Creator Spotlight: Colin Durrant
Stories of transformation, resilience, and the wild places that teach us how to live
This Week’s Featured Creator
This week, I’m delighted to introduce Colin Durrant, the writer behind Colin’s Chronicles.
Quick Introduction
Learning more about Colin’s Substack has been the highlight of my week.
Colin’s writing overflows with authenticity and heart, taking you on a journey through life’s deepest questions, unexpected adventures, and hard-won lessons.
His writing delves into the human condition and draws deeply from his own experiences to explore resilience, emotional depth, meaning, and how we can shift our perspective to create a life we truly love.
If you’re looking for soul-deep writing that captures your heart, opens your mind, and encourages you to keep going, no matter the obstacles, you’ve landed in the right place.
Pull up a comfortable chair and enjoy the ride.
You’re in for an exceptional read.
Conversation with Colin Durrant
What is the heart of your Substack, and what do you hope readers experience when they spend time there?
I’m a channel writer. That means I put myself into a high vibrational state, connect to something bigger than myself, and write down whatever comes through. What comes through are old, timeless stories and lessons, for humanity and for me. Lessons on how to live a better, more fulfilling life.
I’m lucky enough to have found my purpose, and right now that purpose is helping people suffer less. My stories are meant to shift perspective and mindset. I spent 43 years suffering, struggling, not really wanting to be alive. Then I started to heal, to learn, to grow. I don’t help people because I read it in a book or took a course. I help them because I’ve lived it.
Most of what I write comes back to nature and to Africa. We run wellbeing groups for rural communities in Zambia, about 80 women and a handful of men, across three groups a week. My Substack writing is really the foundation for what we teach them there, small moments from the bush, a lion protecting his pride, a bird that calls every morning from the balcony where I stayed, and their stories feed back into my writing in turn.
A lot of it comes down to the same lesson wearing different shapes, letting go of what you’re carrying so you can actually move forward. We go back every year and bring people with us to experience the community, the wildlife, a completely different reality. It changes how people see their own lives.
If people are open to a new way of being, there’s a limitless world of magic available to them. That’s what I hope readers walk away with.
What inspired you to begin writing or creating on Substack?
Honestly, a friend sent me a link to his Substack, and that’s where it started. I was also looking for somewhere to publish my channel writing beyond my own website, somewhere I could reach more people and actually help them.
I’ve always loved reading and writing. I’ve written a few books on business and a novel about cybersecurity. Now I’m writing a book about my own journey, how I lived for years as a victim of my own life, and how I turned that around into a life I actually love. Substack has given me a way to build an audience and connect with people who think the way I do.
Is there a topic, question, or idea that continually calls you back in your work? If so, what is it, and why does it matter to you?
Helping people suffer less. Everything I write comes back to that one way or another. Whether it’s a warrior finally putting down something he’s been carrying for years, or a lion licking his wounds the morning after protecting his own, it’s always the same question underneath, how do we stop carrying what’s weighing us down. It’s not just something I want to do, it feels like an obligation, something bigger than me.
If your writing or creative work could make one meaningful difference in someone’s life, what would you hope that difference would be?
I want people to suffer less, and to start seeing the world differently, as a magical place full of possibility rather than something happening to them. To understand that they’ve created the life they’re living up to this point, which means they have the power to create a life they actually love.
Hearing back from the women we teach in Zambia is one of the most fulfilling things I know. Watching them change their mindset, take more responsibility for themselves, take action instead of waiting to be rescued, help their own families instead of waiting on someone else to do it. Watching that ripple out into their community is an incredible thing to witness.
A Favorite Photograph
A photo of me with two of the students in Zambia. Just before we left to come back to the UK. It is such an odd feeling leaving. It is nice going back to our life in the UK but we miss this place and the people so much. I wish their was a portal we could stop to to travel between the two places in an instant.
What is something that brings you joy or peace in your everyday life outside of writing?
I get to the gym most mornings, it keeps me functioning as a human being, I need that fix. I walk a lot too, sometimes alone, sometimes with the dogs and my wife. We live close to nature and don’t take that for granted. There’s a small dam less than a mile from home, and we love watching the birds down there. One thing I never get tired of is watching a swan sit on her eggs, then watching the cygnets hatch and make their way through that first year of life. Not all of them make it, which is hard to watch, but most do. There’s a lot in this world to be grateful for.
These guys run a cafe at the Project and they look at us like family. Delicious coffees and lunches.
I love this photo with my wife and I and Janet Goh in the middle. She came with us to Zambia last year and we all had an amazing time. We were on safari in this photo and had stopped for some drinks to watch the sunset.
How can you not love this photo of a leopard in the wild in Zambia. I believe this is Lucy.
Here is my photo of my wife reading a story to some children at a library at Mufwe primary school. The children are so eager to learn and the 3 teachers are incredible. They are so enthusiastic and dedicated and you can tell they love their job and the children. They have about 500 children going through this library during the term. Each class spends about an hour per lesson learning to read in English.
I went for a walk every morning in Zambia and I had two or three dogs who used to join me. They’re not homeless, the dogs are just free to live and roam around. I loved the company.
Some of the ladies from our incredible wellbeing group. These women’s lives have changed in the last year and I am eternally grateful for having played a small part in that. It is very fulfilling work.
Featured Article
You Were Not Designed For The Life You Are Living
Go back far enough and none of this exists.
Connect With This Creator
Publication Name: Colins’s Chronicles
Email: Colin@okapitech.co.uk
Anything else you’d like readers to know?
This is about my adventures to Africa.
In 2027 I’m taking a small group to Zambia for two weeks. Not a safari. Not a version of Africa where you tick boxes off a list and go home with a few good photos.
This one won’t be for everyone. But if something in you has been asking to slow down, if you’re tired of your own life rushing past you, this might be exactly what you need.
I keep going back to the same community in the Luangwa Valley because every single time it resets something in me. These are people who have almost nothing by Western standards, and somehow they carry more resilience, more gratitude, more togetherness than most people I’ve ever met.
You’ll spend real time with them. You’ll support the conservation work happening on their doorstep. You’ll sit with children learning to read, and with students getting ready for university, and leave something behind that’s still there long after you’ve flown home.
There’s no rushing through any of it. No itinerary so packed you don’t have room to actually feel something. Just the bush, the people, and enough space to remember what matters.
I can’t promise you’ll come home the same person. I’ve never seen anyone manage it.
If that’s speaking to you, come with me.
What has been the most unexpected gift of writing on Substack?
Connecting with like minded people. It’s shown me there’s a community of people on a similar journey to mine out there. When I look back at what actually lands with people, it’s never the polished stuff, it’s the pieces that came from something real, a bird that wouldn’t stop singing outside where I was staying, a lion worn out and being groomed by his own cub the next morning. People respond to that. It’s also shown me I don’t belong on platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook. They’re just not my people.
What do you hope people remember after reading your work?
The lesson inside every story. And then acting on it, even in a small way, so their life gets a little better, a little happier, a little more joyful.
Has a particular life experience shaped the way you write or create?
Spending time in rural Zambia changed me completely. Sitting with women who have almost nothing by Western standards, and hearing their stories, their resilience, their humour, their dignity, it recalibrates everything. I think that’s part of why animals show up in my writing so much too, they don’t perform for anyone, they just are, and that’s the same thing I saw in the women we work with. I came back a different writer, and a person with more purpose, someone who wants to keep showing up for people and impacting their lives in a good way.
What advice would you offer someone who is just beginning their creative journey?
Be brave. Be open, honest, vulnerable. Don’t chase validation through likes and subscribers. Focus on connecting with the right people, growth comes naturally from that. And decide what you actually want out of your creative journey before you start.
Is there a book, quote, or piece of wisdom that has influenced your life?
I’ve read lots of books, sometimes more than once which have helped me. There have been lots of breakthroughs and much wisdom. One of these takes a bit of getting your head around but has probably been the most influential.
“Once I understood and took responsibility for the life of suffering and struggle that I had created for myself, I understood that I had the power to create a life that I do love.”
What are you currently learning, wondering about, or exploring?
Manifesting, and manipulating time, slowing it down. The power we already have within us to create whatever it is we truly want. I am always focused on manifesting a parking place at the gym every morning. Because when it happens time and again, you realise you literally have the power to manifest. Its all about being playful with what you can manifest and create for yourself.
Thanks and kind regards,
Colin
If This Resonates With You
One of the most meaningful ways to support a creator is simply to read their work and stay connected to it.
If something here speaks to you, I encourage you to take a moment to explore Colin’s Substack.
You can also support their work in small but powerful ways:
Subscribe to their publication so you don’t miss new writing
Leave a comment to let them know what resonated
Restack or share a piece you loved
Pass their work along to someone who might need it
These small actions are what help independent writers continue creating and what make spaces like Substack feel alive.
Interested in Being Featured?
Creator Spotlight exists to celebrate writers, artists, and creators whose work brings meaning, reflection, creativity, and connection to the Substack community.
If you’d like to be considered for a future feature, feel free to reach out. I’m always open to discovering new voices and sharing work that deserves to be seen.
You may also enjoy this earlier reflection on lifting voices and supporting one another within the Substack community:
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Thank you for being part of a space where creators support creators and thoughtful work is shared and celebrated. Your presence here means the world to me.
With much love and gratitude,
Lis 💖
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