Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Born in 1971, I fully fledged technology as a business professional who worked at sales and marketing roles at many global tech companies like Sony and Microsoft. I also established an ecommerce company and exited in 2014, and yet still giving consultancy and trainings in topics like growth hacking, social media marketing, e-commerce, building habit forming products and interaction design.
This is my first book which I was planning for a long time. It’s a short book aiming to take out the awareness factor in people about how social media is affecting people’s lives.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Name of the book is ‘Good Old Life: Deactivate Your Social Media Accounts To Get The Control Of Your Life, Get Rid of Anxiety And Reset Your Mind’. I see people looking at their phones more than they look each other. I see people going out with friends and instead of talking to each other they’re messaging friends, checking out social media or taking selfies of themselves or the things they eat. We’re forgetting to communicate. We’re forgetting to live the moment. That inspired me to write this book.
It’s better for people to compare the time they’re living in to the hour before and make it better but what they do is to compare themselves to other people. It’s a big competition going there. All is fake and all is photoshopped. Painted.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Not much.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Simon Sinek and Seth Godin, Nir Eyal are my top authors. Never missed a book they published. The books I liked most, other then many of the books these authors wrote, are Rework, The Obstacle is the way,.. many which I can say influenced me on the way.
What are you working on now?
A new book. On mental models.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m a new writer. I’m new on promoting as well. So I cannot give any advice on this.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Better if they can give me advice.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Be original.
What are you reading now?
Notes to myself: My struggle to become a person by Hugh Prather
What’s next for you as a writer?
I’ve lots of things to say to people but first to my daughter. Writing should be a habit which I didn’t bare to do till now. I want my daughter to have that habit and also I want to share my wisdom with her which is not taught on schools. People learn stuff at schools but as a person you learn life sciences (I call it) from scratch during your lifetime. We should be able to reflect our wisdom to next generations. Books and notes are for that I think.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Well possibly it would be 3-4 books about how to survive on a desert island but that’s not what you’re looking for I think. So my selection would be:
Rework by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
Start with Why by Simon Sinek
Steal like an artist by Austin Kleon
Author Websites and Profiles
Gerard Ottmar Amazon Profile