The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Let’s Take a Walk by Gina K. Trehus

Episode Date: October 3, 2026

Let’s Take a Walk by Gina K. Trehus https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GXQQV19D Ginaktrehus.com A piece of paper can be flattened out, but it will always have those crinkles in it. It will never be the same again. Amalia Rose grew up in North Dakota with those words from her father etched into her heart—a reminder that while we can heal from life’s hardships, the marks they leave remain. She never expected that a simple walk to clear her head in California would leave her with a scar that would last a lifetime. After witnessing a crime that upended her world, Amalia spent eleven years living in the shadows. To protect the people she loved, she accepted a life of silence, hidden away in protective custody where her past was a secret she carried alone. Now, she has finally returned to the familiar horizon of her hometown. She has built a life of peace with a husband who supports her and a daughter to raise. But as the ghosts of her past are released back into the world, the safety of her new home is threatened. Amalia must decide if she will keep running or if she is finally ready to stand her ground. In this poignant story of memory and resilience, you will find: The Complexity of Healing: A moving look at how we carry our past into our future. A Journey Across Landscapes: From the fast-paced uncertainty of the West Coast back to the steady, golden fields of the Midwest. The Strength of Home: An exploration of what it means to truly belong and the lengths we go to protect our sanctuary. Let’s Take a Walk is a quiet, powerful reflection on the paths we choose, the detours we endure, and the hope that waits at the end of the road. Follow the road home. Order your copy today.

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Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Oskarvoss here from thecoshosh Show.com. There you, Lisa. And one of the nice things that makes official. Welcome to big show. As always, the Chris Foss show is 17 years old.

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and maximize their book's success, turning powerful messages into global impact, one story at a time. It's an amazing lady on the show. We're talking about her insightful book called Let's Take a Walk by Gina K. Traus. We're going to get into it with her and some of the details. and what she's up to on this book and forthcoming works that she's doing. Gina is a hardworking and resilient author who has faced many challenges through her life, shaping her into the strong and compassionate person she is today.

An avid sports fan, she lives in North Dakota with her two dogs and cats, who are cherished members of her family. Family and friendship are especially important to Gina, and her summers spent helping her grandparents' farm, taught her valuable lessons about dedication, perseverance, and the importance of hard work. Welcome to the show, Gina. How are you? Good. How are you? I am excellent. It's wonderful to have you.

Give us your dot com's website, social media, emails, wherever you want people to get to know you better. My email is TKD3 Ninja Girl at Hotmail.com. My social media is Gina TREAS, and then I have a Facebook page called Let's Take a Walk that my publisher does for me. And then that's it. Yeah. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside this book?

The book is about bullying at first. Her father teaches her a valuable lesson about a crinkle paper, and that no matter how many times you try smoothing out, the crinkles will always stay there. That's the same with bullying. It doesn't matter how many times you're being bullied. It's carried on for the rest of your life. Yeah. And bullies are not fun, right? And yeah, I see people use that on TikTok. They'll use the thing where they'll crush a plastic water bottle. And they're like, no, make it whole again. And people can't make it whole. So I love the analogy of the paper.

Thank you. What was the motivator that made you want to write this book? actually it was a dream that I had. I had a dream about four or five nights in a row, and I just started riding away, and I actually kind of tucked it away for nine years, and my friends asked me what happened to that book that I was writing, and I said, I just put it away.

It went night night, and they're like, you should really keep writing that book and finish it. So I finished it, and they read it, and they read it, they liked it, and I submitted to the publishers not thinking it was going to be anything, and it actually turned out to be something big. Wow, isn't that amazing? Sometimes we're like, yeah, no one cares about what I think about something, but there are lots of people in the world that basically will, that you can help.

We all share our stories and our lessons of life and cathartic stuff and things that we go through. So is the book more like a novel, or would you call it a memoir, or how does it fit? fictional. Some of it's real and some of it's not. It's more based off of dreams that I had and that it's also got some crime in it and murder and murder. Now, did you ever experience bullying yourself personally? Was ever some of this made personal to you? Or just dream? I did. Yeah. Okay. In high school or school or tell us a little bit about that. So I had my bullies. I'm not the skinniest person around, and that they, I got teased about my weight throughout

elementary school and high school, and that it just, it was unnecessary. It was ridiculous for them to do it. We're all not going to be the same shape, same size. Yeah. We all come in special sizes. Yeah. And it's not the size of the person. And sometimes it's the character and the personality of the person, right?

Right. Right. I always say never judge a person by its cover. It's what's inside that counts. Sadly, in schools, man, they are just vicious. I had a group of bullies that used to beat me up for fun. They didn't beat me up. I'd just give them their lunch money and they would beat me up. But finally, I just exploded on one of them and punch the crap out of them. And my mom just, why don't you just punch them in the face? And I was like, okay. And boy, they left me alone after that. But, you know, not everybody has that ability. and certainly could have gone the other way, right? But, yeah, the bullies are mean. Do you hope there's some lessons in your story that can help people, or is it more for entertainment or both?

There is a valuable lesson in it that's carried throughout the whole entire book, and you'll have to read it to know what the lesson is. And as Amelia carries it with her through the entire book, book. She takes that lesson and applies it to other people. She's kind. She's generous. She doesn't base people off of what they look like is what inside that counts. Is the character the protagonist? Why did people tease her? Tell us about her and what is it that people bother her about? They bother her about the walk that she took that led her down a path. that she shouldn't have gone down.

Oh. So that comes from the title of the book, maybe? Let's take a walk, maybe? Yes. Ah, okay. We all make mistakes. We make bad choices in life, and then we have to course correct.

But certainly, unless we're not aware of it, sometimes when people point out, it can be a little mean, huh? Exactly. Now, is this also based in North Carolina, where you live? The storyline is from California. Okay.

Amelia moves to California to find work. Okay. And then she loses her job and takes a walk and witness is something that she shouldn't have witnessed. And then they put her in protective custody and move her back to North Dakota where she spends the rest of her life. And then she finds the love of her life. Oh. But her past comes and haunts her. Oh.

A past always has a way of coming back, doesn't it? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So she's got to deal with that. She's got to deal with a loved one that she finds her true love, right? Sounds like she has a daughter too as well. Is that right? Yep, she has a daughter.

Yeah, so she's living a nice family life there in North Dakota and maybe the bad guys come around or I don't want to give away your book. So I'll just allude to that. And if that gives away too much. No, it's okay. Now, this is a pretty good book. You've written it out. How long did it take you to write it? Nine years.

Nine years. And then I believe you're working. working on a follow-up to this book. Yes, I'm writing a second book to this one now, but I want to see how good the first book does before the second one comes out. But it's based on the daughter and that, again, Amelia's past comes back and haunts her.

Yeah, you've got to watch out for the past. Now, I think you said you might also be working on a children's book in when we were talking early in the green room? Yes, I am working on a children's book. It's based around the crinkled paper story. How did you come across that story about the crinkled paper and learn that lesson? What did someone teach it to you? My father taught us. He always taught us that it's not nice to bully, that it's not nice to be mean to others. He taught us growing up with a kind heart that it's always, you always need to be generous to people and nice to people, no matter how rude or.

how rotten they are to you. Oh, yeah, sometimes it's better just to, what, turn the other cheek maybe. Exactly. Turn the other cheek and maybe just be stoic and ignore it. Some people just aren't worth your time. They're actually not worth the blood pressure that they put you through. That's my policy. I'm like, this isn't worth blowing out my heart and my blood pressure and probably damaging my health.

They're just not worthy of it. This is better just to leave them behind. be done with them, baby. That's how I look at it too. It's just they're not worth your time. Don't give them the attention. They're upset with something that happened in their life, and they're trying to take it out on you.

You need more people in this world to teach people not to be mean to other people, huh? Exactly. We need more dads to do that. And you talk in this book, basically about the complexity of healing and how we move past into our future. Tell us a little bit about how maybe you play that out in the book or maybe just talk about the subject if that gives too much away. The healing part is that moving back to North Dakota

and putting the past behind you and learning to accept what is in front of you and to forgive and forget, basically. Forgive and forget. It sounds like she tried to forget, but maybe it doesn't forget. get her in the book. Yeah, it doesn't. The, and then quite the journey, you, you, did you grow up in North Dakota? I did. I grew up in Mandan and Bismarck area. And then during the summers, we go

to my grandma's farm and we'd spend a week out there helping farming. Oh, people write what they know. That's some advice to aspiring authors. Write what you know. You know your surroundings, a lot of people set their books in, in areas that they know. Here, you've been to California, I grew up in California. I've never been to North Dakota, but I would imagine it's quite different. It is different. It's slower pace, not as busy. It's not as much traffic.

Yeah, not as much traffic. California's traffic is the worst. It's really awful. I couldn't believe how much traffic there is. Isn't it? It's crazy. But we do have nice beaches. And great sunsets, too.

and fires and floods and. Yeah, the fires are bad. Yeah, in traffic and traffic and more traffic. Yeah, I moved back to California years ago for three years because I'd grown up there and my parents had moved us out when we were young and I wanted to go home. And I was like, I work from home so I don't have to do much traffic and go to work anywhere. So I'll go to there and then I'll spend every weekend at the beach. and boy after three years of that I was done I moved back to Vegas because

because it was like and when I moved back to Vegas for two months every time I want to leave the house my brain would go wait what time is it what's going on in 405 I'd be like wait I don't live in California anymore I live in Vegas I can go just about anywhere anytime for the most part and it was a real adjustment my whole I didn't I didn't realize my whole life was being run by traffic and time this is a half an hour down to Hollywood but it's a two-hour drive the way the crow flies.

Always interesting. Did you go to California for a length of time or just visit it? I visited a friend out there for a few days and then I came back home. Yeah, that traffic will drive you home, that's for sure. The hardest part is to get in and out of there sometimes, especially if you're driving.

But yeah, it must have been quite the, maybe culture shock when you came. You're like, what is all these people and all this stuff doing? It's a very small footprint. of population in one place. Yeah, it's too busy for my liking, sorry. You're happy to get home. I can totally understand.

Probably have a one or two car backed up traffic on the North Dakota roads. Are you guys close to Canada? About, I'm about three hours from the two hours, two and a half hours from the border. Do people up there, they go back and forth across the border lot and visit Canada, or it's just not like a thing?

I don't know. I haven't been to Canada in a very long time. I went there back in high school days. Oh, yeah. So we went there for a band concert. Oh, really? I'd like to go there for, I'd like to go there for, I want to try that Tim Horton's stuff. evidently their donuts and their coffee is really good.

And then, of course, see some rush sites for the band rush. And so you live on the farm now and probably most of your life, is that correct? I don't live on the farm now. No, I moved. I used to live out in the country and then I moved to town three years ago. Oh, you're in the big city in North Dakota then. Yeah. Ah, yeah.

Is that a bit of a bit of a head spinner or is it pretty pretty? It's a culture shock, you could say. Oh, okay. On to California. Yeah. It's more like I'm used to no noise and no traffic, but out here, there's some traffic, but not a lot. Yeah. On the farm, you can probably see the stars and the beauty of the thing, but anytime you get near a city, that lights kind of ruin that.

That's what I miss. I miss that. the sky, the stars, the sunsets. I miss that. I miss the drive out there. Yeah, yeah. When did you start writing or know you had a knack for it? And how did you develop your characters?

What was the methodology maybe that you used? The methodology, okay. So I've always wrote poems. And in high school, we would have to write story. and so I was always good at that. But it was nine years ago when I had those dreams, I just started writing and writing and writing. And it was, I didn't think anything of it.

And I was always told, you have to realize, I was always told that I would amount to nothing when I grew up and that I would become. The bullies? You could say that. All right. Hopefully it wasn't your parents. No.

Okay, that's good. Yeah, there's also some family members, but I'm not going to name name. Oh, okay. All right. We won't call them out on the show then. But yeah, there's a lot of mean things people say to each other. And a lot of times they're just jealous. When you were growing up, was there certain authors or books or genres you like to read that kind of help plant that seed a little bit, maybe? It was a poem book, walk, end of the walk or something like that. I can't remember.

I haven't read it in years. Okay. But I always liked the poems in that book. Yeah. Why do you think poems appealed to you and other people? We just had a poet on, I think, last week or earlier this week. It relate to how I felt, how the emotions in it would get to me and that I could relate to them 100%. Yeah.

The poems are a great way to tell stories in a very succinct format because some sometimes, It depends upon, I guess, how you use the prose of poems. You have a, there's a beat to them or a staccato or, I don't know what you call it, a meter, if you will. And then some poems rhyme, some don't. But they tell like a very short story. And the economy, I've always been amazed that in short stories. Those two economies that you have to utilize to write good poems and good short stories. If you write war at peace, you got a lot of time to develop characters.

You got a lot of time to lay out the plot, right? But in a poem or a short story, you have a very limited economy of either words or how much you can tell a story. Are there any poems that are as long as war in peace? Maybe someone's written one, I don't know. But you don't usually they're short in their format, and they're quick that way. And, but it can be challenging in those short formats to lay out a whole story, but there are people that do it. And it's pretty amazing. Yeah, it's, I give props to them.

It's, it's a lot of work and it's a lot of editing. And when this book, it was a lot of editing. I didn't realize how much editing needed to be done to it. Yeah, no one does, by the way. Editing is fun for no one. I've never had an author on the show. It's like, I loved editing. It was great.

Yeah. But it's definitely necessary. I agree. Editing, without editing, the book would be a disaster. Oh, yeah. And having someone preserve your voice, but also makes sense of stuff like, you put this in there and it doesn't make any sense. They clean it up and you can see a lot of times.

Sometimes it's a little heartbreaking because you're like, I put a lot of blood sweat and tears into writing that and late nine hours, staring at this stupid computer screen going blind and you just want me to throw it away. But the great thing is a lot of that stuff can be reuse for future books or I think in movies they call it the cutting room floor. So sometimes you can utilize those things for other things as well. I didn't know about that, but that's interesting. Yeah, you can use it for your future, your next book. Now, the next book you're writing, we talked a little bit about that. I think you mentioned a children's book. Do we talk,

Did I ask you about that yet? My ADHD is firing off here. I got really bad ADHD. It's something else. Squirrel. Now, what sort of tips would you give aspiring writers? Clearly, you wrote this and then you socked it away and didn't feel like maybe you wanted to finish it or maybe it was worthy of other people's looks.

I don't know. I'll let you fill in those blanks. But what advice would you give to other writers? Write down your dreams, maybe. I've had a lot of weird dreams that would have been great horror movies if I'd have them down. I have to. Yeah, yeah. What's that?

We got to quit eating pickles right before bed or something. I don't know. Or whatever food is causing Taco Bell. But I've had some nightmares that they would have made great films. They would have made that carpenter guy look like a hack who makes all the horror movies. What advice do you have for aspiring writers? Okay, so I did table this for nine years. and I just don't give up on your dreams.

Don't let anybody judge you and don't let anyone tell you that you're not nothing because you are everything that you make it that you want to make it. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Don't give up on your dreams. Do you think looking back, if you kind of had that mindset, maybe you would have gone forward with your dream of writing and published the book earlier or maybe it needed more time to cook in your head.

Oh, absolutely. I would have finished it earlier and would have completed it earlier and submitted it to the publishing. And I would have just told those people who told me just to stuff it. And, you know, it's basically. And I would have done what I would have done and what I wanted to do. Yeah. So go for it, right?

Exactly. Go for it 100%. 100%. Yeah, go for it. The great thing is we all have stories. And one thing I learned later in life that I wish I learned in earlier was everything is about stories, movies, TV, music, the lyrics and a music song. It's a story. That's what we do. Our whole life is consuming stories, telling stories. We're a compilation of all of our stories, good, bad and ugly. I thought one time about, geez, it's kind of interesting that what would I be without the bad stories? in my life, the trauma, the things that happened to me that weren't fun at the time. And what if I hadn't had those? I would be shaped into a different person. And who would that person be? And would be better than I am now? And would I be, am I better now because I survived those, those phoenix from the ashes that tried to burn me and cook me and somehow I found a way to survive and live and keep moving. There's other people in the world that need to hear these lessons.

I've said this a million times in the show, as the audience knows, but I remember when I was going through editing on my book, Beacon's leadership, I was really frustrated with editing. And I'd really fried myself out. I'd really crammed and hammered this book out in, I think, three months. It was easy to write because it was the stories of my life and cool stories I'd collected and always told people about that were funny or interesting. and so it was easy to blast them out on paper since it was all real stories.

I'm not that good at fiction and doing that wonderful thing that you guys do where you create characters and plots and some plots and stuff. I wish I had that. Maybe I do some day. But yeah, the thing there is, I remember talking some authors and I was frustrated. I'm like, you know, I'm going to throw this thing out the window. I feel like Jack Nicholson, The Shining, just typing, all work and no play makes Jack a no boy. I'm like, I think I'm losing it. like seriously.

And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you're at the point of losing and throwing it out the window, you're almost there. You just got to push through a little bit more and you will be there. And that's what I did. And the other thing you told me is there's somebody out there who needs to hear your story. And there's only one person who's going to resonate with them, who's going to help them in where they're at right now. and that's you and your voice and the words you put into your book. So I can promise you there's somebody out there.

You may never meet them because they read your book and maybe they just don't contact you or whatever, but you will help them and they needed your voice. And that's why it's so important we share our stories and why we tell our stories and why we entertain each other. Because even though anything that may be entertainment, you're going to learn lessons or think about things or think about the value of having life. I don't know if you want to expand any of the thoughts I put out there. I agree 100% with you that I was kind of losing my mind

and there was rewrites and rewrites and I even ravell it off to my friend. And she was, I was stuck on some sentences. So she helped me with some sentences and like it was driving me nuts. I was ready to table it again for another nine years, but I just kind of pushed through it and made it who it is today. And you just got to have positive in yourself and believe in yourself and keep on trucking. Or like Dori says on finding Nemo, just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, right?

Yeah. Yeah. What is that? Is that from kind of like a parable of if you, sometimes you put a frog in some water, or rat, I think it was a mouse or something in some water, and they would eventually give up and drowned, but then one smart, I'm just making this up as I go along from what I, from what I remember of it, so don't write me, folks, if I don't get the story exactly right. But basically, they would, the one guy, I think it was butter.

They were putting him in butter, the mice in butter. Is that the story? Do you remember it better than I do? Maybe you can tell them. Right. But basically, they dropped the mouse and butter and the one just gave it. up and let himself drown. And the other one kept swimming. His friction from swimming eventually turned the butter and made it solid. And he survived. Thereby all we go, right?

I don't remember that story at all. Clearly, I don't remember most of it, but I believe that was the butter and the, he was probably either a frog or a butter and the mouse. Usually I check these things out before I blather on about them. Yeah, it is. Two little mice fill into a bucket of cream less. Yeah, that's the story. The first mouse gave up and drowned. He's like, oh, we're going to die. The second mouse struggled so hard, he turned the butter, the cream into butter, and he walked out.

Persistence and refusing to quit lead to survival and success. That's a good one. That's a good story. Yeah. Sometimes we, it's a great book by Ryan Holiday. I highly recommend. It's about the stoics of stuff. The title of it is, the obstacle is the way through.

And sometimes we see an obstacle and we're like, oh, man, I don't want to deal. with that, how can I just go around it? How can I go around it? And you're like, about the only way through it is to achieve it is to go right through it. And it's kind of like the old adage I like to use. If you've got a big project or task or issue you have to deal with, treat it like an elephant. Chew it one bite at a time. And yeah, pretty wild stuff there. So anything more that we should ask you about the book and all that good stuff, maybe you want to tease out to people. So Amelia meets the love of her life, he has a secret background that I'm not going to say. Uh-oh.

And that later on she learns who he is, but it doesn't change how she feels about him because they do have a child against with each other. But he knows everything about her. And they met. at a bar. Hmm. And that's all I'm going to say. All right. I think we've got a good tease out there.

That sounds like a little bit of cliffhangers we've set up there. It's been wonderful to have you on. Anything more you want to promote? Is there anything on your website you want to plug? Any events or anything you're doing there? I'm actually doing ladies night here in Bismarck, North Dakota, at the Bismarck Runnings. Oh. I'm going to be promoting my book.

and I'll be doing a signing event there. So if you want to come to Bismarck and come to Runnings and I'll sign your book for you. Oh, wonderful. Book signings. Continued success in the work you're doing. It was wonderful to have you. And thanks for coming by, Gina. We really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me, Chris. I appreciate it. And I bet none of those bullies that bullied you when you're young have a book. So screw them. Exactly. You're an author now. It's kind of fun to be an author. For some reason, people think you're smarter when you have a book.

Yeah, they kind of couldn't believe it at first, but now they think it's great. Yeah. It's really funny. Like, when I put my book out, all my friends in life went, wow, holy crap, he had some cool stuff happen. You're really smart. And I was like, you've been with me for 50 years, or whatever. What, do you think I'm an idiot this whole time? but now have a book, you think I'm smart? What the hell? And it's so hard to do to get a book published

to do the work, to do the editing, on all the marketing you have to do and all that stuff. It's a lot of work, and most people do give up. I started my book writing with a accountability group, wonderful people. In fact, I think one or two of them did end up putting a book out years later, but initially, most of them faded out after a few months and never got their books done. And I did, And I'm very thankful through the support they gave me and advice and being an accountability group. But yeah, it's a hard thing to accomplish writing a book. But, you know, I'm maybe like the lesson we learned. Just keep swimming, you know, churn the butter and that book will get published.

Exactly. Well, thank you very much, Jan, for coming on the show. Give us your dot-coms as people as we roll out the show. It is, I believe. Let me double check that. I'm sorry. No problem at all. We'll have a link for it in the show, too, that people can take and utilize. It's Gina Ketrius.com.

Thank you very much, Jean, for coming to the show. Thanks for us for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, for just Chris Foss, Chris Foss, 1 on the TikTok, and all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. You've been listening to the most.

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