I can hardly believe it’s been ten years since The Gifts of Imperfection was published! I’m connected to all my books for different reasons, but The Gifts is special because it gave birth to our wonderful, wild, and truly wholehearted community.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary, I wanted to do something for y’all—a thank-you of sorts. This turned out to be trickier than I thought. Over the past decade, community members have had four big requests for The Gifts:

1. Give us a hardcover, but don’t mess with the content.
2. Read the audiobook yourself.
3. Do a series or class on the ten guideposts.
4. Give us something like the Daring Leadership Assessment, but focused on The Gifts.

So here’s how we’re celebrating:

1. We have the first-ever hardcover edition of The Gifts coming out on September 8, 2020! I’ve written a new introduction, included a new tool for personalizing the work called an Integration Index, and cleaned up the binary gender language (which I’m doing in all my books). And, as requested, I didn’t change the core content. It’s so beautiful, and it has our most-downloaded quote on the back. Under a strand of twinkle lights—of course.
2. A new audiobook for The Gifts will be available in September, and I’m reading it!
3. We’re launching a free webinar series on The Gifts in September, and I’m going to dedicate several podcast episodes to topics from the book. More to come.
4. We’re unveiling a new Wholehearted Inventory in August. We worked on this instrument for several years, and it’s ready for prime time. You can take it for free and have the results emailed to you! And, by the way, we don’t hold onto any data, including your email.

I know times are tough for so many of us. If you want to participate in the course or take the inventory, but your trusty paperback copy of The Gifts is in great shape, then you’re good to go!

I just wanted to do something special for the book that launched this community and the research that turned my life upside down. I’m deeply grateful for both!

From the last page of The Gifts:

Despite where this book will be shelved in your local bookstore, I’m not at all sure that this work is about self-help. I think of it as an invitation to join a wholehearted revolution. A small, quiet, grassroots movement that starts with each of us saying, “My story matters because I matter.” A movement where we can take to the streets with our messy, imperfect, wild, stretch-marked, wonderful, heartbreaking, grace-filled, and joyful lives. A movement fueled by the freedom that comes when we stop pretending that everything is okay when it isn’t. A call that rises up from our bellies when we find the courage to celebrate those intensely joyful moments even though we’ve convinced ourselves that savoring happiness is inviting disaster.

Revolution might sound a little dramatic, but in this world, choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance. Choosing to live and love with our whole hearts is an act of defiance. You’re going to confuse, piss-off, and terrify lots of people—including yourself. One minute you’ll pray that the transformation ends, and the next minute you’ll pray that it never ends. You’ll also wonder how you can feel so brave and so afraid at the same time. At least that’s how I feel most of the time . . . brave, afraid, and very, very alive.