critical advice

I am getting ready to have a few people whom I trust, and who are writers themselves, read the first ten chapters of my book. Or, if they are not hooked, maybe they will not read past chapter 1, and that is OK too. This is the phase of writing that really scares me, putting it all out there and possibly having people not like it at all. If it were fiction I could just change the characters, but because it is a slice of my life, the strategy will have to be different if the majority of the panel does not like the book. But, it I don't go through this painful step then how will I ever know if I have a chance at getting published? And that after all is the goal.