This month I’m inviting 30 magical authors to share how writing a book has created transformation in their lives as part of The Magical Portal Project.
And I was excited to have this conversation with brilliance unboxer and all-round creative unicorn, Jo Gifford.
I’ve worked with Jo as a client in her Brilliance Reloaded group and am a BIG fan. So when she reached out to say she was interested in publishing her second book, Brilliance Unboxed with The Unbound Press, I was over the moon!
In this conversation, Jo takes us behind-the-scenes of writing her first book, Brilliance Ignition and shares how Brilliance Unboxed is coming through in VERY different way.
Take a look at our conversation below and you’ll also find a full transcription of the interview if you’re a reader, rather than a watcher.
Find out more and join the free Magical Portal Project here.
Nicola: Hello and welcome to this episode of Unbound. I’m Nicola Humber, author of Unbound and founder of the Unbound Press, and today I am delighted to be joined by the amazing Jo Gifford, so welcome Jo.
Jo: Thank you for having me Nicola, I’m so excited to be here.
Nicola: Oh, me too. Because this month all of these episodes are part of the Magical Portal Project where we’re specifically focusing on the transformation and the magic that happens, sometimes quite disruptive magic actually, when we make that decision to write a book, and to share it with the world. And Jo’s first book, Brilliance Ignition, that’s right, isn’t it?
Jo: That’s exactly right, yeah.
Nicola: All the brilliance!
Jo: All the brilliance around but that’s the right one, yeah.
Nicola: That came out last year.
Jo: It did.
Nicola: This year Jo is working on her second book. She’s been writing it throughout the year, Brilliance Unboxed. And that’s being published by the Unbound Press. I was so excited when Jo decided to publish a book with us.
Jo: I wasn’t going to let you have a publishing house without me playing with you. I was like, this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Nicola! Since you told me about it, I need in. So, thank you for having me play with you. This is just such an honor.
Nicola: Oh, wow. You know, it’s such a gift for me to be able to witness the writing process and to hold space for you.
Jo: Or the not writing, as it turns out in my case. And we’ll talk about that too.
Nicola: Exactly, we’ll dive into that. So Jo, as we start this conversation, I’m really curious to know, what made you decide to write the first book?
Jo: Let’s dial back. So it’s 2019 at the moment… I’d say back in 2014/2015 I remember really clearly, having this download in my head of a model that would help people connect with their brilliance, their creativity and to spark it on a regular basis. I had this really clear thing, literally downloaded in my head. And I remember because I was having a really bad, quite fatigued day and pain day. Which of course gave me the gift of being out of my usual world, out of my hustle and bustle life. So I was in bed and, I guess, ready to receive ideas. I remember this download came and I scrabbled to my journal and jotted this thing down, and I knew I had to start getting this out.
Jo: So what I did at the time was, I created a series. So this was a series of emails that walked people through how to connect with their brilliance, how to ignite it, how to keep that creative well full. At the time, the response that I was getting from these emails was huge. So I thought, okay, this is interesting. I’ve hit on something that people really want to hear. And these were really in-depth emails, it was high quality. I was just so sure of this material that just appeared, as if from out of nowhere, but we know that it was informed, it was a download, informed by my years of working in various roles and creative thinking being a thread a bit. Here I was, I created this series of emails and I also turned that into various programs. I’d run some live mini-coaching groups of Brilliance Ignition Mastermind. All this kind of stuff. I knew that I needed to get this material out in some way. It took me three years… To turn those emails into a book that’s on Amazon, right now.
Jo: Now, I’ve worked with lots of people and their content creation is part of what I do. I have been really clear on how you set targets, and how you do some sprints, and how you tick things off, and how you work smart. All of that stuff, and here I was, spinning my wheels with this wealth of material that I, for whatever reason and there are many of them over various periods of time, I could not put that stuff together in a Google Doc and put it out. So, in the end I forced myself by putting it up on Amazon Kindle with a publish date and a really bad version of the document in there. Knowing that if I didn’t sort myself out by that date, and I was selling pre-orders of it, that people were going to receive a really terrible version of this book.
Jo: Now, that book that went out wasn’t perfect. It needed more editing, it needed more shaping, it needed all of that stuff, right? However, still every week I find new people that have found me through it. Interestingly, friends and family, who all have no real idea of what I do, have been raving about it. They’ve sort of discovered this work and are sharing it amongst themselves. They’re saying how much it’s changed their lives and the way that they approach creativity. And in all different careers, they’ve discovered that brilliance ignition. This process helps them to stay creative, to find new ways of thinking. I blocked that for three years because I felt overwhelmed, I think, by the amount of steps that I felt I needed to go through. I felt as if I was going to have to add in loads of different material, loads of different case studies. I was going to have to have this thing perfect.
Jo: And what I learned by pushing that thing live was, number one, the deluge of testimonials I had in that first week. I went straight to the top ten bestseller in my category, and I had snapshot after snapshot after screen-grab of testimonials of people that I didn’t know were aware of my work, people who I really respect. So many people, far and wide, leaving these amazing testimonials and sharing my book with others. It absolutely floored me. Obviously I wished that I had done that earlier. And there was something about not having that accountability, not having a community, not having anyone go… Jo, how’s it going with the book? Have you done this part yet? Where are you with it, what’s happening? I was on my own, which meant I was on my own with all my all my mind monkeys, all of my nonsense, all of my procrastination reasons. It took me three years to put out a really slim book. It’s really small, it’s a tiny thing, it’s not huge, But I learnt from that. I knew that I wanted to create something more after that, and my work had been evolving through working with my Brand Your Brilliance Mastermind groups. I’ve been working one-to-one and in a group format with amazing people, and I saw this Brilliance work was so much more than staying creative, than branding yourself. It was a deep spiritual thing, which was a privilege to witness with my clients, a privilege to work alongside them. There was never any group call or one-to-one that didn’t end with tears and gratitude, and just feeling so honored to be witnessing this shift in people. So, this was bubbling away and then you sent me a copy of Unbound.
Nicola: Which is up there.
Jo: Which is up there, beautifully behind you. I devoured it. I think if I go back to my Instagram on the day you sent it to me, it was just one of those beautifully aligned, Nicola Humber moments where, it was a day where I really needed to receive this message about being unbound. You wrote this beautiful note in it, and thanked me for my part in your work, and all this kind of stuff. It was a real “awww!” moment. I think I read it all in one sitting in bed, in tears, knowing that you’d spoken to me, to my soul. I was feeling heard. Then I read at the bottom of this book that you’re doing something with this Unbound Press. I was like, I need to speak to Nicola. And I knew that this next theme had been bubbling alongside Unboxing Your Brilliance. What does that mean? When you unpack that gift, when you break down the walls of the boxes, what does this mean? I said, I’d love to talk to you, let’s see what this means. And we jumped onto a call and I had no plan. You’re supposed to, in this situation, have a whole kind of… Well, I say supposed to in…
Nicola: Yeah
Jo: Like have your whole proposal lined up and this kind of stuff. I just spoke to you from my soul, didn’t I?
Nicola: Mm-hmm
Jo: It just felt so aligned, and I think I maybe said, Nicola, I don’t know. I’ve got all these ideas about how to write it, about how to bring people in for this, about what this process might look like. And you said, yeah, let’s go for it. At the time I had some work on but I wasn’t particularly… I wasn’t full-on, I was kind of ticking along nicely. I thought, this is great. I’ve got loads of time and space to write this book. It’s going to be great, you know? I just need to make sure that I cover this investment back, and all those kind of stuff. I said yes and we signed the stuff. Within like a week or so, I’d been hired to run two really big projects. Which have kept me super busy alongside my other client work. I was like, Universe, awesome! Thanks for covering the investment back, now I need to make some space for the book. Which has been so brilliantly aligned. We started the process and I just started making space for the book. I think we spoke about this when our last author call, didn’t we?
Nicola: Mm-hmm
Jo: So I was making space for the book in a way that, I had a goal to write a certain amount of words per day. Because life is how it is, when you have kids and elderly parents who have a lot of illnesses, and you have three chronic illnesses yourself, and you’re working. I wasn’t hitting those deadlines, so I was like, right, I need to unbox myself from this way of work. I need to embrace this unbound way. I need to step into accumulating this information in a way that feels really aligned. I began recording audios in the morning when I’m doing my make-up. I would have maybe five or ten minutes before the girls have gone to school, or I’m just doing my wellness routine and self-care stuff. I’d have a thought in my head, and I would just brain-dump it every day. And then I’d sent if off to be transcribed by Rev. Then every week, I’d have five of these transcripts come back. I didn’t look at them, I just kept outputting, kept outputting. Then at the same time, whenever I’d find some space, I would go back to my old blog posts, my old Instagram posts. All of this stuff that I suddenly realized was all incredibly related to this book that was beginning to unfold.
Jo: So, I’d start putting in this document these old blog posts, these old Instagram posts. I began having these transcripts. I would open them up, not remember saying any of this stuff, feeling really moved by it, then I’d put it in the document. And then week after week this word count was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I honestly don’t feel like I’ve written any of it because it just arrived. And then I realized, hang on a minute, I’ve been talking about this stuff on my old podcast on interviews I’ve done. I’ve talked about this stuff with my clients. I’ve run challenges on this stuff with clients. I’ve created questions, I’ve received answers. I can collate that. There were so many moments during the first few months, where, if I didn’t have the space held by you guys, and our Unbound agreement and the Unbound Writing Mastermind, because honestly, I wasn’t in the Mastermind as much as I wanted to be because of other commitments. But there was never any judgement, you guys held space. If I could rock up to the co-writing afternoon and just be in that energy for a while and write, I’d do that and I’d love it. If I hadn’t committed to you guys, to the Unbound Press, and to Mastermind, I would have stopped a long time ago.
Nicola: Mm , yep.
Jo: I would have had my wheels spinning again and it would have been three years. But we have those check-ins and then we have our author calls, and I realize actually, how far I’ve come. This thing is taking shape and it’s a completely different experience to the first book. The first book, yes, it arrived in a download. Yes, I was efficient and got it out in emails. I could have repurposed it and got it out real quickly. I didn’t, I freaked out! This time around, I found a really creative unbound way to, I want to say write, but it’s amass and accumulate information and allow it to come, as we spoke about on my last call, I show up for that book every day. Whether or not it looks like me sat by this laptop, writing, or it’s me out on a walk, pondering things, allowing things to happen. Or it’s me, listening to something, waiting for something to resonate with me to find creative space where I show up for the book every day, and it shows up for me now. I find that in different cycles of my life, in different moments I need to create in a different way. A few months ago I was voice dumping a lot, now I’m finding that I need to journal and I record myself saying that the next day. And again, I kind of forget what I’ve outputted. It’s just there, but because I know I have a commitment, to release this book to the world, I’m going to keep at it. I’m going to keep slicing it up, and I’m going to keep allowing space for it to come through, knowing that it’s reaching people. Whenever I share a piece of work, or a quote from it, on Instagram or on Facebook, the response is usually huge.
Nicola: Yeah
Jo: And really impactful, which spurs me on to think, right, is this reaching people? And I think a big part of feeling stuck was feeling that it’s about me, and this book is not about me. This book is bout the people that need to hear it.
Nicola: Yeah.
Jo: And this book uses me as an example of life scenarios but it’s not about me, it’s not an ego thing. It just needs to come out and it’s doing that.
Nicola: It’s coming through you, isn’t it? In this really powerful way. It’s like you were this unique vessel for this book to come through, and all of your experience, and everything that you are infusing it with, I just love so much about what you’ve just shared,
Jo: I shared a lot without stopping! So I apologize.
Nicola: But it’s just so fascinating to hear about your process. And I think a lot of the people watching and listening will resonate because we can hold ourselves back for so long, it’s like urgh, you know? Even though you had it all there, but it was like, no, it feels too overwhelming, or there’s all of this different stuff that comes up. I’m a firm believer that everything happens at the perfect time, so it was perfect that it came out last year. And I remember at the beginning of last year, I was working with you in your, was it the Brand your Brilliance?
Jo: We did Brilliance Reloaded.
Nicola: Brilliance Reloaded, yeah, oh my goodness, so powerful.
Jo: Thank you.
Nicola: And then your book came out and I felt called to send you a copy. Like, everything happens perfectly and it’s almost like that first book just cleared the way for Brilliance Unboxed and what wants to come through. I’ve got tingles…
Jo: Hmm!
Nicola: On our last call, Jo read a piece of Brilliance Unboxed to me, out loud. Wow, I was in tears, I think we were both in tears.
Jo: Yeah, and in fact because I was reading from my screen, I couldn’t see your reaction. And I was like, oh, she’s crying.
Nicola: You came back and I was sobbing.
Jo: It’s a really powerful thing because that was an example of I’ve gone to bed, I had my journal. And again, I’m not the perfect person that, you know, rises at 5 a.m. every morning, does my journaling, does all my yoga poses. It’s like, I’m a mum, I’m a normal person, you know, I don’t get it right every day, but I’ve managed to stay quite clear that I’m going to go to bed with no tech, I’m going to just journal this thing out. As I said, next morning, I don’t remember writing it. I read it out and I realized there was power in me reading it in my own voice.
Nicola: Mm-hmm
Jo: So I had that transcribed, and then I actually recorded me reading that and then popped in on Facebook. There was a lot of tears. I think, going on but then it was, oh, are people crying? This seemed to be the reaction, okay. And my book has not all completely harrowing and dark, and tear-inducing, in fact I do think it’s very much reflective of me and how I speak and how I am, and how we all are. We all have light and dark, and we have different elements to our personality. It’s coming through now in a way that, I’m finding that I’ve been writing this all along. In every piece of work I’ve done, and I’ve been blogging since 2006. Whilst all the archives are not still online, I have them and I find occasionally an old post that I think, oh, this is… And also because I can see my journey from then to here.
Nicola: Yeah
Jo: I can hear what old me was saying and I can reflect back and because I’ve been prolifically outputting content for a long time, there’s a massive archive to pull from. But because parts of my Brilliance Ignition process is to output every day anyway, I do that. Whether it’s journaling, whether it’s a piece of mark-making. whether it’s a conversation, whether it’s a recording. Whatever it is, a piece of photography, whatever. Because I need to keep that wheel moving, that creativity. You know, being receptive, outputting, being receptive, outputting. And I have to follow my own advice or it doesn’t work.
Nicola: I know, it’s annoying that, aint that?
Jo: It’s pretty annoying
Nicola: It’s like, damn, I have to do that now.
Jo: I actually have to do what I tell people to do. And if I was mentoring someone, I’d be like right, okay, come on, let’s do your weekly plan with how you’re going to output this. We can work really smart, we can do a Facebook live every week. I’ve tried setting that for myself, I haven’t been able to stick with this. So I had to pull it all apart again, get really creative with my process which makes me laugh because of course it has to be an Unboxed process, of course it does. But since saying yes to our book, and I’ve said to you many times I think, the experiences of life around you seemed to be turned up to ten.
Nicola: Yeah. Yeah.
Jo: And it was like, okay, I’ve invited life to speed up now because I’m putting myself on the line. I’m showing up for this and it’s like, you know, all the life experiences around me, it’s been quite tumultuous. It’s been in my personal life, in my professional life, so it’s not… I think I always thought that this book thing would happen. I’d be working on a beach in Cornwall every day, and somebody would be handing me fresh coffee and I’d have hours to write and feel really inspired. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Life is till in tatters all around you. You’re trying to hang on to the roller coaster, spinning all over the place, you know, and through that comes this magic.
Nicola: Yeah, that’s where the magic happens, you know? And I’m not saying that the writing process can’t be, at least parts of the writing process can be really gorgeous and spacious.
Jo: Oh my god, yeah. It is gorgeous and spacious.
Nicola: Yeah it can, but…
Jo: Not what I thought.
Nicola: No.
Jo: And actually, the writing process itself has been really easy because as I say, I’m not writing it, I’m just saying words, they appear on paper, I shove them in a document. And, you know, so at the moment I’m putting everything in and then I’m going to do a big edit. But I honestly don’t feel as if I’ve been laboring away, you know, old school typewriter here, kind of. There’s been times where I haven’t felt like I’ve had anything to say. There are times where I felt that I haven’t been able to share things as I write them. That’ fine, I’ll share them later on, or I share a different part of something that I’ve written. But the actual writing part has been beautifully easy, which has brought up a whole other range of mind monkeys around, is it all right to be that easy? Is is okay that you introduce me as an author, Nicola, because I don’t see myself as working hard enough to be one. So there’s a lot of unboxing, unbinding, and all those things as well, but it has been the most magical experience that I feel is only just beginning, as well.
Nicola: Absolutely, and a whole load of other magic unfolds when we release the book in to the world, and it goes out there and has this relationship with each of the readers. I think it’s so important what you were talking about that people can have this idea, oh, now is not a good time for me to write my book because there’s all of this stuff going on and I haven’t got enough time and space, and I’m not completely clear on what I want to write about. All of this stuff can stop us from getting started, but actually, and this has been my experience as well, everything that’s happening in our life, even if it can feel chaotic and turbulent, it informs our process and actually when we can just make small amounts of time for our writing, those are really potent spaces, and what needs to come through will come through.
Jo: Absolutely. And we know that growth happens in these times of our life, when things feel very intense. And through that growth, I’ve been able to share more, I’ve been able to dig more into my experiences and to observe more of what’s happening around me. It’s such a beautiful, expansive process but also, it’s challenging at times. But I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Nicola: Yeah.
Jo: If it was a really linear, you write x amount of words per day, and we do this there, this, then I would have lost interest.
Nicola So would I!
Jo: Oh yeah, I wouldn’t have been able to. I would be like, oh, Nicola, I’ve written x amount of words. Can you help with the drafting. It’d be completely different energy because that’s a box-ticking exercise, isn’t it?
Nicola: Yep.
Jo: That’s an achievement, good girl one, whereas this way is, we’ve invited this entity, we’re allowing this piece of work to come through. It comes through in various ways with putting it all together. It’s a living, breathing thing and together as, you know, you’re my mentor, as me, the author, as our wider community of Unbound people. We’re shaping this thing, we’re allowing space. And the space held by that group, as I say, even though I wasn’t there all the time, it was palpable. And on those afternoons where I’d tune in, and you’d set the intention for the co-work. Often I was between loads of meetings, loads of client stuff but I would tune in. That energy would be so strong and I just feel really supported. I’d work on a piece of it, knowing that I was held by people who actually cared how this piece of record is coming to life. I honestly think that is partly what held me back so, so long before.
Nicola: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s so important to have that kind of community around you. And that’s what I love about the Unbound Writing Mastermind experience, to witness how everyone holds space for each other’s writing, and their books, and when their books come out, everyone knows so much about the writer and the book. They’re all so supportive of each other’s books, so it is just completely…
Jo: Look what you did!
Nicola: I know, by accident!
Jo: The best things are done by accident.
Nicola: Too true, it’s amazing. Oh, Jo, it’s such a joy to hear you speak about your process and I think it’s really freeing, actually, for you to share how it’s been for you. And I know there’s so much about what you said that really resonates with me. It was very similar for me, particularly when I was writing Unbound. I don’t know why we pick these “un-words” because they just… They create.
Jo: Oh my gosh, it’s taken over my life now.
Nicola: I know!
Jo; But in fact, I remember, and I put this in the foreword of the book, actually. I remember driving home, I think after we’d said yes to the book, and it was as if I was recognizing all the alignments that had lined up, it was like everything in my life has led to this, of course it does, of course it does. That’s hilarious. Every career choice, every relationship choice, all the ways I’ve lived my life is so Unboxed, and this is what I need to share. I was laughing out load like a crazed woman in the car, going, ah, it’s all so obvious now.
Nicola: I know, and I love how this is what you help other people to see. It’s what you helped me to see when I was working with you last year. It was like, oh yeah, okay. such huge kind of shifts and light bulb moments. We need somebody else sometimes to hold… Well, yeah, pretty much all the time, to hold the space and then reflect that back to us.
Jo: Oh god, I can’t see my own brilliance, I have to work hard to see it. I see the brilliance in others really, quite well. We’re going through exercises, I can reflect it back. I see it, I can help people connect with it. When it’s me, we all need that mirror. We need someone to hold space for you to be seen and heard. I think that especially when you’re creating something so vulnerable and so personal, that you need someone just to say, you’ve got this, you’re doing it, you know, because another publisher might have balked at the idea of me downloading audios and transcribing and not very structured, and there no models in this, and whatever. But this had to come out this way. Maybe if I was writing an academic piece on some other stuff it would be completely different, but this process needed to be this. Needed to be this right now, and it needed to happen this year. It had been my intention to write book number two this year and I just didn’t know that it was going to be with you, which is just so wonderful. And the best thing actually, we’re going to Cornwall next week, and I’d always envisaged me writing a piece of the book in a particular hotel. So I’m going to make sure I’m sat there with my sea view, and I’m going to send you a picture, and go, we’re here.
Nicola: I love it. I can pretty much guarantee my Unbound Self will be there. She loves being on a beach on Cornwall. She’s very, especially if the wind was bad, I hope the weather’s not bad for you but…
Jo: Oh no, I love it. And actually, my Unbound Self when we did that meditation and started working together, my Unbound Self actually is in Brighton, so she’s by the sea. And we went to Brighton a couple of weeks ago, and I shared with you, it was like I’ve connected with her down there. I was like, okay, well it’s come out. We’re by the sea now and I see her really clearly in my head, she wears amazing head-pieces, and beautiful make-up, and she like my morning-raving self, but she lives by the sea. And it’s so great to know how to access that part of you, and go, you talk now.
Nicola: Exactly, exactly, just allow her to speak. I could talk to you all day, Jo.
Jo: We could, I would love to.
Nicola: We’ll definitely have another conversation when Brilliance Unboxed comes out, but for now, for people listening and watching, they want to find out more about you and your work, what’s the best way for them to do that?
Jo: Best way is to go to my website jogifford.co, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram as @thejogifford and come and say hi, I’d love to meet you all. Thank you for sharing space with me, and for having me here.
Nicola: Oh my goodness, it’s been such a pleasure and you had so much to offer around this transformational process of writing a book, so thank you so much for really courageously entering this process, and allowing it to unfold in the way that it needed to. It’s such an honor to hold space for you, really.
Jo: I blame you, it’s totally your fault and your books though.
Nicola: I’ll take that.
Jo: Thank you, my beautiful.
Nicola: Oh, you’re welcome, and we’ll see you again soon for another episode of Unbound. Bye.
Jo: Thanks again, bye.
Find out more about Jo and her work at: https://www.jogifford.co
