Intuition – the still small voice that said I should interview Marala Scott and Alyssa Curry authors of a book by the same name. What a great interview. To get the book (which I highly recommend) click here: Intuition
To listen to the show – here’s the link to: Straight Talk Radio with Marala Scott and Alyssa Curry.
Tired of traditional talk? People pontificating about this or that? The left or the right? Sometimes the truth is just off lost in the noise. Having learned life lessons the hard way, Chuck Gallagher, international speaker and author, cuts through the noise to share truth through transparency!
Nationally known guests talk about what’s important to you – your life, your concerns and your success. So tune in, turn on to Straight Talk with Chuck Gallagher.
Now, here’s your host, Chuck Gallagher.
CHUCK: Hi, this is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio on Transformation Talk Radio and I am so excited to be with you today. We’ve got a great show lined up. Often it is said that, well, everyone has within them a book just waiting to come out. Now, as the author of two books I will tell you that the emergence of that book is what I would call like giving birth except it takes a heck of a lot longer in most cases to be able to really pull that out and to go through the experience of that.
Today we’ve got a really interesting show because on Transformation Talk Radio the main thing we’re looking for is what is it that we can do that will be life-changing, that will be transformative? The first book that I wrote was a book entitled Second Chances: Transforming Adversity into Opportunity. For those people that follow the show or have had the opportunity to look at the book, it’s an interesting and unique perspective on, I guess, a little bit of my life from making a series of really, really bad choices that landed me in federal prison. Although it’s not the most exciting part of life, that part where the consequence catches up to the choice that’s made, I will also say that was probably the most transformative part of my life because it helped me really understand the truth of what it meant to be a Chuck Gallagher and what I brought to this world.
Probably out of that the most important thing was if you make bad choices and well, let’s say the consequences suck, the question would be: What if you make a different set of choices? What if you make empowering choices? What are the possibilities what could happen? Straight Talk Radio is about straight talk. It’s about really exploring those types of things and items that we can look at and say, “Okay, how can we recover? What is it that we can do?” I get calls weekly from people who are convicted felons and say, “Wait a minute. You’ve somehow put your life back together. You ended up as a Senior VP of Sales and Marketing in a public company and you speak around the world now. How did you do that?” And the answer is there are specific things that we can do in our lives to make better sets of choices that can empower us to become the people that we are.
My two guests today, Marala Scott and her daughter Alyssa Curry, are shining examples of that. First thing, Marala is a best-selling author, she is also, which is really interesting, a ghostwriter, and Oprah’s Ambassador of Hope. You sit back and you talk with someone who has her background and experience and it’s quite amazing. And, Alyssa, we need to offer some congratulations to because she just finished her degree in psychology here in May of 2014. You finished a degree in psychology and you’re an author. That’s just pretty darn cool because most people of your age [04:18]. But both Marala and Alyssa are with me today to talk about a new book that was written. The title of the book is Intuition. Let me read this, it says, “Intuition is a novel, it’s fired by the true events of their life revealing the power intuition has.”
Without going into a story, I want to first say, Marala and Alyssa both, welcome to the show. It’s my delight to have you here.
ALYSSA: Thank you.
MARALA: Thanks for having us.
CHUCK: Let’s do this. As opposed to me giving this away, whether it’s Alyssa or Marala, you pick it, let me know, but someone tell me a little bit about the concept behind the book.
ALYSSA: The book is a journey of understanding how intuition can change, save and protect your life and behind it Marala Scott is speaking at an event when she’s kidnapped and it’s up to me to take the lessons that she’s taught me over the years of following my intuition and I have to use that in order to discover who took her, why and how to save her life before it’s too late. There’s romance in it, there’s a lot of twist in it. It’s a psychological thriller so it’s really going to take you on a ride.
CHUCK: This is a novel so it is fiction inspired by true events so let’s talk first about the true events. What’s the real skinny behind creating the psychological thriller with twist and turns?
ALYSSA: At the beginning of the story you can see that we really do go and speak on tours together. There are conversations that we have in the book; you can see when we’re sitting at dinner in different scenes, that we really had these conversations together and she, over the years, has taught me to follow my intuition and how to listen to my God-given intuition. We took that as a base of the story and we developed another side of it in order to really teach people how to recognize it and how to see it.
CHUCK: Tell me the truth. The truth is the two of you, of course, do go out, you speak together and you were taught about intuition. So if you were to define intuition, how would you define intuition if you’re talking to an audience? What do they look for?
ALYSSA: Well, some people may see it easier if you talk about how it’s your first voice. It’s a voice that tells you what to do or what not to do. The second-guessing yourself is what typically doesn’t lead to a good outcome and everyone has this. Regardless of your faith, everyone has intuition and it’s called different things, but for me, it’s my God-given intuition. It’s something that everyone needs to learn how to follow because they can really hear it if they take the time to slow down and just listen for a bit. It’s something that tells you. It’s your feeling that says, “Do this,” or, “Don’t go out tonight.” It’s something that people really need to listen to.
CHUCK: I have to say this as we begin the show because, obviously, the show title is Straight Talk and I absolutely hear what you say. By the way, I believe that, I believe we do have God-given intuition and I do believe we have that inner voice that is by nature designed to lead us in the right way. But the however is you kind of caught this in the introduction, obviously, I wasn’t listening to the right voice back in the mid to late eighties when temptation was so strong financially that I chose to embezzle money and create a Ponzi scheme knowing for well consciously that that was unethical and, quite frankly, illegal. Sometimes even the best of us at times get the voice, hm, what’s the word I’m looking for, so clouded maybe we can’t hear it. So, with that, what would you say, how do we tap into intuition whenever we are embroiled in areas that seem to have it turned off?
MARALA: Honestly, I think that the reason that you were intertwined in the scheme that you stated was because you listened to what you wanted to do instead of what was right. A lot of times people don’t trust their intuition because it opposes what they truly want. Intuition rises above reason, so you don’t always understand it. Something tells you, “Don’t do this, don’t do that,” and you want to. You’re going to do what you want intuitively. That’s the mistake that people make, not trusting their intuition. They go for what they know and what’s comfortable to them. You can meet someone to have all the warning signs or a situation, know that it’s not right and you’re going to do what you want to do. That’s going against your intuition.
You learn to trust it by basically going to a place of peace and removing all the noise in your life, all the things that distract you and keep you from focusing on what’s right and what’s clear. A lot of times when you have negativity surrounded by it or you have a lot going on in your life, you can’t feel, you can’t sense and hear God’s voice guiding you, and that’s one of the reasons that people need to remove negativity from their life so they can feel that. That’s very, very heavy; it keeps going at you, and going at you, and it gets stronger and stronger in a sense until you really listen. If you don’t listen, you’re going to look back on that decision you made and say, “Wow, I knew better.” That’s how so many people oppose it and they say, “I knew better, I should have trusted it.” That’s your intuition, that’s exactly what it is. So, clear some of the negativity, stop doing what you want and just trust that feeling. It’s very strong. You know what it is when you feel it.
CHUCK: That is a very powerful statement and my guest today is Marala Scott and her daughter Alyssa Curry. They are the authors of Intuition, which is a brand new novel that I highly recommend, but for right now, as you can hear from the music, it’s time for us to go to break. This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio. We will be back to talk more about intuition, authoring a book, ghostwriting, and being Oprah’s Ambassador of Hope. Stick with me.
[Commercial break]CHUCK: This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio here on Transformation Talk Radio and oh, my goodness, the first segment, if you were listening to it, boy, time flew because we’re talking with best-selling author, ghostwriter and Oprah’s Ambassador of Hope, Marala Scott and her daughter Alyssa Curry, both authors of the new book Intuition. Although the book is a novel inspired by true events, the true events are absolutely fascinating.
Now, in coming back, Marala, I guess I want to go directly to you because I understand that kind of the motivation behind the book or the start of the book was Alyssa’s desire to help you recover from a situation you had to deal with. Tell us about what was taking place and how this started.
MARALA: The beauty of it is when I was a child, I had a lot of trauma and horror that took place in my life and it’s chronicled in my memoir In Our House: Perception Vs. Reality. From that situation, I have a heightened sense of awareness, and that heightened sense of awareness when I was a child, I really didn’t know what it was, but as I became an adult, I realized it was my intuition, my God-given intuition. I learned to develop and trust it further. Throughout my life, I always did it and I’ve never been wrong in trusting it. I’m always wrong when I don’t.
But there came a point that three years ago, May 17, actually, I went to see the doctor and I told him that something was in my head, it was right there and I pointed to the top of my head and I said, “There’s something here that’s bothering me.” They answered they couldn’t tell me anything and they kept me on hold and said, “Okay, there’s nothing wrong,” and they ran some more tests. I went to see another neurosurgeon, couldn’t find anything, and my doctor finally sent me to a neurosurgeon and he ran some tests no one else had. He said, “You know what? You have multiple brain aneurisms,” and they went in and did an immediate craniotomy.
CHUCK: Wow.
MARALA: That being said, I had a craniotomy a couple of days later, but the thing about it was I kept trusting my intuition. I knew, I didn’t know what was wrong and I didn’t want there to be something wrong, but intuitively it just wouldn’t go away and it kept getting stronger and stronger so that’s what happened.
Intuition was born out of this story because I had trouble with my speech and my memory and my daughter– I kept being told to get back to my passion and it would come back, but I couldn’t remember things, I couldn’t speak very well and my daughter said, “You know what? We’re going to go ahead and write this story,” because I wanted to start writing again, but I couldn’t remember how and we began working on it together so that’s how it came.
ALYSSA: It was part of your therapy. We decided to write it two months after her surgery because I knew that it would get her passion back. You could see everything coming back, her highs, and seeing her passion is amazing.
CHUCK: I have to say to you as I hear the story, that is incredibly touching and it’s so many levels. No.1, Marala, you just said you had a heightened sense of awareness. That was your intuition and your intuition saved your life.
MARALA: Right.
CHUCK: What if people listened to themselves?
MARALA: Right.
CHUCK: Wow.
MARALA: Right, it’s happened so many times throughout my life. Even with my children, they see me do it and say, “A-a, don’t do this and don’t do that.” In a situation some of them described in Intuition they are accurate, 100% accurate, even down to the detail of the location of where and how the conversations took place between my daughter and I, but we put it in a book that was more palatable for people to understand how and why you should trust it. It can save your life. It can save someone else’s life. It can teach you and bring you closer to your relationship with God or your faith, whatever your religion is. It doesn’t matter, you still have it so you may as well use it. That’s your protector; it protects you from your own wrong decisions, bad choices and harm.
CHUCK: Marala, let me ask you this question before, Alyssa, I go to you. Obviously, you knew there was something wrong, you found out you had multiple aneurisms and quickly they did a craniotomy, but I have to ask this, had you lost your skill and your memory and your abilities before the craniotomy or was that a temporary issue that was a result of it?
MARALA: That was a result of it. Afterwards I had the aneurism put and everything but I my speech, I couldn’t speak properly. If I was speaking to you now, you wouldn’t understand me. My memory, I couldn’t remember things in my short-term memory was [16:08]. I couldn’t remember a lot so to get it back, that was my therapy and my passion and everything. It came back. It never really left me, but it came back to the surface when I began to get my skills back because what I do is I inspire, I share and this is the way to share the power of intuition through my own examples. Everything I share with people is from my life examples, things I’ve learned.
CHUCK: Alyssa, in your world how long were you and your mother working on this book?
ALYSSA: It actually felt like a very fast process because in the beginning, everything is based on conversations that we really had so, of course, the beginning of it started a little bit slow because we were trying to get everything back over a period of time, but soon it ticked off and the story just took off quickly. So, our conversation between there is very easy for us to write that out and say, “I remember these examples when you told me, ‘No, don’t walk the dog tonight, just stay in,’” so I’m bringing up these examples that she showed me of following her intuition and they’re teaching me along the way. In it being a process for the both of us.
CHUCK: So, when did you start the book?
MARALA: Started it two months after I had the craniotomy. That was the [17:36] part of it.
CHUCK: Okay. When was that? What year was that because it’s 2014 and this just came out, I think, on the second of April.
MARALA: Right.
ALYSSA: By the first it came out.
MARALA: Yeah and three years ago we started writing it. Three years ago.
CHUCK: Okay, great. So, three years ago you began writing it. Alyssa, this is the reason I asked that question about time. You’ve just graduated with a degree in psychology and I know a bit about what that’s like going through school and all of the work that’s involved in that to get your Bachelor’s degree here in May of 2014. By the way, congratulations!
ALYSSA: Thank you.
CHUCK: But that had to be, I hate to put it this way, Marala, but it’s like double duty because you’re working on a book, you’re helping your mother with her rehabilitation and yet you’re focusing on your college experience so that you can accomplish that in your life. Tell me a little bit about what that was like.
MARALA: For one thing, if I may, I have to say, she graduated with honors and her commitment for success, to try to be better and accomplishment, on top of things, is incredible because she’s incredibly focused, but let’s go ahead, I was [18:45]for that because he’s right. You worked on this at a very trying time.
ALYSSA: Thank you.
CHUCK: Congratulations for graduating with honors. I cannot say that myself. [chuckles]
ALYSSA:[chuckles] Thank you, thank you. Actually, it was not a difficult process between going from school, and being home, and working on it, and everything because she said that perfectly. I was focused and I have been for all four years of school. I went from school going to class to coming home, getting my homework done, working on this, and I’m not a type of person who goes out and parties or anything like that. My great time is going to concerts and hanging out with my family. I love music and I love being with my family so that actually helped a lot. My personality is coming home and being with them. It was an easy process going back and forth between those things.
CHUCK: Wow, it’s neat to hear that and also to see that, I don’t know, what I’m going to call the love, the family connection of being able to see your mother’s passion and know what that experience was like and yet as her daughter to be able to step into the world of co-author to help that to come back. I think that is just a transformational experience, which is really very cool.
MARALA: She did it seamlessly, which is most impressive. To be able to take her experiences in life and flawlessly take them, and put them, and insert them, and mend them with my style of writing, and having her own style of writing. They just came together. When people read the book, they are blown away with the creativity but how the message is so clear and concise and they can tell there’s two different styles but it’s very seamless. Her dedication to the project was just incredible and it came from her soul. It cannot part her soul, so it was really heartwarming to do this with my daughter.
CHUCK: Alyssa, in this book did you find that any of the classes or the work that you were doing in college in psychology somehow contributed to the story or were those literally two separate things?
ALYSSA: Absolutely! They actually talk about intuition and that sort of thing. That really coincides together for– In psychology we’re talking about trusting your intuition versus your own voice. We have psychology terms for that. It’s your super ego, which tells you what you should do, while your id focuses on what you want to do. That’s our inner voice saying, “I want to go out tonight. I want to hang out, I want to be with my friends,” while your super ego is saying, “Okay, but think about this in another way. What do you feel it’s the best option to do?” That’s your intuition that’s telling you what you really should do or not do, so there are a lot of things in psychology that actually brought about more terms. People who don’t feel like they’re fit under a certain religion or things like that, but psychology, even though they say, “Yes, I’m fine,” it doesn’t believe in that. It actually does, it just has different terms for it.
CHUCK: Right.
ALYSSA: It really does hit psychology while writing this book, which is often under a psychological [22:19].
[Marala and Alyssa laugh]CHUCK: Well, and now we hear the music, which is telling us it’s about time for another break. My guests are Marala Scott and Alyssa Curry, both authors of the new book Intuition, just released in spring of 2014 and I’ve got to tell you, go to amazon.com, pick up a copy. It is a novel wrapped in a romantic psychological thrilled but is laced with a lot of truth and practical experience. Stick with me, we’re going to come back and we’re going to talk a little bit about what it’s like to be Oprah’s Ambassador of Hope, and how one becomes that, and about ghostwriting, and about publishing, because I know a lot of people that have an interest in how do I get the book in me out? This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio and we’ll be right back in just a minute.
[Commercial break]CHUCK: This is Straight Talk Radio with Chuck Gallagher and every show we do I get excited by, but this is a particularly fun show. It’s not often that I have someone as my guest who has won a Congressional award for humanitarian efforts and has been Oprah’s Ambassador of Hope. Marala Scott is the co-author of a new book called Intuition. Alyssa Curry, her daughter, recent graduate by the way, congratulations, with honors, is also the co-author of Intuition and we have been talking about how intuition plays in our lives and has become a foundation for this new book that both Scott and Curry have written, but also about how all of that has taken place.
Marala, I have to ask you, though, tell me a little bit– I guess is it your first book In Our House? Is it correct?
MARALA: Yes, that’s correct.
CHUCK: Tell me a little bit about that book if you don’t mind.
MARALA: Absolutely. Well, In Our House, actually, is my memoir that talks about the ordeal that I had or the multiple ordeals growing up as a child. My father was recruited right out college with five children and one on the way by both IBM and CIA. However, behind closed doors, he was exceedingly abusive. So with that it caused my mother and my brothers and I to really have a life that no one could see. The society seemed to close their eyes to it. As the abuse got worse, my brother was beaten terribly and my mother’s teeth knocked out, eyes black and things that were really traumatic and life threatening, she saw other avenues trying to end the abuse, which further devastated her life. With that being said, the trepidation around the house, to say the least, was something that never went away; that fear was in us. My story shows people how we overcame that what happened and the devastating results that had cost our mother.
The story has won multiple awards and is a best seller and it really has layers and layers of things that people, anyone should want to know and learn and it’s heart-wrenching. But that story is what caused me to go to Surrounded by Inspiration and to write inspirational stories for people as a ghostwriter and Intuition with my daughter because I love to take people and show them how they can overcome adversity and transcend into a healthier, better version of themselves. How can you forgive? How do you let go of negativity and how do you trust your intuition?
CHUCK: Marala, in your story, In Our House, I have a sense, and perhaps you have a much better feel for this than I do, but I have a sense that as devastating as that experience was for you as a child, it’s not, I don’t know how to put this, this may not come out quite right, it’s not that uncommon that there are probably more than any of us care to acknowledge the behind-closed-door realities that are far different than the external perceptions that people want the world to see. Has it been your experience in revealing that about your life and your upbringing that that’s really, I’m not going to say common, but it exists more often than as a society we’d like to admit?
MARALA: Oh, goodness, absolutely because one of the things that the book is entitled In Our House. The subtitle was Perception Vs. Reality because the true reality of our life is truly not the reality. We give people a perception that we want them to see but it’s not the reality of our life and we need to allow people to see who we really are and we don’t have to worry about trying to fix it and correct it and change it later. We hide so much and that’s why people can’t help; they don’t know that you need help because we’re busy masking pain, masking a lot of things. That’s not healthy, it’s not a good thing to do.
CHUCK: I hear you say it’s not healthy and not a good thing to do and then I see your daughter. I don’t mean physically, but I understand your daughter with a degree in psychology could certainly echo and somewhat diagnose all of the masking that takes place, but you said, “We really need to let people see reality,” and I’m going to speak from personal experience, in my life, obviously, having gone to prison and come back, I found one thing to be very true; transparency is a very freeing experience and it has lead to a lot of acceptance. It doesn’t meant that what I did was right, it was not, but I can at least be accepted and have a way to recover in life by being willing to be real and transparent about that past. But it seems like being real and transparent is the difficulty that people have because, I guess, of fear of what the outcome might be.
ALYSSA: Absolutely. That is completely true. I think people hiding and masking their past, they’re masking their feelings. It happens a lot in the society whether we’re pretending we like somebody that we don’t or something going on behind closed doors, but that people need to get help if they don’t open up and don’t say anything. Often seen in psychology that leads to people developing different habits whether some people turn to drugs or alcohol or some people act out in class. If you see a student who’s typically angry or bad, you might want to look in their past and see what’s going on in their home or something’s bothering them so it happens a lot. Seeing that in psychology, you’re right; being open, at least speaking it, or if you’re being bullied or something you need to help people, you’re allowing somebody else to help you instead of staying in that situation. Absolutely.
CHUCK: Yeah, I guess the best way to put it is I’m running into a fair number of people, especially having a past like mine as a convicted felon, ask the question, “What should I do?” and the answer is, “Be transparent,” because there’s a great deal of fear because most people, I say most – me, let me rephrase that – would really rather take the past, stuff it in the closet somewhere, shut the door, and hope that it never comes out. I don’t know about you, but my experience of that has been that isn’t healthy and it just creates the opportunity for greater problems.
MARALA: In a lot of things you are right and it does create greater problems because we’re taught in society to cover up to mask things. That’s why people are so quick to buy things to improve their looks, to improve everything to hide what they deem as flaws when some of which are just natural characteristics. We haven’t embraced ourselves fully and that’s a problem that we don’t in the society. When you’re proud of who you are or you accept your flaws, your variations and differences, it allows people to learn how to handle you, to work with you, to accept you, to love you and to treat you. You have to love yourself and embrace that first.
For me, when I hid the horrors and everything that took place inside of my life, guess where they went? They stayed inside of me and when you keep all that turmoil inside of you, the only thing you can do is hurt you and cause you damage and it affects you in other areas of your life in a very unhealthy way. I didn’t want that. In order to keep that from continuing, I had to face the reality of my life and accept it, deal with it and move on! So we teach people that masking things and covering things– I mean, that’s why people have [31:17] abuse and other issues, and physical abuse, a lot of things, because they’re masking pain that comes into their life from other avenues and we have to address it. And we address it. It’s not always easy, but it needs to be done.
CHUCK: No, no. it’s not always easy. Let me ask you this, Marala. You have been designated as Oprah’s Ambassador of Hope. Tell us about that.
MARALA: Sharing the story In Our House: Perception Vs. Reality I was out teaching people about the indicators of an abuser because that ties in a lot with trusting your intuition as well. When you see people, a lot of times we can tell those indicators are there. We can tell when people are not healthy for us on many levels, but because we want what we want, we overlook it. We tend to overlook things and justify it just so we get what we want. In doing that, if we teach young men and women, because people don’t understand is that if you have children, if you teach them how to recognize signs of an abuser, sometimes people will realize they have those abusive tendencies and perhaps they didn’t realize they were until they developed and became worse.
But what you rather teach someone how to recognize those signs and identify them before they get into an abusive situation, instead of when they’re in one, it’s difficult to often get them out. That’s what we started doing and in doing that, I was honored with Oprah recognizing me as one of her five worldwide Ambassadors of Hope. I love teaching people and inspiring people to be better, to see better, to protect themselves, and love themselves, and forgive. Anything that I can do to distribute hope in the effort that it will lead them to having pure faith, that’s what I do. I believe once you have faith, you won’t need help anymore.
CHUCK: I’m inspired by what you just said. I have to ask this question, didn’t expect the interview to go in this direction, but you talked about indicators of an abuser. I know we don’t have a lot of time, that may be a show in it to itself, but could you identify or provide maybe our listeners three or so of those indicators so when someone leaves this show, talking about straight talk, maybe they can at least see that so they can protect themselves.
MARALA: Absolutely. If you have someone – a lot of times men and women don’t really look at this as a sign and it’s very critical – if you have someone showing up at your job unannounced and popping in on you and your friends, that’s an indicator that something’s wrong because they should be secure and comfortable in their own life instead of jumping into yours unannounced. That’s 1.
No.2 is if someone is controlling your finances. You’re working, you have your money coming in and they’re handling and managing your money, keeping you without.
Another one is if you bring someone to table and it’s boyfriend, girlfriend or even a friend, and all of a sudden all of your other friends begin to be pushed out of your relationship along with your family members. That’s a warning sign, especially if they were healthy relationships that you had and you begin to find yourself isolated.
Those are indicators that something is very wrong. You have to start really paying attention to what people are showing you instead of what they tell you because love doesn’t ever hurt. It should never hurt you. It doesn’t touch you physically in a way that brings pain so if you ask someone that pushes you, shoves you and touches you in an unhealthy way, that’s the only time that should happen because you should be done with that person and do what you need to to move that along quickly.
CHUCK: Wow, that is very powerful. It takes us to our last break and, Marala, I want to say both to you, and Alyssa, as we’ve gone through this interview, this has been an interesting and a speedy journey so far. We’ve got one last break. This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio. We’ve been talking with Marala Scott, author, motivational speaker, about the book Intuition, and her daughter, co-author of the book Intuition and we’ll be right back to talk a little bit about ghostwriting and some of the work that Marala is doing today. We’ll be back in just a few minutes.
[Commercial break]CHUCK: This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio, Transformation Talk Radio Network and I’m so excited. This has been such a wonderful show. We have been talking about the new book Intuition. I highly recommend it. In fact, let me do this for just a second, I want to read this. Out of one of the reviews that was written from a verified purchase on Amazon, it says, “There’s always a beautiful light coming out of the darkest darkness and when we live our lives filled with love, forgiveness, faith and following God’s messages, which is our intuition, only magical miracles can emerge from that.” That is just an incredible comment made in an absolutely beautiful review on the book Intuition. You can buy the book Intuition on amazon.com, but if you want a hardcover copy of the book and you would like it signed by the authors, Marala Scott and Alyssa Curry, go to maralascott.com. That is M-A-R-A-L-A-S-C-O-T-T.com and pick up your copy there. Look, if you’re going to buy the book, get the hardcover and get the autographed cover because that’s just so much better.
Folks, it’s been fun having you as guests on the show. Marala, I’ve got to ask you a question because it says here, and I know that you’ve been involved with this, you’re a ghostwriter. Tell me about some of the ghostwriting and for someone that’s out there, this is really what I’m interested in, that says, “Oh, there’s a book in me, but I just don’t have the skills or the knowledge or the ability to pull it together,” how does a person connect with the ghostwriter and what’s the experience like?
MARALA: For me, I love working with people that have powerful stories to inspire and everyone has something in their life and some want to share and some don’t. People reach out to me through Seraph Books and I typically like to sit down with them and work with them for at least three days in a cabin that’s kind of isolated till we remove all the noise in my life and they just share with me whatever it is they want to share. We begin working and penning their story through their voice, through their eyes, not mine. I think it’s tremendously lease of pain and negativity and sometimes things that people have held in for so many years if not decades that they want to get out, a very healthy way to do it, which is the way I did In Our House, was to get it out of me and write.
So what I’m doing is I’m sharing the gift that I had that worked for me, which is writing, was a release of pain for me and so I offered that for other people that want to. It doesn’t mean you have to go through something painful to have your story ghostwritten. It allows you to share whatever it is you want to. If you’re not a writer but you have a tremendous story, go to Seraph Books and we work with you on your schedule and get it done. Also our books are best-selling books we’ve done and award-winning books as well. We really put a lot of time and effort into to get your story right. What I do is I write to show you how great your life is.
CHUCK: I love to hear that, “I write to show you how great your life is.”
MARALA: Oh, yeah.
CHUCK: That is such a– I love it, that is classic. Let me be just real practical for a second. You’ve got someone out there and you say, “I’ve got the story in me,” so I’m assuming, let me just say ‘assuming’, you can correct me, they could either write some of it or you can clean it up or they could just literally tell you a story and you are, I guess, finding their voice so that you can write it from their perspective.
MARALA: Absolutely, that’s exactly what I do.
CHUCK: Okay. What is that experience like for you? When you sit down with somebody. Let’s say you and I sat down, we talked for two or three days about whatever it was that wanted to talk about. What’s the experience like when you go into writing a book but for someone else?
MARALA: It’s inspirational to have people trust me the way they do. It’s like they allow me to [39:59] their soul, walk inside and take whatever I need to put together their story that they want for them and their words through their vision. If you have to really submit to telling the truth and sharing what it is you want, it’s I can get that. It’s humbling and it’s really humbling but it’s inspirational in the same voice. Very powerful experience.
ALYSSA: And I have had the pleasure of seeing this experience as well, which I loved, having a chance to be a part of this but I’ve seen a way that, Marala, you sit down and you really talk with them and have discussion. You take notes about everything that they say, you take note of their movements and things like that, and pictures so you can really be included in what they’re saying.
MARALA: Yeah, it makes a big difference because I want the reader to feel them, not me. When our clients finish reading, oh, my Gosh, they are friends and family with us for life, because we actually have a bond and a lot of things that people share, most people never share that with family members. Sometimes people read in the book and some of the things they share don’t make it in the book, but the book’s a powerful representation of them. To be able to do that, I watch people heal in the process and the process is so therapeutic. Life is in that capacity, but this is something that transcends out of their own work on themselves. They’re working on themselves sometimes and they don’t realize it, but it’s a beautiful release of negativity and if you have an incredible story to share, it’s a beautiful release to this world to share something powerful that can help shape lives or entertain people or capacity that can inspire themselves.
CHUCK: When a person comes to you and says, “Okay, here’s the story that I’ve got,” whatever that story may be… Let me back up a second. When I say, “Whatever that story may be,” I think, Marala, you focus primarily on overcoming adversity, transformation, inspiration. In other words, if somebody is listening this and says, “I want to write the next Fifty Shades of Gray,” that’s not your area.
MARALA: Exactly, yeah. I like things that make a difference, that can change lives, shape lives for better, inspire and help you grow and be a better version of yourself so if someone wants to put something into this world that can teach others, no matter what capacity that’s in, if you can teach them to overcome something or transform into a better person, that’s what I like to focus on. There’s enough of negativity out there and there’s enough of everything out there, but I think we all need more inspiration, more encouragement so I love those kinds of stories because we all have them. If you don’t have it, when you look back at your life, when you write your story by the time we’re finished, oh, you’ll have it! You’ll have the inspiration if you’re open to receiving it. You’ll learn there’s power in your pain and you can take that and use it as fuel to have a better life.
CHUCK: All right. Let’s talk about maybe a little of the details. Somebody who comes to you and they say, “I’ve got this story,” from the time they start the process or agree to the process, whatever the legal and business side of it is, but from the time they’ve completed the business transaction to say, “Let’s get started,” what’s the norm for taking that and moving that from concept in interview to fully publish book that’s available on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or wherever it happens to be?
MARALA: It typically takes about six to eight months.
CHUCK: Okay.
MARALA: In six months I’m pretty much done. Sometimes I can do it in four, it depends on the process. Again, sometimes people will bring a project to me that they’ve already written but it needs to be maybe restructured or more added or some deducted and we clean it up and work on it from that capacity, but I when I do a full ghostwriting six to eight months. Six months it’s typically done, eight months it’s up on Amazon and everything. Sometimes it’s a [43:47] and it depends on the clarity and how well your time is to work with me, but yeah.
CHUCK: Okay. In the process of doing that, I guess it’s through Seraph Books that you’re doing this, is that correct?
MARALA: Absolutely.
CHUCK: In Seraph Books, for those who are listening is S-E-R-A-P-H-B-O-O-K-S.com, seraphbooks.com, so if you want to get in touch with Marala and talk about what is it that she does and how does it work and how do you make that connection, I would assume that Seraph Books is the way that’s taking place.
[Marala laughs]CHUCK: And as I give that a plug, I also hear the music that says, “Our show is just about over.” So, Marala and Alyssa, let me say thank you, thank you so much for being on the show. The new book is Intuition. Marala and Alyssa are the co-authors of the book and if you want to get the hardcopy signed by the authors, go to maralascott.com.
This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio, Transformation Talk Radio to live by. We appreciate you taking the time to listen and yet another great show, and Marala and Alyssa, my best to both of you. Thanks for joining me today.
MARALA: Thanks.
ALYSSA: Thank you.
CHUCK: Folks, this is Straight Talk Radio and we’ll be back next week with another great show. This is Chuck Gallagher, bye-bye.
You’ve been listening to Straight Talk with Chuck Gallagher. Tune in each week on transformationtalkradio.com, each Monday at 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern, as Chuck Gallagher, international speaker and author, cuts through the noise to share truth through transparency. Nationally-known guests talk about what’s important to you – your life, your concerns, and your success. Visit gallagher.pcgdev.com for more information and turn on to Straight Talk with Chuck Gallagher.
