Digital media whiz Karen Civil has long preached to fans the power of living your purpose. It’s something she’s said has guided her career, from creating Lil Wayne’s weezythanxyou.com, a website the rapper used to connect with fans during his incarceration at Rikers Island, to spearheading marketing campaigns for Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential bid.
In addition to her many contributions to media and entertainment, did you know the media expert is also an author? Read on for more about Civil’s self-help book Be You & Live Civil: Tools for Unlocking Your Potential & Living Your Purpose, what it offers readers, and the experiences that inspired it.
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Civil’s real-life mantra inspired the book’s title
Civil explained to Vibe in 2015 that Be You & Live Civil was inspired by her 2014 tour of the same name. The title of both endeavors comes from Civil’s mantra.
“Be You, Live Civil was a tour that I started and it’s just always something that I’ve been to myself. ‘Be you, live civil’ is like ‘live my life,'” she told the outlet. “That was my short version of saying to live my life. It really just fell from that, because when I first moved to L.A. a few years ago, I was like: “Listen, Karen. Be you, live civil.'”
Civil said that the saying was her constant reminder to stay true to herself in her career.
As for the rest of the title, she mentioned that she wanted readers to get “a breakdown of what exactly it is so that was the extra edition part of unlocking your potential and living in your purpose.”
Civil worked on the book for years
Be You & Live Civil took time to materialize. Civil told Vibe that she had been working on the book “for a couple of years now” after an initial deal she was offered fell through.
“My birthday last year I just played around and now I feel like my birthday that it was time for me to give back and share something with the world to leave a lasting impression,” she told the outlet.
At first, she planned to release “a few chapters of the book” to give her fans a taste of what it had to offer. Then she envisioned it as a “workbook” with “additional pages in the back so people can add their thoughts on certain things.”
After years of writing and reimagining, Civil ultimately decided to publish the book herself.
“I felt like I had so many people asking me that I had to do this,” she told Vibe at the time.
Civil said she hopes the book leaves readers feeling empowered
Civil’s hope for the book was that readers would walk away from reading it feeling empowered.
“Really self-motivation,” she told Vibe of the one takeaway she hoped readers would get from the book. “That and self-love. Nobody is going to love and honor your dreams like yourself. It’s really not looking for someone to be your superhero but for us to save ourselves and to really understand that.”
Civil told the outlet that when she was “at the lowest of lowest of my life,” it was the desire “to better and to be better” that motivated her to start to change her life and ultimately share that with readers.
“The first step is to believe in myself and to really be my own cheerleader, to just put on my invisible cape and go,” she said.
Where can you buy the book?
Though Be You, Live Civil Be You & Live Civil: Tools for Unlocking Your Potential & Living Your Purpose is no longer available on Civil’s website, fans can purchase a copy on Amazon.
