Do you want to know how to be successful with books and business? Sheri Fink is an inspirational speaker and bestselling author. She joins Neva Lee Recla to talk about unicorns, books and business. Sheri is a mermaid who loves to travel the world and teach others how to live their best lives. Listen in to hear Sheri and Neva share their insight on unicorns, books and business…oh my.

Thank you so much for coming on.

Oh you’re very welcome. I’m excited to be here.

So am I. I’m so excited for this and I’m so excited to talk to you. So, what are your super powers?

Well, let’s see. I would say that ever since I was a little girl, I have like a Pied Piper effect on animals and babies.

Aww.

Wherever I am, all the animals will come over to where I’m at. I’ll go to dinner and people will say, “My cats, they avoid everyone, they’re very antisocial, you won’t see them tonight.” And then I’m eating dinner at their dinner table and the cats are both on my lap. That’s been the way I’ve always been.

That’s awesome.

And I don’t know why but it’s magical. And then the other thing is probably something I’ve really honed as a grown up, is that I have the ability to see the sparkle within anyone.

I can see their magic, and if we talk for a few minutes, I sometimes can help them remember it.

That’s awesome.

And that ignites a spark within them and they say it’s very inspirational and it’s just kind of caring about other people, and they can feel it when you really do care.

Yeah. You’re like an adult version of me.

Yeah.

Like, that is exactly me.

I always say I’m really an eight year old girl.

I feel like sometimes I’m an actually, like, a twenty four year old but…

That’s awesome. We should switch places every now and then.

Yeah, we should. I’ve had so many different animal encounters. There was one time where a cat literally crawled into our garage and I was watching a show and I thought I was hearing meowing on the show, and then my parents both walked in. My dad was holding a cat, I’m like, “Where’d he come from?” And we named him Whiskey.

Aww.

And we’re kind of allergic to cats so he had to stay outside, but he was with us for probably about a month. He didn’t hiss at the dog, he didn’t bite, he didn’t scratch. I could literally pick him up, put him on my shoulders, and walk around.

Yeah, that’s so great.

He wouldn’t care. And I’ve noticed that animals and babies do really know.

They do.

It’s like, “You’re gonna be nice to me, aren’t you?”

They can tell. They sense your energy, it’s very pure.

They can tell. They sense your energy, it’s very pure. I’ll be at a restaurant and the stroller next to me will be like… they baby’s just like… and the parents will get uncomfortable and be like, “I’m so sorry, I don’t know why he keeps staring at you.” And I’m like, “It’s okay, it happens.”

Yeah. Exactly. And it’s really cute because, once again, they do know, but something that happens with animals, even bugs sometimes sense it.

Yes.

My mom will save bees from the pool and she’s like the bee queen now.

Aww.

Because she’ll save them and they’ll stay on her feet while she’s on the raft. And it’s really cool, but a lot of the time.

Yep.

So it’s really interesting if you just stay calm and you go, “I need to stay true to myself, don’t hurt the animal.”

Yep.

It won’t hurt me.

It’s so true.

Yes.

So true.

Yep, ’cause they’re only doing it to defend themselves.

That’s right.

Yeah. So, what inspired you to become an author?

Well you know, I actually started writing. I was telling stories before I could even physically write. At four years old, I was telling my mom, “Write this down.” And I started making little books when I was a small child. As soon as I could put letters on a page, I was trying to draw things and write things.

Aww.

Thank you. I grew up in rural Virginia, in a very, very tiny town, and my family worked very hard but we didn’t always have extra money for things like new toys, and trips, and new clothes, and the way I kind of dealt with that was I was always in my own little whimsical world. I was always creating things.

That’s awesome.

I had little businesses that I made, and even my Barbies were always starting businesses, it’s just what I loved to do is play.

That’s awesome.

Thank you, I have a feeling we have a lot in common there.

We do, we do.

As an adult, I was working in Marketing for companies and I just… I had worked very, very hard and I climbed up the ladder, and I was there for over twelve and a half years at different companies. I just didn’t love it. And I was really good at it, so it was hard to leave.

Yes.

But during that time when I was really thinking about it, I had a gift of adversity, and maybe you can relate to this, ’cause sometimes when you’re on your own planet, sometimes people don’t relate to that very well and they don’t handle it well. So for me, what that looked like was, I was being bullied by another woman in my office. And it felt terrible. And I didn’t know what to do, and it really, it really put me in a space where I had to own my power, because I had worked too hard to get there, to run away.

At the same time, I was uncomfortable every day in a negative way. So, one day I was driving to work and I was crying and I just didn’t want to go and I finally got to the point where I was like, “Help me, I will do anything to make this situation better.” And that’s when this little seed of an idea about a rose that grows up in a weed bed and thinks that she’s a weed, came to me, and wrote through me in the car, and I didn’t know what it was at the time, but it ultimately ended up becoming my first book, “The Little Rose.”

That is awesome.

And if I had not been courageous enough to share that story, I wouldn’t be talking to you today. Ever since that book came out, it was number one on Amazon for over sixty weeks.

Wow.

That’s more than a year. That’s very atypical and that was with no marketing, no advertising, it was just word of mouth, and I feel like the world needed that message as much as I did. And when I had the courage to do that, it stimulated all of these things that I remember I was doing as a kid, and I was like, “I wonder if I could do that for real?” You know?

Yeah.

And here I am.

That is so cool and it reminds me, when I was younger, I made a book and I called it, “The Little Vampire,” and I got this giant notebook and I wanted to make a cover and stuff, and then I wrote it down, I wrote it down. I was super excited about it, then I made the mistake, I took off the cover of the book, because I wanted to make a new one, and all the pages came flying out.

Oh no!

But, it was really fun. And that story you were sharing about work, it reminded me… So I’m homeschooled now, and I was going to this bilingual school and stuff, and it kind of felt like I was training to go to prison.

Wow.

They had us put our hands behind our backs, put a bubble in our mouths to go to the bathroom, walk in a line and stuff like that, backs up against the wall, so when the parents are coming there to pick us up. I lasted a day and a half, ’cause we were driving and we stayed in the parking lot for probably about an hour. And I started crying. I was like, “I’m not going back.” But, we can actually talk more about our stories, but we have to take a quick break.

Will you please tell people where they can go to find out more about you?

Sure, you can go to my website. It’s www.sherifink.com. And my husband, Derek Taylor Kent and I are the presidents of Whimsical World and you can find Whimsical World at www.whimsicalworldbooks.com on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook as well.

Awesome. Definitely go check that out, because they are both amazing and definitely kids at heart. So, we’ve been talking with Sheri Fink about unicorns, books, business, oh my. We’ll be right back.

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