In this episode of the Morning Upgrade podcast I talk with C.K. Collins, aka Kelly, about her morning routine, how to promote a book, dealing with divorce, stepping out of your comfort zone and much more.
In this episode of the Morning Upgrade podcast I talk with C.K. Collins, aka Kelly, about her morning routine, how to promote a book, dealing with divorce, stepping out of your comfort zone and much more.
Announcer
Welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast with Ryan Cote, featuring casual conversations with entrepreneurs about personal development and growth.
Ryan
Hey, Kelly; welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast. How's your day going?
CK
Fantastic. Thank you for asking.
Ryan
Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you had a nice little pre-chat for recording. And now, on to the actual recording. So please tell my audience of morning graders who you are, what you do for a living, and then something you're grateful for right now.
CK
My name is Kelly. And I go by CK Collins, I am an author. I'm a retired reformed newspaper publisher and retired in 2021. And kind of decided to wing it. I sold my house, gave away everything in it, and traveled for the last year and a half. And what is a win in my life right now is and what I'm grateful for is I wrote a book and it is about empowering people to change their lives and get out of this stuck pattern and the people that I meet, and the stories that I hear. Just it is I'm just so grateful. I love the interaction. I'm a big people person. So it's this book is giving back to me so much already. And it's just, it's fun. I love it.
Ryan
That's amazing. So CK Collins, is that like a pen name? Is that what they call it? All right.
CK
That's my pen name. Yeah. And the K is for Kelly.
Ryan
Do you want to play a CK or Kelly?
CK
Kelly's good? Okay.
Ryan
That's excellent. Congrats on the book. No, it's not an easy undertaking. Thank you. So let's talk about your morning; how does your morning start?
CK
On the weekdays, I have a slightly different routine than I do on the weekends. But on the weekdays, I get up at 530 and have a little coffee inspiration. And I meet my friend Beth down the street at a beautiful beautiful wildlife park called Sach. West Point here in Newport, Rhode Island. And I've waited my whole life to live by the ocean. And I've been here for about six months. So I make that ocean rain or shine part of my day, every day, because I lived in Tennessee, and inland my whole life. And this is just a dream. And then I have a gratitude practice that I do every morning, I list 10 things that I'm grateful for, and say thank you, thank you, thank you. And I also really tried to get to see it manifest or prey on. I'm so excited to see the great news that's coming my way today. And I just have that routine that was actually a little more recent, and I started reading a book called The Magic by Rhonda Byrne. And that really helped me define that practice a little better and get a little more organized about giving thanks for the things in my life. And then frequently, because I'm semi-retired, I have another friend drop by, and I'll do a longer walk with them. We do about a two-and-a-half-mile walk at six, and we watch the sunrise. And then I usually go for about a three to five-mile walk later on. I have some friends who like to get into the rotation, and we talk about life. And they were a great sounding board when I was writing my book, trust me.
Ryan
That's it, you do a lot of walking. That's like 20 20,000 steps a day,
CK
sometimes.
Ryan
So what are your days now that you're retired? or semi-retired? You have the book, and you're promoting the book? What are your days look like? Is it really just working on the book and meeting people and promoting it?
CK
There's a lot of build-up that you're supposed to do before you launch a book. And I'm brilliant. I went ahead and launch the book and did all the build-up after I just wanted to buck the system. I didn't know what I was doing basically. But so yeah, I do I work on content. I am a writer. So I love to write content. I have a blog on my website. And I have a second book in the works. And I am doing a lot of video content. And I'm also starting a podcast, which will be called the swipe right effect, which is the name of my first book. But then my second book is about traveling solo traveling. And it'll be called the traveling effect. So I feel like, you know, I tried to do about four hours of promotional work and podcasts and interviews, and I do interviews for my books. And so I have to set those up too. And then I do another four hours, making sure that I'm working forward into the next book. I make myself do an eight-hour day. But sometimes it's like I'm 10 hours in, and I'm just like, where did the day go because I'm having So much fun. I love everything I'm doing. So it really flies by. And the great thing about being an author is you keep on writing books as you feel inspired, you know? And it's like, I guess arthritis builds up in your hands eventually. But it's a job you could do to the old, you know, to till your, you know, towards the end years, for sure.
And nowadays, tech, you can say, Hey, Siri, turn on. I want to, you know, open my notes and write this down. I mean, you can even, you know, there's all this artificial intelligence now that can do it by voice, which I don't use right now. But I, you know, as you said, if your hand stops, your voice can keep going.
Ryan
I mean, they say the chat, GBT can start writing books sooner, or maybe you can now. And that's scary when you think about it very well, that the bots, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Terminator, who would have known that was like foretelling it now. So let's talk about what let's say on the topic of your book for anyone, entrepreneurs listening or maybe authors or, or, you know, they want to become authors. You're promoting the book a lot. So you're probably starting to see some things are worth your effort, versus not worth your effort comes with the effectiveness. what's working well, for you right now?
CK
Great question. I really am trying to get in front of people who have read the book. I mean, I love every, every other day or so opening Amazon and reading the reviews. That's super cool. Because, you know, in the beginning, it was just my friends. And my mom wrote the cutest review, by the way, the cutest review. But she admits that she's my mom, my sister, like mom. But so I've been getting in front of book clubs and book signings, I've done two book signings, I did one at, you know, quote, unquote, home in Nashville. And I have done one here in Newport, and the feedback from people because some people had already bought the book and just brought it to the book signing, for me to sign that feedback is really important to me right now. Because I'm developing other products to go with the book. And each chapter of the book, it's my story and a piece of advice that was given to me by a friend. And then I interviewed that friend and asked them to tell the story of how they learned that piece of advice. And so there are 12 chapters, and each chapter has an empowerment practice that goes along with that advice, I want to turn that into a workbook so that somebody who likes to write or likes to have that thing to hold on to, you know, can do those empowerment practices and something that they can keep. And that way, the book can be a pay-it-forward, you can give it to a friend, but you have this workbook that's personal to you, I've done a lot of personal work like that, that where you're journaling, and you're putting down the examples that come to your you know, you're talking to yourself, you're writing a letter to someone, those are things that are great to hang on to. And so I'm in the process of that. So when I'm sitting with the book club, I'm asking them, which one of my 10 friends did you most connect with? Are there any quotes? Do you remember the book? Is there? Is there a specific chapter that you related to, you know, with or without the person? Do you have any feedback on the empowerment practices? And so as I'm building the, you know, the podcast and the workbook and a video series on YouTube, I'm really taking that feedback to heart, and I'm helping it let it's, you know, it's a catalyst, and it's shaping what I'm the new products I'm creating. And my product creation has always been one of my jams. I, I love to build something new. And that's why I ended up with nine newspapers. But that's so it's just I love the conversation. I love the interaction. But that feedback is actually super helpful to me as I'm going forward.
Ryan
Yeah, sounds like this book is really evolving into something much larger. And you got 5757 five-star reviews on Amazon. So that's awesome.
CK
Yeah, yeah, no, I can't believe five stars keep it going.
Ryan
It can't please everyone. So eventually, you probably get something that's not five stars. But come on, right?
I was very negative, although I said that. But. So let's talk about so you're in a different chapter of your life, kind of like we were saying before we start recording, kind of like a rebirth, present time and what's really feeding your, your happiness and your fulfillment.
CK
Oh, gosh, another great question. So much is feeding me right now. I feel this just vibration of energy all the time right now. And I'm so aware of it because I went, I mean, this was also the beginning and the premise of the book and how the book came about to be, but I got to separate it five years ago, divorce four years ago, and there were As betrayal involved, and so I just I was just in a dark place for a long time. And when I looked back on the advice that my friends had given me, I and I just kept getting a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit stronger. And you know, and got to the point where I can let the anger go and let the forgiveness go. And, and this joy and this light start building and building and building. And as I'm getting feedback from these people, and they're saying, oh my god, this is exactly what I needed. And there's just this just cosmic energy going on in me right now. I, I feel like everything's feeding me walking by the ocean is feeding me, and my friends are feeding me music reading. I used to never read self-help books, and I can't get enough of them. Now, I feel like I'm a sponge for positivity. But I do think that reading the self-help books, as a nut, is really keeping that going for me, like I read the magic, which is a gratitude practice, which builds over 28 days, and I really feel that staying in me and with me. And I'm continuing that practice. So I really think reading all these books from other smart people are, I think that's really it right now. That's what's feeding me.
Ryan
What I found with the self-help books and the content you consume, is that once you start down that path, at least through from my experience, you start looking for other things to do, like things to test things to try in terms of your, your personal growth, you know, and so it becomes like a, like a rabbit hole, but a good rabbit hole. Like I'm always, like, this year, I decided to start doing therapy just because I was wanting to do it. And I was like, What the heck, let's do it. And I have had no religion at all in my life. But now I'm starting to say, okay, well, what would that look like? I don't know if maybe I won't stick with it. But I'm dip my toes into different things. And so even like fitness, like trying different martial arts. So I think for everyone listening, once you start to tune into your personal growth, you might find that it starts to send you down these really neat rabbit holes are things to try. I don't know if you have the same experience or not.
CK
For sure. And I'll give you an example. When when I separated from my ex, we were still living in the same house. And then we told the kid we stayed in the same house until we told the kids, and then he moved out. And so I was able to breathe. You know, it was all it was also intense. And our best friend Bill had hiked several long hikes, distance hiking, and one and he had done the Camino de Santiago, which is a 500-mile hike from Spain, mainly from French parents and to Spain. And he kept saying to me, you need to go and take care of yourself, you need to do this. So I did a lot of things to my business and worked with my employees to get my business ready for me to be gone for seven weeks. And I did it I did. In the Camino de Santiago French route, there are 28 different routes. The 500 mile that's the one that's most famous is called the French Way. And that was just a jumping-off point for me for so many things. But it was a confidence builder. It was seven weeks to do nothing but work on myself. And to not have to think of anything except wake up, eat, walk, eat, walk, eat, walk, sleep. You know, that's what you do. I mean, there's a lot of fun in there. You're meeting other pilgrims, you're called a pilgrim when you hike it, but that pilgrimage really changed my life, but it was, you know, a personal development thing. But also, once I retired, you know, I sold my business I retired. I traveled for a year the confidence that I gained from hiking the Camino de Santiago made that possible for me. I went to six different countries I tried to learn the tango I hiked, and Patagonia I mean, I just did all these amazing things that would I wouldn't the 30-year-old may would never would have occurred to me that I would do that. Netflix is amazing.
Ryan
I've heard about the Camino I can't remember what rest of it, but I've heard about that I've read a book was it was a fable, I think it was, and the guy was on he was taking that hike, and there's like a personal journey, a personal development journey for him. And so I've heard of it. Do you Where do you sleep? Is there hope of trying to picture what this would look like? Is there other hotels or hospital? Okay.
CK
Well, there are hotels, some people stay in hotels, there's a kind of a, there are hostels, and there are hotels, and there's an in-between thing in Spain, they call it a pension. And so you can have a private room there if you want, even some of the hostels have private rooms. I am a very, very light sleeper. So this lady Linda, who I met on the Camino, she's from South Africa. You know, she also was a light sleeper, and we had started walking together about day four, and we ended up walking home So the whole thing together, not the whole thing. But we would like four nights in a row, we'd have, you know, a big, loud snoring man in the room, and we couldn't sleep. And so we would just that morning, we'd wake up and over breakfast, we'd look at each other and say tonight, and so we would get, we find the hostel that had a private room with two twin beds, and we were getting really good night's sleep. And then we go back to the group rooms the next night. So you have to do whatever your body needs, because we're, you know, you have to stay healthy basically, as in so but there's a lot of different options. And I tried to do hostel wish, I guess I probably only stayed in a hotel, three nights and one, one because I stayed an extra night and Pamplona, and you can't stay overnight in hostels and, and you're in and out by 8 am. And then I got sick, and I had to stay in a hotel and Leone because I was sick, and I want to get anybody else sick. And then, when I got to Santiago, I stayed in an apartment, so but the rest of the time, the rest of the 36 days, I stayed in hostels, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Because that's really how you meet people is sitting down to dinner together in those hostels. It's really cool. All people from everywhere.
Ryan
You're the first person I've spoken to that has done that hike, or at least that they mentioned to mention to me at least. That's pretty cool. So, Kelly, I've got one last question for you. And then we're gonna wrap up with you sharing your website or book or whatever you want. My last question for you speaking to anyone that's listening, that might be going through a divorce. And they're in that dark spot that you mentioned, where it's hard to see the forest for the trees. I think I got that phrase, right. Just from your personal experience, what advice would you give them? What helped you?
CK
I think that this book has just, to me, the more I talked about it, the more I realized, the book is really about friendship. And I think what I want everybody to understand is that they do have the power to get better. They are not powerless, they're not alone, they have to choose. And that's where your power is your power is in the choice to do something to take a step forward to do anything that helps you get unstuck, I mean, so that's your power. And what you want to do is get that power back. And my friends helped me do that by helping me see, I'm not the person that I'm seeing myself as I think the other thing I love from the book, Allison and book says, this is temporary, this is going to look different a year from now, this is going to look different a month from now, a week from now. And if you choose, it will look different a day from now. And so I think that was really powerful. And that's what I learned from her. And that's in the book. Yeah, it's a powerful perspective. Well, this was a fun conversation. Thanks, Kelly for having shared if someone wants to learn more about you or buy, buy your book, where should we send them?
CK
The book is available on Amazon, it's called the swipe right effect the power to get unstuck. You can get it in bookstores as well because it's available through a distribution portal. And my website is ck collins.co. And for somebody who's not a big reader, it is available on Audible. And it is also I have a YouTube channel CK Collins and I have a lot of free things there free tips. I've got a free tip sheet 10 ways to get unstuck that's available on my website as well. And so, the book the tip sheet, YouTube, you can you can find lots of resources there to help you get unstuck. Excellent. Thanks, Kelly.
Ryan
Great job.
CK
Thanks
Ryan
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