Interview with Sarah Ilaria Northe, author of Find Your True Northe

Sarah Ilaria Northe made the decision to write her book when we met at a book launch party in York in July 2017.

As the MC at the event, before introducing my author, Emma Heptonstall, I asked the audience whether any of them wanted to write a book. Sarah’s hand shot up.

Within two months, we’d met face-to-face for her Book Planning day and she signed up to join us on the writing retreat in Spain that September.

Sarah’s book, Find Your True Northe was published in November 2019 and I recently interviewed her to find out what’s happened since she wrote and published her book.

You can watch our interview here.

Sarah's book writing journey

Sarah is a coach and coach trainer and her vision was to bring all of her teaching into one place. She wanted to be able to give her students the content and resources they needed, and to support more coaches and would-be coaches. What Sarah teaches isn’t your traditional coach training, it is transformational. When a coach works on their own stuff, then they are equipped to support their clients in the best possible way.

It's not unusual for a client to 'do the work' when they write their book, and Sarah certainly did this. Although it took two years to get her book out there, as she embodied her own process, the transformation she went on ensured the book went deeper than it would have done if she’d rushed it.

She made big decisions over her future. In our interview, Sarah told me how “Everything got deconstructed and reconstructed during that time”.

She rebranded herself, the business, her work, and her life.

Why did Sarah work with a book mentor?

In our interview, Sarah talks about why she chose to work one-to-one with a book mentor to support her through the whole journey.

And actually she says how it may not have happened if she hadn’t had support to keep the momentum going, having feedback to stay on track, and to be reminded why she was writing it.

Plus she wanted someone to show her all the steps she needed to take to get her book published.

One of the biggest challenges she faced was how to turn her training into a book to bring it alive, given that a lot of the work she offers is experiential. And she didn’t want to write something that was just a bunch of theories or a handful of tools. She shares in the interview how she managed to create a book that she was proud of.

Another challenge was writing it. Given that she has a busy life, alongside the changes she was facing. Plus, her preferred way of writing was long hand then speaking it into her phone to turn it into a book, which may be why she attended the writing retreats in Spain – not once but twice!

I asked Sarah about the best thing that’s happened since her book was published. Although holding her book in her hand and her book launch  party was magical, she recently had an enquiry from someone who has read her book, who probably wouldn’t have found her any other way.

There’s something special that happens when it appears that synchronicity plays a part, when someone can get to know you before they contact you, they know your style and how you work. So they’re ready to become a client and you can serve them in the best possible way.

Here are Sarah Ilaria Northe’s tips for authors

1. Look at being supported through the journey as you don’t know what you don’t know. She says, “Why put yourself through the pain, difficulty and challenges of finding out what you need to do when someone else can tell you all that”.

2. Find out what works for you in terms of how you write at your best, what time of day, how you like to be structured, where and how.

3. Be prepared for the rollercoaster ride!

You can watch the video of our interview below or click here to listen to the audio. Discover how Sarah found her true northe!

Find out more about Sarah and her coach training and here’s the link to her book.