MEMOIR – LITTLE VOICE The Brilliant New Book by Colin S L Mackie
Colin S L Mackie has lived an extraordinary life—one marked by resilience, curiosity, and reinvention. Born in Scotland and eventually finding a second home in Australia for 40 years, and now living in mountainous Northern Thailand, Colin’s journey spans over 40 countries and a vast spectrum of personal, professional, and emotional experiences.
Little Voice is the raw, witty, and fiercely honest memoir of Colin S. L. Mackie—entrepreneur, rule-breaker, motivator, and reluctant philosopher. From franchise empires to speechless Toastmasters debuts, this is the true story of success that always felt like failure—and the internal saboteurs named Nancy and Rover who never gave up.
From international business success to the terrifying trenches of public speaking, from sandwich shops to self-sabotage, Little Voice is a funny, brutally honest, and unexpectedly hopeful memoir about wrestling with fear, failure, and the amygdala itself. It’s a conversation we all need to have with ourselves—and it might just shut your Nancy up for good.
For readers of Who Moved My Cheese? and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck*, Matthew Perry’s Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Robert Iger’s The Ride of a Lifetime, this is the story of what happens when we stop listening to that limiting voice… and start telling our own.
LITTLE VOICE – Overcoming Negative Self-Talk. 115 pages of AI-Free words written by a real person
PDF EBOOK: US$7.50 – AUS$11.00 – UK5.55 – 220Tbaht Soft Cover US$22.00 – AUS$33.00 – UK£16.30)
Set in the changing landscape of 1960s Scotland, Little Pond – The Stage, The Players, The Influencers is the first volume of Colin S. L. Mackie’s deeply personal memoir.
It captures a world both narrow and vast — a small mining-and-farming village just south of Edinburgh, where every face is familiar, and every secret has echoes. Through the eyes of a boy growing into a young man, Colin charts the influences that shaped him — from family and faith to rebellion and ambition, from laughter in cold classrooms to the quiet ache of early loss and discovery.
The Little Pond Anthologies span thirty years—fifteen of living, and fifteen of conditioning. They are drawn from a full memoir of over 180,000 words, which may be too large a bite for most readers. So I’ve split the work into three anthologies, each containing 12 to 15 standalone stories, roughly 60,000 words apiece. Together, they form a mosaic of memory, trauma, survival, and transformation.
In a small Scottish village, I learned the hard way about courage, loss, lies, business, police corruption, grass-roots politics, duplicity, jealousy, inferiority, determination and love. All learned the hard way, and my survival was just short of a miracle. Years later, those lessons still echo through every success and failure.
Little Pond reminds us all how these early years sculpt the person we will become, and that growing up never really ends.
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FACT – FICTION – FANTASY. 3 loosely connected stories.
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN: The question was asked as the topic for the following week’s discussion at the Chiang Mai Socrates Club event, my favorite weekly outing.
I began to ponder my response, but the more I thought about this question, the deeper and more layered my thoughts became. Like an onion, I would study a layer, discard it once I felt I had exhausted its implications, only to find another layer, and yet another layer that needed thought and investigation. I decided that giving an oral presentation would not give this topic the depth it required. This was my conclusion……
COSMIC ENLIGHTENMENT is a fictionalized account of my journey toward humanism.
My first twenty years were shaped by indoctrination — myths and legends presented as truth, absorbed before I had language to question them. The influencers were many, and the conditioning began with my first breaths: church and prayer, Bible study and Sunday school, repetition masquerading as certainty.
By my early teenage years, belief had begun to fracture. I struggled to accept stories of miracles and arks, resurrection and divine intervention — of feeding multitudes with a handful of fish, of gods and angels, devils and eternal punishment for breaking poorly explained rules. The more I was told not to question, the more questioning became unavoidable.
I turned instead to reading and studying. Knowledge broadened where belief narrowed. Hypocrisy revealed itself — cruelty and evil justified in the name of God, principles that contradicted both reason and compassion.
The following decade became an immersion in learning: archaeology, psychology, anthropology, genealogy, astrophysics, biology — anything that might help me understand where we came from and why we believe what we do. In this story, I grant myself a quiet reward for those years of searching, while acknowledging the futility of the struggle itself: one man, armed with curiosity, set against countless generations spent refining belief into a system of control.
THE LAST FOUR AND A HALF is not for the lighthearted. It is loosely connected to the previous two stories, and again, it is drawn from personal experience. The original ending was one paragraph shorter. The last few words were added for those who demand a ‘happy ending’. It is a story that can only be proven to be factual, fictional or just plain fantasy.
Available on AMAZON Kindle for US$9.95 – AUS$15.48 https://a.co/d/ehp4OfZ Paperback: https://a.co/d/3s4Dkqx AUD$22.51 – US$14.95
BUSINESS BOOKS (AI FREE)
With over 30 years of full involvement in the franchise sector consulting to a wide spectrum of business formats and selecting 100’s of Franchisees, Enterprise 21’s pool of knowledge and experience is considerable and this places them in the perfect position to assist potential Franchisors to build a robust and profitable system.
Colin S L Mackie is the founder of Enterprise 21 and comes from a background of successful small business development in his native Scotland. With a latent talent for business and marketing, he began as a young man to spot improperly run businesses, buy them, refurbish, rebrand, and market them and then sell as a viable concern at a healthy return. These businesses covered a plethora of industries and products and included: Restaurateur, antique wholesale and retail, Mink Farming, Gourmet Pet Food manufacture and wholesale, Fallen Stock Contracting, Fruit and Florist, Wool Party Plan, and a few others.
With ten years in Corporate Business, he honed his skills and made significant changes in the clothing industry. His latent skills saw him take his state from 3rd position to number #1 position in 30 months, and increasing the revenue by over 400% to over $40 mil, in today’s terms, which was more than 50% of the total revenue for the company.
His move into the franchise sector was an obvious progression as his expertise in business development and growth could be used to full measure. Enterprise 21 grew to be the largest franchise consultancy in Australia for many years. With a staff of seven, the consultancy had as many as 17 different franchise systems that they acted for as Franchisee Selection Agents, Site Acquisition, Franchisee Training (Attitude, Goal-setting, Motivation), and Franchise development).
This places Enterprise 21 in a very unique position where that has such a wide and varied experience in all form of business making them the obvious people to talk to regarding growing a business model.
ecopy: AUS$9.99 – US$6.70 – UK5.00 SOFT COPY AUS$19.95 – US$6.70 – UK5.00 ORDER HERE:
The Quantum Leap
Owning your first business
About
This is not a how-to book with step-by-step processes for establishing a new business venture, but an examination of most aspects of business ownership gleaned from many years of personal experience and as many years deeply involve a plethora of business start-ups and rescues.
It uses actual examples of various problems and difficulties that can, and do, happen in the world of small business ownership.
This may well be the best investment that you make in business.
What Others Have Said:
“This book is essential reading material for anyone who is considering owning or already owns a business. It is entertaining at times, and is always informative and relevant. It discusses the Good, the Bad and the Ugly sides of business ownership, something that is very refreshing and grounding to read. Colin really gets you thinking about yourself – what is motivating you to start a business; if you have the right attitudes and virtues to become successful; and if you have any illusions about how easy it is to own a business and become rich. He covers topics that many do not think of when starting a business, from the importance of timing to the mental and emotional costs of having a business. Overall, I recommend it to anyone who thinks they want to own a business.” K T. Gold Coast
“Thanks! Started reading, impressed so far!” A P. Bris:
CLICK ON ORDER LINK & GET YOUR COPY.
Soft Cover – AUS/NZ$39 – US$25.00 EU/UK20.00
Ebook – AUS/NZ$29 – US#17.99 – EU/UK15.00
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Was one of your goals to get into your own business in 2024 and take the leap from employee to Self-employed? We are talking about a real business here – a bricks-and-mortar operation with staff, stock, and real face-to-face customers.
Is 2026 the year that you are determined to make ‘IT’ happen? Your New Year’s Resolution is now set down as a goal, and it has all the details filled in and supporting affirmations set and in place?
Have you done your homework, or are you relying on enthusiasm alone to propel you to your desired goal? Having goals is noble and the first step forward, but a little homework is seriously recommended.
This is the book that you MUST read – a book that is not a ‘How to be Successful in Business’ book, but a book that is easy to read and is crammed with stories and examples of the things that can happen in business and some of the steps that are essential to increase your chances.
The failure rate for businesses in most countries is a whopping 82% over the first 5 years of operation, or, if you are a glass-half-full person, you have an 18% chance of success. Not very good odds, are they?
Not everyone is suited to business ownership, and it would be very wise to examine who you are before you break the bank, lose your home, and possibly your marriage, chasing a dream that was doomed before the starter flag had fallen.
This book has been touted as essential reading in every business education institute. Investing a few dollars now is certainly a lot wiser than putting your faith in hope.