259: It’s Never Too Late: How Susie Spikol Became an Author at 50 and Found Magic in Nature

Susie: 0:00

I think we have this idea as adults that nature has to be really wild, like you have to go someplace like Yosemite or Yellowstone to see these like immense wild places. But nature is everywhere, it is absolutely everywhere.

Camille: 0:24

So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO. Welcome back everyone to Call Me CEO.

Camille: 0:46

This is your host, camille Walker, where we here at Call Me CEO celebrate mothers building businesses and, even more than that, we celebrate what it is that defines those pieces of you that have grown within you, that you've chased after and you're making dreams happen. And today's episode I'm so thrilled to share because Susie Spikol has done just that and it's something that has been growing within her for years and years. And what's even more fun is that she's an author and a naturalist. We'll get into what that means here in a minute. But this idea is something that is finally blossoming and I say finally, because it's been there for a long time to become an author at 50. And she's about ready to release her second book, but her first one is forest magic for kids how to find fairies, make a secret fort and cook up an elfin picnic.

Camille: 1:39

Oh my gosh, is that not the best? I'm just like, yeah, this is going to be a fun, a fun conversation. So thank you for joining us. We're going to talk about how it's never too late to chase after that idea that you've had. That's been stirred within you, so let's start. Susie, thank you so much for being on the show today. Well, thank you so much, camille. This is really exciting. I can't wait. Yeah, so tell our audience a little bit about you where you grew up and where you're living, and what got you into becoming an author and a naturalist.

Susie: 2:10

Sure, yeah Well, I live in a little tiny town in Southwestern New Hampshire called Hancock. It's very beautiful, it looks like something out of a Christmas movie most of the year, but I grew up in Brooklyn, new York, right in the middle of the city, kind of right in the thick of Brooklyn, when Brooklyn wasn't so pretty, and so it's a little. It's a little bit different now than the neighborhood I grew up in. So, and I had always loved writing as a kid, I just loved writing and I loved stories and I loved being outside, and I've been really fortunate that I've been able to combine those things into my life's work. I've been a naturalist teaching people about nature, and I always wanted to write a book. But it took me a long time to get there and so finally, at the age of 50, I was like I'm going to do it, I'm going to write the book I've always wanted to and I did, and so it's really exciting. There it is.

Camille: 3:13

That is so cool and I love.

Camille: 3:15

The first thing and message that I want to emphasize here is that it is never too late. There is especially, I feel like, for many of us that are moms, we think, oh well, I just have this really short time to hurry and get these dreams done before I become a mom, or maybe by the time my kids are old enough, I'll get back to something, but then it'll be too late and really it's not. It's not too late and I feel there was something. One of my I would say online mentors that she doesn't know that she is, but she is is Chalene Johnson, and I was listening to a podcast episode of hers and she said if you think you've reached the peak of your potential by the time you are in your mid twenties or even mid thirties, I feel so very sorry for you.

Camille: 4:02

And it was to emphasize that the time with our children is so short and that does have a finite definition because kids grow up. However, our potential and our ability to grow and to redefine and to claim those dreams does not have the same cap. So I love that you took that leap of that dream that you had always had to become an author and you went for it. Was it scary for you to do? Like, what was it that got in your way of doing this thing?

Susie: 4:33

Oh yeah, it was really scary.

Susie: 4:34

I think what got in the way is like I just I studied English literature in college and I thought I'd be a writer, you know, but you don't.

Susie: 4:43

It's hard to make a living as a writer and so I always kind of kept writing and I got another career of being a naturalist and I then I had children and I actually feel like pursuing my dream when my kids were in their teen years was actually really great role modeling for them, because it just showed that no matter like where you are in your life, you can still go after your dreams, and I think that was really that was really empowering to them and it made me feel really empowered, like I'm going to show my kids like I have this dream.

Susie: 5:21

They knew about it, they encouraged me, I would read them things, they would give me good feedback and I just feel like that's kind of what my path was, was waiting. I always kept some ideas in my head. I had a little notebook where I'd write things down, but it wasn't until they kids got kind of old enough and I I had some more mental space, because writing is so mental it's just so much in your head that I could actually sit down in front of my computer and get to it.

Camille: 5:54

I love that Because, let's be honest, having teenagers is a lot of mental space. It goes from like being a mother to little ones, where so much is physical and you're mentally exhausted in terms of like, maybe not getting enough sleep or the demands of their needs or whatever the thing is. But teenage years it's mental gymnastics, just doing your best to support them and get through their emotional needs that go up and down. It's so interesting how you think one might be easier than the other, but it's just different. It's just a different kind of pull, yeah definitely.

Susie: 6:28

I think you hit it right on the head. I mean having little ones, it's just so physically draining. But then when they get to be teens and now I have, they're in their twenties the issues or the problems that they're having are real, like you know, real world problems. They can be make or break their you know their future in some way. So it's so mentally draining and I think in some ways the writing was a really good escape for me. I could like enter into my writing and it was my little world and I was just totally in charge of that little world that I was writing about. So that felt really good when you have teenagers and they're just really out in the big world. So I think that was a really good balance for me. Yeah, who?

Camille: 7:15

wouldn't want to escape to a world of fairies and forts. I mean, yes, that's amazing. My sister has always said little kids, little problems, big kids, bigger problems.

Camille: 7:24

My sister has always said little kids, little problems, big kids, bigger problems. So I think another takeaway here from that as well is make sure that you have a space for yourself that fills you up, Because when you are giving and pouring into these amazing kids, it's so nice to have a space. In fact, my sister right now is getting a doctorate. I'm like girl, you are like you're amazing, You're like in your 50s and you're doing this. And she'm like girl, you are like you're amazing, You're like in your fifties and you're doing this. And she's like this part's fun. For me, it's the life stuff. That's hard, you know. So I think that's that's an interesting perspective.

Camille: 7:53

Well, let's talk about your book, because it is so unique and we will be sharing this on YouTube as well. So I understand that some of you cannot see, but I do want you to hold up the physical book, because when you think of a kid's book, sometimes you think of something that's really maybe thin or, but yours is not. It's like a thicker kids book and the illustrations are so darling. I love it so much. So tell our audience a little bit more about I love that one, about what it means this book and how it came to be and what I want to hear the creative pieces of it, but I also want to hear the logistic pieces of it, like being a publisher and an illustrator, and how. How do you make it all come together? So let's start with the fun stuff first.

Susie: 8:43

Sure, yeah. So Forest Magic for Kids is really a book for families together. It's an activity book based on my work as a naturalist, which is all about teaching people of all ages about the natural world, kind of helping them form these connections, and so much of my work has been about the science of nature, you know, teaching kids about how to identify a tree or families, how do you go birdwatching. But something that I really recognize from working with kids is that imaginative space that nature gives people and kids in particular. And if you think back in your own life like maybe you had a secret fort or maybe you played, you know a game outside where you were fairies or you were looking for a secret treasure, and I really wanted to write a book that celebrated that for families and gave it kind of a validation, like it is totally okay In fact it is more than okay for you as a family to be spending time outside just really playing in the imaginative space of nature.

Susie: 9:47

Nature is so unbound, it's got no walls, so your brain, your imagination and creativity can just go very expansive. And what's great about that is, as a parent, you don't have to have any special knowledge, you don't have to know the identity of a tree or how to tell what birds are singing. You just have to play with your kids, and I'm a really big advocate in my work for unstructured playtime. I just think that our kids need it. I actually think we need it as adults as well. So Forest Magic for Kids is really a book filled with lots of activity ideas with little bits of kind of mythology and folklore tied in with science. It's kind of a mixture of it all and for me that's kind of the joy that I find in nature. I love the science of nature but I also love, like, the folk tales of nature.

Susie: 10:39

So that's what I did, and I just feel so lucky that I was able to write this from my experience and there was somebody who wanted to publish it.

Camille: 10:49

That's so fun. I you know I. What I love about nature, too, is that it's non-discriminatory. It doesn't mind, it doesn't matter how much money you make. It doesn't matter what ageriminatory it doesn't matter how much money you make. It doesn't matter what age you are. It doesn't matter what you look like. There are healing properties in nature of all different kinds being around water, being in the forest, being in the sand, being in a starry night.

Camille: 11:15

You know there just is so much natural magic that I love that your book is capturing for families to enjoy together.

Susie: 11:24

I love. I love what you just said too, because I think sometimes we think about all the things we have to give our kids. You know, got to get them the bicycle, got to get them this, got to get them that, and nature is just there and it's full of loose parts for play. You know you don't need a kid was really inspired by reading. So I think there's a great link to literacy and literature, and libraries are just full of great books filled with little animals having wild adventures in nature, and kids love that. That's why there's so many books like that.

Camille: 12:13

So yeah, I'm going to plug my podcast here, because I have a podcast called five minute meditations for kids. Many of you probably don't know that it's only six months old, but a lot of my meditations that I create for children are based in nature, animals and even sea creatures. Because there is, there is so much play, and even see creatures. Because there is, there is so much play, and that's my like this. I love this podcast because it's connecting with people's purpose and passion, but for me, when I create for that podcast, I'm like this is all about play Like I actually grew up, my parents owned I don't know, they still live there six acres and I had no video games.

Camille: 12:57

I literally was out playing with sticks and stones and trees and barefoot and wild crazy acres. And I had no video games. I literally was out playing with sticks and stones and trees and barefoot and wild crazy hair. I was the youngest of five and I sometimes look at those pictures and go, wow, like that, that's crazy, like that girl was unattended to. I had the most magical, magical childhood. So it's interesting to hear it from your perspective, where you literally grew up in a city, like you're in Brooklyn, and you're imagining these forests and creating that within your own mind. What, what was it that made you lean to that? Was it because you grew up in a city or like, what was the magic?

Susie: 13:34

Yeah, I mean, I think for me the magic was really the stories, Like I was pretty convinced that I was going to find fairies and gnomes and a door to another world, like in Narnia or something like that. So I just had a really rich diet of great books and my mom was a wonderful storyteller. She would, you know, look up at the stars. Even in Brooklyn you can see the stars, you know and she would point out, like, make up stories about the stars. And it just fed my imagination and you know, I think we have this idea as adults that nature has to be really wild, like you have to go someplace like Yosemite or Yellowstone to see these like immense wild places. But nature is everywhere, it is absolutely everywhere. From where I live in rural New Hampshire to where I grew up in the city of Brooklyn, you can find nature and I was like a kid that would look in the cracks in the sidewalk. I would like find the tree, the one tree on the block or, you know, the bumblebee and the flowers on the in the parks.

Susie: 14:44

And if you do live in a city, there's so many great parks and and parks are really having a heyday and recognizing kind of the power of being outside. There's so much information now about how it's so good for us physically and mentally. It lowers our stress hormones, that's cortisol. It increases our oxygen. It actually increases our vitamin D levels, exposure to sunlight all of those things our body needs. And there was just a study about how good it is for young eyes to be outside, because they're looking close, they're looking far, the sunlight is interacting with their eyes and it's really just very healthy for us physically. And then there's lots of evidence about all the good stuff it does for us our emotional wellness. You know, like you know as a parent, we know if you bring your kids to the beach and they're at the beach all day, they sleep like nothing is ever going to wake them up that night. So time outside, it's good for all of us and it's really great when parents and kids can spend time outside together.

Camille: 15:55

Yeah, I mean listening to you talking about this. I feel like I need to put more of an emphasis on doing this. I think I was better with my first two being outside with them more, because as my two older kids have gotten older, they're more into their phones or to the TV or video games or whatever else, and I think I've gotten lazy sometimes with getting them outdoors as much. And now it is finally, the sun is out. I'm in Utah, so we're. It snowed a bunch, like last week, no, no kidding.

Camille: 16:29

And today's earth day, it's what? April 22nd, yeah, and gosh it. It just even being outside and seeing the budding flowers and the trees and it's like, oh, there's so much joy that comes just from being outside and digging your hands into the earth. It's interesting because I just was on a phone call with my friend five minutes ago and I said what are you doing? And she said, oh, I'm just outside with my computer working, just to feel the sunshine and it feels so good. And I think that even those 10-minute walks that we can do or just getting our kids outside it changes so much of our perspective. I would love to hear, because you have done this for so many years as a naturalist. What are some stories maybe that you could share, of magic that you've seen happen either for adults, children, teenagers, where you've helped open their eyes to the magic of nature and how that changed their lives?

Susie: 17:28

Goodness, it's almost like an everyday thing for me. I mean, I just spend a lot of time with people of all ages in the outdoors and really I think my favorite thing to do with kids and they're usually about second grade and up for this activity is having a little nature journal where kids can kind of find a spot outside, sit down and, like we do a census of our senses. So what do you see? Three things. You see three things, you hear three things, you smell three things. You feel with your hands.

Susie: 18:05

We usually skip the tasting part because that can be dangerous, but really just having people really tune into their senses, that's so simple and it's so great. You, you can do it on your stoop, you know, at the front steps of your house, you can do it. If you um, if you're like my family, we do a lot of sports you know you're at that, you're waiting for your kid to come up to bat, you can take, look up at the sky. So just, I think, taking those moments to really just tune in to your senses and do like what am I seeing? What am I smelling? What am I hearing? What am I seeing? What am I smelling? What am I hearing. What am I feeling when I'm out here? How does the sun feel on me, what does the wind feel Like, all of those things?

Susie: 18:46

I think those are so simple and basic but really like one of my favorite things to do is get an old kitchen strainer and a little container like a little bucket or like a little dish tub and go to a pond and you need a little plastic spoon and dip your strainer into the pond and I mean it's remarkable the amazing things you can find in a little strainer full of pond water and I think for families it can be really eye opening. There's so much of the world out there that we don't even see, but when we stop to notice it's really makes you feel like you're part of something bigger, Very meditative too, because all of those things that you just talked about are practices that you do.

Camille: 19:34

If you're doing any kind of meditation practice where, or if someone is starting to spin out like if they're having an anxiety attack, or if they're doing any kind of meditation practice where or if someone is starting to spin out like if they're having an anxiety attack or if they're feeling anxious, being in like social situations, the first thing they will say is what can you see, what can you hear, what do you feel, what is sensations on your skin? And that brings you to a present moment, which I think in nature. And that brings you to a present moment which I think in nature. It's so much more, it feels so much more natural to appreciate those moments, because it's not like temperature controlled and you know, sounds of like the TV versus sounds of a bird and, oh my gosh, is that a frog or was that a cricket, or what does that?

Camille: 20:14

mean you know. So I think that there is, there are so many layers there of being in the present moment and creating that awareness and that presentness without the rush. I feel like that is something that is really where the magic of nature brings us into, because the sounds of water like listening to running water or listening to the waves crash, or listening to it's it's very melodic, melodic, and then it's also very meditative, like it really is where we can kind of get into a flow, where it's what else can do that?

Susie: 20:48

I know it's amazing and I think like, if you think back in our ancient past, I mean we lived a lot closer to the rhythm of nature and I believe, I firmly believe that that's like hardwired in us as humans and we feel our best when we are connected to the natural rhythm of the world and, like I loved how you described the waves coming in and out, it's almost like a breath in itself. It's like that noticing of the in and the out, you can kind of feel your own breath coming into the same rhythm as the ocean. If you're near an ocean, I think you're really landlocked. I have a little bit of ocean.

Susie: 21:30

I think another kind of extraordinarily simple and magical thing to do is to lay down and look up. You know whether it's looking at the clouds and sharing with your child, like what does that cloud remind you of? Watching it change? Or, even better, if you can go out at night and look up at the stars and again, even in my little tiny, tiny backyard in Brooklyn we would bring out our chairs and look up and you can see the moon. You know that gives you a perspective of a cosmic scale that can be really thought provoking and create kind of like wonder and curiosity in your family. So I think those times are really great too.

Camille: 22:17

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Susie: 23:50

So please tell us what were the steps of that? Well, first, this sounds so silly, but the very first thing I had to do was actually write pretty regularly. So once I was like I'm going to write, this is really what I've always wanted to do, I just made space in my life to pretty much start a writing routine where I wrote like every day in a little journal and I didn't care if it was like good writing, I just wrote. I just wrote like 10 minutes, five minutes Sometimes, when I was waiting to pick my kids up, I would just write and you could do it on your phone. You know there's so many ways. So making space for writing, that was really important.

Susie: 24:25

And then I started to submit things to different magazines, like I'd get magazines and I'd kind of offer an idea. So I think starting with magazines was really helpful for me because it increased my confidence in myself. Like you're writing a whole book, it's a lot of work. Yeah, you know that's hundreds of pages if you're writing a big book, or you know thousands of words. But if you're like writing an essay and it's at 800 words, you know, and there's places where you could submit that to and maybe somebody publishes it and you get excited and you get kind of your confidence. So that was another thing I did was starting to write for magazines and I write. I wrote for a magazine called Northern Woodlands. These are more like nature-based. I wrote essays. My local newspaper I write a column in there Yankee Magazine, taproot Magazine, a couple of journals. So I just kept like submitting stuff and you got to have a thick skin. You get a lot of rejections and it makes you cry and I keep a whole drawer.

Susie: 25:38

It's like my tears but don't open that drawer, but sometimes I have to put stuff in there. And then when I got an idea, I submitted a proposal to an agent and I had some luck with that, but not great luck. And actually Forest Magic for Kids is my second book. I have a book before that called the Animal Adventurer's Guide how to Prowl for Owls, make Snail Slime and Catch a Frog Barehanded, and that book was all about. It's a guidebook too for families, about families connecting with the local everyday animals in their world. So the agents got my book and she sold it.

Susie: 26:21

She was able to sell it to a publishing company, but the publishing company wanted me to rewrite it. I had written it as a guide for parents. So you write this whole book and then it gets sent back to you and they're like we want to buy it, but can you rewrite it? So it's for kids. And I did. I just, I had this rule in my head that just said say yes to everything, just say yes to it, like it might make your life feel really hard and crazy, but just say yes. So I just I said yes, I rewrote it and then it became my first book and the editor who worked on that book. She changed publishing companies and when she got to a new publishing company she called me up and said hey, you have any ideas? And that's when I pitched her the forest magic idea.

Susie: 27:07

So it's just a lot of work and a lot of times, you know, you don't feel like you're getting aware and then all of a sudden you get somewhere. So don't give up, keep writing. I worked, I had a writing group. I joined four other women that we would share our writing tweet with each other. That was really helpful and I just kept.

Susie: 27:30

I just sound so corny I can't even believe I'm admitting this, but I would. When I walk my dogs at night, the last thing I would do is find a star and I would wish on the star and I would just be like please, please, let me have a book, please, let me have a book. I just put it out to the world, out to the universe first, and and it happened. And now I have animal animal, the animal adventures guide, forest magic for kids, and in September I have my first fiction book called book of fairies, which is just over 30 different fairies that. I started that book when I was eight, camille. That was like my little notebook full of fairies that I kept looking for and then I finally got to write it and it's coming out and I hope people love it.

Camille: 28:14

Oh, that's so fun. Well, that will just be a few months from when this episode goes live, because it'll be a few months from today. That's so exciting. I know.

Susie: 28:23

It's so cute too.

Camille: 28:25

I'm sure the artwork is it the same? Illustrator.

Susie: 28:27

Yeah, it's like a companion to Forest Magic and even though it's like a fairy book, the idea behind it was really encouraging kids to go out into nature and look for fairies.

Camille: 28:39

So it's interesting there's a big, big influence of fairy hunting in Ireland. It's a big part of their, their fables and of their lore Like they talk about fairies a lot yeah we folk. You need to make sure your books are available there because, yeah, there's a huge market for that.

Susie: 29:00

I feel a little worried. I mean, the, the book of fairies, is based on some fairy mythology, mostly from eastern and western Europe, and then my own fairies from when I was eight and then just fairies that I've heard kids talk about. So it's sort of a mixture of folklore and kind of imagination. Yeah, that's creative folklore, I'll call it.

Camille: 29:23

Oh, I love that. So, looking back, now that you're on this side of things, when you're writing for magazines, do they pay you? Was that something where, if you got it submitted and they accepted, you would get payment for that? Yes, yes, yes.

Susie: 29:37

But not always Like. Sometimes I would just like the newspaper. They don't pay me. I write a column, like every few months, I share it with another friend of mine and we don't get paid because the local paper is barely keeping their head above water. So, but yes, most magazines will pay you if they take your writing, and these are most of mine have been print magazines, not like online magazines, so I don't know so much about that. And did you?

Camille: 30:03

Google like who you should apply to with magazines.

Susie: 30:07

Yeah, yeah, I looked through magazines. I spent a lot of time at the library I'm a big fan of libraries. I I pitched plenty of things that didn't get taken, but then I was lucky. I think, being a naturalist, somebody that is really interested in the natural world, and I know I have, you know, lots of experience and knowledge in it I kind of use that to be my first writing point. So I wrote what I really knew, and that's that is what they say, right, what you know, yeah. So that was really helpful and I mean, yeah, it's been great. I still write for magazines and this coming year I'm going to be writing for the old farmers almanac too, which is like a big part of Yankee, it's part of the Yankee suite of things and it's I'm excited about that too, so that's awesome.

Camille: 31:12

So then, as you're writing for these magazines, that gives you more experience, exposure. Do you think that also gave you a leg up in terms of like getting a publisher where they're like, oh, she's been published in these magazines and you can show proof? You know, have that experience?

Susie: 31:30

when you write nonfiction which is basically my first two books have been nonfiction, which is basically my first two books have been nonfiction you have to submit a proposal and the proposal will be kind of like what your big idea is, a very kind of detailed table of contents like this chapter is going to be about this, and then you also have to write like why you are the person to write the write this story, like why you. And then they also want to know where have you been published before, and a lot of times they might ask you to submit examples of those things. So I do think writing for magazines was really helpful for me. But you know, if you write, if you have a blog I think lots of bloggers can, or influencers can, get kind of deals this way by showing that they have a following and they ask that too, like how many people follow you on Facebook? How many are Instagram? Are you on LinkedIn? Like they want to know it all.

Camille: 32:26

So there and I I think there is more pressure for clout of social proof if you're wanting which is interesting because that was never a thing before. It was more kind of on the publisher to do the distribution, marketing, all those different pieces where now I feel like it's kind of the reverse, where it's like okay, why should we invest in you? What kind of following do you have?

Susie: 32:51

100%. You are so on target on that. And not only that, but a lot of the publishing companies in years past. I didn't experience this because this is new for me, but friends of mine who are writers, who've been writing for a long time, they'll say something like well, back 20 years ago the publisher handled everything, they made all the connections, they did all the connections, they did all like, they did all the PR for you. But that is not the case anymore. You, as a writer, have to be doing your own, a lot of your own PR. I mean, they do some, but then you really have to sell your book.

Camille: 33:25

Any advice about that, Like how cause I feel?

Susie: 33:28

like that piece.

Camille: 33:29

Not only do you have to be the creative and like the the bit, the visionary of this, but now you have to be the marketing person. Like what are some bits of advice.

Susie: 33:37

You can give people for that Gosh. I don't know if I'm so good to give advice because it is hard, but you are though, because you're doing it.

Camille: 33:43

It's hard, but like what have you done, that's worked.

Susie: 33:45

Yeah, I mean I really think, well, I have a connection in the natural, like the nature world in England, so I use those connections. So I would just say, whatever connections you have, I would say, use those connections. I have friends who are authors so I would like ask them and they made some connections for me, different bookstore connections. I was really fortunate because as part of my work as a naturalist, I visit a lot of libraries in my region and libraries and librarians can be a huge market. So if you get a good review and a librarian says this was the best program, then all of a sudden you're going to have a million libraries kind of contacting you. And I guess I should say too, like this is important for people to know I have not been able to make a living being a writer. I know there's people who do it, but I.

Susie: 34:51

Yes, I mean you as a naturalist at the place that I work, at the Harris Center for Conservation Education. But I have to keep that job because writing is not a huge moneymaker for me yet. But maybe you're right, Camille, Maybe I will have that. Maybe, if we talk, in a couple of years I'll be like yes, I'm just writing now.

Camille: 35:09

Well, here's what's really cool is that this dream that you had, that started so young, is something that you've been building and creating authority in the space, and you've been building community in the space and you've been building vision of what it is that you want to share. So, the fact that you're like, okay, I'm ready to write, I think you did it in the way you were meant to because, really, you established a big foundation of who you are.

Susie: 35:34

Yeah, I have to give a shout out to this time. With this book I hired a PR firm to help me because I was like we spent all this time, all this, like personal resource. You give up a lot of things to stay home and write a book and if it doesn't sell, like okay, you still wrote the book and that feels great, but you want it to sell. So this this time around I was like I think I need a little bit of help to get the message of my book and what I'm talking about out into the broader world than just New England.

Camille: 36:06

So I would recommend that to you, and that's how I learned about you was an email from your PR that reached out, so yeah, and that's very common for authors to hire a PR firm.

Susie: 36:16

In fact, the PR firm that I use, mmp. They specialize in just authors. So you know, we think of PR as maybe somebody who's got, you know, a movie or some, an actress or an actor, whatever, or yeah, but this is somebody who specializes just in authors.

Camille: 36:38

Oh, that's awesome. Well, I think, to wrap this all up, the clear message here is that you're never too old, it's never too late, that there are pieces that you're putting in place, that that dream within you is going to happen If you give it the nourishment it needs, just like a seed in nature. This you know. It's the good soil, it's that foundation, it's the sunlight, it's the water. So, whoever is listening, you've made it to the end of this episode, thank you, and I want you to take this as a message to nourish that idea that you have and to chase after that dream, because there is a reason why you're being called to do the thing. So, susie, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today.

Susie: 37:20

Thank you, camille. This was so much fun and I just again. I think you hit it right on the head. Just don't give up on those dreams, keep pursuing them.

Camille: 37:28

Amazing and tell our audience where they can find your books.

Susie: 37:32

Yes, so my books are all available through regular bookstores like Amazon, your independent bookstores. You can also visit my website at susiespikolcom and check that out. Some of my other writing from magazines is on there. Yeah, you can just go out and spread the word. Everybody buy Forest Magic and keep your eyes open for the Book of Fairies coming out in September.

Camille: 37:56

Oh perfect. Well, again, thank you everyone for tuning in and make sure you check out 5-Minute Meditations for Kids. It is an amazing resource for teachers, educators, parents, coaches. We have specific episodes that are about overcoming anxiety, building confidence, bedtime stories, meditations, mantras. It is so good and it's so creative. I think you will love it. So check it out and thank you all for being here and we will see you next time. Hey CEOs, thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment. In a five-star review, you could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at callmeCEOPodcast, and remember you are the boss.