Laura Duksta: NY Times Bestselling Children's Author

Laura Duksta is a New York Times bestselling author who believes that through the power of love, and with an attitude of gratitude, anything is possible.

Laura lost all of her hair to Alopecia Areata at the age of 11. It took her many years to love herself and to allow others to love her. She quickly realized that she would never trade having hair for the lessons of love, compassion and understanding for herself and others that she’s experienced. She’s come to know that our biggest challenges can blossom into our biggest blessings, and has embraced the power that comes from being yourself.

Laura knew from a young age that she was meant to travel the world, meet her brothers and sisters, and spread the message of love. She is now fulfilling this mission through her books, school programs, music and inspirational talks. Her first book, I Love You More, originally self-published, has now sold over 800,000 copies and is available in six languages. Her second book, You Are a Gift to the World, flips over to The World is a Gift to You, and encourages us to love and care for ourselves, one another, and the world we call home. She released her third book, I’ll Hug You More, in 2017.

Laura has been featured in USA Today, as one of "10 Individuals Making a Difference in South Florida" in Boca Magazine, in several creative anthologies, as well as on and in dozens of TV, radio shows, blogs and articles.

Episode Highlights

Every so often, life hands us a roadmap to transformation, etched with signs we can't ignore. For Laura Duksta, a near-death experience and the ethereal guidance of a departed friend became the catalysts for a metamorphosis from the electric pulse of South Beach nightlife to a beacon of love and inspiration. In our latest episode, we're honored to have Laura share not only the origins of her bestselling book I Love You More, but also the heartfelt prayer for her nephew that grew into a worldwide embrace of affection. Through anecdotes brimming with divine sparks and life-altering awakenings, she lays bare her journey of self-discovery and the insights on connecting with universal truths that resonate with every soul.

Imagine finding the courage to strip away a facade and stand in your truth—Laura Duksta did just that, and in doing so, she freed herself from the constraints of wigs and societal expectations. In a candid conversation, she recounts the life-defining moments that shaped her path, including her survival of a car crash that served as a wake-up call to pursue a deeper purpose. Her experiences, including a poignant nightclub revelation years later, have been poured into her writing, inspiring others to “Keep Shining” and acknowledge the support of unseen guides. Laura's evolution translates into stories for children and adults alike, bridging generational divides with the universal language of love, as seen in her cherished collaborations with illustrator Karen Keesler.

Penning children's books offers a unique tapestry of creativity and spontaneous inspiration—a balance Laura has mastered, allowing her to craft stories like I'll Hug You More with heartfelt whimsy. She takes us behind the scenes of her creative process, revealing the unexpected joys and challenges of bringing imaginative stories to life without the confines of a rigid writing routine. As we wrap up the episode, Laura imparts wisdom on navigating the publishing landscape, the significance of staying true to one's vision in the face of critique, and the fortifying power of a supportive team. Her encounter with Warren Buffett, a testament to authentic communication and shared values, leaves us contemplating the impact one can make through the written word, and the fulfillment of childhood dreams when you dare to spread love unreservedly.

We cover a lot of beautiful topics in this episode including:

• Traveling the world spreading the message of love

• The great messages for adults hidden in children’s books

• Hiding her Alopecia for years, and then embracing it

• The personal origins of I love You More

• Writing, rewriting, rewriting again, and still more rewrites!

• The challenges and rewards of self-publishing

• Avoiding “set formulas” for writing, and finding what works for you...and SO much more!

Listen

Read the Complete Transcript

Shane

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the official Live2cre8 podcast, coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee. I am your host, Shane Almgren, and I am joined today, also from Nashville, by author, speaker, and visionary Laura Duksta. Laura is the author of the New York Times bestselling children's book I Love You More, which was originally self-published and has sold over 800,000 copies and been translated into six languages, and she has recently released You Are a Gift to the World, which flips over to The World Is a Gift to You. Laura is passionate about her message of love, traveling the world for speaking engagements, school programs, music, and inspirational talks. She has been featured in USA Today as one of ten individuals making a difference in South Florida, in Boca Magazine, in several creative anthologies, as well as on and in dozens of TV radio shows, blogs, and articles.

Laura, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. It is a pleasure to have you here.

Laura Duksta

Thanks for having me, Shane. I’m thrilled to be here.

Shane

You have a pretty incredible and compelling backstory about how you came up with I Love You More. Do you mind sharing that with us?

Laura Duksta

All right, well, it would go way back. It actually started when I was about seven or eight years old, and I had this thought. Actually, I was learning something in Sunday school about how we're all brothers and sisters, and because of that, we're meant to love one another. I really felt that that's what Jesus was teaching, and he meant everybody. And I had this idea, and then, kind of like a vision, I guess, in my heart that said, “One day I'm going to travel the world, meet my brothers and sisters, and share the message of love.” You know, my path was really squirrely, as I think are a lot of creative people’s. I ended up, after graduating from college, living in South Beach, Miami, which was supposed to be for three to six months, and I ended up there for six years, kind of really caught up in the whole nightlife and bartending lifestyle and scene.

And one night, I found myself praying for my sister, who happened to be a younger mother than she expected to be, and she was now married and pregnant with her second child. But her and her husband were really having a hard time. So that night, I found myself praying for her, and I said, “Oh, this is kind of strange. I don't really pray like this anymore, like a real ‘Dear God, please watch over my sister. She's going through a hard time.’” Well, as I did, something clearly answered me and said, “Your sister is fine. Pray for your nephew.” And I thought, “Oh, this is strange.” But as I began praying for my nephew, the whole idea for this book flooded my being. So it was really a sense of divine inspiration and white energy and light. I was in a hotel room with some friends and got up, pulled out the piece of hotel stationery, and started writing the ideas down. A friend looked up and said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I'm writing a children's book.” So it really found me. I can't really claim to have found it.

Shane

What was going on with your nephew? Do you think that prompted that message?

Laura Duksta

What's really so beautiful about it—and people do ask that all the time—was I have these, like, key moments in my life that I feel like were seeds planted, you know, and then that seed was nurtured and developed. So that first instance, when I was young, I was thinking that we’re all brothers and sisters. Well, then I was born into a family where my father was a raging alcoholic, and life in my household was really scary at times, and I don't remember a lot of it. Well, there was a time when my sister and her husband—they had a townhome, upstairs and downstairs. And they were upstairs, and they were arguing like crazy. I mean, the whole neighborhood could hear them, and my nephew and I were downstairs on the deck outside. He was about two years old, I guess, and he didn't have words yet, and I remember him peeking his head in and looking up the stairs, and it broke my heart.

There was something in my heart that day that I was like, “Wow, this is the experience of his world, and he has no idea. Here are these two people that are his world and love him so much. But this is what it feels like, and this is what it sounds like.” I just remember my heart really breaking that day. I'm tearing up now. I used to not be able to tell that story, like I was tearing up, and I realized that that's what my life must have looked like when I was the only kid around and my sister was on the way. And I think what—not what I think. You know, there's just some things that you know in your heart. What I came to know was that I wanted my nephew to know that, no matter what was going on in his life or in the world around him, how truly loved he was, because sometimes it doesn't look like love and doesn't feel like love, but there really is this essence, and this blanket, and this context, really, of love that I believe that we're surrounded with.

Shane

Was it the beginning of writing this book that got you out of the Miami nightclub scene? Were there any other mitigating factors?

Laura Duksta

Yeah, no, this had a lot to do with it, and I say, you know, that prayer did a lot more. It was more than for my sister. It was more than for my nephew. It was just as much for me. It really did pull me out of that scene, and it didn't pull me instantly. What actually ended up happening was that I was asked to—I was at the opening of a nightclub in Connecticut when that happened. A friend's brother was opening up the club, and they actually asked me to come up and run it. And it was inside of running a nightclub that I was like, “Wow, this is not what I meant to do with my life.” And I had the idea for this book, and I kept talking about it. It's something that I was going to do, but it was really germinating.

I’d say I moved to Hartford, Connecticut, by mistake for eight or nine months, but there was actually no mistake. And that summer, I actually turned 30, and about two weeks before my 30th birthday, and this is hard to—you don't get to see me in an interview like this, but two weeks before my 30th birthday, I had worn wigs for 19 years. I had lost my hair to a condition called alopecia areata when I was 11. And for 19 years, I just really worried about being like everybody else and wearing wigs. And about two weeks before my 30th birthday, during this time in Connecticut, I all of a sudden decided that I was going to stop wearing wigs, which was also—I didn't realize—connected to that prayer and so connected to who I am and what I was going to do in the world, and so it all kind of contributed into this swirl of becoming myself and becoming an author. I actually consider myself more, I think, of an ambassador of love, and one of the vehicles that I have to deliver this message of love is through being an author.

Shane

I'm curious. When you decided to scrap the wigs, was that an idea that had been marinating for a little bit, or did you just wake up one morning and say, “I'm done with it?”

Laura Duksta

Yeah, it really almost felt like a wake-up and like, “Okay, I have no idea where this idea came from.” I will share, and I know, you know, this interview will be around for quite a while. But this week, having lost Prince, I actually did wear a bandana-only to the opening of his nightclub in South Beach. I think sometimes when somebody is so willing to be themselves, it brings that out in other people. And so, I went with a bandana, and I had an interesting experience because one of the biggest people at the event that evening said, “You are the most beautiful girl in the world.” And then another big player said, “You look like a pirate.” So, you know, it's really best when we can learn to embrace ourselves, and we live without the opinions—good or bad—of others.

But the idea to stop wearing wigs really seemed to come from nowhere, and now I really do know that it was a part of that prayer as well. It was this huge release into this world of freedom, and creativity, and self-expression that I had no idea was so—there was, like, a noose around it when I was wearing wigs. So much of my life, and my time, and my creativity was swallowed up by wondering, “Did people know that it was a wig, and that's why they were asking about my beautiful red hair?” Or when was I going to tell somebody if I started dating them or even just became friends with them? Or somebody put their arm around me to take a picture—or a rollercoaster? It was just, like, all these different things that consumed so much of my energy that I didn't realize what an incredible sense of freedom and ease—it's almost hard to find the words for what an incredible gift setting myself free in that regard has been.

Shane

How did the car accident factor into all of this?

Laura Duksta

[Laughs]. You've done your homework. Wow, I have these really incredible, life-defining moments. And ten years before attending that opening of that nightclub in Connecticut, I was with a friend on a road trip. She was the first person who I really felt wanted to be my friend. We were roommates in college, so we weren't just in the same high school or the same car pool and all these different things. But I decided that I was going to transfer from Boston College to University of Maryland, and my friend Donna said, “Well, if you're going to Maryland, then so am I.” I was shocked and thrilled, and we decided that we would drive down from Boston to New York City and go out dancing, and then get in the car and go to Washington, D.C., and get her an apartment and a job, which we did—a job at Adams Morgan. She was a graphic designer at an apartment in Georgetown, so we were just going to have the best of both worlds down there while I was at school at Maryland.

And then we got back in the car and went out in New York, and we got onto 95 to head home in the morning. Well, like in the middle of the morning, like two or three o'clock in the morning, and I heard a voice tell me to put my seatbelt on, and I said, “Oh, I don't wear my seatbelt.” This was back in 1988. It said, “Put your seatbelt on.” I said, “No, I don't wear my seatbelt.” It said, “Put your seatbelt on.” And its certainty overruled me, and so I said, “Well then, I should tell Donna to put her seatbelt on.” And it said, “No, it has to be her decision whether or not to wear her seatbelt.” And so, I put my seatbelt on, and I remember hearing the Bobby Brown song “Every Little Step You Take, I'll Be There With You” come on. We kind of smiled at each other, and she was driving, and I was in the passenger side. The next thing that I remember, the car had flipped over two and a half times, and I was upside down in my seatbelt, wearing a t-shirt that said, “Will somebody rescue me?”

So I had this incredible experience. Now I cried for like three years, almost every day, but she showed up in my life as an angel in these just awesome ways that let me know that life goes on, and I think that that's one of those questions. I feel like everybody knows now that it does. I know that a lot of people don't, or they don't trust and believe. They don't have this, like, real inner sense of knowing, and that's one of the biggest questions we can have answered for ourselves. And so, I have this knowing that life goes on.

The beauty of it for me was that I was raised Catholic. My friend claimed to be an atheist, and her energy was present everywhere after. It was present in songs and music. It was present in—I got to my college dorm room, and it turned out that there were two stars on the door. It turned out my roommate for the entire year—her name was also going to be Donna. But, you know, one of the neatest parts of the story was 10 years later, when I'm back at the nightclub in Connecticut, for the first time in Connecticut since the accident, the song plays at the nightclub, and the DJ didn't know me. I was standing underneath the DJ booth, and the song came on, and tears started pouring down my face. I couldn't—I didn't hear—I didn't know the song, and I didn't hear the words. And after I asked the DJ, “Oh, you played this song?” He said, “Yes,” and he brought me upstairs and put the song on. I said, “No, it's the beginning.” He said, “No.” I said, “You have no idea what I'm talking about.” He puts the song on. I start crying. I don't hear the words again.

He sends me a cassette to South Beach, where I was living at the time, and I hear the words to the song. And the song is called “Shine,” and it says, “There will be feelings you have never felt. There will be questions in your mind. Your sister left your side to help you grow, and now she watches while you shine. The soul of an angel, touched from above, your spirit is shining, surrounded by love.” I mean, it just doesn't even seem like there could be a song with those words in it. And then to have that affirmation, you know, ten years later, back in Connecticut, for the first time, and that was the night that I had the idea for the book, so kind of all these awesome, energetic, angelic, creative seeds kind of popping that night.

Shane

And you've kind of embraced that message, because that's one of the things—I know in your videos on your website—you finish them with telling people to shine.

Laura Duksta

Yeah, we ended up self-publishing the book, and I signed my name, Keep Shining, because I have an angel by my side who reminds me to keep shining. So I've probably signed, I would say, well over 30,000 copies—maybe 50,000 copies—of my book as Keep Shining with an exclamation point with a star on it. I would often get—I don't know if I get it quite as much anymore. I haven't had the company I Shine for a while now, but people used to always say, “You glow. You glow. There's just something about you.” I'm like, “Well, if you answer your phone every morning, ‘Good morning. This is Laura. I shine. Can I help you?’” So you start to take on those words.

Shane

So you refer to yourself as an ambassador of love. Can you go into some detail about what you mean by that?

Laura Duksta

Yeah, I think it—you know, it goes back to that idea that I had when I was a child of wanting to travel the world, meet my brothers and sisters, and share the message of love. And I just really do believe that we're all brothers and sisters, and that we live on this small planet, and that we really just haven't figured out, you know, how small it is and how connected we all are. And what a difference it will make when we stop fighting one another and begin, you know, working together for the betterment of this tiny, little place that we live. So that's always been my goal, and my dream is to generate the conversation of love around the world so that it helps to erase those pockets of fear that have immobilized us in so many places.

Shane

What types of audiences are you sharing this message with?

Laura Duksta

I am typically at elementary schools, and I love that because that was about the age when I had that vision myself. So, you know, I always kind of consider myself part St. Francis, part Buddha, part Thoreau. I love to walk. And I love that I get to go into school. Because of my books being picture books, a lot of times, that's where my audience—or that's the schools that have me come in. So I love speaking to middle schools, too, and high schools because I can speak to them a little bit more about the self-esteem issues, and the life experiences, and how I got to where I am. And then I speak to a lot of women's groups, different organizations, and charities that have speakers come out, and I get to share a little bit of, you know, how I took this vision and this idea and having it be in the world.

Shane

And do you see better feedback from the kids or from the grown-ups?

Laura Duksta

Better is a tough word.

Shane

Let me rephrase. What's the difference between the types of feedback you get from kids and from adults?

Laura Duksta

Well, I love being in a room with, you know, 100 or 500 5- to 7-year-olds. You ask a room of 5- to 7-year-olds if anybody's got a question, and almost every hand in the room goes up. I love that moment of pure self-expression. And now, you know, half of them want to tell me that their favorite color is purple, too, and that their father has no hair, or that they've been to Florida. But, you know, they're just so willing and so wanting to be self-expressing. They're so taken by the message, and I love that.

You know, people often ask me if I'm famous, and I'm like, “Well, I'm famous with 5- to 7-year-olds, and that's a pretty awesome demographic to be famous with.” Adults—and I love speaking with adults, and I love speaking with young adults as well. It never fails, when I'm speaking to a room full of adults, that there's tears in the room, and whether it's, you know, when I read one of my books or when I'm sharing some of my personal story, and that they can ask questions—the few who dare to raise their hand and share something or ask something—and I feel like I can contribute to something somewhere where they might be stuck and maybe have been stuck for a long time. That's a different kind of difference than you can make with, you know, a 5- or 7-year-old sometimes.

Shane

Have you found it easy to translate the message of I Love You More because that is—it's designed for kids? Do you take the kids message and translate that to adults?

Laura Duksta

Yeah, I think we do. I love being able to look back through my life and see where all these little seeds are planted. My mom was a kindergarten teacher for 38 ½ years, and it was at a time when they didn't have, you know, smartphones sitting on her desk, so they didn't have a way to communicate with the rest of the world. So my mom hung out with 5-year-olds for 38 years, and she always gave me her favorite picture books. It didn't matter whether it was, you know, my 16th birthday, my 18th or my 21st, or high school graduation, or college graduation. She would always pick out one of her favorite books and sign it for me—you know, write a special message in it. There are some of those books that are still my favorites today, and so I think we do children's books a disservice by calling them children's books.

The message in so many picture books is just as much for adults. And what I love about I Love You More is that I think it speaks really well to children and also speaks just as well to adults. It was after I had done it, and I said, “I didn't really need to write children's books, you know, to get this message of love out there.” But I thought, “Well, what an awesome way to do it, because not only are the kids getting the message, but so are the parents and the grandparents and the teachers and the creatures and the aunts and the uncles that are reading the book again and again, and again. And the message is just as much, if not more, for them as it is for the kids.

Shane

Yeah, there are a bunch of glowing five-star reviews on Amazon that are all obviously being written by adults going, “Oh, my God, I love this book. We read this every single day.” So it's obviously making an impact.

Laura Duksta

Yeah. I was just going to share about the title. You know, and I know we have a lot of creative people on here, and there's a lot to be said for a title. In my family, we didn't say, “I love you more.” Well, it turns out, millions of people every day, when somebody tells them, “I love you,” they reply back, “I love you more.” And so, that was just really a gift from spirit to write that book and that message, and that, because of the phrase, it just really heart connects and emotionally connects with so many people that they see the book, and they want it almost no matter what it says on the inside, because they have this lifelong connection to that phrase with people that they love.

Shane

And my daughter's nine, and that's one of the things that we do every night: “I love you. I love you more. I love you three more. I love you six more.” And we keep going and keep going until it's finally lights out time. So the positive thing is you've got sort of an infinite source of sequels if you want them. I Love You More—it was beautifully illustrated by Karen Keesler, and together you're affectionately known as Hippie and The Bald Chick. So how did that pairing occur?

Laura Duksta

We were bartenders together in South Beach. As you know, one of the things that I really like to share with people, too—you know, sometimes, we can tend to judge times in our life, things that we've done. But if I hadn't lived in South Beach for six years, maybe if I'd only been up for six months instead of six years, I might not have met Karen, and I may not have been at the opening of this nightclub. So Karen and I bartended together, and a friend of mine was supposed to do the illustration, who's a big graffiti artist, and he actually had just gotten super busy with, you know, all this work for, like Rolling Stone magazine, and he said, “Oh, Laura, you know, I'm just not going to be able to do the book right now.”

I was looking for a mutual friend’s number, who I knew was an artist, and Karen piped in and said, “Well, why? What do you have?” And I said, “Well, I wrote this book about love.” And she said, “Well, I may not be a famous artist, but I know what love looks like to a five-year-old.” I had seen a picture that she had drawn that I really loved of the ocean, and she pulled out a bag of pastel chalk she had gotten at a yard sale for 50 cents, and we sat down kind of together and drew the pictures. She just did an incredible job. You know, I feel like she, like, tuned into her inner child and drew these pictures.

Shane

Your books are flip books, which means you can—they read to the middle. You can flip over the front and start on the back, and both sides read to the middle. Where did that decision come from?

Laura Duksta

What I love about the whole process is that the way the book was written when it was so divinely inspired. It was very much written for my nephew. So I have that actual sheet of paper, and I bring it to my school visits, and I talk to the students about the editorial process and how important it is because here was this idea that was so inspired. I mean, how could it need editing?

When something just comes, it flows through you, but it was very much written for my nephew. It was: I love you more than Barney; I love you more than my golf clubs; I love you more than radishes—because he happened to be a four-year-old that loves radishes; and I love you more than gung gung. And I had actually underlined that and written “title” beside it. And so, you know, I asked the students, “Do you all know what gung gung is?” And they're like, “No.” I'm like, “Yeah, well, that's what my nephew called chocolate milk.” So it was his nickname for chocolate milk, and we thought it was so cute that, even though he knew how to say chocolate milk now, we called it—you know, “Tyler, do you want some gung gung?” So I knew when I sat down to write the book—I was like, “Oh, this is—you know, my family was like this, and the idea is still good, but obviously it needs a lot of editing.”

So I wrote and rewrote, and wrote and rewrote the book until it was done, and then I showed it to my mother, who was a kindergarten teacher, as I shared for 38 years. She said, “You're off to a good start, and…” She said “and” and not “but.” We argue about this, but she's probably right. I'm sure she said “and,” and she said, “And, not every—” Gosh, I live in Nashville now. Well, we live in Nashville now, so I hate to admit this in this town. She said, “Not every book needs to rhyme, but this one really should.” So I had written the whole book, and it was—I said, “Mom, I was not giving it to you for constructive criticism. It is done. I’m not working on it anymore.” But I listened to what she said, and I was like, “Oh, she's right. You know, I should really go back.” And I went back and made the whole book rhyme, and then I showed the book to my sister, who I think had three children—her fourth and final one was on the way at the time.

And when I first wrote the book, it went mother-son, mother-son, mother-son, left to right, like most books read. And my sister had the idea, and she said, “I think if you pulled out the mother story and the son story and had them meet in the middle and made it a flip book, the kids would really love that. And I loved that idea. So, even though it meant that I had to rewrite the whole book because it now no longer rhymed, I loved that idea. So it was—and I loved the idea that it was this co-creation between spirit and, you know, myself, and some of the people that I love the most in the world—my sister and my mom. I love—sometimes I—you know, and I still do this. You know, you have an inspired idea, like this drop of goodness that comes into your heart and your mind, and it doesn't mean that it doesn't take some kind of—like me churning and working on it here, on this plane, to make it as good as it possibly can be.

Shane

How many different iterations or rewrites do you think it went through?

Laura Duksta

I have the text that doesn't rhyme, and I bring that to the schools with me as well, and I, you know, ask them if they'd like to hear something if they promise not to laugh. I'll read a little bit to them. You know, not a word of it is the same from the first piece of paper, and then there was probably six or seven drafts, I'd say, until we got to the final. I think at that—towards the end, we might have changed a couple of them, even due to the pictures. I remember there was cotton candy, and I'm so glad we didn't put that in the book, but I remember that being one of the pictures that didn't end up making it. So, you know, we were tweaking it as we were going, so probably—I’d say probably six or seven.

Shane

Your newest book, You Are a Gift to the World—you can flip that over, and it reads The World Is a Gift to You. What message are you sharing in that book?

Laura Duksta

Appreciation. You know, I say if we can create a foundation of love and appreciation for ourselves, one another, and the planet, we're setting our kids up with a foundation that will empower them for whatever it is that they want to do in the world. You know, a lot of the schools want me to come in and inspire the kids to want to be authors or illustrators, and I said, “I don't know. I don't know what you—this child and this child and this child have unique and different talents and their own unique geniuses.” But I do know that you give them a foundation, or, you know, a fertilizer of love and appreciation. That’s where, you know, people can tend to flourish. So that's the message of that book.

What I'll share about that book, though, that I love, and I love the message of the book. Everything kind of went wrong—and I'm putting wrong in quotes right now—when we launched that book, and it has never taken off in the world the way that—not even close to the way that I Love You More has. But I really don't believe—I had been living in South Florida for almost 20 years. I just can't believe that. I had moved up to Fort Lauderdale after my days in Miami, and I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, about three years ago. And I don't think that if You Are a Gift to the World had taken off the way that we had hoped that it would, that I would be in Nashville, and I feel like I am where I am meant to be. And so, you know, one of the gifts of that failure, or seeming failure, is that it got me to a new place in my adventure.

Shane

So you're referred to as an author, a speaker, and a visionary. I want to talk about the visionary part a little bit. I guess probably before the book was released and at this point now, where you realize you're supposed to be, you had different ideas, maybe about where you were going to be in five years. At this point, where do you see yourself in five years?

Laura Duksta

Let me talk about one year. [Laughs]. I’m very excited. We actually have my third book coming out, I'll Hug You More. So a real follow-up to I Love You More, and I have always—again, I've always loved hugs, and this book—where everything like I shared—several things went wrong with You Are a Gift to the World. Everything really just seems to be going right with this book. We've gotten the illustrations of a different illustrator. The publisher likes to pick their own illustrator, but we picked an illustrator. We decided to use different animals throughout the book, and the text and the illustration—just as well as everyone's enthusiasm around the project—really just seemed to be lining up spectacularly. So that book is due out in January of 2017, and I’m super looking forward to it.

Shane

And are you on track? Are you on pace to meet that deadline?

Laura Duksta

Yeah, we're actually good and ahead of it. I'll share a little bit about the writing process for that. I think so many people want to know, “You know, do you write every day?” I don't know that it wouldn't matter if I wrote every day, because so much of what I write when I'm kind of forcing it is just crap, which I guess is, you know, what you're supposed to get out. Just get it out. Let the crap out so the good things can come out. But I had written this book. You know, I worked with my editor, and they said, “You know, well, why don't you do either a thank-you book or a hug book?” They gave me a few different choices, all of which I was totally on board with. I submitted a few hug manuscripts, and we had the title of I’ll Hug You More, which, at first, I didn't really love. My agent actually came up with that, and then it grew on me, especially as I began writing the book.

About a little over a year ago, I got word from my editor: “We've got a manuscript that we want to go with. You know, just hold tight. I'll get you some editorial notes.” Well, I wasn't even 100 percent sure, between me and you and everyone else listening, which manuscript he was talking about. And I was good with them, but I wasn't great with them, and I hadn't figured out how to make I’ll Hug You More a flip book, which not every one of my books needs to be a flip book, but this one—it felt like it probably should be.

So I'm waiting, and waiting, and waiting, many times very impatiently, for my editor to get me editorial notes. And then it was in September of last year. I was in a wedding in Destin, Florida, and then I had an event over in Orlando the following weekend. So I just stayed down in Florida. I had driven, and I took 11 hours, or maybe even longer, 12 hours, I think, one day, just to drive from Destin to my friend's place in Mount Dora, and I stopped at every little beach and oyster shack on the way, and just, you know, sauntered. But it took me 12 hours to—it was probably like a 7- or 8-hour drive, and I got there after 11 o'clock at night. I was completely exhausted. I said to my friend, “Don't worry, I'm just going straight to bed.” And at about three o'clock in the morning, I had the perfect idea of how to write I'll Hug You More.

And so, ideas just started flowing, and I usually will always get up and pull out a piece of paper, but I was so exhausted. I was like, “Really, spirit? Really? Right now?” You know, you, spirit, whatever you want to call it, and so I started typing everything into my phone. And that morning, I woke up first thing, and I sent my editor a note. I said, “If this happens to you the day, you're going to send the editorial notes. Hold off because I'm going to have something completely different for you by the end of the day.” And by the end of the day, I’d basically written the book, and we just tweaked it a little bit. But I heard right back from him. He’s like, “This is it.” So that shows you that my writing process is more these hits of inspiration that then I tweak versus something that I feel like I can kind of just churn out every day.

Shane

And did you figure out a way to make that a flip book?

Laura Duksta

We did. Actually, almost that evening, or that middle of the morning at 3:30, I had almost written one side of it, and then my friend and I ran around most of the day. So it was like 10 o'clock at night when I came back, and I don't usually do this. I would tell you that I don't typically write into the computer, but I wanted to. I was kind of like, “I'll be damned if I'm not sending my editor something,” because I said I was going to get him something today. So at about 10 o'clock at night, I sat down and thought that I would just write the first—I knew it was going to be a flip book, and I felt like I had the first side. But after I typed the first side in, I was able to flip it over—or to write the other side of it. And so, yeah, it is a flip book. So it's one side—the parent kind of shares all these different times that they'll hug their child, and then you flip it over, and the child’s speaking, talking about all these ways and reasons why he'll give their parent a hug.

Shane

I know when we sat down for coffee, you told me that there is no magic formula for writing. Do what works for you. Do you find it hard to set yourself down for a certain number of hours, or for a certain number of words, or a certain number of pages?

Laura Duksta

Yeah, I don't do that. I know so many people do, and I don't think that it's a bad practice and have it to have. I think that there's actually—I think that there's something about telling, like, the creative spirit or God or the universe, whatever you refer to it as, “I'm a writer. I'm sitting down to write. Work through me, with me.” But I, personally, just haven’t had much success with that, so I don't like telling people. It's just—you know, it's similar. People contact me all the time because they have a great idea for a children's book and they want to know what I did. And I don't think that there's a formula, you know, for any type of—maybe for anything, but certainly not for any type of creative art or adventure—that there's a formula that you can follow. Now, it's nice to learn what other people have done and what they—you know, what has worked and what hasn't. But just because something's worked for them doesn't mean that it will for you. And just because something hasn't worked for someone else doesn't mean that it won't.

Shane

Yeah, I wouldn't think it'd be a sound piece of advice to tell somebody, “Every time you get writer's block, jump in the car and go on an 11-hour road trip and wait for something to happen.”

Laura Duksta

[Laughs]. Right, clearly, that's what you need to do. Yeah, I don't know that I’ve figured out my formula, but I guess I do know that, for myself, I pay attention when I wake up at three o'clock in the morning, and I think that I have a good idea. It might be something that I want to get up and write down so that I don't forget it.

Shane

When you sit down and you know that you have blocked out some time to work on the next book, is there a minimum amount that you have to accomplish to feel like it was a productive, creative session?

Laura Duksta

I would say no on that, given that I write children's picture books, right? So it's not like I'm turning out chapters or 8 pages or 10 pages or 80 pages, so there's, I think, less of a formula with this. Living in Nashville, writing a children's book is probably a lot more similar to writing a song. You know, it's only one or two sentences on every page, and so you want to somehow capture the vision or the message that you're trying to put across and then the idea to support it. But it's a smaller process to me than writing for some people.

Shane

What did you learn about the process during your first book that helped you write the next two?

Laura Duksta

To not be—to embrace the editorial process. Oh man, that wasn't always something that was easy for me, but I really do think that there's something to be said for working with others, you know. And sometimes, it's just a few little tweaks, but I am so grateful that we made the books flip books because it really is part of the magic. In all of the books, it represents the giving and receiving, and it also represents the infiniteness of love. The book would have been so not the same if we hadn't done that, and so I'm so grateful that I did listen to other people.

We self-published I Love You More. To start, we sold 180,000 copies, self-published. So, when we brought it to a publisher, we sat down, and we said, “Are there any tweaks that we could make to make it even better?” And at first, I wasn't even sure why we were asking that question, but it was actually a different publisher that we had shown the book to that suggested changing the back cover a little bit, and it was an idea that it's perfect, and we hadn't thought of it. So working with our editors—who are sometimes our parents, our peers—is really just an important part of the process.

Shane

What is some personal growth advice you'd give somebody? I would think that when you pour your heart and soul into a project and you believe that you've completely hit the jackpot with this idea and you give it to somebody and they go, “It's a good start,” I mean, that's got to be super deflating. What do you say to just understanding that that is part of the process? How do you psych yourself up for that?

Laura Duksta

I think, as long as you're—one of the things that I think is the biggest gift we can give to ourselves is: What is our vision, or our mission, or our purpose? And then, you're going to have ideas to support that, and hopefully, other people will contribute. And you don't always have to listen to an editor's advice or opinion. But to stay clear on what your vision and purpose is, and then, just to know that, as you have these different ideas to support and develop it, you're best off if you can create a team of people around you who are helping you get the best idea possible.

And then, when something does go wrong, as long as you're secure in your vision, and your mission, and your purpose, not to be disheartened or dissuaded if something doesn't work out. Like I said, I love the message of You Are a Gift to the World. I think that it's so important, and I feel like there's a place in the world where it belongs, and it hasn't found its way there yet. So for right now, the book seems like, or would appear, to be a failure, but I'm not letting that stop me from trusting that it's going to get to where it needs to be, and if it doesn't, it doesn't stop me from knowing that I'm an ambassador of love and that I'm going to work to get this message of love for nature, and one another, and the world into the world.

Shane

Are there other authors out there right now that you look towards for creative inspiration?

Laura Duksta

I don't know if there's people that—I'm having a hard time speaking of somebody that's living. I'm a big, big fan of, like, Emerson and Thoreau. I love Leo Buscaglia. There's a children's author, Leo Lionni, who has a book called Frederick that I just adore. Now I will share a little bit. I think when I was getting started in all of this, I felt like I was meant to be like the next Wayne Dyer or Marianne Williamson, and I think that that's one of the—you know, it's nice to look up to people and to desire to make an impact similar to, maybe, perhaps, what they're doing, but I also get caught up in comparing myself to other people. And I don't know that any of us—you know, we're not supposed to have the same mission, and vision, or life, or purpose as someone else, and I feel like mine is unique in that I need to find my own unique way of expressing it into the world.

Shane

Has getting success changed your creative approach at all? Are you doing things now differently than you did your first book around?

Laura Duksta

It feels like more of a collaboration, and I say, like, it's nice to know that you have the support of a publisher behind you. I am so grateful that we self-published the book to start because I understand all the different aspects of a publishing house and what it takes to put a book out there into the world. And so, you know, people will say, when they find out how little money I make per book, they can't believe it, and they want to be, you know, all upset and up in arms about it. And I said, “You know, a publisher has all these different—they have to pay the marketing and editing, and it's their bestsellers that keep the publishing house going, and they have so many other books that don't do what they hoped that it would do.” But, I think, knowing that I have that team of a publisher, I think that helps with people. It helps with my confidence and my belief in myself that I'm going to do it—make the next one happen.

Shane

What is the best piece of advice that you would give somebody who wanted to write their first book?

Laura Duksta

Write it. [Laughs]. A couple of pieces of advice that we got at the beginning was that there's different—I’m a big believer that life is a paradox. So there's people that write for the art of writing, and it may never matter to them if their book ends up out there in the world in a big way. And then there's other people who want their message out there in a big way, and some of those guys were Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield—the gentlemen who started Chicken Soup for the Soul.

And I got to meet them early on, after we had self-published, and I think it was Mark who said, “You know, writing the book is about 10 percent of it. Marketing and promoting it is the rest.” So, and I tell people, if you self-publish it, it might be about 15 percent of it, but you don't want to end—like, if you want your book and your message to be out there in the world, it doesn't matter how great your book is. You don't want a garage full of 3,000 great copies of your great book if you're not willing to somehow figure out who your market is and how to reach them. So that was a great piece of advice that we got. And then another piece was from Dan Poynter, who called himself the—he's kind of known as, like, the self-publishing guru, and he said, “Find your niche market.” He wrote books on parachuting and realized quickly that people that parachute and skydive aren't necessarily, like, in a Barnes & Noble, but they are in outdoor shops.

Shane

They're jumping off the Barnes & Noble.

Laura Duksta

Right. So, rather than, you know, trying to get our book in every major book store when we were self-published, we found these American craft and gift galleries and then children's specialty shops, where everybody that was in one of those stores was looking for something like our book, and so that's a really important thing to consider. And, you know, Mark encouraged everybody that, while you were writing your book and even before—you know, and it all depends on the type of book you're writing—to be considering who is your market and how you're going to get it there. So, like, I'm sure that this is the way that they do it now. They have a marketing plan and book proposal prior to writing the book. So that's something to consider. But it's a different way of looking at it, and it's important, you know. Marketing yourself and being able to tell your story and effectively get it out there is an important part, although I think some people write for the art of writing.

Shane

What cautionary tale would you tell someone trying to write their first book?

Laura Duksta

That there are a lot of books published every year, and, you know, I think it's a phenomenon the access that we have to stories and then, like, what we do here. So people hear about J.K. Rowling or Jeff Kinney, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, or J.K. Rowling, you know, due to the Harry Potter book. So I have a lot of people who want to write children's books, I think, because I think it's a really, really great way to make a lot of money. I think I would caution them well against that, and I laugh. But I think what people are confused about is that when you hear about somebody like J.K. Rowling or Jeff Kinney that, though they have made millions of dollars from their sales of their books, where they've made a lot of money is through licensing and merchandising of products, and movies, and things like that. And that those are such a huge exception to the rule versus, you know, what's to be expected, and so it takes time.

If you decide to go the traditional route of securing a publisher, what that looks like is first securing an agent, which in itself can sometimes take six months to a year, possibly even longer by the time you send things out and then wait to hear back from them. And then the same thing—when a publisher decides to pick it up, there's a good chance that it won't be out—like, even if you sign a contract in May, it will probably not be out until at least the following May. It's not the next season or the following year because of timelines, and catalogs, and production, and things like that. So I do encourage people that, if you have something and you want it in the world now, that self-publishing is really an incredible route to go, and it will give you an idea if you have something that people are paying attention to, too.

Shane

That's fantastic advice. What time of day are you most creative?

Laura Duksta

3:30 in the morning. [Laughs]. I kind of already mentioned that, right?

Shane

You hear kindred spirits, then.

Laura Duksta

Not by choice, but that does seem to be their thing. I love to get—you know, and it kind of depends on where I am. I do still spend a lot of time in Florida, and when I'm there, I love to be up at sunrise. I love those extra hours that my day seems to have, when I do get myself up about an hour, actually, prior to sunrise and head out to the beach and have that time. Living in Nashville, I super enjoy going out and hearing live music almost every night, and so my night's done later, and I just feel like this place is such a gift because we are surrounded by so much creativity, and so to go out and experience people's creativity live is—you know, then I feel all alive after I get home from a night out like that.

Shane

Here's a question that Tim Ferriss likes to ask his audience: What is the one thing you would do if you knew you could not fail?

Laura Duksta

I think it would just be a louder expression of what I'm already doing. You know, it would probably look a little something more like Oprah, like really just having as big of a platform as possible and sharing my good thoughts and opinions with other people on a grand scale. And, you know, similar to what you're doing—bringing people together to talk about their creative experiences and their life experiences so that others can possibly get inspired.

Shane

Well, I know you're getting the attention of people who are sort of at the top of the chain. I know you have a quote on your website from Warren Buffett. It says, “Laura, I admire what you're doing and what you've done, and best of luck.” So you're getting the attention of people.

Laura Duksta

Yeah, I'm really super looking forward to the next few years. And, I mean, I'll admit this. I haven't sat down and written out my goals for the next few years with the new book. I really do feel like that's going to open up some great doors. I'll share my Warren Buffett story. It's a little bit different than it may look there.

When the new book You Are a Gift to the World came out—he has been a champion for love, and he loves—the importance and the value that he places on children and spending time with them and nurturing them. It's probably more important to him than, well, I won't say that, but I read about how important love and children are to him. So I sent him copies of the book, found his address, and sent off copies for an endorsement—you know, in hopes of an endorsement. It was November that I sent the package. I wrote on the package, “Please open before Thanksgiving.” I thought it would be great if he had the books to read with his family at Thanksgiving.

I got a note from him right after Thanksgiving. Actually, I received an email from his secretary and a personal note saying that he was going to be mailing me something back and a note from him, and it said, “I owe you an apology, Laura, for it taking me so long to get back to you.” Now, he got back to me within a month. That will stick with me forever. He said, “You know, I have a big room where mail comes, and it takes a while to get through it all.” But he actually had a little bout with alopecia that he told me about when his father died. Though his publisher or people are no longer allowing him to do endorsements, he really appreciated what I was doing, and so I did get back to him and to the secretary to ask if I could use that piece of testimonial, and they said, “No problem.” The walk away from me with that was here's this man who must just be busier than, you know, the majority of people on the planet, and he is taking the time to answer every piece of mail that comes his way.

Shane

That speaks a lot about him. That's pretty cool.

Laura Duksta

Yes.

Shane

All right. Well, we’ve come to the end here. We've got 14 more questions that we can go through pretty quickly. Are you ready?

Laura Duksta

I'm ready.

Shane

All right, if your job only paid the bills and not a penny more, would you still continue to do it?

Laura Duksta

I can answer that very truthfully. Yes, because at times it does and at times it doesn't. [Laughs].

Shane

What talent or skill do you not have that you wish you did?

Laura Duksta

I wish that I had the best team-building skills in the world.

Shane

Fill in the blank. I am a success if I _____.

Laura Duksta

Have made a difference in the life of the child.

Shane

And fill in the blank again. I am a failure if I _____.

Laura Duksta

Give up.

Shane

What is the single best piece of advice that you followed to get where you are today?

Laura Duksta

I'd say the advice to self-publish. Like I shared before, I'm so glad that I know all the different things that go into delivering your message to the world.

Shane

What's a piece of maybe well-intentioned advice that you're glad you ignored to get to where you are today?

Laura Duksta

It took me a while to ignore this piece of advice, but when I was first diagnosed with alopecia, back when I was growing up in Boston, when I was about 10 or 11 years old, the doctor at Boston Children's Hospital told my mom, “There's really nothing we can do. Get her a wig, and you don't have to tell anybody.” And I followed that advice for years. I did not look at myself in the mirror for ten years without a wig on. I couldn't say the word. I wouldn't say the word, and thank God—thank God, I finally stopped listening to that. It's a big part of who I am today—that self-expression and embracing myself.

Shane

Well, that's a good tie into the next question here. What character trait do you like best about yourself?

Laura Duksta

I think I go there with self-expression. It’s one of my favorite things that I tell the teachers or whoever is booking me for a school program is that I think the most valuable part of my presentation is that the students are going to be with someone who's embraced being themselves for the hour, and they're going to see what that feels like and experience what that feels like, and I think that's really a gift to bring that to the world.

Shane

How about the character trait you like least about yourself?

Laura Duksta

The disease of comparing, of comparison, and comparing ourselves, or myself, to others and where I think I should be and shouldn't be. So, yeah, I think that that's human nature, but I get caught up in it.

Shane

Fill in the blank. I believe every child should have the opportunity to _____.

Laura Duksta

I am obviously a big champion for our children, and I believe that we haven't found the best way to teach, and nurture, and develop each child's own unique gifts and talents, and I believe that every child deserves that. So the more that we can do to figure that out, the more that we serve humanity.

Shane

If you could suggest one piece of self-improvement that everyone on earth would adopt, what would it be?

Laura Duksta

I've already kind of said “be yourself” so many times, so I'm going to go with something else, which is a piece of self-improvement advice that I got from Landmark Education. I haven't mentioned it, but I have a couple incredible life mentors, as well as doing some work at Landmark, and one of their key teachings is no gossiping. So no speaking about others, and if there's an issue that you have, bring it to the attention of the person that can do something about it versus talking about it. I really dislike that whole world, and I think that the world would change if we stopped speaking about one another.

Shane

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Laura Duksta

I love superpowers. This is something that I've actually started talking about in my school program recently—that I believe that we all have superpowers, like love and gratitude and even the ability to hug, and the power that we have of using the words “I am” and what we speak after those words. But I think if I was able to pick a superpower that I didn't already possess, it would be the ability to transport myself. There are so many places that I want to go and so many things that I want to attend. That overlap and that ability to just be able to put yourself in Africa or put yourself in Australia or at the beach at sunrise but then be back here for afternoon coffee. [Laughs]. That would be awesome.

Shane

Traveling without airport security.

Laura Duksta

Yes, there’s time, no—without time and space continuum too. It's more than just airport security. It's that, like, now—be there now.

Shane

If you could have dinner with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?

Laura Duksta

This is such a tough question, and of course, I've heard it so many times. There's Buddha, and Jesus, and Emerson, and Thoreau, and Oprah, and St. Francis, and Martin Luther King. Oh, I think, right now, I'm envisioning myself sitting under those trees with Oprah, so I think I'll just go with her. We’ve got some work to do here on the planet right now.

Shane

A hospitable nearby planet has been discovered, and you have been recruited to help colonize it. All your needs will be taken care of there, and you can take any three personal items that you wish. What are they?

Laura Duksta

Personal items. Mm-mmm. I have a really hard time not picking a tree. Trees are so important to me. I love nature so much, and so in a tree, you can have a flower, and the fruit, and the shade, and all that goodness, and I figure you can make paper and a guitar from it. But I think I would take a pen and a notebook, and probably a guitar. I think that there's something really magical about being able to share our stories, and when we can put music to that, too, it's an incredible gift.

Shane

All right. Final question. You've just won a lifetime achievement award, and we want your acceptance speech. There won't be any music to cue you or rush you off the stage, so you can get to all of the “thank yous” that you need and any personal cause that you want to champion or talk about. This is your opportunity, so let her rip.

Laura Duksta

I have to thank my mom. My mom has been an incredible gift to my life and everything that I've been able to do and accomplish. So incredibly deserving of a huge thank you. My parents—both my parents—and my dad as well, my sister, my nieces and nephews, my friends. I really feel like this is one big life school and that everybody sits upon each other's classroom, and so I'm so super grateful for everyone that showed up to play with me this time and learn with me in this school called life.

And I think I shared this before, but it's the idea that made the biggest impact in my life, and so they’re words that I choose to say again, and that's that we're all brothers and sisters, each and every one of us. It does not matter where we live. It does not matter our religion, our race, our ethnicity, our class. That we're all brothers and sisters and that, because of that, we're all deserving of love, and that we can like or dislike what somebody stands for or their actions, but at the heart of it, in our truest core and sense of who we are, we are love, and that it's in our best interest to extend that to our brothers and sisters on this planet now.

Shane

That is beautifully put. Could not have said it better myself.

Laura Duksta

Thank you. Thank you. And for someone that could probably speak for three months without stopping, I think I could fake it. [Laughs].

Shane

If you do that, I'm going to make you edit this podcast instead of me.

Laura Duksta

[Laughs]. I didn't do it to you.

Shane

That was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Laura Duksta

Thank you so much. I enjoy being able to share this bit with your audience as well.

Shane

Oh, one of the things we need to do is let everyone know where they can go and get more information about your books and you.

Laura Duksta

Okay, awesome. You can find more information than you probably want at my website, which is lauraduksta.com. You'll have the spelling that’s D-U-K-S-T-A, and I'm on all social media—Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, all that good stuff. So I look forward to connecting with you there. And, of course, remember: You are a star, and because of that, keep shining.

Shane

Yay, we got that part in. All right, Laura, it was a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Laura Duksta

All right, thanks so much, Shane. Have a blessed life.

Shane

All right, we'll talk to you soon.

Laura Duksta

Yeah, bye.

Shane

Once again, that was New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and visionary Laura Duksta. For more information, log on to www.lauraduksta.com. I'd like to thank everyone for joining me today. You are listening to the Live2cre8 podcast, and this is Shane Almgren reminding you to dream big, be inspired, and live creatively.