Good for you! My "advice" (being a writer and starting/running my own business, which is what you're doing as being a writer/speaker) is that I found success not by luck but by working my butt off and networking and being in the right place at the right time (by making sure I was in those places). Stay on the follow-up of all those inquiries, don't let them slip away, keep reaching out and meeting people who can connect you or work with you. While having something unique to say is important, the people who make it are the people who push, push, push, do their follow-up and the hard work of making relationships. People often don't want to hear this. They want to believe their talent or hard work on their trade/skill should be enough, but success is built on relationships.

I think words from a former bully would be especially interesting because one thing none of us want to admit is that we ALL have bullied someone, often unintentionally, at one point or another. There is someone in this world who see "you" as their bully, even if it's not even something you are paying any attention to. If we all had more attention to how we affect others, and how we are sometimes even the unintentional bully, our relationships would all be so much better.

I also think that we don't often realize when we are "bullying" someone. A good discussion would be, to me, how can you know when you've crossed the line and now bullying someone? I think we want to vilify bullies so often just as terrible people, but everyone has been a bully at some point, and we're not ALL terrible people. So how can we be more aware when we are inadvertently bullying? I think you have the ability to bring light to this with your work.

Fingers crossed for you!

Seesaw