I’ve been listening to the audiobook of President Obama’s memoir, “A Promised Land.”
Obama himself reads it, but he’s a notoriously slow speaker and so the 700 plus page book translates to 30 plus hours on audio. It’s thirty hours of Obama speaking into my ear but I’m more than ok with that.
The book let’s you all the way into his live. He starts from his childhood, to his rise to fame with his 2004 DNC speech to his presidency. I’m up to the first few weeks of his presidency in 2009, and so I don’t know where this ends, but this is only part one. There’s a second book coming later.
One meta observation I’ve made is Obama wrote his way to the White House. Two best sellers about his life and his political philosophy, and his speechwriting was instrumental in making him president.
I’ve folded writing into my life more and more these past two years. I’ve been writing more this past month than I ever have before. Writing is a super power. And if less than 1% of people who should be writing are writing, it’s a rare one.
I don’t know if Obama is the first person to write his way to the White House, but it’s a healthy dose of inspiration as I look ahead to 2021.