Trust Yourself as Much as the Experts: An Interview with Olga Primachenko, Bestselling Author of ‘Be Gentle with Yourself’ and ‘With You I Am Home’

Trust Yourself as Much as the Experts: An Interview with Olga Primachenko

Olga Primachenko’s books become bestsellers as soon as they hit the shelves. Bloggers enthusiastically recommend them to their followers, women gift them to close friends, and unknowingly memorize quotes from them. But it’s not just her books that have this magical effect. Conversations with Olga are equally healing, and some phrases from her interviews are worth writing in large letters, hanging on the wall, and reading every day.

Success and Discipline

From the outside, it seems that success came quickly and easily to Olga. She started a marathon on Instagram, a publishing house offered to release a book, she wrote it in one breath, and it immediately became a bestseller. But in reality, things were different.

“I can write an Instagram post in one breath, but books require iron discipline,” Olga admits. “I am one of those people who write slowly. Sometimes just a paragraph or two a day—but regularly. It is this regularity that determines progress. Bead by bead, chapter by chapter. I never wait for inspiration. It’s great when it comes, but I don’t rely on it. I focus on the deadlines and word count specified in the contract, calculating my daily limit accordingly.”

Two months after starting work on the manuscript for “Be Gentle with Yourself,” Olga hit a terrible writer’s block. The mere thought of sitting down to write made her feel sick. “This is a completely normal stage in the writing process; you need to be prepared for it. It’s inevitable,” she says. Olga took a two-week break, during which she didn’t touch her laptop at all—and the hunger for letters returned. “I may write slowly, but I can’t not write. I live, feel, and think through words.”

Finding Her Path

Olga has always known that she couldn’t live without creating and working. She loves being part of a community of passionate people and enjoys exciting projects and collaborations. However, she has never been driven by the idea of a single “destiny” in her work life.

“I avoid the word ‘destiny’ when it comes to work. It places too much burden on everyday life and on a skill as simple as earning money,” Olga explains. She values each of her practical skills—from mopping floors to developing brand platforms and photography—and knows she can always find a way to earn a living.

“The main indicators of being on the right path are when you don’t break your soul with what you do for a living,” Olga shares. She has always struggled with traditional employment but never saw herself as a business owner. In this uncertainty, she took a break to think, during which she had her second child.

Years later, after writing two books and working on a third, Olga is certain about her profession. “I am a writer, and I can admit this to a taxi driver without blushing. It’s hellishly hard work, but it’s rewarding, and it’s the best realization of the gift I’ve been given.”

The Unexpected Success

When Olga started working on “Be Gentle with Yourself,” she met a friend for coffee and said, “I feel like I’m going to write a bestseller.” Inside, she believed she was creating something valuable, but there were many moments of doubt, especially during her writer’s block when everything she wrote seemed meaningless.

She never imagined that the book would soar to such heights—becoming “Book of the Year” in Russia and Belarus and being translated into several languages. After struggling with self-publishing, Olga simply didn’t want to miss the opportunity to publish her book through a traditional publishing house, where her only responsibility was to write.

“When ‘Be Gentle with Yourself’ was released, no one in the publishing house (‘Eksmo,’ Russia) had high hopes for it—except for my editor, who believed in it,” Olga recalls. The book took off thanks to word of mouth. People read it, fell in love with it, mentioned it in their stories, and gifted it to friends. Eventually, Olga started hearing her book described as a “sensation.” “That’s how a quiet book about being gentle with yourself by an unknown author ‘burst into the top,'” she laughs.

The Power of Self-Belief

In a world full of expert advice, Olga’s books offer something different. “The phenomenon of my books lies in the ability to embrace with words,” she says. “I think modern readers are tired of the abundance of experts on every topic, and it has been a pleasant surprise for them to realize that they can trust not only the experts but also themselves.”

Olga doesn’t impose anything, doesn’t sell her training through books (she doesn’t have any paid training; all her marathons and intensives are free and accessible), and doesn’t claim that if something in a reader’s life isn’t working, it’s because they aren’t working hard enough on themselves.

“I don’t know how to and don’t like to kick people. It’s much more natural for me to support them, gently and carefully drawing their attention to what they might not have seen before—or what they were afraid to look at,” Olga explains.

The Reality of a Writer’s Life

Olga’s vision of a famous writer’s life is far from the romanticized image of writing in beautiful cafes over a latte. “I wrote my books at home in the kitchen, in snatches between my children’s naps, with cold tea and clothes stained with milk, amidst piles of toys,” she shares.

She desperately missed solitude and silence—the understanding that “mom is working” and shouldn’t be disturbed every twenty minutes. “Now I realize the titanic effort I made when I sat down to write my second book a month after giving birth to my daughter. In six months, I not only wrote ‘With You I Am Home’ but also developed a daily planner and workbook. My brain must have been flooded with oxytocin when I signed the contracts with the publishing house,” Olga jokes.