Five Values I Live and Work By

When I set out to become a full-time Book Midwife and to build the Book Alchemy framework, it wasn’t about profit or fame or a cool job title (though you have to admit, “book midwife” IS the coolest job title). It was about my passion and my gifts, as well as my sense of purpose in life.

This isn’t a job. It’s a calling.

Behind the calling is a vision, a vision for a world made more beautiful by brilliant people producing powerful books. 

And behind the vision is a set of values.

Many companies develop “values” they print up on a poster and hang in the break room. Some companies even have a general tendency to execute on those values.

For me, values are deeper. 

They aren’t something I came up with in a creative session one day.

Rather, values are what I live by because they are who I am. And when it comes to choosing team members to support the work, they’re the values I look for in others. They’re also values I look for in the clients I work with. If we’re not a good values fit, we’re not a good fit. And if we are: Magic.

So if you’re wondering what’s behind the vision and the mission of this work, here it is. The 5 core values of Fen’s Book Alchemy.

1. Full of Heart

I borrowed this phrase from the amazing team at Membrain, where I headed up Storytelling for a while. There’s a reason I have always said that of all the companies I’ve worked inside, Membrain was the best cultural fit for me. This is one of their core values, and it is absolutely one of mine.

Because at the heart of everything I do, is my heart.

To me, being full of heart means being passionate and committed, authentic, and compassionate. I care deeply, and I bring my full heart and soul to everything I do.

Full of heart encompasses related values of honesty, integrity, and authenticity. It means I don’t hide behind words or images or fake smiles. It means I strive always to represent myself as who I am, and it also means that I bring all my love and passion and the core of my being to the people I work with, including my colleagues and my clients.

2. Courageous

At Fen’s Book Alchemy, we are unafraid to challenge the world, to take strategic risks, and (when we’re confident of our direction - see core value #5) to charge forward fearlessly. 

This also means that we’re willing to have difficult conversations and make painful decisions when it’s for the best.

It means we’re not afraid to say “no” to client work that isn’t well aligned, or to tell a client when they’re making a mistake. It means we invest boldly in the things we believe in and that will move us forward, and that we don’t let ourselves get sidelined by fear.

This value is essential to our work because it takes courage to claim your voice and write a book, and if we’re not modeling that courage, then what are we even doing in this business?

3. Visionary

While we believe in getting things done, we believe even more in seeing what matters.

As a core value, vision means prioritizing the right and the duty to step back, take time, see the big picture.

It means being willing to be labeled a dreamer if that means we can picture something nobody’s ever pictured before.

We have to be visionary in order to help our clients bring their beautiful visions into being.

My personal visionary skill is both innate and highly trained and attuned. When I look at a manuscript, I can literally “see” everything the book can be, and I can see what it needs to get there. When I work with a client, I can “see” what they’re trying to accomplish, where their strengths are, and what’s in their way. I can see the path forward and help them get their feet firmly planted on it.

Additionally, importantly, we are visionaries who see the potential for a bright future for the world, fueled by the voices of those who are willing to put their ideas and their stories out there.

4. Creative

I have always been “a creative.” From my earliest toddler days wandering ten steps behind everyone else, dreaming about the world and telling myself stories about the ducks and the ladybugs and the imaginal dog walking by my side, to my entire adult career.

But “creative” doesn’t just mean writing stories and drawing pictures.

Creative is a mindset and a way of being.

Creative means happily, gleefully even, breaking down walls and busting out of boxes. It means innovating constantly. It means bringing big ideas to the table and being willing to take creative risks to see them through.

Creative means looking at the world and seeing problems, but also opportunities. It means taking things apart (objects, ideas, systems) and looking at the constituent parts to see what’s broken and what else can be made of them and how to make them whole again, better than ever before. Or when they need to be made into something else entirely.

When working with clients, it means refusing to issue edicts and orders, but rather exploring their way of working, their goals and ideals, and helping them creatively reframe and restructure to get more of what they want from themselves and their books.

It means helping them untangle old ideas about what their book could or should be and create a vision for themselves that is aligned with their own values and wants and mission and passions and drive.

Creative doesn’t mean unstructured. Creativity flourishes within effective structures. But it does mean being willing to deconstruct the structures when they’re no longer working, and rebuild them so they work better.

It means believing that things can always be “even better” and being willing to imagine how to make it so.

5. Grounded

The fifth and final value is also the first value. You can picture this like a tree or like a circle. If it’s a tree, then “grounded” is the roots, full of heart is the trunk, courageous is the branches, visionary is the leaves, and creative is the flowers.

If it’s a circle, then it’s all a circle.

Now you can picture the tree like a world tree, with the branches arcing down, and the flowers touching the roots at the tips to create a circle.

So don’t think of “grounded” as “less than” just because it’s #5 in a list of 5. It’s both the ending and the beginning.

And what do I mean by grounded? I mean that we move purposefully. We don’t rush and play firefighter.

If you need a coach on speed dial to handle your crises, I’m not your guy. That’s just not who I am, nor who I want to be.

Instead, my team works from a grounded sense of Knowing, with a capital “K,” and we allow Knowing to grow at its own pace. You can’t rush the roots. That’s not how you grow a strong tree.

And by “tree” I mean business, I mean life, I mean your book.

At Fen’s Book Alchemy, if we’re ever in doubt, we go back to our roots. We go back to our core values. We go back to our mission and our vision. We listen deeply to our own internal compass and the core of our being.

And we wait. We wait for Knowing to develop.

Then and only then, we take action.

The remarkable thing about being grounded is that when you slow down to get truly tapped in and connected to the roots of your being, things often happen faster than you think they will.

When I work with clients, this can look like me taking time before I open your manuscript to get myself grounded. I first remind myself who I am. I breathe and center myself, and release any petty concerns that might be rattling around in my head.

Then I ground myself in your foundation statement, your who and your why and your what. Then and only then, I open your manuscript and get to work, secure and confident in the Knowing that I’m doing the next right thing for you.

Grounded also means not pretending to know things I don’t know, not giving immediate answers when I don’t have them, and not rushing to respond to a question at 2am. 

(I might respond at 2am but only because I’m an insomniac and sometimes that’s when my brain is turned on.)

On the team, this means that I don’t expect sudden and immediate answers from team members, either. If the answer isn’t obvious, I encourage them to go take the time they need to become confident in their Knowing.

Grounded means that when we take action, we Know it’s the next right action. We’re the turtle, not the hare. Once we know the direction we’re going, we go. And not before.

These five values guide everything we do at Book Alchemy, how we work, how we communicate, how we provide an inspiring experience to our authors. We look for values alignment in the people we work with as well.

If these values seem aligned for you, and you’re interested in working with us, I encourage you to take a look at our process, approach, and other details about how we work on the home page.

Then get in touch when the Knowing has grown inside you that reaching out is the next right thing for you.