IF you need inspiration to plan a successful future then Rumbidzayi Munyaradzi’s latest book, Your Guide to Adulting, is the perfect tool to help you on the path to success.
An accomplished business leader and mentor, Munyaradzi says the book is aimed at those between 16 to 25, but the principles can be applied to any stage of your life .
“Adulting is an invitation to create your future beyond your academic studies,” she writes in the book's introduction.
Munyaradzi says it goes beyond high school and tertiary education - it's knowing how you want your life to evolve and what you need to do to get there.
In essence, instead of stumbling around hoping to find your way, by being intentional and crafting a vision you can be successful in all spheres of your life.
“When I look at how complicated the world is, and how overexposed to information young people are, in as much as having a vision was a small part of my growing up experience I do think it has to be a bigger part of today's youth experience because they're exposed to a lot of overwhelming choices that you can fall prey to; either indecision or you can fall prey to a popular narrative that drowns out your own voice, simply because you want to belong.”
Munyaradzi says another motivation for the book was looking at her own life and those in her circle and realising that there were things that could have happened sooner, or later, if they had a clear plan for the future early in the journey.
“You might have made similar choices, but at least you'd have known why, you'd have had a lot more self-confidence as you moved through life, and so my whole thing is, the principles of adulting will help you, whether you read that book in your 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s, but my thought process was, let's catch them young, so that they can get to a place of either more confidence as they grow up, or if they make mistakes, let them be informed differently, so they're not going to be fumbling around in the dark.”
The 368 page paperback is the perfect guide to help you navigate the transition from child to adult with confidence and clarity.
Written with wit and wisdom, the book is filled with personal anecdotes about her life and also tackles the typical challenges that young people have to face and how to respond to them.
Each chapter has a list of “dos” and “don’ts”, various toolkits to help you navigate through life as well as a page for notes.
The issues discussed include creating a vision for your life and how to deal with imposter syndrome, sustaining your vision amidst uncertainty as well as a toolkit for morning and evening routines.
Munyaradzi explores exam preparation, time management, how to cure procrastination and personal branding.
There is a section on investing in yourself and another where she deals with relationships; including difficult parental situations and how to handle difficult situations.
Her personal vision is to mentor students to excel as leaders, critical thinkers and empowered citizens.
“It's actually my second book. My first book was called The Gen Z Pocketbook for Teenage Girls. And because of that first book, and wanting to be known by young people as someone who's available to mentor them, I created a social media page on Instagram, on Facebook, and also have a WhatsApp group.
So these touch points would help me talk to young people, and I talked to them about what they're going through. And I would talk to them, they'd ask me questions. So some of the chapters in the book are a function of young people asking me questions, and realizing that I wasn't satisfied with giving the answer in just a post, or just a few lines on WhatsApp.”
Munyaradzi is from Zimbabwe but is based in Johannesburg. She is the Chief Operating Officer for Mobile Wallets at Sasai Fintech. Prior to that, she was an Executive Director: Sub-Saharan Africa Debt Capitals Markets at J.P. Morgan where she participated in raising over $35 billion worth of capital for blue chip corporates and governments across Africa.
She says for now she will take a break from writing but is keen to collaborate with partners, especially those organisations that are already working with young people, who want to take the book and scale up its impact. “And they could use this as an opportunity to address some of the personal development topics that the existing programs don't already cover,” said Munyaradzi. The book has already been nominated in the outstanding non-fiction book category in the National Arts Merit Awards, the premier awards for arts in Zimbabwe. Munyaradzi has also been invited to the Kingsmead Book Festival later this year.
- Your Guide To Adulting retails for R295 at Exclusive Books and R280 if you buy it directly from the the author’s website at https://www.rumbimunyaradzi.com/