Did you all enjoy the first half of my interview with Christine O’Kelly of Self Made Chick? I heard some of you went to her site and ended up becoming her new subscribers - that’s absolutely marvelous! I love the idea that I can help other bloggers grow simply by interviewing them here at Adversity University.
Phil Gerbyshak of Make it GREAT! did that for me last year, inspiring me to pay it forward for other bloggers that I admire and respect. So, really, I must say a moment of thanks to him for planting a seed in my mind to create an interview series here at the university. How could I not? Phil welcomed me with open arms and pimped the hell out of me when I needed it the most. Such is the power of paying it forward.
Without further ado, here are the rest of my questions and Christine’s responses. It gets even more interesting because I added a few questions that were not present in the last interview.
Christine, welcome back to “Stephen Hopson Interviews”! Shall we pick up where we left off?
9. At Adversity University, I often talk about the value of changing our perceptions in order to deal with adversity. How have you dealt with adversity in your life? Give us specific examples of adversity and what you did to overcome them.
I kind of feel as if I’m in a constant state of overcoming adversity. My goals are very high, so anything in the way of getting there right now is an adversity that must be overcome. When there is no other choice, you’ve just got to do whatever it takes to get there.
I have literally been homeless 3 times in my life - and by choice because I walked away from a mediocre situation in order to find something better. I think that the people we surround ourselves and our environment can either feed our energy, or drain it. During those 3 times, I felt like the situation was sucking the life out of me and that it would be healthier to move on than to stay there and become a shell of a person. Each time, things got better and better.
I’ve been up and down. I’ve lived in great places in San Diego, in LA, and in Boulder - I’ve also lived in a tent, a van, in a trailer, and every place in between. I just never wanted to settle. And because I didn’t have anyone to really fall back on, I just started over on my own many times. Now that I work for myself and am self sufficient, I don’t have to worry about a lot of the things that caused me to start over all of those times. My business goes wherever go. It is incredibly empowering.
10. What would you say was the defining moment that forever changed the course of your life? Was it someone who made an impact on you or was it a spiritual revelation?
I don’t think I can pinpoint a single experience… I think it’s all of the collected experiences and then constantly reevaluating the lessons learned from different perspectives.
11. What books, blogs and/or mentors have influenced you and why?
Jack Canfield’s “Success Principles” had a big impact on me - I love that book! Advanced Selling Strategies by Brian Tracy and Double Dip (the Ben and Jerry’s biography) also had a big impact on me.
I read a lot of blogs. I know I’m going to forget some, but some of my faves are:
Freelance Folder www.freelancefolder.com
Remarkablogger: www.michaelmartine.com
Itty Biz: www.ittybiz.com
Shane and Peter: http://blog.shaneandpeter.com/
Jarkko Laine: http://jarkkolaine.com
Skelliewag: http://www.skelliewag.org
12. Name the top 5 articles from Self Made Chick that you believe readers at Adversity University would benefit from.
Some of the most popular posts have been:
- How I made $100,000 by spending 25 minutes and $0 on Marketing
- One Word that Can Change Your Reality and Perception of What Is Possible
- What’s It Really Like to Take the Plunge Into Entrepreneurship?
- How to Achieve Ridiculous Goals
- 5 Things I Had to Unlearn to Become Self Made
13. What is your favorite word?
Will. When you replace the word “try to” or “might” or “think I can” with the word “will,” you’ve just changed your life.
14. We all have our likes and dislikes. What would you say turns you on and what turns you off? Give the first answer that comes to your mind without censoring or editing it.
This is so nerdy, but I love talking about ideas and ways to solve problems - to me that is exciting stuff! I also like programmers who talk way over my head about code… that’s awesome. Something that totally turns me off faster than anything is when people making excuses for things that they could do, but don’t want to. That drives me nuts.
15. Being deaf, I am always curious to know which sounds other people love and hate to hear. Tell us a sound you absolutely adore and a sound you detest.
I love the sound of water fountains. I also live right next to my kids school and those kids are really noisy on the playground all day long - but it’s a great sound. The sound that drives me insane is also related to kids - whining! Man, you are lucky you never had to hear that!
16. What do you hope God will have to say to you when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
Well, I tend to believe that what matters is the residual effect we leave behind on earth. My goal is to teach my children good values and to be free thinkers so that they can pass this down from generation to generation. I also hope to improve my family’s financial status so that future generations spend less time worrying about the details of life and have more time to work on bigger issues in the world.
17. What’s next for Christine O’Kelly?
This year, in addition to growing my SEO copywriting business, I’m also building my 2 newest businesses: www.hybridmediamarketing.com and www.mycollegefundraising.com
18. And finally but not least, where can we find out more about you?
Probably the best place to learn more about me is on my blog!
If you liked this post and you want to be notified of the next one, subscribe via Email or Full Text RSS Feed. I would love to have you as part of the community!
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
Welcome! I'm the founder and professor of Adversity University specializing in personal development for spiritual beings having a human experience. To see a speaking demo tape and other information, please click 
11:20 pm on January 15th, 2008 1
Stephen - Just wanted to say thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to do this interview! You have some really amazing readers ~
Christine O’Kelly’s last blog post..How I Stopped Listening To Experts And Started Making Money
12:37 am on January 16th, 2008 2
Stephen - you are a great interviewer! Nicely done! Way to share Christine with your readers. Love your questions, and the way you are helping her make a big impact with your readers. Splash! Great job.
And you are VERY welcome for the little pimping that I did for you. You are so deserving my friend, and it’s been a delight to call you friend since we started sharing tips back and forth. You are one smart professor, and I learn something from you all the time!
Phil Gerbyshak’s last blog post..Meatballs, Marketing, and Seth Godin: A Podcast with Seth Godin
6:44 am on January 16th, 2008 3
Phil:
Your comment made me smile this morning, while I was eating my breakfast with a bowl of cereal (Cheerios topped with strawberries). Thanks Phil. You really did start me down this path without even realizing it. As you can see, I’ve modified the interview, adding, substracting and customized it a bit. You introduced to me the idea of passing it forward so that’s what I’m doing. Together, we’ve taken the art of pimping other bloggers to a fine art!
6:47 am on January 16th, 2008 4
Christine:
Thanks - I’m pretty proud of the readers that have been drawn to this community. It feels good to merge their energy and those of the interviewees (like yourself) together. They know I appreciate good people because they themselves are special. I hope your own readers are enjoying my interview with you as well!
12:24 pm on January 16th, 2008 5
Well, Stephen - you’ve done it again. Discovered a new friend for all of us in the personal growth field. This is a great one.
When all the bloggers who are busy selling each other programs to make more money are sick of it, we will still be here.
We have to support this niche. It is important to mankind. We are all suffering mortals.
Christine is a great example of not being afraid to start all over. Thanks for her!
8:24 am on January 17th, 2008 6
I enjoyed this interview–Christine is an inspiration!
8:52 am on January 17th, 2008 7
@Corinne: You have an interesting point about “when all the bloggers who are busy selling each other programs to make more money are sick of it, we’ll still be here.” To tell you the truth, I do want to monetize this blog but first I want to build a strong, solid community and then gradually I’ll add a donate button, some ads so that I can develop alternative streams of income. My goal is to be 80% about people/inspiration and 20% about making money but that’s down the road.
@Karen: I’m glad you enjoyed Christine’s story. She commented to me recently about the amazing quality of the type of readers at this blog. I continue to be grateful to have those kinds of readers. What matters is not the level of traffic the blog gets becuase people come and go over time but what matters is those who have been faithful subscribers - people like you!
12:56 pm on January 18th, 2008 8
Christine is the real thing. Her place in my network is definitely in the “top 5″. I’ve learned a lot from her. She has a great way of tying her words to her life and actions so that there’s no disparity between what she does and what she says. To read her is to learn from her actions and her example. Thanks for a great interview, Stephen.
Michael Martine’s last blog post..How I Increased My RSS Subscribers to Nearly 900 in Less than 2 Weeks
10:44 pm on January 18th, 2008 9
Michael:
It’s good to see you here - thanks for stopping by. I agree with you that she’s most definitely the real thing. I sensed it the moment I set foot in her blog after learning about her from a post you wrote. Both my readers and I are grateful to have learned about her.
Like you, I’ve also learned a lot from her. For instance, she inspired me through one of her articles to go back and change the title of many of my older posts to include the word “I” in it. She said the reason her subscriber count went way up was because of that one word in the title of many of her articles. It inspired me tremendously and so I went and did it. It felt great!
Only time will tell if it works for me as well as it did for her.
Finally, what you’re saying is what I’ve known since becoming one of her subscribers: she is authentic and speaks from experience. I learn a lot from people like that. You’re the same way!
I’m glad you enjoyed my interview with her. There’s many more coming! It’s an exciting time for me at Adversity University - thanks for being a part of it.