kinds of other places, right? And this is how I was successful. And most authors don’t do things like this. And I know for a fact, because I’ve done hundreds of events at this point, because I’ve been doing this since 2016, where I’ve just been going to little events, a lot of weekends out of the year, and I don’t see very many other authors out there. And I hear a few other authors who they’re like, well, I do a few things on Facebook or I occasionally do interviews or whatever, and I’m like, but you need to be out there. You need to be in the public. Because I do an event, and I’ll have ten people on any given day who say, you know, you’re the first author I’ve ever met. And I’m like, wait, how is that possible? There’s, like, millions of authors out there running around right now. Where are they? I realize I’m a bit of a unicorn. I’m this heavy, bubbly person, even though I write about these deep, dramatic, dark things, like homelessness and suicide and dying of cancer. I write these deep, dramatic, dark things. And then people like, I’m this upbeat, bubbly person, and then they meet me in person. I have had people come meet me at an event because they’ve read my books and they’re like, wait, you are this happy, bubly person? And we read this book and we’re like, this does not connect at all. I’m like, yes, no. Anyway, yeah, because I write these real, honest, raw books, and this is me and I’m out there and kind of crazy. But more authors need to do that because here’s the thing that readers want, and this doesn’t come from me. This came from this reader survey last year that was done by a couple of publishing houses. What readers want is honest, relatable connections. Okay? They’re not going to get that if they don’t meet you in person. Honest, real connections. Yeah. How are they going to get that if all they know you from is a few social media posts? And the other thing is three out of four books sold is print.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Wow. Still, that’s amazing because you think everything is on Kindle. We’re using our phones and things like that. I do still love physical books myself.
Leigh Lincoln
And I hear that all the time, especially from other authors. They’re like, well, I keep pushing the Kindle because that’s all that’s ever sold. And I’m like, you’ve been misinformed. Totally misinformed. You need to get your little feet out there and march in on whatever platform you can, whether it be speaking, whether it be events, and get out there and meet people, because that is how books are sold. Because, again, three out of four are print. Hello?
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Yeah, and you’re absolutely right. And I’m guilty of this, too, because I have not been out there enough for my books. But I know when I’ve given presentations and I’ve had my books, I’ve sold the books. So you’re right. I need to get out there. In fact, I was at like a trade show last year and sold books. So thanks for the reminder. Kick in the butt. This is good. Starting the new year. So all you authors who are listening out there, get out there and do it. And this is something maybe I want to ask you another question. So now that you’ve been writing for several years now, what advice would you have for a first time author or maybe someone who’s starting to sort of get this idea? I think I’d like to write a book. What advice would you give them?
Leigh Lincoln
Well, for me, again, the way I write is kind of unusual. I don’t do an outline. I just really free flow and just be real raw and emotional. And I know that’s not for everyone, but I think we’d have more quality books if more people would write that way and just let their heart come out. And readers are really drawn to that. And I’ve discovered that over the years that readers are much more drawn to those kind of books. And I think part of that, again, is me being willing to get out there into the universe and meet my readers in person. And so just let your heart come through your books and just disconnect your brain. I, a lot of times, will write, not on my computer. I write by hand with a journal first, and then turn that into my work, because that worked with my first book. It’s still working now. So really let your brain disconnect. And that does not happen on a computer. You need to journal, really get those thoughts out there, get your true inner feelings out there, and it really connects with readers, at least in my experience it does.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Absolutely. And I agree with you 100%, because that’s actually how I got my book written as well, is I started handwriting it in a journal, and I did also free flow it. I had an idea of what I wanted to talk about, and I did have some core concepts, but it turned out to be much more of a memoir than I thought it was going to be because I wound up just having, wanting to include examples from my life to illustrate the points. But if I started at the beginning with, like, I had to have it be a certain way, it might not have turned out that way. And I’m messing up how I’m doing this video stuff. But it’s, oh, bear with me. Those of you who are watching this live and or watching it on YouTube later on, just be patient with me. It’s been a while since I’ve done streamyard. What? Is there a? I don’t know. I like asking this question once in a while, so I’m not even sure. Is there a commonly held belief about maybe writing or being an author that you passionately disagree with?
Leigh Lincoln
Well, I get told a lot of times that it’s easy, that my job is easy, and I’m like, wait, what? Do you have any idea what I do in a day? No. My job is not easy. It’s easier now that my fifth book, lost father, is with a publisher. It’s easier now because I have people who do. Some of the work for me. But still, I connect with readers. I’m having to figure out where I need to go for events. I’m researching my books. I’m writing my books. I connect with readers. I do a newsletter. I do social media. There are not 30 hours in a day, and there are days that I feel like I need 30 hours in a day. My job is not easy. I’m a one woman show 90% of the time. I get people that comment all the time. Oh, you must have so much fun in your job. I’m like, no. There are days where I’m literally pulling out my hair because I’m like, I don’t know what I’m doing. And I’m fairly sure I just screwed something up big time. I’m like, no, my job is not easy.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
But there must be something appealing about it because you keep doing it. So what is appealing about what you do?
Leigh Lincoln
Well, what’s most appealing is all of the connections I’ve made over the years. Of course, I’m a people person. Clearly. I love connecting with people. Okay, I’ve turned into a story vampire is how I’ve come to term it. I love hearing other people’s stories. This just sparks my little creativity. And I’m just like, yes, just tell me more, tell me more, tell me more. And I don’t use anybody’s stories word for word. Clearly, that would be wrong, right? But it just sparks my creativity, gets my juices flowing, and I love meeting people. And so the more I’m out there, the more I talk to people. That just keeps me going. And it’s not just so much the praise about my work, but it’s like, they tell me, this part of your book changed my life, and this is why, or something you said on a show or an interview or something you wrote about in your blog changed my life. And this is why. That’s what keeps me going. Because I’m like, yes. This is why I do it. It’s less to sell a book and more because I want you to think. I want you to see that you can make a difference. I want you to see that maybe your life isn’t on a perfect path, and that’s okay. You can make a little change and maybe have your life be slightly better. And that’s where it is for me. And this is why I do it. And this is why some days I’m just pulling out my hair and going. And then there’s other days where I’ll get this beautiful email from someone who’s like, you know, I never thought about this or I was at this event this fall when I had this. My last father book is about a birth father and his whole struggle to figure out where he went wrong and how to fix it, which is really hard to fix when you’ve ghosted your girlfriend and then now there’s this child out in the world that you have no way to connect with, right? So I was explaining this book to someone this fall, before it was even out, and this guy gave me this funny look and then he’s like, I had the same situation 60 something years ago. He’s like, I’m going to go home. I’m going to do all of the DNA tests from all of those websites, ancestry, 23andme, and I’m going to see if she’s put up dna, she or he, because of course he didn’t know what the baby was. And he’s like, just to see if I can connect with my child. And I’m like, yes, this is why I’m doing this, is so I can make a difference in people’s lives. And I’m like, cool. Because he’s lived with this regret his entire life. And just by talking to me at some event, he’s just like, no, you’re right. We birth fathers can make a difference. And I want to make sure that my child’s okay, wherever my child might be. And let’s see if I can find my kid. Right? This is cool. This is why I do this.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
That’s awesome. And I was thinking as you were talking about this too. Really, I love your passion as an author. It just comes through so much. In this day and age of AI, I’m sure you’ve heard of little things like Chat GPT, and everybody is like, oh, I see posts like, oh, you can write a book with Chat GPT.
Leigh Lincoln
In 2 hours or less.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah. So what do you say to people? Because I think you’ve pretty much already said it already, but what would you say to them?
Leigh Lincoln
The look on my face, the grimace. So I was getting a lot of emails about this and I finally sent a newsletter out to my readers. I will not use it. And the reason is most of this is very generic and bland. And I gave an example to my readers of a description that Chat GPT would come up with. If you put in a question to ask it for a short story, this is why I won’t use it, because there’s no way AI has emotions, feelings, thoughts like a human as where I have lived this, or I know someone who has lived this, been there, got that t shirt. We have thoughts, we have emotions, we cry, we laugh, we hug it out. A computer could never do that. A computer cannot be angry. All of this, this is not realistic. And there is no way, no matter how well you put in this prompt, that you could come out with anything that could be realistic to the human experience. Now, the other problem I have with AI is some of these lawsuits that are coming out because part of the way it is able to produce these stories is it’s copying works that are already out there. I have a huge issue with this. This is my work. This is other people’s work that it is stealing from. No. Just no. I worked hard, these other people worked hard to produce these works, not to have it be stolen.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I will say, I had a feeling that was what you were going to say, and I agree with you. And I will say there are some uses for ChatGPT, for instance. I love using it to help me come up with ideas or to give me ideas for titles, for an episode of the podcast, for instance. And it’s good for that. But yes, the actual
Leigh Lincoln
For social media, for getting ideas for social media. Yes, find events. There are limited uses for it. Limited. But keep it away from books. Keep it away from content that needs to be emotional.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Yes, for sure. One of my favorite questions that I love to ask my guests who are on the show, and I’m going to ask this too, as we’re starting to wind up the interview here, is, what are you curious about right now?
Leigh Lincoln
Right now I am really curious about all things hippie 1970s, but that’s because I’m doing a bunch of research on that for my next book. So this is kind of weird and out there, but. Yeah, don’t ask. I kind of do these weird research deep dives sometimes. Don’t ask.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Cool. All right, well, look forward to it. Hey, I grew up in the 70s. It was an interesting time, although really,
Leigh Lincoln
I did too.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
I would say my sister grew up in the 70s. She was more of an adult. Well, cool. Is there anything that I should have asked you, but I didn’t? Or any other last point you’d like to leave our listeners with today?
Leigh Lincoln
Well, if anyone’s listening, they can go to my website, leighlincolnuthor.com. There’s a little sign up button there. If you go there, you can download a free little short story. You can connect with me there. And all of my books are listed on my website and all the information about me and where I’ll be this month. Is on there, and all kinds of little information is on my website, links to my social. All of it is all on my website. And that’s, again, leighlincolnauthor.com. And Lee is spelled L-E-I-G-H. For those of you who don’t know.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
I was going to add that in, but you beat me to it. Very good. Yes. For those of you that are listening to this.
Leigh Lincoln
I always make sure to say that.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Yes, you’re a pro. I know. I can tell. This is awesome. Well, cool. And then that took my last question because I was going to say, how can our listeners get in touch with you? So, very good. But I will have all of that in the show notes. So if you are listening to this, you can go back and go to liveloveengagepodcast.com and look for this episode and then you’ll be able to have it there. Well, the time flew by and I really enjoyed our discussion. I think you shared some wonderful information out there for any would be authors, as well as women in particular, on the importance of being able to not let other people label you. It’s not this, just as we’re not just a wife, just a business owner, just whatever, you’re much more than that. And you get to decide.
Leigh Lincoln
Yeah, and we all have a passion. We just need to tap into that. And if we do, we can literally change the world because we’re 50% of the world’s population and yet we have, what, 1% of the opinions.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
It feels that way sometimes, doesn’t it?
Leigh Lincoln
No, we all just need to tap into our passion and go change the world. And my passion for a long time was homelessness, and now it’s adoption because I’m trying to get more word out about that with this new series that I’m doing. But yeah, no, I don’t care what your passion is. Go find it. Go use it. Go change the world.
Gloria “Grace” Rand
Excellent. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate you being here on the show. And I know, as I said, everybody got a lot of value out of it. And I appreciate all of you for watching, for listening on whatever platform it is. And I hope you will make sure that you are following me on LinkedIn and Facebook so that we’re going to be coming to you live every Wednesday now. And those of you listening on your favorite podcast platform, of course, the audios come out a little bit after that, but I hope you will subscribe to the channel or subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to my YouTube channel and okay, that’s enough of that. That’s all the commercials we got today. So thank you again, Leigh, for being with us. And I’m going to in closing, encourage all of you out there to go out and live fully, love deeply and engage authentically.
