In this episode of We Love Everyone, Marcy Barbaro and Alex Morin sit down with featured author Jody Durand to discuss the lasting impact of writing his best-selling memoir, Country Boy Soul.

While many conversations about books focus on the writing process itself, this episode explores something equally important: what happens after the book is released into the world.

Jody shares how Country Boy Soul opened unexpected doors professionally and personally. Since publishing the book, he has landed numerous speaking engagements, connected with a speaking bureau, created a professional speaker one-sheet, and successfully recouped his entire investment in the writing process. The conversation offers an honest and encouraging look at how a book can become far more than a product. It can become a platform, a calling, and a catalyst for opportunity.

But beneath the practical success lies something deeper.

Jody reflects on the trauma and hardship he experienced earlier in life and how writing the book became a path toward closure and healing. Through revisiting painful memories and telling the truth about his experiences, he found greater peace, clarity, and self-understanding.

Marcy and Alex also explore how healing through story doesn’t stop with the author. Readers of Country Boy Soul have reached out to express how deeply the book has impacted them, and even some of the real-life individuals represented in the story have found healing through the experience.

This episode is about legacy, transformation, emotional closure, and the extraordinary ripple effects that can emerge when someone courageously tells the truth.

• What happens after publishing a book
• How Jody turned his memoir into speaking opportunities
• Creating a speaker one-sheet and building a platform
• Recouping the investment of writing a book
• Writing as a path toward closure and healing
• The impact Country Boy Soul has had on readers
• How storytelling can heal entire communities—not just the writer

In this deeply personal and emotionally powerful episode of We Love Everyone, Marcy Barbaro and Alex Morin sit down with entrepreneur and author Zoom Iwuagwu to explore the transformative process of writing his life story.

Zoom, founder and owner of the automotive empire ZZPerformance, opens up about his traumatic and abusive upbringing and how those painful experiences ultimately became the foundation for extraordinary resilience, success, and personal strength.

Together, the conversation examines why the most uncomfortable truths often make for the most meaningful writing. Zoom reflects on the emotional difficulty and immense value of revisiting painful memories to better understand who he has become. Through the process of writing, old wounds are revisited not for suffering, but for perspective, meaning, and healing.

The episode also explores the idea that our past experiences often return later in life with new significance. What once felt like pain and chaos can eventually become nourishment, wisdom, and fuel for growth.

Zoom shares that one of the driving motivations behind writing this book is his daughter. He hopes the story will help her know her father more deeply, understand her lineage, and connect with the journey that shaped their family.

Marcy and Alex also discuss the importance of safety in storytelling. Zoom explains why he chose to work with Working Writers Co., emphasizing that feeling emotionally safe was essential to telling the truth honestly.

This episode is about vulnerability, transformation, legacy, and the extraordinary courage required to excavate the past in search of meaning.

• Why uncomfortable honesty creates powerful writing
• Revisiting painful memories through a new perspective
• Turning trauma into resilience, wisdom, and success
• The emotional healing that can emerge through storytelling
• Writing as a way to preserve family legacy
• Why psychological safety matters in the writing process
• How the past continues shaping the present—and future

In this fast-paced and thought-provoking episode of We Love Everyone, Marcy Barbaro and Alex Morin go back and forth, delivering ten rapid-fire insights about the writing process, covering everything from mindset and fear to creativity and identity.

Rather than offering rigid rules, Marcy and Alex explore the deeper psychological and emotional realities behind writing a book. The conversation touches on topics such as judging your own writing, articulating intentions, sharing fears, embracing identity, and learning to think in scenes rather than summaries.

The episode is energetic, conversational, and filled with practical wisdom for writers at every stage of the process. Some tips are tactical, others philosophical, but all are designed to help writers move through resistance and engage more honestly with their work.

Whether you're stuck, starting, or somewhere deep in the messy middle, this episode offers a refreshing reminder that writing a book is just as much about becoming as it is about creating.

• Why judging your writing too early can stop momentum
• The surprising power of vocalizing intentions
• How sharing fears can unlock creativity
• Identity and its impact on the writing process
• Why thinking in scenes can strengthen storytelling
• Rapid-fire insights designed to inspire and challenge writers
• The emotional side of finishing a book