A message from the author
When I started the outline in preparation for this book back in 2021, it took one full day (ten hours precisely) to complete. Since then, very little of the outline has changed. I knew exactly what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. I make no exaggeration when I say that twenty years of my life was sold to sliding in and out of interview chairs. One of those interview seasons, I would wake up around five or six a.m. to get to my office early for a thirty to forty-five-minute virtual interview in a vacant conference room, followed by a lunchtime interview either in-person or remotely, with a subsequent interview concluding the workday around five-thirty or six p.m., and ending my actual day with a nighttime call around eight or nine. Back at that time, on average, I had about four days of interviews per week following this routine, every single week for about seven consecutive months. I was discreet, and it was awful.
My closest friends knew of how I was killing myself to get ahead on the career ladder. My body knew it too, and to this day, I have no idea if those types of actions and decisions I made were worth the sacrifice. Perhaps a bit melodramatically, I thought that if I passed away, all of this knowledge I've gained that could only be learned in practice would be lost to the grave. What point was there in that!?
Memories of encountering young Black women and girls who also seemed to be silently suffering alone while doing some version of my hustle shuffle kept poking at the bitter side of my conscience. I had knowledge. I would have killed to have this knowledge when I started. If I don't share it, and die without achieving my own dreams, for what good would living and experiencing all of that hell have been?
- Excerpt from Swaggart: The Art of Professional Schmoozing at Job Interviews
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