My daughter is a badass (and I wrote a book)

I was feeling sorry for myself as I lay in bed this morning.

It was because we had a rough day in our whānau yesterday, and today I wanted to be excited to start telling the world about my new book.

But I'm just so tired and raw.

So I lay in bed working myself towards a pre-5am start with a non-stop 3 days ahead and reconciling myself to the fact that it would be ok for my book to go on sale today without any kind of announcement.

And then I realised.

Yesterday's family drama? It's the PERFECT way for me to tell you about this book, and here's why:

My daughter is a TOTAL BADASS.

And I am going to take (almost) full credit for that. Because I raised her. Because as I learned how to be powerful in my world, she watched. And yesterday I saw her, at 18, perform miracles for our whānau in a way it's taken me 48 years to learn.

So I'm going to tell you that story now, as I present to you my new book: Lessons in Badassery.

Let me tell you about my daughter Grace

If you've been with me for a while you'll know her as the 16 year old with the motorbike. That weighs more than she does. That she bought for herself. With her own money. From her first job. That she got for herself without any involvement from me.

This is us 5 years ago. When I had no idea just how powerful she was becoming.

She’s now been living independently (and that includes financially) for almost 2 years. Why? Because she was ready. She skipped year 13, got accepted into art school, took a gap year, and now she lives in Auckland studying fine arts at Whitecliffe.

So here's the story from yesterday

I got an urgent call in the middle of the night. There were police involved, and mental health services, and a mum who needed help and a mokopuna - a grandbaby - who needed to be kept safe, 800 km away.

Eight hundred kilometres away! In the middle of the night!

My son and I started to make plans. We needed to get him on a flight to go pick up his son. We needed to figure out how he could navigate all the services and people involved and especially, *the emotions*.

It was then I realised that Grace might be able to travel with him. She would be a good support, so he wouldn't be alone. So he'd have another set of eyes and another perspective.

What unfolded over the next 20 hours culminated in a police officer saying to me over the phone, "That Grace - she is going to be a force to be reckoned with!"

She had facilitated multiple discussions between services and family members. She had intervened and redirected REPEATEDLY throughout those conversations when emotions were getting high. She had laid down boundaries and expressed to people in positions of authority what we would and would not do as a whānau. What was acceptable to us and what was not.

She managed *LIKE A BOSS* a complete an utter shit show, across 2 islands and fights and rental cars and hotels and on less than 2 hours' sleep, and when she reached breaking point at around hour 15 - in tears and having missed assignment deadlines - she had a hot shower, got rugged up, and started again.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I couldn't believe how powerful she was.

I couldn't be more proud.

So it seems fitting, on the morning after that glorious display of badassery, that I share with you what started 5 years ago as a bit of fun. A book called Good Shit I've Learned, which I wrote because people started asking me how I became, well, ME. And I kept saying, oh, I don't know, I've just learned some good shit.

Well today, after more than 2 years of working with an amazing New York editorial house, Intrepid Literary, I'm releasing the very much improved second edition of that same book, but now it's better and more beautiful and it now has the fairly audacious title, Lessons in Badassery.

And today, after watching *actual* evidence of those lessons living and breathing and standing powerfully IN REAL LIFE, before my very own eyes, that title doesn't seem audacious at all.

It just feels true.

And that's how we got here.

It's available pretty much everywhere online. In beautiful hardcover that I just keep TOUCHING, as an eBook, and as an audiobook, so you can also listen to me swearing at you in the car or something.

Fill your boots. I fucking love you guys.

Let's get powerful together.