Dir. Denise Nicholson-Her inspiring journey of resilience, purpose, and success.

EP5: 🎙️ In this episode of The Re: Series, we sit down with the phenomenal Dr. Denise Nicholson, who takes us through her inspiring journey of resilience, purpose, and success.

Dr. Denise Nicholson is an inspirational and transformational TEDx speaker, Amazon #1 bestselling author, and founder of Bold Publishing Company. Originally from Jamaica, West Indies, she migrated to Mount Vernon, New York, at the age of thirteen. Despite the challenges of teenage motherhood, she defied the odds and built a thriving career as an entrepreneur and mentor.

🌐 Website: denisenicholson.com
📸 Instagram: @authordenisenicholon
📧 Email: authordnicholson@gmail.com
🗓️ Book a free discovery session: Click here

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

So, my name is Faith ICN Izagoo, and my guest for today is Dr. Denise Nicholson. She's not only a coach and a mentor, but she is also the founder of Bold Publishing. Before I go any further, I'll get her to introduce herself.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Hello, everyone. Oh my goodness, I'm so happy to be here. I've been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time because Faith is amazing poet and human. And so I have been looking forward to you know sharing this conversation with you guys. So I am Dr. Denise Nicholson. I'm a doctor of nursing practice. So I have a beautiful and thriving publishing business, but I'm also a nurse practitioner, hospitalist, and I love my career very much. So I juggle both. I also primarily help authors or budding authors write their book, publish their book, and then promote their message. And I'm excited to share anything you'd like to know about the book writing process or sharing your message with the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Okay. Thank you very much. If you don't know, actually, I went through Dr. Denise Publishing Company to publish my book. I am here. But before you go any further, I've got a number of questions to ask you today. So before both publishing, before you you actually um went into that area of work, what was your journey like? How did you start? Because I know everybody has a story, and I was just wondering if you could share your story with us.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

So actually, my story started when I was in the third grade. So I had an encouraging teacher, Mrs. Atterbury, and she encouraged us while she was teaching us how to write compositions. So back then, you know, in where I'm from, they're called compositions. You may know them as essays. So we were learning how to write essays or compositions, and she told us how important storytelling was. So I was intrigued and I loved that part because I was also nurtured by my great-grandmother who told me stories every night. So here I have a teacher that is that is incorporating something that is endeared to me because my great-grandmother tucked me into bed every night by telling me uh stories, anansi stories, Baratucuma stories, folklore from the Caribbean and the African diaspora. So when she merged you know storytelling into the lessons, I just started to come alive. And so my stories reflected that. And she thought they were just beautiful and engaging and they were the best things. So she sent the stories to the national newspaper for children called The Children's Own. And in sending them, they published mine, and they published a few of them, and then they paid you $3 for each publication. So my aunt saved every check. I still have the checks here, never been cashed, as proof that I was a paid published author from the very beginning, from third grade. Fast forward in high school, I was a teenage mother, and my high school English teacher, Mr. Lanzara, encouraged me to journal. And journaling helped me to reflect on my life and to plan out a future that I wanted and wasn't about circumstances and accepting the circumstances of my life. So um that is the beginning. So then I moved, I started nursing school, and I went to I started working at the bedside as a registered nurse, and I met an author who also encouraged me to write my book. And she mentored me through the process. I wrote the book and it became a bestseller. And while I was on the tour selling the book and grinding and making sure that my message was being shared, I met a lot of people that had questions about how to write their book and publish it. And so, because of who I am and helping people find results and just making sure that I'm a result-oriented person, I just started to switch from my focus of mental health and teaching people about the importance and relevance of taking care of themselves to teaching people how to write a book. And that's the beginning. That's how my story started. Along with it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

So you mentioned in class that um your teacher asked you to reflect and write stories down to life circumstances. So, what were those circumstances, if you don't mind sharing some of them?

SPEAKER_01 5:43

So my sister was a good storyteller, and when I told her that we had an assignment to write stories, she embraced it and taught me how to write stories. This is my elder sister, and they were just made-up stories, but very funny. For the for example, the first one was about um an old man and his old soul, and that story was about an old man who didn't have a good pair of shoes because the bottom of the sole of his shoe was disintegrated, and so that was you know, we just told a funny story about the old man walking around in the market, and that first story is what my sister told me, and I just you know changed it into my own and shared it with the teacher, and she loved it, she just thought it was funny, all right.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Okay, and um so you said you wrote your book, uh, during the time you wrote your book, what was the story? Uh, your what was your book about? Oh my goodness. So mommy, have you got a copy there?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

It's always close by. Now, although this book is my debut book, it is not only about my story. There are nine different women's stories in here, and the stories are about our trip to a retreat. And if you know me, you know I run retreats at least once a year, and I use the retreats to help us do some transformational work, and that's what this book started, you know. So um, we talked about this road trip that we were going to, but then we talked about um different issues that women face. For example, rape, ancestral relationships, um struggling to with mental health or mental challenges, uh, abortion or miscarriages. These are the things that women face, abandonment issues. And so I was a hairstylist for 23 years and I sat with women, I listened to them, I heard some of the painful stories, like young girls that their biological father, or you know, men in their lives that were father figures, forcing them into intercourse. And so um I've heard it enough to fit to write about it. I wanted to speak up about that because sometimes women are feel or people feel alone, they feel like they're the only one going through something. And here I was listening to a few women go through the same experience. So I wanted to write about that just so that there could be a unification, there could be so that people could hear that you're not alone, you did not call this upon yourself, and it is okay to to talk about it because you are not alone. You you're not the only person that's been through it, and you shouldn't be blamed or blame yourself. So we talked about that. I talked about uh the struggle of some women trying to conceive. And in this story, the woman had one miscarriage, but it was devastating because miscarriages are devastating, but it was also devastating because she didn't know who to turn to, she didn't know who to speak to about it, and that's why I wrote this book because I wanted other women who have gone through these things to see that someone else has gone through it, and here is how they coped. Here is some of the things that they did, here are some of the things that they did to move forward and still honor the life of the child that they felt that they lose.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

So, yeah. And I I guess it's also um to also remove that shame that surrounds that topic, you know, all those topics, there's always shame. Yes, especially within the black community as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Absolutely, yeah. So, as women, we face a lot of things, and that's why I teach my daughter. One of the main things that I teach my daughter is to stand up for women. Stand up for women even when it is not the popular thing to do, even when you don't know everything yet. Give the woman the benefit of the doubt first and then do your research. Don't just go in and start to persecute women because you've heard other women put her down, or other people put her down, or men putting her down. Please always prioritize standing up for women because we go through some stuff. We go through some things that changes us, isolates us, and does not make us look like we are the contributors of civilization and contributors to our community and to our household. Sometimes we don't get to be acknowledged because people want to put us down and take away from what the work we do. Or they want to put us in a category and say these are the only things you're supposed to do. And I don't believe that. I believe that we can reach for the stars, I believe that we can do anything we put our minds to, but I believe that when we have other women supporting us, we not only change our community, but we can change the world. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Absolutely. So when you actually wrote your book, how was it perceived within society when you launched it? What type of feedback did you get from people? I got a lot of great feedback.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

As a matter of fact, I met people in the environments that I have been surrounded, and they were coming to me saying, Thank you for writing this book, because I have been through an ancestral relationship. My father did this to me, and I couldn't talk about it. In the family, it was uh uh something that we could not mention. And so um I was grateful that those people had the opportunity to now put feelings to what they're going through, talk about that trauma, that isolation, that shame that they have been going through. So, and then I met other people because there's a story about my story is when I my mother left Fafarin. And so my story was in there, and there were people who came and said, My mother left when I was three years old, my mother left when I was six months, my mother left, and I never met her again. I met so many people in the African diaspora that connected with that story of their parents leaving, and it is painful because we get that feeling of abandonment, and a lot of people, unless they've been through that, they don't understand. Some of the people we work with, you know, they don't understand how a mother could leave. Well, the system was set up for those mothers to leave their children, honey. You know, this system was set up to oppress the mothers or to oppress the people from the Caribbean and from African continent. It is set up so that they they are looking for a brighter future. They're looking for survival for their children. And so they have to leave just to provide food for their children, stability, you know, for their children, an education, a brighter future. They have to leave their children behind to go forth and seek opportunities for them and their children. So I met a lot of people during that trip that said my mother left. And now, because we talked about the underpinning of why those, why, why was it a reality for so many people, for so many African people or African descendants like myself, it was because the system, so we got a chance to start to talk about those things instead of just blaming the mother, because it's easy to blame you know the people that we know and love, rather than look at it on the larger scale, it is systemic breakdown of the family, of the black family.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

And did having that experience um in your childhood, did that change your perspective in terms of how you or how you saw things then? You know, because it must have been quite um difficult or emotional um having that, but obviously you're an adult now. Um, how has that shaped you into the person you are? Because a lot of people have pain that it turns into purpose, and um I'm just wondering whether it's been the same for you, because I know for me when I wrote my book, I had a lot to say. That's why I wanted to pour it into this book.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

You know, hindsight is 2020, yes, and I appreciate my self-growth, my self-development, and my growth mindset. Because of the journey of self-development, I begin to understand my mother because I blamed her for a long time because when she left, I endured things that I shouldn't have endured because my mother left, and six weeks after my mother left, my father died. And so I blamed my mother for not my father's death, but for not being protected from the things that happened to me afterwards. So it took a long time. It it started when I wrote this book, and I was having a conversation with my son after I wrote the book, and I said to him, What mother would leave her children, her five children just like that? And my son looked at me and said, A mother like you, and I was like, A mother like me, I've never left you that, and he said, You have never left us, but you are ambitious. You dream of a brighter future for your children, and your mother, you're very similar to your mother, you dream of a bright future for your children, and you would do anything to facilitate that, and that's when my healing began. That's powerful. That's when my healing began because I started to look at my mother as a human being, not as a superhero, but as a woman, and I started to see how I have left my children to travel, to um, to do business, to, you know, to do things that I thought would bring them a brighter future. And so I respected that perspective, and I really started to reflect on the things my mother did so that she could give all her children this, you know, the opportunities, the things that I bask in that are regular today, having a home, having a roof, having a partner that supports me and my children. You know, those were the things she dreamed of for us. And so she sacrificed so that we can have those things.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yeah, it's it's interesting that it takes a different generation to see it to make you see a different perspective, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 18:59

And I give thanks. Yeah. That's why we have to honor the younger generation, the ones behind us, because they are also bearing the load of pushing us up. We stand on their shoulders also. We stand on, I stand on the shoulders of my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my mother, but yet I also and my grandfather, because he was there, you know, in the picture. My father, though he died young, I stand on those people's shoulders, but I also stand on the generation right after me.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Amazing. So with you know, with your story, you and with um you know, you juggling because I know how busy both publishing is, how do you actually juggle that with your with your day job in terms of being a nurse and you know going through all that study to become a successful woman that you are?

SPEAKER_01 19:58

The beauty is I have learned how to run a business on three or four hours a day, and how I do that is through scheduling. Sometimes I mess up because I don't stick to the the schedule or I am overzealous about something that's happening in the moment. And so, yeah, sometimes I don't stick, I you know, I don't stick to the schedule, but mostly I have a calendar and I prioritize what is important, what will drive the business, what will drive my relationship with my family and loved ones, and what will drive my relationship with my client. So I prioritize those things, and that's what helps me to do well, do exceptionally well at juggling these two careers that I love. One, because I want to build a hospital in Jamaica because it's so necessary. And so I have to keep, I believe I have to keep my license and keep my expertise, my skills. So I am I work 12 shifts a month to ensure that I am keeping my skills and keeping my knowledge and growing my skills and knowledge, to be frank, and not just maintaining, I am learning and growing so that I can better serve this hospital that I dream of. And so that's one reason why it's so important for me to schedule everything out and will only work a few hours a day and enjoy traveling because I, you know, when people have a book launch, if they want me to come, I make you know, I put it in my schedule. I'm going this weekend to a beautiful um book sign in coming up, and I'm looking Looking forward to that. So I get to meet the people in Bull Publishing. I get to share my message of sharing your story in the world and sharing that message that your story is important. No matter what you've gone through, your story is important. And how you share that story is most important because when you have the uh authority, when you have control over the narrative, you're not waiting for someone to tell you how to be and who to be and when to do and how to do it. You're sharing your story in your authentic voice and you're lifting up the people and empowering the people that are within your spirit that God has charged you to talk to.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Absolutely right. And one of the things I was going to ask you, if somebody was, for example, finding it difficult in terms of navigating where they are right now, and they've had, you know, how you've navigated your life, what would you say to them? What would you ask them to start from? Start from your values.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

What are the three most important values in your life? And when you start with your values, then you operate and you do things based on what you value most. So for me, I value uh my relationship with God, and so that's priority for me. Then I also value my relationship with my family, so that's second, and then I value the relationship that I have as a business partner with the people that I publish with. So it's God, family and friends, and then my business. So the things that drive my actions daily are going to be based on those top three values, right? The things that I prioritize are based on that. So you need to take stock of what you value and then make decisions based on that. So your daily actions should reflect those values. So if you get up every day and you listen to a Bible lesson or a powerful prayer in the mornings before you do anything, then it shows that these things are your priority. I also value um health. And so I prioritize working out, eating clean, eating healthy, and those things help me to make decisions and keep track and keep on point with the things that I want to accomplish, you know, on a larger scale.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Amazing, amazing. The other thing is, I mean, I know I'm part of your um your writing incubator and you've got a lot of um authors in there. How do you, I mean, it's fantastic because I mean, in some places when you in a community, you don't have the relationship, um, you know, the type of relationship people have within the writing incubator is so powerful. Everybody supports that. And I know that's the only reason why it's so supportive is because of the person you are. And how do you keep all that together? Because I'm sure it's you know, it it's it can be quite difficult to juggle everything together. Everybody comes and supports everyone when it comes to book publishing and motivating each other to just go out there and be the best version of themselves. I just think it's absolutely amazing. And how you also give yourself your time, remembering everybody's birthdays in your group, you know, that doesn't happen, you know, often, you know. So I just wanted to know how you do all that in business.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

One of the principles that I teach and follow is treat people the way you want to be treated. So, as a client, how do I want to be treated? When I go to patronize someone, what kind of experience do I look for? And so the experience that I want is what I give to others. Now, if I encounter some experience that doesn't make me feel good, then I'm certainly not going to give that to someone. And if someone shares with me that they've had an experience that doesn't make them feel good, I try to address it as soon as possible so that they feel welcomed, they feel seen and they feel heard in the community. So do unto others as you'd like them to do unto you.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. So we're coming towards the end of um you know of our talk conversation. I was actually going to ask you about what your three values are, but I guess you've already answered that. Yes, you've already answered that. So, with everything else happening, what next is it for you? Oh my goodness. Um I know you mentioned the hospital.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Yeah, that is something that I'm leaving to God because I don't know how this hospital is gonna happen, honey. I don't know how it's going to happen, but I know that it's going to happen. I have that strong sense of assurance that it's not up to me, but it will come through me. Amen. So um yeah, that's one of the next things that's coming. And sooner than that, we have a retreat to Marrakesh that is next year that we are going to start to send out correspondence about. And in these retreats, because authors go through so many different trials, I use the retreat as an excuse for us to come together as authors and for us to work on our healing because we prioritize everyone except ourselves. So this is an excuse for us to come together, and we use it to build strong communications and communication that seems protective, you know, so that we can speak up for ourselves and we can say no, and our no is no full sentence, a whole paragraph is a book, is no. And that's and and and learn, you know, skills that will help us along our journey as we navigate the triumph of our life and surpass the triumphs.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

And if somebody was thinking of writing a book, what would you say to that person?

SPEAKER_01 30:04

If you are thinking about writing a book, I want you to think about because a book seems so big of a task, I want you to think about one thing. What is the main message that you want your reader to take away? What do you want them to do? So they've read your book, they've read your story, or you've shared many stories. What do you want me to do now? And if you can think about what you want your audience to do with all of the things you've said, and it is clear, it's crystal clear what you want them to do, then you can go ahead and start writing that book. Just think about the main message that you want your audience to know, and what do you want them to do about it?

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Okay. And are you going to ask them to how are they going to find you if they would like to contact you with regards to their book? Finding me is so easy, guys.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

So you don't have any excuse. If you really want to write a book and you want bold publishing to help you to navigate the writing process, the publishing process and the promotion process, then finding Dr. Denise Nicholson is easy. Okay, so you can follow me on Instagram at author denise Nicholson. I'm the one with the red shirt. Or you can send me an email to authordnicholson at gmail.com. You can also go on our website, bowpublishings.com. But guess what? More importantly, every Saturday I teach the writing process. This season we're going over how to use artificial intelligence to help you write your book ethically. So you can join me on Instagram, and the link is usually shared there, and you can register and come to the class. Free of choice.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

I mean, what I'll do is I'll also share your information after this. Once again, once again, I would like to thank you. Oh wow, what an honor. What an honor. Thank you so much.