When I first set out on my journey of writing I never imagined or dreamed that I would end up becoming a published author in the book – The Power to Rise Above. Back in 2017 when I started first writing on social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn my main goal was to raise awareness about issues transgender people face. I started off with finding positive quotes to share and writing a short post linking it to my story or to adding my positive take on it.
At the same time my LinkedIn profile grew pretty quickly and as it did I managed to meet people who were in the media or been in the media as well as those who ran their own businesses. One of my first articles/blog posts was for Iceberg employment agency for which I got interviewed for however it kept me motivated to keep doing this. Around the same time I ventured into the new world of podcasts and radio doing an interview in the United States for an online talk show.
Being nominated as a finalist for 2017 Victorian LGBTI person of the year helped with getting more media and even appearing on Studio 10 on Australia’s Network Ten. As I continued my media and writing journey in 2018 I slowly became more confident in my writing and ability to write articles whether for media, online platforms or on LinkedIn.
Writing more and more articles on LinkedIn really helped me develop my writing skills. It also helped me learn the craft of how to get my point across. I found that on LinkedIn people were supportive and a few times where there was the odd grammatical error someone kindly commented on it so I could correct it. Sometimes those small things seem insignificant to most however to me it meant the world because it made me a better writer. It also helped me on my journey of advocating for the gender diverse and transgender community.
From 2018 to 2021 I become wrote about diversity and inclusion as well as leadership spreading my wings writing on other topics. I found this helped me look at things from a different perspective as well stepping outside my comfort zone to write on topics not necessarily done so in the past.
During 2021 I was approached to write a chapter for a book which I was excited to do; however, after a disagreement over marketing this fell through. Not long after this I was approached by Sandy Davies from Ozark Press to be in a new book being published in 2022. I agreed and over the coming months I improved my chapter before sending it off to Sandy to become a part of The Power to Rise Above.
The process of writing a chapter for a book is like deciding if one will have once slice of pizza or half the pizza or the whole pizza when it came to finding time to write and amount of words I wrote that day. This process taught me that it was ok to only write 200 words one day but it also taught me to be disciplined when it came to making time to do it and actually do it. Often in life we forget things or aren’t motivated to do things when in actuality we just have to do them regardless of how we are feeling.
Looking back I can see now that going through this process developed me in other ways as well and made me reflect on my journey in life and as a transgender woman to date. In life we all have obstacles to overcome some more than others however if we take one day at a time, doing one thing at a time I have found we can usually get to our destination, although at times we won’t. I have enjoyed meeting some of my The Power to Rise Above co-authors and was on co-author Karen Gibson’s Letting Go with Aloha series earlier this year.
Changing the radio station in our head to be more positive and really in tune with what we want is probably one of the hardest things to do on a daily basis, something I found and still find hard to do at times. Never think you alone in your battles and daily struggles just remember that with determination, the right attitude and mindset we all have the power to rise above and conquer all.
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