On the first day of lockdown in March 2020, Erin Anderson had one thought.
“I’m going to live under a bridge.”
That initial panic quickly subsided, but she had been worried how the emerging pandemic would impact her business and life-coaching company, Live Big. Co.
While she snapped into action—“my second thought was to rise to the occasion”—she never could’ve foreseen how the crisis would prompt so many people to radically change their lives in the coming year.
“I’ve had the best year of my life,” the longtime Whistler local says. “People are ready and when one sense is eliminated, others are heightened. I think when there’s nothing to do, we’re left with ourselves. That’s actually the lesson for 2020: when you’re left with yourself, what have you got? Do you like yourself? Do you find yourself to be fascinating and interesting and wonderful? When people stopped and asked themselves a couple of questions, they got real with themselves. I know people who made some bold moves.”
In that way, the pandemic might not have been the worst time for Anderson to release her first self-published book. Ten Tiny Truths – Principles for Living a Big Life offers lessons learned, some inspired by her late mother, in the form of distinct stories.
“What I do hope people get [from the book] is lessons are available everywhere—nature, people you love, your dog—it’s about converting those lessons into insight and new levels of awareness,” she says. “That takes some wisdom and courage to do. The stories are lighthearted, they’re relatable.”
Anderson had long harboured a deep desire to write a book, but for a while she let her own self-doubt get in the way of that goal.
“I didn’t graduate from university and never thought of myself as a scholarly person,” she says. “I was stopped for years out of self-judgement.”
But then, two years ago, her mother passed away. Writing became a way for her to process and remember.
“This past summer I just started to write some of the stories she’d tell me,” she says. “Summertime was a time for my mom and I to spend time together. I found myself writing them as a way to process and honour her.”
Rather than getting bogged down by the task of writing a book, she decided to start small.
“The name came to me: Ten Tiny Truths,” she says. “One big desire, a need to process, then an actual action step that was small enough, I knew I could do it.”
At its core, the book’s main theme is about contribution, something Anderson’s mother excelled at. “She deeply believed that every single human being, no matter where they came from, what their situation is in life, every single human being has a contribution to make to the world,” she says. “Our contribution is where we find our dignity, honour, life force, passion. She believed that and lived that.”
After navigating the steep learning curve involved with self-publishing, Anderson’s book is now available on Amazon and can be pre-ordered at Armchair Books in Whistler.
Soon she hopes to release a companion journal to go along with it as well.
“The book is your little private coach you can carry around in your purse and bust it out at Blenz when you’re having your morning coffee,” she says. “What coaching is about is change, transformation, holding the picture for your future self—your ideal self. It’s not about looking in the past and overanalyzing. It’s about helping you get to your chosen future.”
For more, visit livebigco.com.
