I write to gain perspective and nurture an entrepreneurial mind. I hope these letters help you do the same.
I was recently on a business trip with one of my clients. We drove across Northern California to go visit some of our partners.
During the long drive, as rain drops slammed down on the highway, we talked about different things from the business, the future of our industry, the product we were working on, past failures, family, my books, income inequality, and even Elon Musk.
The convo hopped around like a rabbit wearing a new pair of Jordans.
After our meetings as we made our way back to Oakland, my client said something interesting as he proposed to keep working together: “Hey Nifemi, you have a unique set of expertise, and we can continue to go down this industrial automation rabbit hole with what we’re building. If you’re interested.”
He paused and continued. “Or if all you want to do is be just a writer….then”
We both laughed.
He knew it was a stretch.
“Just a writer.”
That made me think about how, regardless of how much you share, people still will find a way to put your different sides or interests into a box.
Boxing Problems
If you are in the US right now, your apartment, lobby, or trash is probably filled with brown boxes from Amazon.
All those multiple black Friday deals have been sealed, delivered, and unpacked.
It makes sense. These discrete products have to be placed in discrete boxes to go to discrete locations.
It makes it all efficient.
Unfortunately, we apply that same level of efficiency and productization when we meet other people.
We immediately want to put them in a box, so they can fit into the world as we know it. Most of us were trained in an education system that was built to feed a manufacturing line.
The world has changed since then, yet we still operate as widgets even though we are all made up of multiple interests.
When you have multiple interests it can be hard to navigate a world where things are placed neatly in brown Amazon boxes.
I would go as far as saying that a lot of unhappiness comes from people squeezing into boxes in which they can’t express their full selves.
That’s why I think entrepreneurship is a key to happiness.
Entrepreneurship has no boxes.
And it is the most important skill to learn.
You don’t have to start a business to be an entrepreneur. Although that’s where you learn the skill the best. You can approach your job and career with an entrepreneurship mindset.
Entrepreneurship is solving problems, creating value, and getting that value into the hands of the people that need it.
Entrepreneurship is creativity and storytelling.
And everyone is creative and is born with the inherent need to tell a story. You just have to nurture both.
Writing can get you there.
Not just a writer.
Writing is the fuel to entrepreneurship.
The Entrepreneur’s Writing Guide
It’s been just over a month since I launched and published my fourth book.
Big achievement.
Another book with my name on the cover.
Great.
But once the book is done, dusted, and published, the next phase kicks in. It’s time to answer the difficult question: “How do you keep people interested about the book so it continuously gets off the shelf?”
Writing a book is not the main challenge, selling a written book is.
In the era of somewhat democratized distribution (with the internet), the biggest challenge that writers and authors have is not finishing a book, it is getting a finished book into the hand of readers.
This is not a problem reserved for writers, it applies to most fields – engineering, design, public service. It’s not only a question of whether you can create value, it’s whether you can get that value into the hands of the people that you choose to serve.
That’s why I believe entrepreneurship is the most important skill to learn.
When you learn it, you take your destiny into your hands, you learn how to create and communicate value, and you take an active role in shaping your life, which brings more meaning to it.
Writing is a great way to nurture this skill. Here’s why:
1. Build critical thinking
Writing is thinking
Most times people think you need to have a perfect thought to write. In reality, it’s the other way around. You write to clarify your thinking. Writing is the way you order information and your thoughts.
Your words on paper (or screen) allows you to externalize and reflect on your thoughts.
You can understand how your thoughts have evolved, find gaps in your reasoning, go back and seek more information to fill them out.
Writing is not just a nice-to-have, it’s an activity to nurture critical thinking.
Write to foster your intelligence.
2. Nurture Creativity
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
An intelligent man named Einstein once said that. Creativity is built on a foundation of playfulness, creating novel ideas, and connecting unlinked things, to build something useful. This is best powered with an engine of clear thinking.
As writing clarifies your mind, it can also be used to connect different threads of ideas in unique ways.
This creates a playground to foster your creative problem-solving skills.
When you foster your creativity, you gain the confidence to try out new ideas and learn from them, knowing that your documentation and writing will support your learnings.
Writing supports a creative mind.
3. Learn distribution
Storytelling is the most ancient technology.
Even if you have the most creative solution, if no one knows about it, then what’s the point. Well, I guess you can keep it to yourself and enjoy the fact that you created it.
But you’re human.
You are a social creature.
We find more meaning in life when we contribute something to others.
So in order to get your creative thing of value into the hands of the people who need it, you will have to communicate and distribute
Guess what helps with this?
Ding. Ding. Ding.
You guessed it – writing.
All forms of “direct communication” media are built on the foundation of writing.
– Emails
– Blog posts
– Video scripts
– Case studies
– Testimonials
– Landing pages
– Reels & Shorts
– Proposals
– Crowdfunding campaign
I can keep going.
Whatever you want to communicate, starts with writing.
Whenever I want to communicate, I pull out my phone and write it down first before I turn it into any of the above.
When you create something of value (a product), you have to attract people to your creation (traffic), and you do this through strategic communication, which is built off the foundation of writing.
Create, communicate, and capture value…
Create something of value and get it into the hands of the people who need it.
That’s entrepreneurship and it’s the most important skill you can learn.
This makes you live with more value and purpose and you can apply it in any part of your life, in your community, at your organization, or in your business.
To foster the creativity and communication skills of entrepreneurship, write more.
Writing is not just another box of “something” to do on the side, it can be the fuel to the most important things you do in life.
Yours truly,
Nifemi
P.S. Speaking about writing…It’s Friday and my three books are here on Amazon. I’d really appreciate it if you got a copy of one of my books and supported my writing.
