by Cynthia Thanda

In the new normal of Covid-19, people need something to hold on to in order to keep sane. How about a cup of coffee and a book?

Being a firm believer in reading The PanAfrikanist went out to interview one of the authors and acclaimed public speakers in Botswana, Makwana Mopoloki who was delighted to share his journey of writing and his other projects.

Makwana Mompoloki started his writing in junior school. He loved poems and short stories which cultivated the passion for writing. When he went to senior school, he lost his first motivational book which he had handwritten on a hardcover but that never stopped the overflowing passion and hunger for the literary world.

He became intentional with his writing as he decided to publish his first book, “The birth of Greatness” once he completed his studies. Besides writing books, he was also writing articles for a magazine called ‘Success Field’ based in Switzerland.

He would send them motivational articles which would be published in the magazine. During his university years he wrote monthly newsletters for the university.

He told The Pan Afrikanist that during the early years of his writing there were only a few people he knew that wrote books so he didn’t know the format or have a mentor to guide him in his writing.

The publishing fee was very high and even though he found a publishing company, he wasn’t impressed by how they handled his work. Therefore, he ended up setting up his own publishing business and published his own books.

He has written four books;   The Birth of Greatness; Embrace Your Greatness; What Amazing Employees Do and lastly Team Building Guide For Workplace Effectiveness.

“It has been quite an amazing journey. I started moving slowly from just writing motivational and inspirational books to writing more books on staff and employee development. Going forward I will be on professional development, improving workplace culture and improving staff motivation”, Makwana said.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Makwana has grown his audience by building his brand that speaks for itself with results and the way they do things at his business ‘Prime Coaching’. He has taken his brand beyond Botswana.

He is known in America, Kingdom of Eswatini, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania and Nigeria. Writing his books and being able to run his businesses: Prime Coaching, Prime Publishers, Employee Magazine and Dominate, which is a clothing brand, count among his list of successes.

His daily life consists of helping people with their personal and career development journeys. He works with people who sign up for his coaching sessions as well as groups or companies for which he trains the employees on staff development, customer service, value creation and service excellence.

Besides his writing and coaching business, he also writes scripts for television shows. He has one script which has successfully gone through and will be played on NOW TV called the ‘Authors Forum’. His next project is another TV show called ‘Celebrating Greatness’.

Makwana is convinced that the reading culture in Botswana is really improving. People are now reading and writing. The conversations that the president normally talks about on the knowledge-based economy are an element that causes people to understand that they can create wealth out of writing and information.

People just need to create a conducive environment for creatives and learn how to enterprise their writing, content creation and distribution then improve over time.

WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Upcoming authors need to take their ideas seriously and find authentic people who can help them to craft their work, whether it is poetry, leadership books, stories or inspirational books.

There is so much that is needed especially on African literature and we shouldn’t just look at Botswana as our market, look at the whole world as a market.

The world is connected through internet and if you are able to put yourself out there and create content, there are people who can consume beyond Botswana borders and once people adopt that kind of mindset and attitude, they are able to do more and expand.

Write. Show up. Put your content. Don’t just write a book and kept it under your bed at home.

Makwana’s upcoming projects include a launch for their professional development network which will see to people from all walks of life come and talk about cross-cutting issues that affect the workplace and how to work best during Covid-19 pandemic.

His other projects include being invited as a guest speaker to various places; the teachers’ re-invention summit, leadership development from the people of Tanzania.