By Staff
What inspired you to become an author?
We draw inspiration from many different things. I personally find stories of overcoming challenges the most potent force. So, it was fitting for me to be inspired by the great story of my own family’s journey. Back in 2009, my grandmother passed from Alzheimer’s, and we were boxing up some of her things. I noticed something. There was only a single book in the house—a Bible. She never got a chance to finish secondary school, but alongside the Bible were a great many photographs. Stories in pictures that were etched in the memory of progenitors. They are the great breadcrumbs left by people in the only way they knew how: either by oral tradition or photograph. It gave me an itch to want to preserve those stories.
In 2022, I found a researcher in New York, and we embarked on a multi-year research project to document my family history as far back as 1805, nearly the beginning of this experiment we call the United States. We uncovered rich stories like that of my ancestor Daniel Harris, who used the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 to register to vote in Decatur Precinct in Georgia, and Earthy Scretchen, who received commendation in the Waycross Journal-Herald in 1950 for her work with the YMCA. So many stories needed to be told and were disappearing. And it occurred to me that I needed to leave breadcrumbs for my children about how I contributed to the American story and what I believe.
From the seed of those who had very little hope, my life is a testament to the triumph of hope and hard work. I couldn’t be more inspired and burdened with the need to share my journey and learnings from it with others. Let’s call each writing a continuation of a tradition, updated only with words, so as to be breadcrumbs waiting to be found for the inspiration of my children’s children.
Get The Book
While traditional education is important, how do you find the arts being just as important?
In the early 2000s, the term STEM became popularized. It was birthed out of much bellyaching by politicians and interest groups about the advancements in science and technology witnessed by Asian scientists and a fear that Western, particularly American, children were falling behind. It was compounded by the high-tech industry seeking more coders who didn’t need visas to work in Silicon Valley. I was always skeptical of the seemingly myopic view of arts education. And, as fate would have it, that concern was well-founded. Today, though I work as a patent lawyer for a Silicon Valley company, I see the pendulum swinging back in favor of arts education.
We live in what Azeem Azhar calls “the exponential age,” where technology is moving so fast that it is hard to appreciate. All the investment in kids coding and mathematics is being made obsolete by artificial intelligence that can code itself and machines that can quantum compute. To be sure, we need science, technology, engineering, and math, but we also need poets, artists, and musicians who give life to the full expression of humanity.
Human endeavors are the only things that matter. What we are finding is that the absence of arts education, including history and writing, produces a generation of linear thinkers ignorant of context. The absence of stories and representations of them in song and picture positions society in the precarious path of repeating mistakes. And so, I’m happy to see we are trying to course-correct the over-indexing of STEM and including arts education as essential to developing and educating enlightened people to take our places.
What do you consider to be a good leader?
We overcomplicate lots of topics. My research and experience show that there is but one imperative to be a good leader, and that is to make decisions for the benefit of people and communities first and above all else. There are some non-negotiable byproducts of this imperative—four to be exact. Good leaders move quickly to preserve the best interests of their people. They connect work to meaning so as to inspire their teams. They engage in community investment to be net contributors to society as individuals and organizations. And, finally, they build organizations that are open. That is to say, they create environments where individuals thrive regardless of their defining characteristics like race or gender. I discuss these four moral imperatives in my book.
What advice would you give someone who has the desire to become an author?
Writing is a hard pursuit. Non-fiction is even more difficult because there will be so many critics about the depth of your work. People will criticize your prose, granularity or abstractions, motive for writing, and even expertise. But the truth is, none of that matters. Authors put pen to paper because they have something to say. Instead of emulating any particular person, it is important to show faithfulness to your authenticity. I am often criticized for being too idealistic, for hoping too much. Even my dear friend who wrote the foreword to my book characterizes the hopeful sentiments as occasionally naïve. But the truth is, that’s who I am. Indefatigably positive. Enduringly hopeful. I cannot be anyone else.
So, my advice to future authors is to walk in your truth. Gauge success by how faithful you are to telling your story and not to production targets of publishers or the expectations of colleagues. If you read my book, then you will see how on brand this advice is. The guy who coaches executives to focus on people rather than profit is also encouraging you to write your own story and ignore the book sales numbers. Still, I think you will find that there, between the pages of your authentic story, is value beyond measure.
Tell us about what you learned about yourself in writing your first book.
I learned that I have more stories in me. Accomplishing this bucket list item took years and long periods of active writing and even some periods of writing nothing at all. Part of it was just living through the story that was unfolding before me. I began writing during a time of great social calamity. I’m a senior officer at a major airline. I’m fighting every day professionally and personally. And there are nights in the years that follow where I couldn’t sleep until I put pen to paper. And so began the great learning. I learned that I cannot live with unborn stories inside. I labor until it is birthed. I am still finding my voice as a writer, and that will come with more time and more words on paper. I learned that helping others along their growth journey is a passion I hold. It was evident from all my mentees over the years but even more so today. I also learned that I have the most supportive family in the world, and without them, I could do virtually nothing. But, above all, I learned that God continues to bless the work of my hands. I am not worthy of the many blessings.
Andrew C.M. Cooper, Esq.
Social Media
https://www.linkedin.com/in/accooper
https://www.andrew-cooper.com
Pre-order anywhere books are sold.
