How I Went from Confused to Self Publishing a Book, Pt. 1

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I came into business school with the thought that I would start my own company or join a startup immediately after. I took a few shots at the founder life while in school, but ultimately when my loans let me know they weren’t going anywhere soon, I caved and got a stable job. Not just any job though. I had specific criteria for my post-MBA job:

• It had to be a small company because I was done with bureaucracy..
• I had to have a lot of responsibility.
• I only wanted to work 40 to 50 hours a week, so I could work on my side projects.

When I graduated I knew that I wanted to do something substantial within my first year. Shortly after I started working, I began brainstorming on what I could do after hours. I began working on a twitter project involving sentiment analysis and in the middle of that, I realized I wanted to make some supplemental income. I purposefully worked for a small company, which meant I was taking a pay cut. As I stated previously, my student loans didn’t care about any of that.

I researched options to make money on the side. I thought about Uber and working on graphic design projects, but I finally decided to pick up tutoring. Around this time, I listened to Tim Ferris’ podcast with Scott Adams and I was enamored with his approach at life. I picked up his book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big and immediately changed my focus from being goal oriented to system oriented.

One day while in the shower, I was listening to a Smart Passive Income Podcast about eBooks and whoever they had as a guest said something that hit me.

“If you are an expert at something, you can write a nonfiction book for people who are interested in whatever you excel in.”

That I began to ask myself, “What am I good at?” The answer was resounding: nothing. I did know some very smart people though. For the past 3 years, I received countless requests to spend some time speaking about my MBA experience. I could talk about my experience for days, but that wasn’t going to be appealing to everyone. Why not ask others? That’s when I decided to write a book.

 

To be continued…

 

If you would like to participate/be interviewed for the blog, contact me at nkem.nwankwo@lifeafterschool.co.