Remi Owadokun: Before you write a book, determine what success means to you
Remi Owadokun is a Certified Health Coach, Life Coach and Founder of the Total Makeover Program. The Total Makeover Program is a lifestyle brand dedicated to equipping individuals to live healthy, happy and better lives. She has written not just one, but four bestsellers. In this interview with SLA, she shares her experience as a best selling author. What made you decide to write a book? Well, I was indecisive. I was not sure anyone really wanted to read my story. In fact, I felt it was too ordinary and way too familiar but I had gotten a few requests from people who were interested in reading my book if I wrote it and so I started writing and stopped in chapter 3 or 4. I had never written a book and wasn’t sure what I was I doing. My mentor found out about my book and he served as an accountability partner until it was completed. I was not thinking of the bestseller status at all at the time, just writing the book and holding it in my hand was such a big deal that I did not realize that they were much bigger things to aspire to. So, once I published my hard copy, I put up a new goal. I wanted it to be a bestseller. [bctt tweet=”That your book is an Amazon bestseller does not necessarily mean that your book is a good book. It – @remiowadokun” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] As a 4 time best selling author, how did you feel when your books achieved bestseller status? The first time was a very huge deal for me as I held best-seller status for about a week. On Amazon, bestsellers are announced on an hourly basis. The highest number of downloads made per hour determines who is a bestseller. So for me to have this for almost a week was massive. I had set a high standard for myself, I couldn’t go below my first book. If the first book became a bestseller, all my books would be so and that determined how I approached the entire process. How has this benefited your brand and business? I would say for my brand, it gives a nice ring to it when I say I have 4 best selling books. It has also helped position myself as a Thought Leader on the topics I have written about. When I get invited to speak or participate in a panel, the audience is more willing to listen, and the organizers are more open to inviting me on their platforms. Can you share some tips on how intending authors can make their books attain Bestseller status? That your book is an Amazon bestseller does not necessarily mean that your book is a good book. It just means that people bought or downloaded the book on Amazon. It doesn’t even mean that people read it. So I would implore that you invest the time to put out very good work, do your research and put your heart in whatever you are doing. Build a community of people who love your work and be consistent in giving value. If you don’t want to end up with boxes of books in storage, it is important that people are hungry for your book even before you decide to put it out. So share, share and share until they can’t wait for you to write a book they can buy and read. [bctt tweet=”Find your authentic self and be true to it – @remiowadokun” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] What would you say are the general worries of potential authors and how can they scale these hurdles as they attempt to write their own books? Everyone is different and so everyone has different brands of fear, so it is hard to call it one thing. It might be the fear that no one will buy the book, that no one will read it, that people will question your work, that people from your past might see it, that it might be a failure, that it might be a success. It could be anything. My recommendations would be to pass the thoughts through the lenses of critical thinking. Determine why you want to write the book and what success in that area means to you. For some people, they just want to complete a writing project, not necessarily put it out. For some people, it is to get it into the hands of people without profit attached, for some they want to become famous or make money. So determine your why and let that guide your process, strategy. When it comes to writing, no one really puts their best works at first, so don’t wait for it to feel perfect, even if it feels so in a few years you will look back and wonder who wrote it. Who are your favorite authors? Paulo Coelho, he is a remarkable storyteller and I love storytelling. Chimamanda Adichie is also a great storyteller and I love her style of writing. Where do you see your work in the coming years? I see my work developing into other expressions of art like plays, films, cartoons etc. Final words for young African women in business and career Find your authentic self and be true to it. Interested in contributing for She Leads Africa? Click here.
Remi Owadokun: I started with N10 and now have customers in 7 countries
Remi Owadokun used a major life change to kickstart her online business as a weight loss coach and nutritionist. She also used that motivation to start an online video series that spreads health consciousness in a fun and interactive way. Remi shares with us her thoughts on what’s keeping young women healthy, how she started her business with only N10 in her wallet and how she’s planning to take her business global. Why did you start the Total Makeover Program? I started the Total Makeover Program when I made the decision to change my life and lost 40kg. During this process my life was transformed emotionally, financially, spiritually and mentally and I wanted other women to experience this power as well. The first thing that came to mind was simply to blog about my experience because many people who knew me wanted to know how I did it. How many people do I want to tell? So one weekend I sat down and started compiling my experiences. Once my blog was up I started sharing it via email to friends and family. When I went out and people asked me about my health transformation I always referred them to my blog. It was meant to start and end there but I started getting a lot of feedback from people who wanted me to keep writing. There were people who had started their weight loss journeys simply by reading my story and I started getting emails from people who wanted me to coach them. I initially said no because I was not comfortable with people coming to me or me going anywhere. But one day, a lady emailed me and said; “Please coach me, we never have to meet, just email me meal plans and exercise plans.” That was when it occurred to me that I could turn this into an online business. I imagined that if one person was interested, I could get more people interested too. Why do you think most young professional women struggle with living a healthy lifestyle? Many young women are misinformed about what good health means and how they can maintain a healthy lifestyle in today’s environment. Most people assume that someone who is healthy is slim. This is not always the case, there are several “fit looking” people who are unhealthy. They eat junk, don’t sleep well and are constantly stressed. Most people assume that by just eating right and exercising, you will automatically be healthy. There are many factors that contribute to being healthy and whole. You can eat all the greens in the world and exercise 2 hours a day, if you are a bitter, angry person, you are upsetting your biological make up. You can actually find rare cases where an individual eats all sorts of crap but because she is happy and fun loving may end up being in a healthier state than most. Being healthy and living a healthy lifestyle requires a more holistic approach that most ignore. The tendency is to focus on just one area of life and ignore the rest. What makes Total Makeover Program different from other health startups? Most health start ups focus solely on exercise and diet. At TMP we focus on two things: primary and secondary foods. Primary foods are things that feed us but don’t come on a plate like love, relationships, career, spirituality, education, etc. Secondary foods are the items we actually eat on our plates every day. We know that there is no point trying to control your diet if you don’t focus on the things that trigger you to eat. If we can fix the triggers then we worry less about your understanding of food. Most people are emotional eaters but most start ups never focus on the emotions. People eat when they are happy, sad, angry, stressed, etc. For some people a fight with the significant other that displaces them and sends them into over eating. For others it is boredom, being stuck in traffic, or a fight with their boss. I don’t see the point in telling people if they are ill equipped to deal with their emotions when stressful situations arise. I want to avoid the situation where someone I’m working with faces the same triggers and they revert back to their old habits and get so disappointed that they don’t want to try again. Life can be unpredictable and it is unhealthy and unwise to build our lives based on the happenings around us that are outside our control. At TMP we empower you to take full control of the only thing you truly have control over, YOU. For your business to get to the next level, would you prefer funding or a mentor? Which one would you choose and why? I started this business with N10 in my wallet and built it to where it is without needing to look for funding. I would pick mentoring any day as I have always had mentors and I understand the role they play in my life and how they have created opportunities for me. Proper mentoring provides value that will eventually translate to money. As a thought leader and as a mentor, I find that people who have worked with me are more impacted by the time spent together than anything else. Money will finish, then what next? What can we expect to see from Total Makeover Program over the next 6 months? I have coached a little over 80 men and women 1-on-1 in 7 countries in the last 20 months. There is a limit to the amount of people I can coach 1-on-1 , so I am currently creating an online course where people all over the world can download, partake and achieve results without having me there full time. I recently became an international best selling author for my book “How I lost 40kg” when I hit the number 2 spot only 8 hours after it’s release on Amazon. My next book is due in December and I hope to hit number 1. I am also starting the