Steve and His Team Helped Me Do In One Year What We’d Tried To Do For 28
by Christine Adams
Homer was my mentor. In the early 1980s he’d started writing a book about his life’s work—how personalities form and how people negotiate their closest relationships.
For 22 years he struggled to complete his book and find a publisher. Then he died.
His widow Jane asked if I would finish and publish the book.
I was surprised and honored. I said yes. It would be my labor of love for my teacher, whom I admired and learned so much from. But at the time, I had no idea just how much labor it would be.
Jane gave me five versions of Homer’s manuscript—most partially written, all typed single-spaced.
For six years of marathon sessions at my paper-covered dining table, I sorted through what to keep from each version so Barry, my husband and world’s greatest typist, could prepare a single computerized draft.
Every vacation I took the book with me—to the beach, on the ship and the plane, and in hotel rooms.
This book was tricky. It did not fit neatly into any single genre. Homer was adamant about wanting general readers to enjoy it.
It was more difficult to finish Homer’s book than to write my own!
Finally, I distilled his five versions into one. With excitement, I submitted the manuscript to four literary agents.
They responded positively but declined to represent the book, saying it was “too academic.”
I was completely spent and frustrated. Hopelessness stalked me for six months. I kept asking, “Now what do I do?”
My realization was like slow, creeping fog.
I was a shy old lady. I knew zero about publishing, marketing, or publicity. I needed maximum help if this book was to be published, publicized and marketed before I, too, died.
I needed full immersion help on all fronts and from every angle—full baptism. I did not even know what I did not know that had to be done to accomplish my goals.
Then, presto! My answer arrived by serendipity a few months later.
I answered a call from a colleague who was a Quantum Leap member and told me about the program.
Quantum Leap Helped Me Finish My Book and Claim Expert Status
How does an elderly woman like me enter a totally new experience and course of instruction?
Would it be like college? A seminar? A business meeting? Or something else?
Whatever it would be, I decided I would approach it sponge-like—drawing up nourishment in the form of ideas, instruction, emotional support, and trial and error, from everyone I met and worked with in the program.
For me, Quantum Leap ran on several parallel and simultaneous tracks, each episodically overwhelming. Maybe it is the same for every participant.
My first focus was finding an editor to help me wrangle the book. This task was more difficult than it looked because our book was so thorny—a new idea in stilted academic language, but pitched for a general reader at an 11th-grade reading level.
I went through three editors before finding one who could begin to grapple with the book’s intricacy and need for extensive reorganization.
While editing was ongoing, I worked with every consultant to learn the tools and how-tos of publishing, marketing and publicity.
My knowledge base grew rapidly—what needed to be done as well as how to do it.
I gained clarity in thinking and discovered the process of letting my light shine and not hiding it under the proverbial bushel basket.
“Claim your expertise,” Steve shouted. I did so with gusto, and nervously told on stage at a meeting who I was—“The Emotional Conditioning Expert”—and what I did.
Steve’s mantra was “stumble forward.” Keep trying, discovering, meeting people, and making connections. Someone you meet today may be a connection later on, something you or he or she wants to accomplish.
It was not easy to always move or stumble forward. The days of dealing with three editors, five literary agents, and seven publishers were like walking in thigh-deep molasses.
But days of doing radio interviews, interviews for written media, and having online publications accepted were days of tripping lightly over the tops of waves. These forward moves were fun and I delighted in them. They kept me sane while the book rearranging and editing ground on. I did an additional 12 complete book edits; my editors did five complete revisions.
Overcoming Obstacles to My Progress as an Author and Expert
I had setbacks, including three major surgeries and ten months of physical therapy. I missed two Quantum Leap meetings but watched them on video.
Later, fresh out of surgery I attended the Quantum Leap meetings. I recall vividly the electrical brain tingling supplied by Steve, his guests, and especially by Jack Canfield, even as I had an ice pack on my knee.
Being there in person was exciting and uplifting. I was moved meeting other Quantum Leap guests and discovering their passions and journeys. I experienced a new dimension to Quantum Leap by pressing the flesh in Philadelphia.
Four months into Quantum Leap I met another obstacle—my day job.
Simply put, after four months of mixing the program simultaneously with work, I realized I could not make the progress I wanted to achieve.
I had a pow-wow with my husband. We decided I could quit work and we could live on savings while I completed the program.
That’s what I did. I became able to work my Quantum Leap program 7-10 hours a day, seven days a week. Creating additional time to accomplish my Leap was invigorating.
I gained a broader picture of all I could do with my expertise, information, and ideas, not only from the book, but from my entire brain—the marketing, spin-off products, leveraging myself as a speaker, on podcasts, and so on.
I jumped in and tried out new adventures to see what resonated with me and what didn’t—pitches, media interviews, hiring editors, and making connections with people.
Another of Steve’s mantras was make personal connections and form personal relationships. These will be the ones you and others remember.
I used this approach when seeking publishers, endorsements, speaking engagements and media interviews. I phoned people or visited them in person. “Go for No,” Steve advised. I tried it and often found success.
How Quantum Leap "Puffed Me Up"
We call psychiatrists “shrinks” because of the idea that they deflate some people’s greatly expanded egos and exaggerated sense of self-worth.
The opposite happened to me in Quantum Leap. I was “puffed up.”
Quantum Leap made more of me, more than I was a year before I joined the program.
I now have a swelled head, full of new know-how and how-to experiences. It has been fun, exhausting, maddening, and delightful.
And, after 29 years of trying to get the book published, it was!
Quantum Leap helped me do in one year what two of us tried for 28 years to do. I now know how to seek publicity and can market my book, myself, and my ideas to help others better understand themselves and their closest relationships.
That is a dramatic advance—a Quantum Leap for me.
This post is adapted from an essay Christine wrote as her entry in our "How I Made My Quantum Leap" contest, in which Quantum Leap members wrote about the difference the program made for them and their careers.