Bermudian featured in book by Chicken Soup author
A Bermudian woman has signed a book deal with motivational speaker Jack Canfield, the author of the acclaimed book series Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Stacey Pitcher, 36, wrote a chapter for Success Redefined: Secrets to Achieving Your Goals on Your Terms, a collaborative self-help book by Mr Canfield.
She said: “I always dreamt of writing a book, but I always told myself ‘writing is not my thing, that’s why I’m an accountant’, but here we are.
“Everyone who has read it said it’s pretty good. It’s not Harry Potter, but I think the message gets out there.”
Mr Canfield is famous for writing and organising the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which includes inspirational real-life stories from various authors.
The 30-year-old book series has since expanded into a comprehensive media and goods company, and includes a television series and pet food.
Mr Canfield also wrote The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, where he outlined 67 rules he believes are necessary to attain goals.
Ms Pitcher, from Devonshire, said that writing for Mr Canfield’s new book involved an application that outlined her motivation for joining the project and what she planned to contribute.
She added that she worked with an agent who helped to promote her story and fit it into the finished book.
Ms Pitcher said that her chapter in Success Redefined, titled The Demise of the Warrior Within, was a deeply personal reflection on her attempt to define success for her throughout her life.
She said: “It talks about how many people will put up barriers and how essentially people are becoming more disconnected than they probably ever have been before.
“It’s probably coming from a place of trying to protect themselves from being hurt.
“But you have to learn that vulnerability is the only way you can actually experience happiness and joy.
“It’s a fact that part of being successful is putting yourself out there, because putting yourself out there — even by writing a book — is being very vulnerable.”
Ms Pitcher added: “A big aspect for me was to put my story out there in hopes that it’ll teach someone not to sit on a pedestal and say ‘I’m better than everyone else’.
“It’s like me saying ‘this is my story, I’m sure you can relate in some aspect’.
“It might not be the exact scenario, but it’ll help knowing how people struggle along their healing journey and finding out where they fit.”
Ms Pitcher said that she first met Mr Canfield during a train-the-trainer boot camp, where he and his team taught attendees how to guide others in finding the best principles for success.
She said: “It was really funny because one of the things they talked about was committing to really big goals, and one of them for me was ‘I want to work with Jack Canfield’.
“I had no idea what that would even look like.”
She added: “By almost the end of the course, he basically told us that there’s this book opportunity.
“They gave us an overview of what the book was about and if we had any interest in being a part of it.”
Ms Pitcher said that she wanted people who read the book to ultimately recognise that success is not always material.
She admitted the aim would be difficult to achieve, particularly in a country as expensive as Bermuda and while living in an overall materialistic world.
“It’s all about accepting your flaws and living authentically, because everything’s rooted in that and that’s where real success begins,” she added.
Success Redefined was released on February 1 and is expected to be available for purchase at Brown & Co this month.
A Bermudian writer is on track to help companies and people with her upcoming coaching business.
Stacey Pitcher said that her agency, Flawed Brilliance, would be about “getting out of your own way” and developing deeper understanding so that individuals and businesses can become their most productive.
She added: “I know that I was meant to do something to help people. I just wasn’t sure what that was supposed to look like.”
Flawed Brilliance will be aimed at helping others to realise their strengths and recognise their shortcomings, while helping them to realise that failure is part of the learning process.
Ms Pitcher reasoned that techniques used in personal improvement could also be applied wholesale to work environments with the same level of success.
She added that she was happy to use her own experiences, and setbacks, to help others to find their own way.
Ms Pitcher said: “I don’t mind putting my mistakes out there so other people can stand on my shoulders and not make the same ones.”
The idea for Flawed Brilliance came after she attended a self-help workshop with Jack Canfield, who is behind the book series Chicken Soup for the Soul.
She said that she found it easy to not only adapt Mr Canfield’s system for success, but to coach others through it.
She added: “People were just like ‘you really have a knack for teaching and you give off a lot of energy’.
“It all felt so natural to me.”
Ms Pitcher admitted that she had to fight back a sense of impostor syndrome when building the brand.
She said: “It was like ‘I don’t have a degree in psychology, how can I help people?’ But as I did the programme the amount of people who said ‘you were made to do this, you sound like you’ve been doing this for 20 years’ was really encouraging.”
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