Naima B. Robert – Na’ima B. Robert’s Advice to Muslim Authors Should EVERYONE write a book!
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Okay, guys. This is Naima b Robert here,
award winning author, editor, speaker, coach
to women like you who have
a story to tell, a message to share,
and want to put it into a book.
Now
I have a question.
Should everyone
write a book?
What do you think?
I've heard people say, and I do believe
that every one of us has a story
to tell.
But there's a difference between sharing your story
and writing a book.
There are lots of different ways in which
you can share your story. You could blog
about it. You could put it out on
social media. You could create a video series.
You could create a documentary. You could speak
on stages. You could go and do interviews
with magazines and podcasts.
Plenty of different ways to share your story
and to get your message out there. So
then why go through the toil
of actually writing a book? And who should
do that anyway? Should we all be writing
books right now?
I would like to offer you my humble
opinion and it is this.
If you have
a
story that has
greater significance
in our world,
either because
it's an untold
story
or there are many people out there who
are experiencing
this particular whatever the issues are in your
story, whatever your experiences were, who are looking
for guidance, who are looking for a light.
If you yourself have overcome something
that other people find near impossible,
you should write a book.
If
you have done
amazing work with your clients
because of
either your skills
or the system that you teach or the
framework that you use,
you should write a book.
Similarly,
if you run an organization
or a charity
and have achieved
amazing things in your arena,
That should be documented in a book.
A lot of people feel that it's enough
to create posts on social media, to keep
their social media accounts active, and and, you
know, create videos on YouTube, but I'm just
gonna go out on a limb here and
say
YouTube videos
are not the same as a book.
A book is a piece
of work
that will outlast
you
and outlast the internet and outlast an algorithm
and any of these things that seem to
rule our world right now.
If you have gone through the time and
effort
of actually
putting down
either your story or your message or your
work or your system or your framework or
your case studies, whatever it is,
that book is now available
for others to read,
to learn from, to be guided by, and
to study.
Because
I actually have a very,
strong feeling about this,
and that is that in the future,
just as there are now, there are people
who who study our world and study our
society.
And if you never
created something
that lasted
about either you, your family, your company, your
organization,
whatever it is, your community,
if you didn't create something that lasted the
test of time,
then when people look back on our time,
it will be almost as if we didn't
exist.
And I say this because so many of
us invest a lot of time and effort
into getting the perfect pictures on Instagram,
writing the perfect captions, you know, making our
contact on LinkedIn, you know, making sure that
we update our YouTube regularly.
But let me ask you this.
Do you think in the future,
researchers
will be combing through our Facebook feeds
or our Instagram timelines
to see who we were?
To understand
the work we did and the impact that
we had?
I'm gonna say no
I'm going to say
if you have something
and I'm talking to you all you experts,
you entrepreneurs who are killing the game right
now,
all you thought leaders, you influencers,
you community activists,
you survivors, you fighters out there,
you've got a story that is special. Not
just for you, not just for your immediate
circle, but for the world we live in
now and
the world of the future.
If you
can see your way
clear
to actually
developing your ideas
and fleshing out your experiences, your thoughts, your
research,
to write and publish a book on your
story, your message, your topic, your industry, whatever
it is.
You have put something forth as your legacy
that will be studied in the future.
I'm just saying this because I know when
I wrote my book from my sister's lips,
it was just me speaking my truth and
the truth of my sisters.
I wanted people to know what it's really
like to be a Muslim woman living in
a western society. What it's like to have
grown up in one way not as a
Muslim and to transition into living as I
do now. I wanted people to know that.
Little did I know that my book would
end up being required reading on university syllabuses.
That my book would be quoted
in academic journals.
That my book would be a catalyst for
change,
not just on a personal level with people
who read the book themselves,
but also
in the view of the time that I
lived in, the early nineties when the book
was written. And so I say to you
It was like the 2000, early 2000.
And so I say to you this.
I could never have guessed that the book
that I wrote
just to express my truth
would actually become a historical artifact,
would actually be
like a time capsule.
Because when I look back on it now,
I can see how much has changed, even
in the short time since the book came
out. And so my challenge to you is
this.
Do you have
a story that has a bigger, a broader
significance for our world? Do you have a
message
that really needs to be heard by more
people?
Is the work that you are doing groundbreaking?
Are you changing lives? Are you out here
being the change you want to see? Do
you have insights to offer the world? Do
you have a system? Do you have a
framework? Has your organization done some amazing work
that should be noted down, that should be
put
in a way that people can
tap into that,
people can learn about, people can be inspired
by. Because if the answer to any of
those questions is yes for you,
then it is go time.
The world needs your story. The world needs
your message. The world needs your book.
So if this resonates with you in any
way
and you're not sure what step to take
next,
just comment committed
below this video and let's talk. Because my
mission is to help women like you get
their message out into the world.
So let's see if we can make it
happen.