Josh Hoffman with JBMB Properties in Newport, RI reached out and wanted to do a spotlight interview series on my new book, The Swipe Right Effect: The Power to Get Unstuck. I gratefully agreed and we had a lot of fun and some great conversation.
Josh Hoffman
But with the book, there are a lot of what I call different swim lanes. Within the book, you have the grief, you have the, I want to say, like overcoming but rediscovering of yourself, you have the advice from the interviews, and they're also from yourself.
And then you have exercises that people can go through at the end of each chapter that are associated with that theme, or that chapter and helping people move through things. What do you find any of it? What do you find?
At what point in the book or what theme within the book do you see as the most poignant for people? Do you think there's one point or one swim lane that kind of is most attractive?
Do you think it really depends on the reader? Or do you think you intently put something in this book, like whether it's the grief part, whether it's the rediscovery part, whether it's, as you said, friendship and gathering, discuss what you think is the best message coming out?
C.K. Collins
Well, I think, again, a friend of mine actually pointed this out to me. And it was somewhat unintentional, but the book builds.
I mean it starts by talking about First Steps when you're trying to move on from a big life change, and you're trying to grow and get unstuck.
And the, and then the second chapter is You Are Enough, and then you start, we start getting into tougher topics like grief and anger and forgiveness. And for me, forgiveness was the ultimate chapter.
When that came to me, I think I wrote it in three hours, and I cried for two days. Because it was so important to me. And I had a really hard time writing about it.
And in fact, I just gave up and stopped trying to write about it. And my friend, Kaye, who also helped me edit the book, gave me a resource, a book by a man Lewis Smeades, The Art of Forgiving.
It had three steps to forgiveness, and I had done the forgiving, I just couldn't talk about it. It was so intense. And so for me, that that was really the chapter that I think has impact.
And I've heard - I've had people call me, family members and friends saying, “Wow, that chapter hit me between the eyes because I do have someone I need to forgive.”
And to have three steps that you can take is I mean, it's just brilliant. And, and I and I'm going to do some more writing on that topic, even though I'm no expert.
But you can only be an expert in yourself unless you go study and be a doctor or something, right. I'm an expert in myself, and how it made me feel. But I've had a lot of conversations with people since I wrote the book.
And I think the other chapter that seems to be having a lot of impact is the chapter on grief. I have several friends here, and then friends back home in Nashville, who've lost their husbands. And I have a friend in South Africa who I met hiking in Spain, and we've stayed friends. But, you know, their stories are tragic. And I think when my friend who is a widow read it, she said it was very triggering, and yet healing.
And so I think it depends on who you are and where you are in your life. But you know, it, it builds in the importance of the topics throughout the book. And then it becomes a little more fun.
At the end, we talked about being in community and the ways to put yourself out in the world. We talk about crazy things that can happen while you're dating, and or just getting yourself out there. I just kind of I love that chapter Believe Them the First Time, a great Maya Angelou quote.
“When somebody tells you about themselves, believe them the first time.” Because in dating, sometimes you don't do that.
And then chapter 12 is about do you want to get out and date? I think through Chapter 10, it can apply to anybody. And then 11 and 12 are more about dating.
I still think the empowerment practices at the end of each chapter can apply to anybody, not just a divorced person, not just a single person. I really do - men or women. I think they can help. They helped me!
These are things I've done in my life, through therapy and counseling and life coaches and business incubators and leadership academies. And these are all things that have been taught to me and I just put my twist on them and related them to my friend's advice.
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