The secret to a successful marketing campaign would be a good start! However, even the high street chains with millions of dollars to spend on marketing campaigns still don’t understand the buying behavior of people with hearing loss. They can be influenced by the stock market, their pensions, investments, political and economic trends, even the weather. The idiopathic nature of what they do is still guesswork most of the time.
Books have the power to shape, influence, and change our lives. Why is that so? What goes into a book that can shape lives? To address this, we are interviewing people who can share a story about a book that changed their life, and why. As a part of our series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Graeme Sly
Graeme Sly is a Zimbabwean born author that released his debut novel UNFORGIVEN around the world in July 2024. Up until the year 2000 he had never left African soil. Once he arrived in the UK he trained as a hearing aid dispenser and achieved a BSc Hons degree in Audiology and has run his own private hearing healthcare practice since 2016.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory” and how you grew up?
I was born in Mutare Zimbabwe in 1971. Back then it was Umtali Rhodesia. I did most of my primary schooling there. My secondary education was completed in Harare at a strict Dutch private school. I was not academically minded at the time. Although I excelled at English and art, for the rest of my subjects I achieved no higher than C’s. I completely failed mathematics. My English teacher at the time said to me, “If you don’t take up writing it will be a waste of talent.”
I left home when I was seventeen to work on a gold mine and I lived in staff quarters with an Iranian geologist. We did not have a TV, radio or telephone. For entertainment, in the evenings we played chess together for hours, and I read plenty of books. It was fascinating work and physically demanding. In the three years that I worked there I learned how to survey with a theodolite above and below ground, drill lash and blast underground, and work in the various departments of the reduction plant. That hands on experience became invaluable when I started writing my first book.
When I left the gold mine, I worked in the capital predominately in the shipping industry. I eventually moved back to my hometown to run an office for a national shipping line. I supervised contracts for the timber merchants and manufacturing plants exporting container traffic through Beira or Durban to destinations around the world. It was the last job I had before I relocated to the UK.
I arrived in the middle of winter and quickly ran out of what little money I had traveling around the country applying for jobs in the shipping industry. I ended up living in a hostel in Chichester packing flowers for Valentine’s Day. For two weeks I worked 13-hour shifts starting at 3am before I moved to Salisbury to work in a pub. I kept applying for shipping related jobs and attending interviews when I could afford to travel. A few months later I got a job with a Japanese freight company working out of Heathrow before finally being offered an area manager position with the shipping line I represented previously in my hometown in Zimbabwe. Although the pay was good, I was often working 16 hours/day traveling to see clients from Birmingham down to Wales, Cornwall and Dorset.
I found myself at a crossroads junction in my life. I decided to take a huge cut in salary and train as a hearing aid dispenser. After an intense theoretical six-month program and a further six-month supervised field training, we were officially allowed to use the title Hearing Aid Dispenser. I spent the next seven years covering branch and field positions before I moved to New Zealand to work a three-year contract in the industry. It was clear that my qualifications did not hold much water with the rest of the world and so on my return to the UK, I enrolled in a Cambridge university to complete a Foundation degree.
I worked full time while studying full time and achieved a distinction. I followed that up with a BSc Hons degree in Audiology and missed out on a distinction by just a few percent. After my graduation in 2016 I set up my own private practice which I am currently still running.
Let’s talk about what you are doing now, and how you achieved the success that you currently enjoy. Can you tell our readers a bit about the work you are doing?
I am an Audiologist and run a private hearing health care business based in Colchester in the UK. Shortly before Covid arrived on the scene, we built a 30m2 office at the back of our home and it became the base for our company. We carry out diagnostic hearing assessments, fit hearing aids and provide support to patients on their rehabilitation journey. Along with our satellite clinics we offer domiciliary home visits to our elderly patients.
You are a successful leader. Which three-character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Determination, empathy and patience.
I would say that I am a very determined individual. As an adult I put myself through university while working full time. That required several years of studying late into the night and maintaining high levels of concentration in the process. I contemplated taking my education to doctorate level; however, I have recently launched my writing career, and I am currently working on the sequel to my first book UNFORGIVEN as well as another stand-alone novel. There are not enough hours in the day!
The hearing health care industry is extremely challenging and requires an endless injection of empathy and patience. It involves a lot of time turning negative attitudes and perception into positive solutions. We help patients through stages of grief from denial through to acceptance, work out personality types and build care plans tailored to individual circumstances and lifestyle. After over twenty years in the industry there is still a stigma attached to wearing hearing aids and it is a grudge purchase. The most successful hearing aid dispensers and audiologists have a special skill set, the ability to wear several hats at the same time: to demonstrate clinical ability while guiding patients through appropriate sales decisions.
What’s the WHY behind the work that you do? Please share a story about this if you can.
A successful patient journey results in improved quality of life. It is life-changing for them and rewarding for me. There are strong links between Dementia, Alzheimer’s and hearing loss. Untreated hearing loss, deterioration of cognitive function and social isolation are closely linked. Often individuals with untreated hearing loss withdraw from environments where they struggle to hear.
One of my very first patients when I started my practice in 2016 was diagnosed with Dementia. Although She already wore National Health hearing aids, they were not giving her the help she desperately needed. I assessed her and programmed a demo set of the latest digital hearing aids I had. As soon as I fitted them, it was like a light bulb was suddenly switched on behind her eyes. She could not remember ever hearing so clearly. She loved the sound so much she did not want to take them off when it was time for me to leave. So, I left them with her and returned two weeks later when her prescription aids were ready. Her son commented on the difference he had seen in his mother. She told me that for the first time in over a decade she went with her daughter and granddaughter to a pub for a meal and she could hear and participate in all the conversation. Her aids were fully automatic and activated noise reduction when necessary. The hearing aids I fitted for her changed her life.
I have many stories like that and fond memories of the people I have helped.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I randomly bumped into an old school friend of mine in a pub in London. It was while I was working for the shipping line as an area manager and at a crossroad in my life. It was him that convinced me to embark on my training as a hearing aid dispenser. Although it was a huge cut in salary to begin with, he told me that once I had achieved my qualification I would never look back, and he was right.
Awesome! Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. I’m an author and I believe that books have the power to change lives. Can you please tell our readers about “The Book That Changed Your Life”? Can you share a story about how it impacted you?
The book that changed my life was “When the Lion Feeds” by Wilbur Smith. I had never read a novel for pleasure before. I was fifteen at the time and I decided to give the book a go. It took me several weeks to read the first 30 pages. I remember thinking that the 400 pages was an enormous task to undertake. I could go for days without picking it up but then something changed, I realized that the book took me on an exciting journey, it painted a picture in my mind with words, the characters came to life, and I had to find out what happened next in the plot. I started reading late into the night and could not put the book down. I read until my eyes burned. I was disappointed when the book ended and I remember thinking to myself, ‘One day I am going to write good books’. I have read every book Wilbur Smith has written since. I generally read at night before bed, and I get through a lot of books. I have read several different authors, but I would have to say that Wilbur Smith is my favorite.
It took me a long time to develop the life skills required to write for myself. I started about ten years ago. A disorganized jumble of notes and some research, but our home was broken into seven years ago and my laptop was stollen. I had not backed up any files, so I lost everything and dropped the project.
In the interim I returned to university to further my education. Apart from the acquired knowledge, the best thing that I learned was how to structure research. So, when I re-started writing again in earnest about 3 years ago, my research files were well organized. I created a file called CHARACTER PROFILES and sub files for the main characters. In each sub file I had a description of what they looked like, what their roles were, their back story and why they thought and acted in a certain way. I had another file called EARLY SOUTHERN RHODESIAN HISTORY. In it I had a detailed map of the area dated 1927. It highlighted the names of the gold mines and where they were located.
The period I was writing about was 1940s but I had research dating back to 1896 when Cecil John Rhodes signed the mineral concession agreements with King Lobengula. One of the mines on the 1927 map was named, THE MAHAHA GOLDFIELDS. I discovered that the Mahaha was an Inuit legend. The Inuit were originally from Asia but migrated to America Canada and Greenland. They never ventured into Africa and certainly never into Southern Rhodesia so why would a gold mine be so named? My research took me further back in time. As far back as the 1300’s the Portuguese were involved in the slave trade and mined and traded gold in Southern Rhodesia through Portuguese Mozambique. Two explorers, the Corte Real brothers explored the west coast of Africa up as far as Greenland and I suggested in the book that they may have encountered the Inuit and heard of the Mahaha legend. This level of research is what the great author Wilbur Smith was a master at right from his first novel.
The first three chapters in my book are set in WW2 in Eritrea East Africa where British and Allied troops fought against the Italians. My research files were well organized and detailed right down to battalion names, weaponry and ballistics used so when it came to the actual writing, the facts were at my fingertips to add credibility to my story.
What was the moment or series of events that made you decide that you wanted to take a specific course of action based on the inspiration from the book? Can you share a story about that?
When The Lion Feeds was the turning point that made me an avid reader. I was only fifteen when I first read it, but I knew back then one day I would be a writer. When I eventually started my own practice, I still had the desire to write but I had very little free time. About three years ago I decided to embark on my first project. The target word count was 160 000! I would research and write late into the night. I found that walking on the treadmill was a good creative space for me. I would compose chapters in my mind. Once I had finished exercising, my fingers would fly across the keys on my laptop giving structure to what I had imagined. I changed my driving habits and turned the radio off. Instead, I used that time to develop the plot of my book in my mind and add depth with subplots. In a sense I was making time for creative thinking.
Interestingly in 2012 when Wilbur Smith was interviewed and asked which of his books was his favorite. He replied without hesitation that it was “When the Lion Feeds” his first to be published. Prior to editing it was roughly 160 000 words, but the final edit reduced it down to 136 000, roughly the same as my first book!
Can you articulate why you think books have the power to create movements, revolutions, and true change?
Words are extremely powerful, inspiring the imagination and emotion. They conjure up pictures and scenes in the mind. Well written dialogue is hugely entertaining and can be funny. It demonstrates the depth of characters and events. A well written book is often the inspiration behind films.
A book has many aspects, of course. For example, you have the writing style, the narrative tense, the topic, the genre, the design, the cover, the size, etc. In your opinion, what are the main, essential ingredients needed to create a book that can change lives?
The cover design is extremely important as it is the first thing a potential reader will be drawn to. For me Historic Fiction is a great genre. A well written book will have an interesting plot and strong characters placed in a moment in history, it makes the fictional element more plausible.
Well written words inspire revolution and can start and end conflict and bring about change.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started My Career” and why?
- The secret to a successful marketing campaign would be a good start! However, even the high street chains with millions of dollars to spend on marketing campaigns still don’t understand the buying behavior of people with hearing loss. They can be influenced by the stock market, their pensions, investments, political and economic trends, even the weather. The idiopathic nature of what they do is still guesswork most of the time.
- Practical ways to mentally re-boot between appointments. On a busy week I can see 50 patients. Each of them must be treated as if they are the only person I see that day. Each one requires an emotional investment, a positive outcome and no negative emotion can be carried forward from a previous consultation.
- The importance of managing stress and looking after your own mental health. It is vital to realize your own limitations. There is a lot of pressure that comes with a heavy workload, and it is important to try and establish a balance and take breaks. I am not great at this and usually take on too much. I often get asked, ‘Where on earth do you get the time to write?!’
- How best to avoid or reduce the crippling taxation of small businesses. There are only three of us in the company, myself, my wife and our diary manager. When I look at the amount of corporation tax and personal tax, we pay each year it is frightening. It threatens the closure of the business itself.
- It is unfortunately inevitable that we eventually lose some of our elderly patients. You somehow need to establish a balance between caring and not caring too much. You must be thick skinned but occasionally, someone gets through the emotional barriers you put up and their passing is like losing a relative. In over 20 years I have not been able to establish that balance, but I try and focus on the fact that at least I was able to improve their quality of life in their final years.
The world, of course, needs progress in many areas. What movement do you hope someone (or you!) starts next? Can you explain why that is so important?
Immediately ban further production of plastic. There are already billions of tons in landfill, littering the oceans and roads. There is more than enough to recycle. A single plastic bottle can take over 500 years to decompose.
The educational institutes that train would be leaders of tomorrow, Oxford, Eaton, and Cambridge cultivate honest and dynamic students that tell the truth and use their abilities to implement change. Tyrants and dictators should be brought to justice instead of being left to walk free, commit atrocities and war crimes while the world just sits back and watches.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
My book UNFORGIVEN is available around the world online in good bookstores and on Amazon. I hope to release the sequel towards the end of the year. Its release will be announced on social media. I also have an author’s page on Facebook.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us and our readers. We know that it will make a tremendous difference and impact thousands of lives. We are excited to connect further, and we wish you so much joy in your next success.
Author Graeme Sly On The Book That Changed His Life was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.