A First Step Toward Bestsellerdom

The journey of a thousand li begins with a single step. (Chinese saying)

​It was a ten-minute interview on local community radio: KGNU to be precise. The actual interview took double that time, but Maeve C., the lovely interviewer from Dublin, Ireland, did a good job afterwards of whittling my remarks down to the allotted ten minutes. Plus, we shot the breeze for another half hour on finishing up. Such are the temptations of wisdom.

I wish I could say I got the interview. The truth is, I was slated to speak at a local meet-up group of Boulder-area psychologists and religious ministers a few days after the segment aired. This group, now 43 years old, had an arrangement with KGNU to flack their monthly speakers through a brief interview just prior to the event. So, the interview was gotten for me.

Maeve asked me the usual straightforward but difficult questions: How does wisdom differ from intelligence? Can a person become wiser? Can wisdom be taught? I did my best to answer them. Then, two days later, I was speaking to the 27 people who showed up at the Boulder Jewish Community Center for Interface’s June meeting. At 79 and a half, I had just put together my first PowerPoint presentation, including memes of my own making. A few months ago I didn’t even know what a meme was. Talk about lifelong learning! Blessedly, decades in the classroom helped me stand and deliver. All things considered, I thought I had done pretty well. My wife, Cedar, who had introduced me, thought it was terrific. A few others were also complimentary. After, I signed and sold nine books. Tomorrow, Sunday, I’ll sell one more to a friend at church to make an even 10 sold in week 1. The official publication date is July 26th.
           
When one considers that Michelle Obama sold something like 8 million hardcover copies of her memoir within ten days of its release, an American publishing record, my dozen less two seems just a bit underwhelming. But as a runner, I was always a marathoner, not a sprinter. Grain by grain a loaf; stone by stone a castle, the Yugoslav proverb counsels. Main point: I have begun: Ten minutes on the radio; 90 minutes of stand-up wisdom. Lidt aefter lidt, the Danes say: little by little. My new Camino has begun. Sharon Clark’s and my new book, Wisdom for Living—Learning to Follow Your Inner Guidance, has taken its first tottering steps towards bestsellerdom. Want to help? Go to my WFL book page and pre-order your copy today. The book will be shipped on August 1st!
           
Meantime, you can listen to my 10-minute KGNU interview by clicking on the button below.

For now, have a wonderful week, and remember to live wisely.
 
Reynold Ruslan

"Looking for Wisdom" Interview with KGNU News June 19, 2019