REAL LIFE BIZ EXPERIMENT: Self Publishing A Book (written in October 2016… never published)

Spark-Y Presentation at Gandhi Mahal

Spark-Y Presentation at Gandhi Mahal

I’ve been putting off this blog for two weeks now. I announced about a month ago that I was going to write a book about Weathervane Creamery and the journey of the rise and fall of that start-up. And somewhere along the line I heard myself say that I would have the book complete by the end of the year.

So what that brings me to is, what kind of book do I want to write? What is it that I want to convey about myself as an entrepreneur?  Myself as a human?  What is it that I hope to accomplish? What is it I want to contribute to people in the way of a book?  I actually woke up at 2am the other night and debated how personal to dive.  I don’t have an answer on that just yet.

A few things I do know. One is, I want to share the entrepreneurial journey of a human being. From the point of view from a vulnerable person, a spiritual person, a real person. I want to share with you the my process as an entrepreneur. The process of a start-up. The process of turning a blog into a book.

Another thing I know is that I don’t want to write a self serving, poorly written rag. I have read both by people I know. Please tell me if you sense things going in that direction!

So let’s start with what brought me to want to write a book.

It started a couple of months ago when I was on LinkedIn and I was looking for a Zachary Robbins. The LinkedIn search brought up Zachary Robinson. I looked up Zachary Robinson’s profile to see that he was the executive director of a nonprofit organization that works with teen entrepreneurs. Not only does he work with teen entrepreneurs, but the platform for the organization that Zach works with, Spark -Y, is horticulture.

What you may not know about me is that I have a degree in horticulture. The other thing you may not know about me is that I have a huge passion to make a difference for children and teens.  I work with youth with an organization called Landmark Worldwide. I’ve been training for several years now giving presentations and supporting the management of family courses in a program that is similar to an internship. [Legal disclaimer:  The views expressed here or any social media connected to me do not reflect the views of Landmark Worldwide]  I’ve also tutored children and been a Big Sister in the Big Brother Big Sister Program.

So when I saw what was Zach was involved in, I had to reach out. Long story short, it was a random collision between Zach and I that resulted in me giving a presentation to his summer interns on what it is to be an entrepreneur. As I was preparing for that presentation, I realized what a great story my journey was with Weathervane Creamery for the teen audience. And in preparing for that presentation, I realized that I had really come a long way from when I had shelved WeatherVane Creamery a few years ago. A little more than two years ago, as a matter of fact. It feels like forever ago.

I digress.

Another factor that has me want to write a book was an entrepreneur Lunch N Learn Meetup group that I attended where Dan Shrader was speaking.   Dan is a corporate advisor, author, and business investor.  In his presentation, he highly recommended authoring a book and gave several ideas on how to go about writing a book in a very short amount of time.  He recommended getting it fully written and published in six weeks. So considering that, I have lots of extra time to write this book.

In order to catch you up to speed, I’ll have to tell you what I’ve done thus far. I think I’ll share that with you on the next posting.

So stay tuned. And thank you in advance for being on this ride with me.

This entry was posted in Business, Personal and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *