Kate Northrup: This book is working me in some kind of mysterious way that is unexpected.
And it is changing me, and it is working me, and it’s surprising me, and it’s making me grow up
in all these ways, and it is such a profound ego death. Welcome to Plenty, a weekly recalibration
of power, money, and safety for high capacity humans. I’m Kate Northrup, best selling author
and creator of Relaxed Money, and this is where neuroscience meets ancient wisdom meets
real wealth strategy. This is the sacred conversation at the intersection of money, the body, and
the life you’re truly here to live.

If you’re ready to reimagine what’s possible for yourself and for the world, you’re in the right
place. Let’s go. So I’m writing a new book. I have been writing this book for probably three
years. I feel like I should have written it and published it by now.

In full transparency, this book is working me in some kind of mysterious way that is unexpected.
I wrote two previous books in a very different way. So my first book, Money, a Love Story, came
out in 2013, and I got that book deal completely by accident. I had gotten invited to be part of a,
you would call it, a think tank or a a gathering for the next generation of voices in spirituality and
personal development, and it was a gathering put together by Louise Hay at Hay House and
some other leaders at Hay House at the time. It’s where I met my dear friends, the Ortners, who
have a brand new book out called Rewired.

It’s become a New York Times bestseller. They’re the founders of the tapping solution three,
siblings, Jessica Ortner, Alex Ortner, and Nick Ortner. They’ve become phenomenal dear
friends. It’s where I met Latham Thomas and so many other incredible souls who remain dear
people in my life. And after that gathering, I got an email from Reed Tracy, who remains the
CEO of Hay House, and he said, hey.

We’d like to publish your book. And I said, what book? And he said, well, tell me what ideas you
have. And so I I emailed him. I could probably find the email, but I emailed him back a whole list
of ideas.

And one of them was called I don’t know what I’m doing, and you probably don’t either, which I
still may write that book. This is essentially a book about the fact that every single human being
is winging it, and no matter how, quote, unquote, successful they look, and no matter how many
status mark markers, and no matter how much they look like they have it together on the
outside, every single human being is this tender, precious hearted person who is just figuring it
out every day. So someday, maybe I’ll write that. But anyway, then I said, or there’s this other
money book, and I described the money book. And he said, write the money book.

And so I did. So I got a book deal for Money, a Love Story, and I wrote Money, a Love Story in
the six weeks before it was due. And I wrote it one hour in the morning, 8AM to 9AM. Every
morning, would wake up. Now this is before kids and before Mike and I were married.

I actually wrote the book in 2011, 2012, and then it came out in 2013. And so I would wake up
every morning, and I would do I would make my protein shake, and I would make my coffee,
and I would go into my office and do a headstand first, which was my way of getting all the
energy into my brain and also changing my perspective. And then I would go to my desk, and I
would write for one hour. I would set a timer. I would say a prayer at the beginning of the
session that I said, May I write what somebody needs to hear?

And I would just trust. And so I wrote the book in one hour a day in six weeks. Then do less
came out in 2019, and the process was somewhat similar. Money, a love story sold really well. It
continues to sell really well.

I get royalties every you know, twice a year. And that’s honestly quite remarkable because I
don’t know the stat, but it’s an unbelievably high percentage of books where the author never
earns out their advance and where the book never sells more than 500 copies. And, Money, A
Love Story has sold tens of thousands of copies. I then was asked by Hay House to write
another book after Money, a Love Story, but I didn’t really feel like I had anything further to say
about money. And I just never wanted to be one of those authors who pumps out more books
which are essentially the same book as the first book, but just wrapped up in a slightly different
wrapping paper.

And so I said no. And then finally, in 2017, after I had launched my membership, the Origin
membership, I realized I now had something new to say. So I pitched Hay House, do less. I was
pregnant with Ruby, my second, and I had already shifted my messaging. So instead of talking
about money primarily, I was talking about cyclical alignment and having more by doing less and
making more by doing less.

And I had this whole membership of thousands of people that was centered around growing
your business while doing less. And the book was called do less. Funny, synchronistic, magical
story about that. I was a year postpartum with Penelope, thirteen months. And I flew to San
Francisco to surprise my friend, Nisha Moodley, for her baby shower.

Or it was a a mother’s blessing, like a blessing way. And I was staying with my friend Sarah
Jenks, and it was one of my first trips without Penelope. It was like, I think I was gone for three
nights pumping the whole time. And Penelope is my first daughter. And I was thinking about my
next book at that time.

So it was 2016 or 2017. You know what? Now that I’m telling this story, I think I have some of
the details wrong. Doesn’t matter. The timeline is a bit jumbled.

But here’s what happened. I was away on a trip. I call Mike up, and I said, I think I know what
my next book is gonna be. And that felt like a big deal because since money a love story came
out in 2013, which was at least three to four years earlier, depending on where this timeline actually
falls, Hay House had been asking me for another book, and I kept just telling them no.
And then there it was, the book came to me.

And I didn’t tell Mike what the title was. And then I came home, and he was all excited because
he had gotten himself a new vanity plate for the Toyota four Runner that he he drove at the time.
Mike loves vanity plates. He pulled out the vanity plate that had just come in the mail, and it
literally said, do less. So completely separate from me and my ideation about the book and
completely separate from any of it, Mike had it had occurred to him to order a vanity plate for his
car that said do less.

And when I came home, my jaw dropped, and I was like, honey, my next book is going to be
called do less. How crazy is that? So, anyway, we knew we were on the right track. So I wrote
that book in the two months before it was due in one hour a day while Penelope was napping,
and I was pregnant with Ruby. I turned in that manuscript on 12/24/2017, the final manuscript,
you know, final final.

And then, I gave birth to Ruby on 04/08/2018, and then Duless came out on 04/02/2019, while
Penelope was three and a half, and Ruby was one. Ruby was just a few days from her first
birthday. And that was do less, and that was 2019. It is now 2026. It has been seven years since
I’ve published a book, almost to the day, like a month off, and I still haven’t written another one.

And I just wanna say I am a writer. I love writing. It’s one of the things I love doing the most. And
many of my friends who I’ve come up alongside, have written a book every year since 2013.
And so there is a part of me when I get caught up in my ego and the illusion of timelines and,
quote, unquote, you know, competing and keeping up with people, there’s a part of me that feels
like I’m behind.

And I’m like, what am I doing? What have I been doing? Meanwhile, there’s a much wiser part of
me that is really trusting the process. So I wanted to share the answers to three questions that I
think are going to help give the behind the scenes of this project, and I am reporting to you from
the messy middle. This is not a clean story.

This story does not have a bow tied up around it. I’m just reporting in, hey. This book is working
me in ways I cannot understand yet. This book wants to be something that is very different than
my previous books, and it is changing me, and it is working me, and it’s surprising me, and it’s
making me grow up in all these ways, and it is such a profound ego death. So if you have
unwritten books sitting on your Google Drive or desktop or inside your brain and heart, if you
have unfinished projects, if you have dreams that have yet to be birthed and you are in a
season of resistance, procrastination, wrestling with things, if you’re in the part where the item
that you want to birth is still unmanifesting, this episode is for you.

And I hope that me sharing the behind the scenes that feels messy and hard about this
particular piece of creation is helpful in some way for you. So the first question is, what was the
moment that I knew I could not not write this book? So what was the moment that I knew that this
book had to be written by me, and why has it taken so long? So my answer to that question
is I think the moment I knew was actually in 2023, January 2023. Mike had gotten hit by a car in
October 2022.

It was 10/25/2022. It was an eclipse. And he was bicycling to his office, and he got hit by a car in
Downtown Miami. It was very scary. Luckily, his brain and his spine were okay, but his leg was
not.

And he still that knee still does not quite work right. And there’s a whole story of that, which I’m
going to abbreviate and just say him going through that accident after that was four years after
he had broken out in a full body rash the moment Ruby was born, and we had been dealing with
off and on chronic illness with him and accidents. He had broken this same knee a year and a
half before falling off a bike. So he gets hit by a car. We had been in the run up to our first ever
launch of Relaxed Money, to our first ever enrollment of Relaxed Money.

And we’re, of course, shocked because when somebody in the family gets hit by a car, it’s very
discombobulating. We were working with a very minimal team at the time. We had done some
shedding, and our team was super minimal, very scrappy. And we paused, which was a huge
win, honestly, for our family because we have my my granny, Edna Northrup, who is now
deceased, when she was alive, her life motto was don’t ask for a lighter pack, ask for a stronger
back. So in times of intensity, my family’s default programming has always been to be stronger
and push harder as opposed to take a break and rest.

But finally during this time when Mike got hit by a car, I had done enough nervous system
healing work to rewire myself so my default response was not to buck up and just push through.
I actually gave myself permission to meet the moment in a new way, in a much more sane way,
and that saner way was to actually pause the launch, cancel my mastermind calls, and tend to
my family’s system, Tend to Mike in the hospital. Tend to my kids. Tend to myself. And I really,
really trusted that even though we were on the brink of a launch and cash flow like, we needed
this launch to keep things going, I also trusted that if we healed first and really practiced body
first, business second, really practiced body first, bank account second, that everything would
be okay.

And I had done enough nervous system healing using the very same tools that I teach inside
Relax Money to be able to fully embody Relaxed Money in a time of unbelievable stress and
disorientation with Mike in the hospital. It was a traumatic injury, and he had to be in the hospital
for a week and get two surgeries, and the recovery was really intense. After he got home and
after we got ourselves somewhat stabilized, we went into our first ever launch of Relax Money.
And I have never experienced anything so easy in terms of how magnetic the launch was. We
had no affiliates.

We had no ads. And just from our own organic audience, we had something like over 10 or
14,000 people join the free workshop, which at that first time, the free workshop for Relaxed
Money was called money love the revival. And I did this whole photo shoot that was, like, kind
of themed, like, Chicago. I played Roxy Hart, and it was like this kind of speakeasy nineteen twenties
glamour Broadway revival vibe for the campaign. It was very fun.

And it was an ode to my first program, money a love story I’m sorry, the money love course,
which was based on my first book, Money, a love story. And everything about that enrollment
was so magnetic and so deeply aligned. And then the rollout of the program was so profound,
the first cohort of Relax Money, that I knew I needed to write my next book about money. I knew
that now, this was in the winter of twenty twenty three was when I was delivering Relaxed
Money, I really got it. Ten years later, I finally had something further to say about money ten
years after the publication of Money, A Love Story.

So I have been, quote, unquote, trying to write this book since 2023. Now we’re six cohorts
deep into Relax Money. This material has been refined and beautifully marinated and
architected in a way. I’m so proud of this body of work, and I know it needs to become a book.
But it has taken so long because I needed to become the person who could actually live this
work in a new way, and I needed to have my own development and maturation around this
material so that it was fully in integrity and fully aligned.

And I’m very proud of the woman I have become. I’m very proud of the way I I move in the world
with money, the way Mike and I are creating our life with money, the way we’ve built assets for
our family, and the way we do that in total alignment within the bumpers and guardrails of
protecting that which matters most, which is our relationship with each other, our relationship
with our children, our relationship with our bodies, and our relationship with God and the earth.
So the moment that I also knew that I really needed to write this book was when I was being
interviewed by my dear friend and mentor, Barbara Hewson. And she is someone who changed
my life when it came to money. Her program, Overcoming Underearning, was absolutely
essential for my own development, as well as her retreat, her sacred success retreat, and the
book by the same title.

And so Barbara was interviewing me, and I for her membership, I think it’s called the wealth
connection. And I was explaining about the body, women and the body and money and the
nervous system. And Barbara said, this is so good. When are you writing this book? You must
write this book.

And she started following up with me quite a bit about it because in that mentor way, she just
knew that I needed to do it. And I was really squirrelly about it. I was so resistant, And I just you
know, I would write here and there. I would write in fits and starts, and then I just wouldn’t stick
with it. So that was really 2023.

And this book, I have written here and there. I’ve put stuff in my notes app. I’ve whatever. Then
there’s so much more to the story, and I don’t wanna tell all of it. There I’m sure I’ll do a part two
to this, but I basically had it in my head that I wanted to go get a big fancy New York agent and
get a big book deal with the top five publishers.

And so I did the steps, and I got myself the big fancy agent. And I got to feel that ego rush of of
feeling chosen by, you know, someone who represents authors that are, like, you know,
household names, world famous types of people. And then it didn’t feel right. So I dissolved the
contract with that agent, and I I went within, and I got really clear that this book wants to come
into the world in a different kind of way. And I’m still not sure what that way is, but I am 99% sure
that traditional publishing is not the way.

So the second question I’m gonna answer is what have you had to stop performing in order to
write this book honestly? And that’s really this conversation around traditional publishing versus
self publishing or hybrid publishing. And this episode is not it it’s not an expose on the publishing
world by any means, but just high level traditional publishing is when you get an agent, and then
your agent sells your book to a publishing house, and they pay you an advance in order to write
the book. And then from there, they take care of the design, the editing, and the distribution.
They often will do some PR and marketing.

But for 99% of authors, the PR and marketing is still gonna be up to them. A lot of authors still
need to hire their own external editor because the publishing house wants a totally clean
manuscript. So so it costs money to hire that external editor, and a lot of, authors also end up
hiring an external publicist. So that ends up costing quite a bit of money as well. So for most
authors, between getting the advance and then paying for all these other things, and then also
the fact that the vast majority of the books don’t even sell more than 500 copies, Writing books
is not exactly a direct moneymaker.

But for me, I am a writer. More than anything else in the world, I am a writer. It is who I am.
When I write when I fill in one of those forms when it says occupation, I put author. And that is
the truest thing I know.

For me, I know that writing books matters. It is a timeless way to share ideas that are
transformational that will stick beyond my lifetime. And I love that my books sell. I love that, you
know, tens of thousands of people are walking around listening to them or holding them, they
may never do my programs. You know, I don’t even though having a book in the world is is great
for a marketing funnel, because a lot of people who do take our programs have heard about me
through my books.

The truth is the intimacy that’s created when someone is reading your book or listening to your
book, it changes lives. My life has been changed by many books that I have read that I I I’m not
gonna sign up for that author’s programs. They may not even have them. Right? So for me,
writing a book is so much bigger than marketing.

It’s not explicitly a marketing tool. It’s a thought leadership, timeless body of work that lives
beyond me. That being said, the truth is that traditional publishing is not the best way to make
money as an author like myself. And so I’ve been looking at self publishing or hybrid publishing.
Self publishing is when you just do everything yourself.

The printing, the editing, the da da da, and then you, you know, you can upload it and do print
on demand with Amazon. You could do all these different self publishing things. And then hybrid
is where you actually pay a hybrid publisher for a package that includes editing, design,
sometimes marketing and PR, distribution, printing, all of that stuff. And they do those things,
but you have much more creative control. And you also, depending on what the package is and
what the agreement is, you also earn a much higher percentage of the ongoing book sales.

And in many cases, you actually can receive the buyer data so those people could join your
email list and become a more intimate part of your ecosystem and and perhaps do your
program. So I’ve been really looking at self publishing or hybrid publishing. And so to answer the
question, what have you had to stop performing in order to write this book honestly? The truth is
I’ve had to stop performing the, quote, unquote, smart, successful, upper echelon snob part of
myself. I’m just being really transparent right now.

It is hard for me as someone who grew up in a publishing family. My mom has multiple New
York Times bestsellers who grew up you know, my dad has an English degree from Harvard. I
grew up in this family of New England academic, many letters after your name ivory tower
success. And it has required a deep unraveling for me personally of my own internal
programming around what authority looks like, who gets to be an authority, who gets to hold and
share wisdom, and why. A little while back, I pitched an article to a very highly respected
publication that I have written for in the past several times, and it was about achievement and
money and the nervous system and the way our nervous system holds us back from having the
kind of financial success we desire and how we can overcome that.

And this publication wrote me back and said, you we do not publish people who are not PhDs
having anything to do with the nervous system or neural repatterning. And it was this moment
for me of reflecting on, well, should I go get a PhD? Then I realized, no. There is nothing that I’m
going to learn in a PhD program that I cannot understand through my own certifications that I’ve
participated in, the extensive reading and continuing education that I do personally, because so
many therapists, so many PhDs come through my programs and say, I was never taught what
you are teaching about the nervous system and the body and the way our body impacts our
behavior. So why would I go and get some piece of paper from some ivory tower to give me a
stamp of approval to say you get to now know this stuff when the people who already have that
piece of paper and stamp of approval pay me to take to learn the things that they did not learn in
that program.

Like, it makes no sense. So it’s required me to unravel the performer part that was conditioned
to believe that the only thing that makes your knowledge valid is a stamp of approval from
people who have decided what is valid and what is authentic information. And so I’ve been in
this personal tug of war of do I, as someone who holds a bachelor of arts in art history right? I’m
not. I have taken many certifications, including I’m trained with the Neurosomatic Intelligence.

I am trained with the Embodies, the I think it’s called the Embodied Lab with many of their
certifications. So I have continued my education and practice, but I haven’t gone back to school to
get, like, a master’s or a PhD. And I don’t think that I need that in order to know what I know,
but I have had to wrestle, and I continue to do so with the conditioning around who gets to hold
the authority. And the very system that I am calling into question, which is the system that
champions the intellect over the body, is the system that’s conditioned me to believe that I need
some sort of intellectual stamp of approval from people who hold up the ivory tower and hold the
keys and say only certain people can get in here. And yet, the very topic that I write about is
about dissolving the illusions of the intellect being superior over the wisdom of the body.

And so the wisdom of my body keeps telling me, and the wisdom of this book keeps telling me
this book needs to be birthed through a different way outside the ivory tower, outside the
systems that have upheld this illusion of only these people and only in this way do we decide
that this information is credible or valuable or of validity. And yet I know that I have to write this
book and do it in a different way if it’s going to fully stand for what I want the book to stand for.
Thank you for listening as I externally process this process. I hope this is making sense. But,
essentially, the book is about breaking free of the very illusions about the the sanctity of the
intellect over everything.

And so therefore, I can’t publish this book within the systems and the structures that uphold the
very thing that the book is about dissolving. It’s been tricky. It’s been a real just a lot of grappling
with it. And I’ll be perfectly honest, the ego in me, the ego part of me wants to totally have the
big five publishing deal, and have that stamp of approval, and have somebody in a big tall fancy
New York office with fancy shoes and a fancy suit look at me and say, oh, you’re good enough
for this. But I also know that that’s exactly what this book is helping all of us to heal from.

The idea that our power lies somewhere outside of ourselves. It’s never been true. It’s never
going to be true. And so I continue to come back and allow the voice of my soul, as my friend
Megan Waterson calls it, to speak louder or it’s not even louder, but just to listen to the voice of
my soul over the voice of my ego even when the voice of my ego is louder. So that’s what has
required me to not only write it honestly, but more importantly, to bring it into the world in the
way that this particular book is asking to be brought into the world.

And then number three, what does this book know that I thought I knew already, and what did I
not know that I now know when I started it? So I’ll just say this, what I now know that I didn’t
know when I started it is that this book wants to be something different. And the book is about
women, money, and the body. And it is taking so much longer than I ever would have expected.
And part of that is because and I’ve said this a million times.

I’ve known it for years, but I now know it on a different level. The book is actually about power
because anytime we’re having a conversation about money and any time we’re having a
conversation about the body, we’re also having a conversation about power. And so it’s required
many, many revelations about the nature of power and how we hold power in our bodies and
how our bodies are conduits for life force, aka power, the very thing that animates us. And
there’s a lot of metaphor that I’ve needed to learn. There’s an entire methodology that’s been
birthed that I taught at Relaxed Money Live, our live event.

I also taught it in a keynote at BBD Live, which is a conference that my friend James Wedmore
puts on once a year, Business by Design Live. So those are the only places you could get this
material so far, but there’s a whole body of work that downloaded for me when I went to Egypt
back in October around our bodies as power conductors and how that relates to our ability to
actually tap into abundance and ex not only receive money, but also to experience the very
things that we think having money are going to allow us to experience, which are feeling safe
and feeling free. And in order to feel safe and to feel free, we have to know how to work with the
technology of our bodies to plug back into source. So ultimately, this book is about women,
money, and the body, but it’s also about power, and it’s also about God, and it’s actually also
about electricity, believe it or not. And it there the concepts are big.

Some of it’s metaphorical. Some of it’s literal. Some of it’s based in physics. And then it’s also
personal finance, and it’s also mysticism, and it’s big. It’s answering a lot of the biggest
questions I’ve ever asked in my life, which is really what are we doing here and why.
So more to come, but all that to say, I’m writing a new book. I’ve been writing it for three years. It
is working me in a way that nothing else has worked me before. I’m taking this book’s lead, and I
am letting my soul voice lead. I’m allowing my ego to take a backseat, and I hope that I will
finish it this year.

And I hope that it’ll be published in 2027. But rest assured that when there is more to tell, you
will be the first to know. Thank you so much for listening. And if you’re writing a book, if you’re
working on a big project, I hope that this helps you to know that no matter who you are, creation
is intense. And while it can feel so delicious, there are some mornings when I sit in the coffee
shop and I am just absolutely in flow, showing up for the muse, getting my butt in that seat,
allowing me to receive the ideas, I am also struggling with a lot of resistance.

And this book is requiring me to unravel things in myself that are uncomfortable to unravel. So if
you’re in that same place, you’re not alone. I see you. Send me a DM if you listened to this and
it was helpful, and I’ll keep you posted as the book continues to be written. Thanks for listening.

Talk to you next time. If you’ve been feeling called to write a book but just haven’t got around to
it yet, can’t find the time to prioritize it, or just aren’t doing it for whatever reason, I have
something for you. Keira Brinton, who was a sponsor of our most recent Relaxed Money Live,
has an incredible program called the author threshold. What I appreciate about the way Keira
works is that she doesn’t just talk about writing. She actually integrates the nervous system in
the process because writing a book is way beyond authorship.

It’s about being able to have the alignment and the expansion and the capacity to be with the
expansion that comes from getting your work out into the world in a bigger way through a book.
If there’s a message within you that just won’t leave you alone, this could be your next step. You
can join Keira’s free workshop at katenorthrup.com/keira, which is spelled keira.
katenorthrup.com/keira. The link is also in the show notes.