PUYB Virtual Book Club: Q&A with Gulten Dye, author of 'Semi-Coma'

Gulten Dye was born and raised in a small town in Turkey and moved with her family to Istanbul as a small child.  It was there that she earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing, and worked as a nurse at a local hospital before moving to the Philippines with her boyfriend.

After being there a little over a year, they got married and a short while after that moved to Shreveport, Louisiana where she immediately began her studies to be able to work as a Registered Nurse. While studying for her boards, she was allowed to work as a scrub technician in an operating room at a nearby surgery center. She passed her boards and worked in an operating room for many years before moving to Las Vegas, Nevada there she worked at a busy University Medical Trauma Center as a staff nurse for several years until she earned the position of Charge Nurse.

By 2001, she was divorced and living with her two young sons.  Her desire to make more money became her impetus to start her own business, which soon became her sole source of income as her success grew.  She has never looked back.

Gulten found her talent and passion in creating one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces and sold them to well-known people, such as Celine Dion, Rachel Ray and Mary Higgins Clark.  She became an international success when her work showed on Entertainment Tonight and Insider and was for sale in the high-end casinos in Las Vegas and on high-end cruise liners. She then created a jewelry line called Metamorphosis, a line of interchangeable jewelry that brought her even greater success.

Gulten is also an author and self- published her first book Semi Coma – Evolution of my Intermittent Consciousness in 2011, currently selling on all digital media as well as in hard copy.  Her second book “The Missing Link” is awaiting publication in 2013.

In 2013, she opened her new concept store where she not only sells her own designs, but includes many local artists of different medium, including a local authors section.  In turn for being able to sell their artwork in her store, all artists have agreed to teach others their medium for the future generation free thinkers.

Gulten lives and creates in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Visit her website at www.gultendye.com.

PUYB: Thanks for coming to the book club, Gulten.  What a pleasure it is to have you here.  What is the first step people should take to self-discover themselves?

Gulten: Self-discovery takes courage and total honesty on our part, and to be courageous takes self-acceptance.  Yet for one to truly accept who he or she is we have to know who we really are underneath of all those layers of what we thought to be true. Sadly for most of us, since we were never allowed to be our true self for the most part, we became this person we no longer recognize from when we first began our journey of self-discovery.  All we discover is layer after layer of our self that we have come to know.

To go back and undo all that training to become our true self can be a scary place and that’s where the courage comes in because most of us since early childhood have created this unrealistic perfect picture of our self, and to be anything less makes us feel as though we have failed. Along the way to self-discovery, we come upon things like shame, anger, worthlessness and many more negative emotions that we don't want to deal with.  So instead of owning them, we turn away because true self-discovery can become very difficult and painful for the majority of us.  For me, I believe that the first step anyone should take is to be courageous.

PUYB: Why does it feel sometimes that the road isn't always easy?  How can we make it easier or can we?

Gulten: The road isn't always easy but it’s not impossible. I think at times because we can’t see the end of the road we turn away thinking the task is impossible.  But if we learn to take one step at a time toward any of our goals, and keep going in the same direction and be willing and courageous to change direction when it becomes necessary, then everything not only becomes easy, but it also becomes possible. What we most struggle with is our perception of things, not the things themselves, and if our perception is negative so will be the outcome of any of our endeavors including self-discovery. So take one step at a time toward any goal, and soon you would find that the ending is nearer than you think.

PUYB: What will people take away from your book once they read it?

Gulten: Hopefully it would be that anyone of us are truly equipped to be ourselves and are entitled to feel safe, secure, loved and happy.

PUYB: Is there another book in you in the near future?

Gulten: There are two books I have completed and am about to self-publish.  The first one is called Let the Magic Unfold, about my business which I came to embrace after my nursing career. Although it’s about my jewelry-making and designing, and selling it through long-established businesses, like Costco, and the Bellagio Hotel and Casino, and high-end cruise liners like Crystal, and Reagent, and selling to celebrities like Celine Dion, and Rachael Ray, it’s also about overcoming many hurtles, such as bankruptcy, and self-doubt which made me stronger.  But, above all, it’s about my noticing how by living life from the point of finding the good in any situation and focusing on the positive side of everything, how it  helped me  become an establish business owner, more humble than ever before. It forcefully cracked open my heart to others and helped me discover that true triumph is never about the conventional success, but instead it is about the journey that it had me take.  I can easily say that through my jewelry creating, I found spirituality and my true connection to others.

The other one is a book of my poems which seem to flow out of me on an ongoing stream. I just wish I had more time to sit with myself to be able to write more of it. The poems are about life, love and light.

PUYB: Is there anything you'd like to tell your fans and readers?

Gulten: Yes, look out your window to this thing we call life and know that there are many wonders out there.  Go out and discover anything your heart desires and who knows? During your travels you may even come upon yourself, and if that happens, embrace your true self no matter what the first perception of yourself may be.