Today we’d like to introduce you to Sophia Barnett.
Hi Sophia, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’m not sure my story has ever had a straight line.
I started writing when I was in 1st grade, long before I would have confidently called myself a writer. Over the years, I became an entrepreneur, build organizations and businesses, worked in financial education and community development, became an author and speaker, and eventually co-founded JBM Publishing with my three children.
For a long time, I thought those were separate chapters of my life. I would become passionate about something, build it, learn from it, and then seemingly move on to the next thing. From the outside, I’m sure it could have looked like I was constantly reinventing myself. And honestly, sometimes it felt that way from the inside too.
What I understand now is that I wasn’t becoming a different person every few years. I was doing the same work in a different form.
Whether I was helping someone understand their finances, creating employment opportunities, encouraging someone to trust themselves, writing a book, or helping an author find the courage to tell their story, the work underneath it always about freedom, identity, and possibility.
That realization changed the way I saw my entire journey.
Today, much of my work centers around writing, publishing, and speaking. As co-founder and lead publisher of JBM Publishing, I have the privilege of helping authors uncover and preserve their authentic voices–not simply produce books. I’m also finally giving myself permission to fully explore my own body of work as an author.
That has led to something I call “Wisdom Unbound TM” a philosophy that grew from recognizing the common thread running through my life and work: sometimes becoming who you are isn’t about adding something new. It’s about removing everything that taught you to forget!
At this stage of my life, I’m less interested in collecting titles and more interested in understanding what each experience came to teach me and what I can create from the wisdom.
So, when someone asks how I got here, the best answer I can give is: I lived it. I questioned it. I wrote about it. And eventually, I learned how to see it!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Absolutely not! And I think for a long time, I believed the goal was to somehow get to the smooth part.
I’ve experienced business failures, financial uncertainty, grief major life transitions, relationships ending, plans falling apart, and seasons where I genuinely had no idea what came next. I’ve built things I thought would last that didn’t. I’ve had to start over more times than I can count. Sometimes by choice and most time because life made the decision for me.
But some of my greatest struggles weren’t external.
I’ve had to confront my own tendency to hide behind competence. I know how to build. I know how to solve problems. I know how to take care of people. What took much longer was learning how to be still enough to ask myself what I wanted, what I believed and whether the life I was building actually belonged to me?
One of the hardest things I’ve had to recognize is that sometimes what looks like procrastination or inconsistency can actually be fear. I could have an incredible idea, build most of it, and then find a hundred perfectly reasonable reasons not to finish. Because unfinished work is safe. No one can reject something they never got to see.
As a writer, that realization was particularly uncomfortable. I had spent years saying I wanted to be published while simultaneously finding very creative ways to avoid being fully seen through my writing.
I’ve also had to learn that starting over doesn’t necessarily mean you failed. Sometimes you’ve simply outgrown the version of yourself who made the original plan.
That has probably been one of my greatest lessons of my journey: I stopped expecting the road to become smooth and started trusting myself to navigate it!
There are still difficult seasons. There are still moments when I question myself. The difference is that I no longer interpret uncertainty as evidence that I’m going in the wrong direction. Sometimes uncertainty is simply what it feels like when there isn’t a map for where you’re going next.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
At the heart of my work, I am a writer, publisher, and storyteller. But I think what I really specialize in is helping people see what is already there!
Through JBM Publishing, which I co-founded with my three children I work with authors to develop books without stripping away the voice that made the story worth telling in the first place. Publishing can sometimes become so focused on producing a polished product that we accidentally polish the person right out of it. I don’t want every JBM author to sound like JBM. I want them to sound unmistakenly like themselves.
That philosophy has shaped the way we’ve built the company. We don’t simply ask, “How do we publish this book?” Instead we ask, “What is this person actually trying to say?”
Sometimes the book they think they’re writing isn’t the book underneath it.
My own writing works much the same way. I write from lived experience- sometimes while I’m still living it. I’m fascinated by the wisdom hidden inside ordinary experiences, things we believe about ourselves, ad what happens when we’re willing to question the stories we’ve inherited.
That curiosity has grown into what I call “The Living Library”, the larger body of my work as an author. Rather than treating my experiences as one autobiography, I’m exploring them as individual bodies of work- books that can stand alone while collectively telling amuch larger story.
And from that same process came “Wisdom Unbound TM”, a developing philosophy centered on seeing: learning to recognize beliefs, experiences, and expectations that have shaped us so we can consciously decide what still belongs.
What am I most proud of?
Honestly, JBM Publishing.
Not simply because we created another business/ publishing company, but because I built it with my children. There is something incredibly meaningful about creating something that doesn’t end with me! We’re building a company that will preserve other people’s stories while simultaneously becoming part of our own family legacy.
What sets my work apart is probably that I don’t separate the person from what they create.
I’m not interested in manufacturing authors, perfectly packages stories, or even perfectly packaged versions of myself. I’m interested in truth, voice, and discovery I believe our experiences leave clues, and if we’re willing to look closely enough, they can teach us something about who we’ve been, who we’ve become, and what we might create next!
I don’t believe people always need to reinvent themselves. Sometimes they simply need the space and courage to see clearly who they’ve always been!
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
There are several ways, depending on which part of my work speaks to you.
Through JBM Publishing (jbmfpublishingco.com), I work with writers at different stages of their author journey-from someone who has a story they haven’t quite figured out how to tell yet, to authors who are ready to prepare their manuscript for publication. I’m especially interested in working with people who want to preserve their authentic voice throughout the process.
I also love conversations. Through speaking engagements, workshops, interviews, and collaborative spaces like The Writers Table (open registration on JBM website), I get to explore the ideas that live underneath my work- identity, storytelling, freedom, self-trust, and what we can learn when we’re willing to examine our own experiences honestly.
For creatives, organizations, and other thought leaders, I’m open to collaborations that create room for meaningful conversation, storytelling, and shared learning. I’m much more interested in building something that makes sense for everyone involved than collaborating simply for the sake of visibility.
And one of the simplest ways to support my work is to read it, share it, and engage with it. Buy books. Support Independent authors. Attend the conversations. Recommend a writer to JBM. Share something that made you think. Those seemingly small actions are how creative communities continue to grow.
People can also visit my website (sophiambarnett.com) to explore my writing, speaking, publishing work and the different ways we can connect.
Ultimately, I want people to enter wherever they feel invited. You don’t have to participate in everything I create.
Find the room that speaks to you, come in, and stay awhile!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sophiambarnett.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiambarnett/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SMBarnett
- Other: https://www.jbmpublishingco.com
