Are You Living or Existing? by Kimanzi Constable
Are you living or just existing?
If your answer is “existing,” author Kimanzi Constable is here to tell you can do more than just exist; you can live the life that you have always imagined. He is author of one of Amazon’s most top-selling books called, Are You Living Or Existing? 9 Steps To Change Your Life.
In his book, he guides readers through how they can begin to pursue the life that they have always imagined. He took some time to speak with us at RIZZARR about his life, why most people are existing, and how we all can begin to go after our dreams.
1. What prompted you to write this book?
I wanted to figure out how to live my dream. I wanted to figure out what were the steps that I would take. And that is how the nine steps happened. I found that people didn’t do the general stuff. People wanted the silver bullet and there is no silver bullet. You need these basic principles. So when I sat down that is when the nine steps came in.
2. Why do most people just exist?
Chasing your dreams is hard so to do the actual work to make your dream a reality is what scares people away. To often we are looking for the easier path. We are looking to hit the lottery with your dreams but there is no lottery. We just don’t generally take criticism well.
For 12 years, Constable says he settled and was completely miserable. Three years ago, he stopped settling and the results have been amazing! He is now a published author, successful self-published author (82,000 books sold), an international speaker and consultant. (Photo courtesy of Constable)
3. Why is it so important to start living now?
We only get one life to live and time is the one thing in life you never get back. Years in a job you hate or years not being comfortable with your weight or years in a toxic relationship. Time you will not get back and time you could spend with someone who you could be better for you. When you come back to the end of your life, you will definitely I look at the 12 years that I wasted in my job and I have introspection, but I think it was still a waste of 12 years that I could have been doing so much more.
4. Why was it hard for you to initially go after your dream?
I definitely didn’t believe in myself, I had a lot of limit on my beliefs. I didn’t think I was good looking enough. I had so much doubt and fear. I was also surrounded by a lot of negative people. Even my best friend at the time, he was said that could never happen. It doesn’t happen for people like us. I had to part ways with him.
5. How do you get over that hard part… that moment when you want to give up on your dream?
It’s going to take some time, some motivation- good books and good podcasts- and just finding that motivation again. And you don’t have to look very hard to find it in our world; you see those stories every day. It’s amazing- my book came out last year in May of last year, but even this week, my publisher decided to promote the book. The book was ranked 869- out of all books on Amazon. This is a book that I talked about and haven’t thought about much over the years. And it started getting lower and lower. Then it was ranked 71- out of all books and the got down to 64. My book had outdone Tony Robbins, the Hunger Games and Divergent. My little book that I published a year ago that was number 64 and it’s just moments like this. I am going to start promoting this book again.
6. Did you ever have a moment when you doubted yourself?
I thought am I going to have to take a job. The job situation was not that good so unless you have a degree, you are going to work a job that is not going to pay well. So I knew that it wouldn’t be practical to come here [to Maui] and do that. But the thing that helped was that we had the emergency fund. You better have something to pack up and then at that point, then in January things were getting comfortable. Then in February, I had to get going and hustle up some business. And that is what I did. That moment was a wake-up call.
Constable: “Never give up on the dream. Never let anybody talk you out of the dream and keep pushing forward no matter what. ” (Photo courtesy of Constable)
7. After writing your book, what would you say are top things that stop people from going after their dreams?
Doubt, fear, negative voices of others, and past experiences… A lot of people have tried chasing dreams before or tried making different changes in their life and didn’t work out as planned so that is always in the back of their mind. For example, I had met my publisher at a conference and we were talking and at the end of the conference, he told me he was a publisher. After I was a conference, we had talked about my book. He got back to me two weeks later and he say the book wouldn’t work and I thought I could take this and walk away or try again. And he read it and got to back to me in a week and said yes, we want to publish it. But dwelling on that past failure, I could I have said this wasn’t going to work for me and not try.
8. What are you hoping that readers take away from your book?
I want to make them more than anything see that it is possible for them. No matter who you are, no matter your circumstances, there is a way to make it happen. But if you believe that it can happen, it will happen. I want them to see that it is possible. In 2012, I had self-published two books and I had no traction to my website, but I had written guest posts from different larger websites and had done that for 50 different websites. Soon enough, I was getting half a million people to my website. From just the few products on the website, I started getting into consulting. Now, for me, how cool is it to wake up in Maui, to see the ocean from where I live and sit here and talk to people, write, and that is all I have to do that. And if I don’t want to do that, then I don’t have to. I have the choice and the freedom is priceless. There are people who worked in the traditional job- they work it out to how it works best for your life and so if you have a job it is definitely possible to get some freedom and I almost think in our day an age that if they don’t like the employee situation, then they can independent contractors or things like that.
9. What would you suggest people do before they start pursuing their dreams?
Spend some time figuring out what you really want for your life and not the quick cliché answer. Take some really deep thought- talk to your partner. Also, definitely pray and ask God. Whatever it takes from you figure out what you really want for your life and out that down and then after that – start to figure out what are the practical steps that you want to take. The practical step he took was doing catering and he is crushing it with catering. He is saving the money so that he can get to his goal. You have the dream and whatever the dream is map out the research so you can figure out what you need to get there. How much money are you going to need and who are the people you need to talk to really start putting that plan in place.
10. Any last pieces of advice?
Never give up on the dream. Never let anybody talk you out of the dream and always keep pushing forward- no matter what.
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