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This book is hands-down the most intriguing book I’ve ever read. I don’t know about you, but my life has been one roller coaster ride before I encountered The Amazing You. Since high school, I’d been trying to figure out my life’s calling, or higher purpose, or whatever it is that people call it.

My friends told me to focus on my career, that a career was the only way to achieve success in this fast-paced world nowadays. My parents wanted me to settle down quickly and start a family, because “it’s the only thing that matters.” I had no idea what I was doing with myself. I didn’t know what I wanted.

Or rather, it turned out that I thought I didn’t know what I wanted.

I got The Amazing You out of the blue: my colleague Leona had forwarded the email to me by accident. I was bored at work, so I opened the attachment for fun, thinking I’d find something to tease my colleague about. But something about the book spoke to me. I can’t pinpoint what it is exactly, but the way the author wrote made me feel like she understood me. I really admired one of her characters, Angela. She wanted to pursue her dream, but her boyfriend kept pulling her back. And I began to see that it was a mirror image of my life. I was letting my family and friends hold me back from what I truly desired.

I’d always wanted to publish a book, but many people told me that being a writer was difficult, that I’d never make it in this industry, that no one even reads books anymore! “But you guys said I should focus on my career!” I’d argue to my so-called friends, and they’d reply, “We meant something more like a banker, or lawyer, or something that gives you an actual paycheck, Amy.”

I just couldn’t take it anymore. There were so many ideas and words swirling in my mind, things I really wanted to tell the world about, but here the world was, telling me to pipe it down. But The Amazing You managed to unleash everything in me.

Listening to the interviews that came with the book, I started tearing up at my desk, because the things that they said resonated deep within me. One point that I took away from the Michael Neil interview — he’s a famous success coach and author—was that it was okay to have negative feelings. Somewhere along the way, bad feelings became taboo and it was somehow wrong to feel negative emotions. But The Amazing You helped me to realize that they were perfectly all right, and I just needed to rein them in and use them as my drive to succeed!

Like Angela in the book, I began to realize my true Self, and started writing immediately. I didn’t tell anyone about it, but I wrote at home, on the way to work, during lunch breaks, late at night when I’d finished all my errands and social obligations. I couldn’t stop writing; it was as if I’d finally given myself permission to do what I wanted! I was like a kid running free in the candy store.

A while later, I had my first manuscript. It was a rough, badly written draft, but I was proud of it; it was my baby. After so many years of listening to other people’s opinions and denying my Self, I’d finally said what I wanted to say, in black and white. I managed to self-publish it, and people bought it! Not a great number, but at least a few, and that was all the recognition I needed to keep going.

My family and friends saw the change in my demeanor, my disposition, my whole outlook on life. I was a much happier person now, and cracked jokes more often. My friends even said that they couldn’t imagine me being a banker or lawyer now, all serious and stressed out. Some of them apologized for telling me otherwise, but I knew now that it had been my own fear that had guided my decision all along. I knew that my life would never be the same again.