Author Platform Strategy with Patricia Knight Meyer

Lisa Cooper Ellison [0:01] Well, hello, Patricia. Welcome to Writing Your Resilience. I am so excited to have you on the show today, because we are going to do something a little different, a little experimental, and my deepest wish is for it to be very helpful to you. But before we get to what I’m calling “the great experiment,” I’d love for you to tell us a little about who you are and what you’re up to in your writing life.

Patricia Knight Meyer [0:33] Hi, Lisa. Thank you so much for having me on. I tell you, this is very exciting, and I can’t wait for what we’re going to do today.

Hi, Lisa. Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate being here. My name is Patricia Nightmeyer, and I am an author and marketer. I’ve been working in marketing my entire life — basically digital marketing and book publicity for a fellow author who’s published five different books — and now I have been writing my own book, called Wonderland: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption. I always said I’d write a book when I had a story to tell, and at 40 years old, when I realized that I really needed to find out who my biological parents were — and also, at the same time, get a legal birth certificate — I began writing this book.

Part of the reason that I went on that journey is because I’m what’s considered a black-market baby, and what that meant was that my parents used a shady attorney to obtain me, and that attorney blackmailed them out of $30,000 with the threat of taking me back. They never received my birth certificate; they never got any adoption papers whatsoever. And by the time I put all these mysterious pieces together, at about 18 or 19 years old, I was a single mom myself, standing in my birth mother’s shoes. So, I put off trying to figure out the truth behind the story. I just kept putting it off because I was a young mom and I had a career to build, and so on and so forth.

Then when my adoptive mother passed, and I was about to turn 40, I realized I really needed to solve my mystery — also because the state had no record of my birth certificate whatsoever, and I realized that if I ever lost that one identifying paper that I did eventually get, I would be unable to prove my citizenship. That paper, I believe, was fraudulently obtained by my adoptive father at some point in my teen years, when I needed to get a social security card.

So, there are a lot of mysteries to unravel. I wrote this book, and since then I’ve been working to put it out into the world and promote it. I queried for two and a half years trying to find a publisher, and right when I had almost finished self-publishing it myself, a publisher finally came around, and I was able to get a contract with Unsolicited Press. I feel like there was a lot to learn on that journey, especially for adoptees. But now that I’ve got all of my ducks in a row and the book is coming out November 3, I feel exhausted from this long journey I’ve been on — at a time when I feel like I need the most energy I could possibly have.

I’ve recently learned that a lot of it might have to do with human design, and that you have some really fascinating insights for me around how I might be able to understand what my drivers are, what my obstacles are, and what my strengths are using human design. So, I’m really looking forward to learning more about that with you.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [4:52] Yeah, and I’m really excited to share it with you. I want to take the conversation we’re having right now a little deeper, because I have encountered a number of adoptees who are wanting to tell their story and trying to find their market, like you are, and there are some similarities I’m seeing in some of the things they’re saying about the experience — things that go against, I think, some of what we’ve been told around what it means to be an adoptee, how people feel about their adoptive parents, how they experience belonging, so many things. If you were to tell us just one thing about being an adoptee that you feel we all need to know — something that maybe goes against what we’ve been told — what would that be?

Patricia Knight Meyer [5:47] Well, there are a lot of things I could share. The one thing I can say is I can’t speak for all adoptees, but I can speak for a lot of the adoptees that I know. I spend a lot of time at adoption conferences and have joined a very strong, supportive adoption community. And that one thing is that adoption is never a win-win situation, and it does not promise a better family to any adoptee. While it can be incredibly necessary in some situations, it shouldn’t always be the very first option we turn to.

The adoptees I know are very much focused on wanting to support the first mother — to help that mother — because adoption is ultimately, first and foremost, trauma. We are separated from the only mother we know, and studies have shown that infants can pick out their own birth mother’s breast milk. It is truly a core wound, and it will carry with us for the rest of our lives. Adoptees are five times more likely to commit suicide and much more likely to have alcohol and drug addictions — I think the statistic is about ten times more likely. First mothers also have a much higher incidence of suicide and drug abuse. So, it’s important for the community to understand that what happens to us is a traumatic experience.

A lot of the trope is, “Aren’t we special? Aren’t we lucky?” And we are fortunate to have adoptive parents — many of us were raised in very loving, stable homes. But two things can be true at once. We are fortunate to have a family that has chosen to bring us in and raise us, but at the same time we are wounded, and we are not going to arrive as a blank slate without traumas that carry with us through our lifetime. Any adoptive parent who adopts a child needs to understand that they are, in a sense, adopting what I consider a special-needs child. We are eventually going to want to know where we came from, and have access to our medical records, and ultimately just not feel as though we were magically conjured into the world. No matter how wonderful an adoptive family can be, for most of us, until we learn the truth of our origins, we never feel like a whole human being.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [8:47] Yeah. Thank you for sharing all of that. And I love how you started with, “I cannot speak for all adoptees,” because that’s true — no one can speak for an entire community, and yet, because you have such a strong community of other adoptees in your life, there are some things you’ve heard others say where it’s like, “Oh yes, me too.” One of them is that core attachment wound — even if a baby is taken at birth and adopted at birth, they have spent nine months in someone else’s womb, and so there is a connection there that can’t be dismissed. There is that experience of wanting to know more, and if you don’t feel like you belong — if there’s this sense of wholeness that is missing until you understand the mystery — there’s conditioning there. I’m saying that because it’s going to play into what we’re going to talk about next, which is your author platform, and how we can use human design to help you build something that feels authentic to you. I’m already seeing things in the stories you’ve shared where I’m thinking, yes, and yes, and oh, I understand how…

So, let’s talk about your author platform. You are an author who’s about to launch a book into the world — congratulations, first of all, that is huge.

Patricia Knight Meyer [10:17] Thank you.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [10:18] It can also feel like a lot of pressure, because now you have something that you have to sell. So, tell us about your author platform — what is it right now, and where is the struggle?

Patricia Knight Meyer [10:32] Okay. Well, when I first got reunited with my biological parents, I started a blog called MyAdoptedLife.com and wrote on it for the last 15 years about all the different experiences I was having as an adoptee in reunion. That blog became, I guess, the core basis for my platform. Then, of course, I got on all the socials, and right around 2020 I really got involved in the adoption community online. I didn’t realize that there were adoption conferences and organizations like Concerned United Birthparents, the National Association of Adoptees and Parents, and Adoption Knowledge Affiliates — all of these organizations designed to support the triad: first parents, adoptees, and adoptive parents.

So, I began to volunteer my time with these organizations. I ended up doing keynote speaking with them, and that platform — my social media, my blog, and the time I donate with monthly Zoom meetings — became the core of what I do. I host an adoption happy hour for the National Association of Adoptees and Parents, where we have a guest on and we elevate each other’s stories.

All of this is the core of my platform, and I feel very fortunate to have such a large network. I’ve connected with so many people in the community — other adoptees and first mothers who’ve written books, and some folks who are just the people you can call when you’re having a really down moment. I think I’ve worked very hard to build connection and to elevate their stories, and I think when you do that, it helps build your own platform.

That said, I think I speak for other adoptee authors and people in our community in general when I say that sometimes we feel like we’re speaking inside an echo chamber. We’re all anxious to figure out how we can reach beyond the people who already get it and connect with a broader audience — because we know that statistically there are so many more adoptees out in the world who don’t know these communities exist and would thrive in them if they could find them. That’s a common struggle for people in our community. As far as my platform goes, I’ve been doing a lot of podcasts like this one and obviously working to get the book out into the world.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [13:36] And what pieces of this platform are feeling really successful? Where do you feel like you’re winning?

Patricia Knight Meyer [13:45] I think I feel successful in my public speaking endeavors. I’ve been very lucky to be able to appear and speak at adoption conferences and events. I’ll be speaking at a camp this summer with adoptive parents and adoptees — that one has me a little nervous, since it’s the first time I’ve addressed an audience of adoptive parents and young adoptees — but I like a good challenge. So, I feel like I’m doing strong there.

I’m also good at reaching out, talking about other people’s books, and promoting other people’s events. I really enjoy doing that.

What I don’t do is spend enough consistent time on the early steps of the book launch — things like reaching out to find people who will blurb the book, or who will read it and review it on launch day. I really struggle with promoting myself. I’m very inconsistent about it. You’re supposed to have a long email list of people who have all agreed to promote your book the day it comes out, and other than having a form on my website to join the launch list, I’m not tying that to my social media the way I should. I don’t know if it’s that I don’t want to look like I’m marketing my book — because I really do believe in things happening organically and authentically — but I think I probably struggle with the bigger asks. Like: “Hey, would you be interested in an advance review copy so you can put something out in November?” That sort of thing.

It’s also finding the time, because I’m a one-person show, and there’s a lot to do around a book launch — applying to awards, staying on top of when deadlines are coming, posting daily, all of that.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [16:07] Yeah, all of that. And how are you feeling about social media? Let’s get real here — if you love it and it’s great, tell me that. But if it’s not, I want to talk about it. Where do you feel like you’re pitching into the void, or sending things out and not being heard? What’s the pain point, or the thing you really don’t want to do?

Patricia Knight Meyer [16:50] Yeah. People who see what I put out may think otherwise, but I’m not very technically inclined. People in my community always say, “Patricia, the reels you put together after such-and-such event are so wonderful” — but it takes me five or six hours to do that reel, because if I don’t do it every day, I forget how, and then I’m relearning it and probably doing it the harder way. So, the voice in my head is always, you are so bad at this. I get very frustrated and anxious around it, and I find it hard and meticulous, so sometimes I just ignore it until I can’t anymore, and then I make myself sit down for three or four hours and just get it done. And the voice in my head says, why does this look so easy for everybody else? What is wrong with me?

The other thing — and you did say you want to know what’s really going on — is that I had hired an assistant, a fabulous, talented young woman, to help handle all the moving parts and the details. I am the world’s worst at being organized, and she was on top of all of it. Then right as the book launch was ramping up, I got laid off. I have been making a lot of sacrifices to get this book into the world — part of that was building a tiny house in my daughter’s backyard so I could live basically rent-free and spend every penny and every spare moment on the book. But when I lost my job in April, I felt like the rug had been pulled out from underneath me, and I had to let her go. It felt like two steps forward, one step back.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [19:15] Mm.

Patricia Knight Meyer [19:15] Now, there’s another voice in my head saying, well, maybe the universe wanted it to happen this way. It’s not like I’m broke or don’t know how I’m going to feed myself — but maybe this is the world saying, Patricia, this is the time to focus on your book. Use this time and energy to support this launch properly. But there’s also this feeling — and this may have a lot to do with adoption — this feeling of doom and worry, needing to have that security blanket in place. So, there’s another voice asking, Can I really do that? Can I really be that brave? Can I really just not look for a job for three or four months and focus on the book? I struggle with that daily.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [20:04] Yeah.

Patricia Knight Meyer [20:04] I’ve got that going on too.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [20:06] Yeah, and I really appreciate how you’re sharing the behind-the-scenes of what it’s actually like to be an author — all the effort it takes, all the money it takes. There are a lot of things people don’t realize are part of the book launch process, and you’re juggling all of that on top of the uncertainty of being without a job. So, my hope is that — yeah, go ahead.

Patricia Knight Meyer [20:35] I just want to add one more thing, which is huge: I try to remind myself that I didn’t write this book to make money. I want it to be successful because I want the message to get out into the world. But there really is an unlimited amount of money you can spend on a book launch. You can apply to every award — sometimes those run anywhere from $200 to $600 each. You can get on NetGalley, that’s another $600. You can buy advertising — who knows how much you could spend doing that. You could also go to every book festival on the planet. How do you decide what is enough?

Lisa Cooper Ellison [21:25] Yeah.

Patricia Knight Meyer [21:26] And I keep telling myself, you can’t do it all — you have to pick and choose and know what is enough. But this is a book I’ve put ten years of my life into, and so there’s this voice in my head saying, well, you need to throw everything you have at it. So that’s the struggle too.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [21:47] Yeah, figuring out how to work smarter rather than harder, right? Especially when —

Patricia Knight Meyer [21:55] — there’s a financial ceiling.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [21:56] Yes, exactly. When you have a financial ceiling, how do you know the right ways to move forward?

So, I have a lot of great things to say, and if you’re listening to this podcast wondering how I’m going to come up with all of this information — did I have long conversations with Patricia beforehand? No, this is the first conversation we’re having, and that was intentional. We had a few email exchanges, and what was interesting is that one of those exchanges was around your actual birthday, because there was uncertainty around whether a date in December or a date in January was correct, given all the mysteries and inconsistencies around how you got your information. So that’s the only prior conversation we had.

I’m going to share some things about you, and because we haven’t talked about them, I just want you to tell me yes, that’s correct, or no, that’s not. I have no attachment to it either way — my goal is really to support you and to help you leave this conversation with some answers to questions like: Where should I place my effort? How do I go forward? Do I look for a job right now or do something different? How do I figure out what’s right for me?

If you see me looking down — and if you’re watching on YouTube, you’ll see this — that’s because I’m looking at Patricia’s body graph. I’m going to hold it up to the camera so people can see it for a moment.

So, Patricia, some things stood out to me as really important. Number one: you are a projector. For people who don’t know what that is — projectors make up a small part of the population, and they are really important. You are the visionaries. You can see into systems and people, and you know things. You have a lot to say, and projectors often have a deep desire to be heard, because you carry this innate wisdom.

The thing you don’t always have a lot of, though, is energy. Your energy is inconsistent, and sometimes that means that if you’re in the right environment around the right people, you can work faster than everyone else — and people wonder, how did you do that? And yet, if you do work that fast, you feel exhausted afterward. You may find that a nine-to-five, where you’re having to sustain output for long stretches, is actually counterproductive to what you want to do, because it drains you so completely. Is that ringing true?

Patricia Knight Meyer [24:38] Yeah, absolutely. It’s funny, because if I go to an adoption conference, I have tons of energy — I love it — and then I come home and I crash from how emotionally draining it is. But I’ve often thought, if I could be in a room with those people working every day, I would be excited to get out of bed every morning.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [25:03] You would be excited to get out of bed — and then you would probably develop some chronic health conditions, because you’d be around too many people for too long. And here’s the interesting thing: yes, you’re talking about a topic that is inherently emotional, so of course there’s an emotional component. But actually, it’s also just about being around other people’s energy.

For you in particular, it’s really important to have breaks — breaks away from other people — and that includes the people in your home, if you live with others. Because you can love people all you want, but if their energy is different from yours, it will exhaust you.

As an example: I’m a generator. I have that steady supply of energy — I’m somewhat the Energizer Bunny. If you and I were to work together, especially if other things were aligned in our charts, you would do a whole lot of work and then feel really exhausted, and you’d keep wondering, why does this keep happening to me? It’s simply an energy dynamic.

Having time alone — real breaks in your schedule where you are literally by yourself — is important for another reason too: you are highly intuitive. There’s a center in your chart, the spleen, which relates to intuition, and it is lit up. Your intuition is actually your authority — where your yes comes from. It’s this immediate, in-the-moment knowing of what’s right for you. Part of that is also about timing. You know, deep down, when it’s right to do something, and when you follow that, you see the world open up for you — even when the direction surprises you.

The challenge you face is that you have a defined head and ajna. Those are two centers in the upper part of your chart, and they’re all about ideas — having a constant pressure to generate ideas and then to process them. You have a lot of that, which means it can be very easy for you to make decisions from the neck up. What do you notice about that in yourself?

Patricia Knight Meyer [27:23] Well, I do notice that my head and heart are often torn, but I usually regret it when I don’t trust my gut instinct. With trying to choose the cover for my book, for instance, I sought a lot of external validation, and ultimately, I ended up going with what my gut told me I wanted. I was also somewhat disheartened when people in my community said these weren’t the right covers — it was confirmation, in a weird way, but I was also bummed because I just wanted it to be over with. What I learned is that there are some things, especially in your book journey, that you really do have to trust yourself on. And as I’ve gotten older, into my 50s, I’ve learned to listen to that a lot more.

It’s funny you mentioned needing time away, because I’ve worked remotely for 20 years — before it was even a cool thing to do.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [28:29] Working remotely —

Patricia Knight Meyer [28:30] — and the thought of going into an office… I don’t even look for jobs like that anymore, because I know it would be, as you said, incredibly draining. So, I think you’re very much on the right path with everything you’re saying so far.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [28:43] And it’s so interesting that you said your head and your heart feel torn, because looking at your chart — here’s your head, and here are your intuition and the pressure around it — look at how far apart they are. Everything else is open. So yes, you do feel split.

And actually, that’s another piece of it. Not just that your energy is divided, but that you have this innate desire for completion. When you’re out in the world — and this also connects to that attachment wound — you’re looking for communities where you belong, looking for that sense of completion. People can feel that in you. And sometimes the outside response to that can be negative: Well, why can’t you just be complete in yourself? But sometimes our energy is simply looking for the plug. That’s not a bad thing. We just need to embrace it: That’s how I work. I’m looking for the plug. And when you find the right communities, you find it.

I think that’s really important for you, because as a projector building an author platform, this next piece can feel a little tricky — sometimes people react with a bit of a “womp womp” when I share it. As a projector, you have all of this insight, all of this wisdom, and it’s so important to share it — but with the right communities, and when you’re invited to do so.

What does that mean in practice? Doing a whole lot of pitching doesn’t work well for you. And you may have already noticed this — you’ve pitched podcasts, you’ve pitched essays, and when it wasn’t aligned with your inner knowing, or when it wasn’t a genuine invitation, nothing quite landed. But then I said, I have this episode I want to do — who’s interested? And what did you do? You responded to that invitation. So, I think the key for you is not to push from your head, but to trust right timing, look for the invitations, and then — crucially — not just look for invitations, but pause and ask: Is this the right invitation for me? What does your spleen tell you?

Patricia Knight Meyer [31:08] That’s spot on. When you talked about needing a plug to connect to, it made me realize that if I spend too much time alone in my head, in my room, just doing my thing, I feel a kind of pressure building in my body — almost like a pressure cooker. And then when I get an opportunity like this, or I go speak somewhere, or I do a Zoom call with my community, it’s suddenly like a release valve — steam releasing — and I feel immediately calmer, less stressed, more in the flow. But if I don’t create those moments, or I don’t engage when they arrive, I can feel the tension building.

And what you said about invitations made me think of something. The things I’ve been invited to have sometimes been terrifying. I have a lot of anxiety around public speaking, so I see each opportunity as something to grow into — a chance to conquer a fear. But I didn’t seek out the opportunity to be interviewed on Al Jazeera. Someone just reached out and said, “Hey, do you want to talk about baby boxes?”

Lisa Cooper Ellison [32:47] Yeah.

Patricia Knight Meyer [32:48] And I thought, oh my god, do I want to talk about baby boxes? I don’t know. What do I even think about baby boxes? This is a hot topic. But ultimately, I did it, because they found me. And when that happens, I feel like the universe wants you to do it.

I don’t know what you believe about synchronicities and dates and things like that, but the same thing happened with the invitation to speak at the adoptee and adoptive parent camp in July. The deadline to apply to speak was my birth father’s birthday, and the date the camp begins is the anniversary of our meeting and reunion.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [33:31] Oh, wow.

Patricia Knight Meyer [33:32] I’m a pretty spiritual person, and oddly, I didn’t even notice it at first. I shared it with my daughter, and she wrote back: “Mom, of course you have to do this. It has spirit message all over it.” And then I looked at the dates and thought, well, yes — and again, it’s something that feels very challenging, something I’m going to grow from. But that’s where it gets confusing, because I can’t always tell: is it my head saying, oh boy, this is scary — or is it my gut saying, you’re going to grow from this?

Speaker 3 [34:03] Or —

Patricia Knight Meyer [34:03] — vice versa. And sometimes I can’t figure out which one it is. I guess it’s always better to listen to your gut, right?

Lisa Cooper Ellison [34:12] It actually is. Especially from a human design perspective, we are not meant to make decisions from the neck up. We all have different ways of making decisions, and yours is very intuitive. Mine is a body response to things I see out in the world. Yours doesn’t necessarily require that external input — but you do have some kind of body knowing.

And I love what you just shared, because it points to something really important about your profile. If we think of your profile as the mask you wear, you have two parts to it: one is the role model, and the other is the hermit.

The hermit — that’s the two line — means you’re a person who needs time alone to develop your skills. But you also have this innate way of doing things, a skill that people around you notice and marvel at: How did you do that? How did you see that? Where did that come from? They see it in you, and you’re like, I don’t know, I just did it — and yet everyone says it. In order to develop that skill, you do need to be alone, so that alone time isn’t wasted time — it’s essential. Embrace it as part of your experience. But you also need to be with other people, so they can reflect that gift back to you and help you recognize it, even when you don’t fully understand how it works. It’s there. It’s a real part of who you are, and you can trust it.

The other aspect of your profile is the sixth line, and the sixth line has three phases — and what’s interesting is that it completely aligns with your story. In the first thirty years of life, there’s struggle: experimentation, turbulence, uncertainty. Then from roughly thirty to fifty, there’s a pulling back — a time of healing, building a foundation, figuring things out. And then around fifty, all that wisdom that came from the experimentation, the turbulence, and the inner work begins to crystallize.

It sounds like forty was a real pivotal point for you — a lot of emotional turmoil, a lot of challenge — and that’s very consistent with this pattern. All of that has led you to where you are now, where you embody wisdom as the role model. And it’s not a bookish wisdom — it’s not I studied all of this and can tell you about it. It’s I have lived and let me share what living has taught me.

So those are two pieces of your design to hold onto when you start thinking about what to talk about and how to talk about it. Really embodying who you are, sharing little bits of your story — and when I say little bits, I don’t necessarily mean sharing your book. You did some of that in your blog, and I’d invite you to do some of it in essays, where you’re invited to share your experience. But anytime you can offer a small story that illuminates something for someone else, that’s one of the most powerful ways you can connect.

And do it from a place of joy. For you in particular, the invitations are going to come from connecting with your own yes and following what brings you joy. I’ll give you a specific example. You knew this book was important, you pitched it for a couple of years, you had a lot of rejections — all of that is very normal. And then you took matters into your own hands and said, this book is coming out. That’s a very different energy. You were living in the energy of yes. There was an expansiveness to it — I am open, it’s happening. And what happened right when you had figured out what that looked like, when you were living in your power? A publisher came to you. You had probably pitched them — it’s not like you did nothing — but you pitched them, and then they circled back and said, you know what, this is —

Patricia Knight Meyer [38:42] — a yes. Yeah. It was actually a year and a half later, which —

Lisa Cooper Ellison [38:45] — yes —

Patricia Knight Meyer [38:45] — is pretty common.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [38:47] It is, and that’s something important for people to hear — it does take a long time. What you did was find your own yes, and that energy attracted the opportunity. So, I think part of the challenge now is: how do you put yourself out there, do some of that efforting, but in a way that isn’t attached to specific outcomes?

Patricia Knight Meyer [39:14] I want to add something about the timing of it. I had already designed the cover, hired a typographer, hired professional editors — the book was basically a few edits away from being ready to go. So, when the managing editor contacted me, even though they are a traditional press, it worked out almost like a hybrid arrangement, because I had already put so much financial investment into the book. She was happy with the interior, the typography, and the cover, so I was able to come away with the book exactly as I had envisioned it. A lot of people who go with traditional publishers give up control over the cover, over the interior — completely. But in a strange way, I got the best of both worlds: the literary credibility and the support for distribution, while also keeping all the design elements that meant so much to me.

And I really do feel like you’re right — when I decided I’m not going to let this stop me and moved into a more positive headspace, that is truly when things began to turn around.

As for what you said about the forties — that was a very difficult time. In my thirties and forties, I lost my mother, reunited with both biological parents, and the reunion with my birth mother went horribly wrong. I got a divorce because my spouse felt very threatened by my relationship with my birth father, and within a year I lost my job and the house I was living in burned down. I couldn’t have gotten any lower than that. Some of that is in this book, and some will be in the next one. But now, whenever hard things happen, that period is a wonderful reference point — Hey, at least all of that isn’t happening right now.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [41:34] Right.

Patricia Knight Meyer [41:35] It can always be a lot worse. And I try to live in a place of appreciation and gratitude.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [41:46] I love that, because we can take that same time period and build fear around it — Oh my god, is that going to happen again? I work with so many people who have been through what’s called a Uranus opposition period, which usually runs from about 38 to 44, with the peak around 40 to 42. For most people, that’s when everything is hitting the fan — and it’s not there to punish you. It’s there to help you become your full, authentic self. There is something you have to tap into in order to move through it, and if you can fully embrace it, that’s how you arrive at exactly where you are now — where you can say, I have a lot of uncertainty. Some things have happened that I would not wish on myself. And yet, because I have been through all of those other things, I have the faith and the wisdom to move through this too, because I’ve already done it — and this is nowhere near as hard.

That’s part of the wisdom you bring to the table, and it’s something you can talk about.

Now, you will have to put yourself out there in a certain way, but here’s the energy I want you to hold — with your social media, with everything: I am here. Not look at me. Not listen to me. And don’t give away all of your secret sauce. The things you know that are most proprietary — the things in your book that matter most — don’t just hand those over when there’s no invitation. That path leads to bitterness, and I suspect you already know that. If you look back, there’s probably a moment where you did something in that way — maybe not with your book, but with something else — and you thought, Yeah, I learned that lesson.

Really hold onto that as you build your platform. The energy is: I am here to be invited. And I’m having fun. Do things that are fun. Don’t worry about feeding the content machine. I know you’re going to feel that pressure right now especially — I’ve got to be everywhere, all the time, posting constantly. You don’t. That’s the counterintuitive piece.

Patricia Knight Meyer [44:08] Yeah. Good.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [44:09] What you need to do is listen to your gut, and when your gut says post something, post it. When you think about your platform, think about going deep rather than broad. That might mean your platform isn’t for everyone, and that you’re not reaching millions of people — though you could, because Taylor Swift is also a projector, just like you. It’s not that it can’t happen. But if you’re worried about it and you’re trying to force it, that definitely won’t work. Having that openness, though, will lead to incredible invitations.

So let me give you something to think about before I open it up for your final question. You said, I know how to reach adoptees — at least the adoptees who are part of this community, because you go to the conferences and you’re embedded in these spaces. But how do you reach the others? The adoptees who aren’t part of any network and don’t yet realize they’re not alone?

I would say — and this is something you may or may not already be feeling — think about how to reach the people who feel like they don’t belong. That’s one of the core themes of your book, right? Because part of what helps a book expand beyond its niche isn’t just reaching that niche really, really well — though that’s job number one. Job number two is asking: Who else? And then: How can I speak to them?

Patricia Knight Meyer [45:51] That’s a very good point, because a large part of my story connects to something I mentioned earlier — that adoption doesn’t necessarily guarantee a better family. I love my adoptive parents. They did the very best they could, and they loved me deeply. However, I think the trauma of raising a baby that no court had called their own exacerbated their addictions. My mother was an alcoholic and very verbally abusive, and my adoptive father, who was about 300 pounds when I was adopted, grew to 650 pounds before he passed away when I was in my early twenties. He couldn’t walk — he was very disabled throughout my life, and there were a lot of fatherly things he simply couldn’t do because of his weight and his pain.

So, I do think there’s an audience among people who are touched by addiction. When I talk about comparisons to my story, I often mention The Whale and The Glass Castle — those two pretty much sum it up. And this is a story not just for adoptees, but also for the one in five people who know or are related to someone who is adopted. There’s also a strong connection for anyone who is simply interested in understanding the adoptee mindset.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [47:24] Absolutely. And I would add: people who are dealing with family secrets.

Patricia Knight Meyer [47:28] Oh, yes, definitely. Because —

Lisa Cooper Ellison [47:30] — there’s such a big piece about secrets in your story.

So, here’s what I want you to do. After we’re off this podcast, go back over some of what we’ve talked about and ask yourself: what feels right for me? You can ask other people’s opinions if you want to, but they don’t matter as much as your own. What does your gut say? And then tell me about it later — I’m curious, but I want you to really sit with it, because that’s how you’re actually going to grow your author platform.

Let me reiterate a few things. Know where your yes lives — that’s your spleen. Lean into the fact that you need to be alone until you don’t, and that sense of pressure building is a signal that you’re ready for connection. Connection is important, and it will bring you things you simply can’t access when you’re alone. Depth matters more than breadth. Allow yourself to show up in a way that makes invitations possible — but let go of the idea that you have to pitch everywhere constantly. You can tell people you’re interested in being on podcasts; you can say it today. But you don’t have to push that energy out relentlessly, because it’s largely not going to work — and I say that not to discourage you. It doesn’t work for me either, given how my chart works. I’ve had to let it go, and honestly, it’s been freeing. I thought, oh, I don’t have to put my energy out there like that — unless I feel that inner urge, that pressure you were describing. Then I act. Those are my main takeaways. I could talk about so much more in your chart, but — what do you want to take away from this conversation?

Patricia Knight Meyer [49:32] Well, I tell you, it is a little liberating to hear you say these things. Because there’s been that little voice in my head — you should be doing this, you should be doing that — when really everything you’ve told me is validating. You’ve allowed me to look back on the greatest opportunities that have come my way and recognize how they came into my world, and how I believe I attracted them. And you’re right — a lot of it was not about pounding the message out there. That doesn’t come naturally to me, and I don’t feel it in my gut.

I think you’ve given me permission — or really, a reminder and a validation — that when you truly listen to your core and get out of your head, that’s when the best things happen. And I’m genuinely curious now: how do I learn more about my own human design in relation to everything you’ve shared? I’d love to go deeper with this.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [50:45] I’ll give you a few options. One: I’m going to cover some of these things in more depth on May 27th, when I teach “Build an Author Platform That Aligns with Your Design and Nervous System.” We’ll get into the practical side of all this, and we’ll revisit some of these concepts, because human design is its own language — repetition really helps. I’ll also very soon have reports available for purchase, where people can learn more about their own design. And I’m offering some individual and group work around human design coming in the fall.

Here’s what I’m really coming to understand: learning these concepts is great, but you’re meant to live your design. Having places where you can have accountability, where you can say I tried this — here’s how it went or What about this situation? — and where you can experiment over time — I think that’s far more valuable than just studying it. As you’re seeing right now, you’re looking back and going, oh, these are the experiments that worked. These are how the invitations came. Now the question is: how do I replicate that? We can talk more about the specifics once I hit stop.

But for now — this has been such a wonderful conversation. I’ve really enjoyed it. And listeners, if this speaks to you, if you have questions about human design and how it pertains to your author platform or any other part of your life, please share your comments on YouTube or reach out to me. I would love to hear from you.

But for now, Patricia — tell us how people can reach you and connect with you, whether they want to learn more about the adoptee mindset, find community, or support you as an author.

Patricia Knight Meyer [52:51] Thanks, Lisa. The main place to go is my website, MyAdoptedLife.com. There’s a memoir page there — if you’re interested in the book, you can sign up for the launch list, which will keep you up to date on the release, and there are also some free giveaways happening. I’m on all the socials as well: @MyAdoptedLife on TikTok and Facebook, Patricia Knight Meyer on other platforms, and @SomebodysBaby on Instagram. All those links are on the website. That’s really the best place to connect, and I also have a lot of resources, books, and links for adoptee support and networking on the site. Thank you so much.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [53:49] Thank you for sharing all of that — and listeners, all of that will be in the show notes.

Speaker 3 [53:55] And this is the book you’re looking for.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [53:57] Beautiful. If you’re not watching on video, Patricia just held up her book — you can see it over on YouTube. And speaking of YouTube, we talk about Easter eggs in stories — those little hidden gems — and I’m spotting one in your background right now: a very sweet bunny who has been quietly hopping around. Listeners, keep an eye out for that towards the end of this episode, because that bunny is absolutely adorable. We’ll talk about your bunny once we’re off.

For now, I just want to thank you so much for being here, for being part of this experiment, and for exploring how human design can help you embrace more of who you are.

Patricia Knight Meyer [54:46] I am so looking forward to putting it all into practice. Thank you so much.