Author Q&A
- What is your education/career background?
When I turned eighteen (which is similar to turning twenty-one in the US), I left my hometown to finish school in Cologne. The deal with my parents was that I needed to take care of myself. So, I went to school in the morning and worked in the afternoon. By coincidence, I ended up working for an IT service company. The CEO liked me for some reason and became my mentor. He provided opportunities that back then were unlikely at my age. Once I finished school, I decided to work full-time for a while to save some money and escape the financially strained situation under which I’d lived since I left home. After three years, I went to Cologne University of Applied Sciences to study economics. At the same time, I founded a digital marketing agency named conceptbakery with my brother Klaus. A few months after founding the company, one of the leading telecommunication providers in Germany liked our rebellious way of thinking and asked us if we wanted to work for them. This collaboration opened up plenty of new doors for us and our business. Soon I decided to put my studies on hold and focus on our business—and my studies are still on hold today.
- When did you first realize you wanted to be a
writer? Or what first inspired you to write?
I'm the youngest of four, so I needed to talk a lot to get heard at all. I guess that's one of the reasons I’ve been a good storyteller ever since I was a little kid. When I finished first grade, my teacher commented on my report card that I fascinated my classmates with my stories. I’ve also loved reading since I was little, but I was never a good writer. One day, my friend Jana read one of my business plans and told me, "Felix, your stories and your ability to express yourself are amazing, but your writing is horrible! Have you ever thought about shortening your sentences? You know, turning one sentences into two, three, or even four or more?" This straightforward advice, which none of my teachers ever gave me, improved my writing significantly.
- What do you think makes a good story?
I enjoy stories that combine an intoxicating plot with elements that teach me something or make me think. I also love stories that turn complex and demanding topics and knowledge into something I want to learn more about. And if people have something to tell, memoirs can make good stories, too.
- What inspired your story?
Three main elements inspired me:
First, my having worked for two decades in the IT and digital marketing industry.
While explaining the
latest trends to an elite audience, I thought that parts of IT are knowledge
everyone should have—especially in our day, when technology is omnipresent and
about to change some of humanity’s fundamentals.
Second, after selling our company, I took a one-year sabbatical to travel the
world with my wife and our two children. I visited creative hotspots and
benefitted from fascinating conversations with industry experts, entrepreneurs,
and other inspiring people. Many of these inspirations found their way into the
book.
Third, we returned home in February 2020, just before Covid-19 changed the
world. This extraordinary stroke of fate influenced what I had been thinking
about and added new ideas to my initial concept for this book.
- Is
there a message/theme in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Yes! Don’t ever think you’re not capable of influencing the bigger picture. If everybody felt that way, a few would paint the bigger picture for all of us—a picture that’s not likely to match our expectations. If we each contribute our little piece, the bigger picture of our future will become more significant, more colorful, and more beautiful than we can imagine. Contributing is up to all of us.
With this book, I want to encourage as many people as possible to think—from radically new perspectives—how humanity, technology, the economy, and our society might develop in the future. Even better, I want people to think about how they would like our world to change and how each of us can become an active part in the decision-making process that has already begun.
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