Meet Tomas Prower | Bestselling Author

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tomas Prower and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tomas, have you ever found yourself in a spot where you had to decide whether to give up or keep going? How did you make the choice?
There is no knowing. It’s an all-or-nothing game. If you’re doing what your true passion is, what you really want to do and not doing it as a means to an end (money, fame, prestige, etc.) but rather as an end unto itself, then you physically can’t give up because it’s what you do by nature of you being you. Anyone who is truly out there doing what their passion is, they’d still be doing it even if it didn’t bring them money, fame, or prestige. There is no giving up, because by just doing your passion, you’ve already achieved what you want.

The issue of giving up comes when we’re doing something as a means to an end. We’re writing the book not for the passion of writing a book but because of the money, fame, and prestige being a celebrated, bestselling author would bring. If you’re writing and thinking of giving up, it’s because it’s not your passion. Rather, you’re upset that that particular means isn’t bringing about the end result you want.

Likewise, the lawyer who is giving up to pursue a new career that is less stressful and antagonistic is doing so because the ends they wanted turned out to not be worth the means. A true lawyer who is living their passion would never give up and change careers because it is their passion. The entrepreneur who opens up a business who wants to give up because running a business is too hard and stressful, their passion was never being a business-owner. They might have wanted the freedom of being their own boss, the wealth that comes from a successful business, or any other number of ends to which they thought opening a business would be a great means, but if it was their true passion to be a business-owner they would never consider giving up because it’s their passion and there’s nothing else they’d rather do, even with all the difficulty and stress.

Anyone who thinks about giving up, would probably be wise to give up since even thinking of giving up is a telling sign that you’re not in it for the right reasons that will bring you lasting happiness and fulfillment. That’s why we see so many successful yet unhappy people here in Los Angeles. They’ve climbed the ladder of success in something that is not their passion. Rediscover your true passion, go for it, and just by doing it, you’ve attained a sense of fulfillment that you never could have had you “kept going” down a path that wasn’t your passion.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m a storyteller. I write because there is an urge, a compulsion to express myself to do so via the written word. Ask a dancer why they dance, painter why they paint, or any person on Earth why they breathe… and the answer, if they’re honest, is that it’s just something they unconsciously must do, a compulsion greater than their own selves that makes them dance, paint, and breathe… and to me, write.

My most successful books, so far, have all been multicultural deep dives into practices, beliefs, and ways of seeing and interacting the world from people all over the world throughout human history. Sometimes my readers see similarities between their hopes, fears, dreams, and idiosyncratic mundaneness and those of peoples who’ve lived long ago or in completely different cultures. It’s comforting. And however “weird” they may feel, “weird” is just relative because there is no universal standard of what “weird” actually is. It’s a social construct. Every one of us is weird, and therefore, every one of us is normal.

What sets my work apart from others is, I think, authenticity and the ability to resonate with the audience. Too many authors write for the audience. They write what they think their audience wants or what would be monetarily opportune in the current cultural zeitgeist. Such people may produce work that is good, but not authentic. People know authenticity when they see it. They recognize it and respect it. Even a bad person who is unashamedly bad gets a little more respect from us than person who does bad things but tries to portray themselves as good.

I always write what interests me, and that keeps me authentic. I’m not writing to please other people or to land on some bestseller list, and by not doing so, my books have been able to please many people and land on bestseller lists. No, I write what interests me, and thus I can authentically put my interested passion into my writing. And we humans, we’re all very much more alike than we are different. If I am interested in this particular thing, others must be, too, and when they stumble upon my books, that authenticity stands out, which leads to word-of-mouth recommendations and more sales.

The other factor is, I believe, resonance. I write as a way to express myself, to interpret the world around me and synthesize it into meaning via the narrative of a story. I’m sharing a part of myself with the world in my books. Even if the book isn’t explicitly autobiographical, all books by all us authors are all a bit autobiographical. The mistake is when authors try to “teach” or “educate” the audience on whatever profound insight into the human condition the author is trying to share with us. Unless it is a non-fiction book, no one likes to be directly taught at, and even in non-fiction books, the most impactful ones are those that go beyond being didactic and can resonate on an emotional level. You can’t make people think, but you can make them feel… and so, in my works, I show how this particular insight into the human condition makes me feel, and thus, without directly being told that insight, the reader understands what the character is feeling and feels it, themselves, in turn. An author who can make us feel is an author whose next book or back catalogue we’ll purchase.

I got to where I am today because I believed in myself and went after my dreams. Most people don’t get what they want simply because they never ask for it or go after it… At our core, I believe all of us know what we really want to do and pursue in this world. In childhood we know it most strongly, but somehow along the way, we convince ourselves that this career is not practical, or would be too difficult, or the competition too stiff, or what would our family think, and other “reasons” why not to pursue that career. And so those people who believe in those “reasons” drudge on with life and laugh at those who are pursuing their dream career as “weird” or “silly” or some other “othering” of that person so as to justify their own “self-delusion” of compromising their own dreams. And, at worst, delighting in the fall of those who have, indeed, successfully realized their dream career.

It’s those of us who never lost (or who re-allowed) our childlike naïve faith in ourselves and in the totality of possibilities of life that are living our dream career. I didn’t pursue and become an author, I just always was… and I’ve allowed myself to be one (and thus be myself) in this world. I’ve been writing long before I ever got anything published, and should my works be relegated to the discount rack at bookstores, I’d still be writing.

Of course, there is no such thing as the “self-made man”, and I have had a lot of help from many people when I was down and out and who helped me believe in myself… but, quite frankly, success came because I didn’t pursue the dream as a means to success. Sitting down and writing, crafting a story is fun to me, and thus just doing that IS success. So, I don’t stress over how my books will be received and continue to enjoy writing because the means of writing stories is my end measurement of success.

And as to the biggest lesson I’ve learned along the way, it’s to have awareness of the present moment. It took a long time for me to learn that. Too often, we’re living in either the past or the future. We’re anxious and unhappy because of the unknowns of the future and everything that could go wrong, and so we stress and work harder and do all sorts of things to prepare for the worst, and thus, we’re already living in that worst-case scenario now. Or we live in the past because it is known, which brings comfort against the scary unknowns of the future, or worse still, we’ve written off happiness in the future and resigned to living in our past glory days. But all that distracts from the now, and the now is all we really ever have.

If you’re happy now, thoughts of the future or the past could erase that happiness. But unless something actually harmful is happening to you in this moment, this moment is not bad. When I eat, I enjoy the meal in front of me rather than preoccupy myself with thoughts of what I would’ve preferred or similar meals that have tasted better in the past. When I’m with someone, I’m fully with them, not thinking of annoyances earlier in the day or what I’m going to do later on. It sounds very simple, and that’s because it is… but it’s the simple things that really bring happiness.

After all, everything we want, we want it because we believe that having it or realizing it will make us happier than we are right now. We don’t want the actual money of the lottery; we want the happiness that the freedom of having so much money brings. We want the lover (or fame) because it brings happiness to be the focus of admired, loving attention from another person. And in wanting those things (desiring them as the Buddha would say), we are diminishing our current happiness by believing there is a better, enhanced happiness if only we could be/do/have x, y, or z. By living in the now, and not desiring or demanding that the now be better or more than it is, I can fully enjoy all the successive nows that make up my life.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Well… I can’t tell you my FAVORITE spots because they’re my favorite due to their being not heavily populated or frequented by others. I’m not a big fan of crowds, so even if my favorite place in the world became crowded, I’d avoid it and find a new favorite place… So, to keep my favorite places my favorite, it’s wiser not to share. Like the Eagles sang, in “The Last Resort”, their damning song about our Los Angeles (and of how a place’s natural splendor leads to its own destruction due to its uncrowded peacefulness ironically being what attracts over-development, over-tourism, and overcrowding): “You call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye.”

That’s the main reason I left Los Angeles and cannot really see myself ever moving back. There are too many people. And the more people there are, the less each individual seems to matter. A thing is valuable because it is rare, and so, less populated cities tend to allow me to be valued more as a person than as a another face in the crowd, another bit of competition, or another car contributing to traffic.

Deserts, and Nevada, in particular, have appealed more to me. I need to see the edge of town and be able to escape into the great wide open from time to time. The simpler my life is, the happier I am. So, bringing everything full circle to the original question, assuming I was still back in Los Angeles… and a friend came to visit, I’d probably take them to Hollywood since it’s quintessential Los Angeles. Thanks to globalization, all big cities are pretty much the same if you are in them long enough, but “Hollywood” is something that is only in this little corner of California.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My amigo, B. Dave Walters. He helped me believe in my own power and in the potentiality of my dreams coming true.

Website: https://www.tomasprower.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomasprower/

Other: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tomas.prower

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Tomas-Prower/author/B07QJ1BK2P

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/%22Tom%C3%A1s%20Prower%22

Image Credits
Main photo (author headshot photo of me in a faux leather jacket with arms crossed) by: Aaron D Marrero Photography (https://aarondmarrero.com/)