So far, the You Are Before the World journey has been…interesting.
If you’re new here, I launched this newsletter a few short months ago, when an internal battle between serving others and saving myself had reached such fever pitch that I wrote a whole book about it. In it, I share how I’ve learned and am learning—through both trauma and triumph—to navigate the “helper’s dilemma”:
When giving is your calling, when do you not answer the phone?
For context, I’m a wife. A founder and CEO of a small consultancy in a time when Black women’s work is being demonized and deconstructed. A mother of six young adults who are trying to make sensible lives amid absolute nonsense. Grandmother to two ANGELS (no matter what their mother says). Daughter to two aging parents—one of whom is living with dementia. Friend and colleague to many, and a stealthy benefactor with extremely low impulse control, which perplexes my logic-led husband. The other day, he asked why I gave $100 to a pet sanctuary in New Mexico. I shrugged my shoulders and answered, “I wanted to?” Shaking his head, he waved me off. What can I say? I run on inspiration.
Which brings me back to the interesting journey.
When I first finished the proposal for You Are Before the World, I wanted big things for the book. Through a conventional lens, that meant major agency, major publishing, major deal, major media, major lists. MAJOR.
Here’s where I must tell you that You Are Before the World was spiritually downloaded to me. While a few of the stories existed in various drafts, I finished the book—a total of 62,000 words—in six weeks. I trusted I’d heard the messages clearly and translated them accurately. I believe I’m a good writer. And my team and I sold more than fifteen thousand copies of The Waymakers, which was not traditionally published, by faith and grit.
Spirit + skill + stamina = major, right? Wrong.
So far, nothing has unfolded like I thought it would. My agent (who is now also my self-publishing partner) and I have had several exchanges about the doors we knocked on that not only went unopened, but completely unanswered. Doors that would have ordinarily swung open with ease. (Ma’am/Sir, you know me?!?)
We’ve come to believe, though—after months of knocking, waiting, and knocking again—that this entire trajectory is being guided by something above us.
In truth, the course of You Are Before the World has been much like my own as of late—an outright inverse of all things assumed and expected. It has felt less like soaring and more like a bumpy ride on a stubborn horse. Wants have been replaced with needs, plans with purpose, and people with…other people. Basically, God has been inviting me to stay out of the way with a not-so-subtle, “I’ve got this.” If You Are Before the World was downloaded by Spirit, it is now clear that it will be shepherded by the same, and that whatever this work is destined for will not manifest by formulas or might. It took time for me to let go of the wheel, but when I did, the magic began to unfold. Black Girl Magic, to be precise.
While You Are Before the World includes themes and lessons relevant to all people—self-discovery, healing, boundaries, leadership—I wrote it as a Black woman called to fortify women like me who’ve been conditioned to serve and sacrifice to our detriment. I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow, but after months of doing our best to follow the blueprint, we now sit squarely in a setting of our own design.
Brilliant Black women are surrounding this work with agency and editing and visuals and partnerships and testimonials and creative marketing ideas. They are celebrating with me in advance…eager to experience everything this book is and can be—for each of us and all of us.
One (new) sisterfriend told me she understands why it didn’t land with a traditional publisher. “Because it’s ours,” she wrote plainly. “Through you.” I felt that.
In my work at The Waymakers Change Group, I always say, “When you mend the deepest wound, you heal the body.” Black women have long felt the pain of society’s failures, even as others look to us to locate what is lost and restore what is broken. But before we can help anyone else sustainably, we must mend our own wounds. We must heal our own bodies. We must make a way for ourselves. We must be before the world.
I’m so humbled by and grateful for the circle of Black women forming around me right now. It’s what the book needs. It’s what I need. It is well with my soul. Bottom line? I trust us.
Tara Jaye Frank
