Jake Kheel's Waking the Sleeping Giant Brought Him Two Paid Board Seats He Never Planned For
“Like you don’t realize how much information and knowledge and experience you’ve accumulated until somebody asks for your help doing it.”
Jake Kheel, author of Waking the Sleeping Giant
Jake Kheel has spent 20 years inside a resort company in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, restoring coral reefs, bringing back an endangered hawk, and turning tons of kitchen scraps into compost. He wrote Waking the Sleeping Giant hoping it might lead to a few speaking gigs. Instead, the book brought him two paid board seats in two different industries.
He went inside to fight the private sector
Clip · Jake Kheel on going inside to fight the private sector · 23s
Jake did his master’s thesis at Cornell on deforestation along the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. When he took a sustainability job at Punta Cana, he did not expect to stay on the business side for long.
“I never expected to work in the private sector. I really had no expectations when I took the job here in Dominican Republic in Punta Cana and thought it would be a good opportunity to get to know the private sector because these are the SOBs that are causing all these environmental problems. So if I get to spend some time on the inside, I can probably figure out how to defeat them. And it was totally the opposite.”
— Jake Kheel
What he found was a sleeping giant: companies sitting on money, talent, and reach that environmentalists rarely asked them to use. That idea became the title of the book.
Why a book, and who it was for
Clip · Jake Kheel on why a book, and who it serves · 45s
Jake had written a regular newspaper column in Spanish for years. Over time he realized the problems Punta Cana was solving, from waste to coral reefs to the seaweed washing up on Caribbean beaches, mattered far beyond one island.
“Became obvious to me that sharing that experience to try and do it by doing articles was going to take a really long time to reach a wider audience. So I decided that a book would be a great format for that.”
— Jake Kheel
He set one rule for himself while writing. Every story had to be useful to the reader, not a way to promote himself or his company. He credits Scribe Media with giving him that frame from the start.
Clip · Jake Kheel on what Scribe told him first · 18s
“I think Scribe was spot on from the earliest days of starting the process of writing the book and helping me. They said you’re not writing a book for the entire world and everybody in it. Find who you’re writing this book for and try and target that audience and then just have a conversation with them as you’re writing.”
— Jake Kheel
A worm farm, told honestly
Clip · Jake Kheel on bringing worms to Punta Cana · 24s
The book does not only share wins. One of its central stories is about an idea that went wrong first. The resort was producing 10 to 15 tons of organic waste a day, and Jake had kept worms under his sink in New York City.
“So I was like, Oh, that’s the most obvious thing in the world, we’ll just bring worms to Punta Cana, that’ll make a lot of sense. And that turned out to be a terrible idea, because it’s very difficult to grow large quantities of worms and feed them 10 to 15 tons of organic waste.”
— Jake Kheel
Years of iteration later, the foundation composts the resort’s kitchen scraps and horse manure, and this year it is on pace to sell about 20 tons of worm compost. The compost grows vegetables sold back to the resort.
The worms even became part of the guest experience. A travel writer for Black Book magazine got the full luxury tour, spa and diving included, and his article said his favorite thing was the worms.
Clip · Jake Kheel on the travel writer who loved the worms · 37s
Two paid board seats he never planned for
Clip · Jake Kheel on two paid board seats from the book · 25s
Jake released the book around the start of the pandemic, when conferences and in-person events had nearly stopped. The speaking invitations he had imagined did not come right away. Something else did.
“And for the first time I was invited to be on the board of two separate companies in two totally different industries, and both came almost directly from the book.”
— Jake Kheel
One is a resort development in Turks and Caicos. Its team read the book and wanted to do the same things with garbage and corals at their new resort, and Jake is still on that board, watching them support coral restoration and commit to waste management. The other is a company in the Dominican Republic building a business around large-scale garbage problems, which brought him in as a subject matter expert on waste.
Clip · Jake Kheel on what the board seats taught him · 31s
Both seats turned years of quiet work in Punta Cana into a credential other companies could see and use.
The book opens the door. The speaking takes work.
Clip · Jake Kheel on what it takes to speak · 24s
Asked how an author goes from free talks to paid speaking, Jake was honest about what it takes. A book is not a side hustle that makes the phone ring on its own. Speaking is its own craft, and it needs its own presentation, practice, and marketing.
“So I think it’s important to note that the book will open doors and will give you kind of a credibility and give you that first calling card to get the door open. But you really have to build out kind of the whole ecosystem internally of having the presentation, having the information, being able to speak in front of people and getting comfortable with that.”
— Jake Kheel
His practical advice: let an intermediary handle the business side of speaking, so your focus stays on the audience.
Five years later, the book is still working
Clip · Jake Kheel on the book five years later · 30s
Waking the Sleeping Giant is available in Spanish, English, and as an audiobook, and it still sells locally. Visitors who tour the foundation’s facility leave with a copy.
“Five years later, I’ve reread the book and I feel like many of the messages and stories and things that I put in the book are still highly relevant.”
— Jake Kheel
Today he is turning the book into a steady stream of Instagram reels on waste, composting, and the circular economy, and the credibility it built gets him into recycling plants and back-of-house operations that rarely open their doors.
“I’ve been able to use a lot of the material from the book, repurposing it into reels and content for Instagram, but also it’s really opened me up to exploring new information.”
— Jake Kheel
His advice: write for your crowd
Clip · Jake Kheel on writing for your crowd · 26s
For anyone afraid no one will buy their book, Jake points back to the advice he got at the start. Your first book does not need to reach everyone. It needs to reach the people who care about what you know.
“Just be who you are, share what you know and what you’re passionate about and try and orient that information towards an audience of people who will find it interesting.”
— Jake Kheel
And if it only sells ten copies? “Even if you sell 10 copies, well, your mom will probably read it.”
Ready to Write Your Success Story?
Join 1,600+ authors who have published with Scribe Media and transformed their careers.
Schedule a Consult
Course
Write and Publish Your Best Possible Book
Six modules. 28 lessons. Everything Scribe has learned helping 2,000+ authors, organized into the same process we use with our professional clients.
A Wall Street Journal Bestseller
The Scribe Method
No catch, just everything you need to write, publish, and own your book.