slow growth is good growth. Real diamonds, as opposed to lab-grown ones, take anywhere from 1.1 to 3 billion years to form. Even grapevines take at least a decade to take root, grow, mature, and produce good wine.

This summer marks the two-year anniversary of publishing my first book, Little Failures: Learning to Build Resilience Through Everyday Setbacks, Challenges, and Obstacles. Writing Little Failures taught me how to write a book, and I still want to write more, but I also feel like I’m still recovering from writing the first one.

Here are six key lessons I learned from writing a book: