Gui Costin has spent more than fifteen years building Dakota around a set of sales and leadership principles he first wrote down in 2011.
For years, those ideas lived in Word documents and in the coaching conversations he had with his team every day.
What he didn't have was a book.
Now he has two, and he calls the decision to write them the single best thing he's done for the business.
In this blog, we’ll discuss why Gui Costin waited so long to write down Dakota's playbook, the fear that delayed his first book, why he couldn't have done it without a ghostwriting partner, why the real return is authority rather than book sales, and his advice to leaders still sitting on a book idea.
The Playbook Existed Long Before the Book Did
Gui built Dakota's sales and leadership approach one coaching conversation at a time. The material was there. The format wasn't.
At 59, and by his own account the oldest person at Dakota, he wanted to prove a point to the younger team around him: the ideas he repeated constantly were worth putting on paper, and age was never the barrier.
The Fear That Delayed the First Book
Before Dakota, he published Millennials Are Not Aliens with Forbes in 2019. Getting there meant working through the same doubts that stop most executives from starting: what will people say, will anyone read it, will it hold up in public.
That fear followed him into his first book with Scribe Media, The Dakota Way. He pushed the work down his list and skipped chapter reviews, until he decided he was either going to finish it or not.
Why a Ghostwriting Partner Made the Difference
Gui is direct about one thing: he wouldn't recommend writing a business book alone. What got The Dakota Way across the finish line was a partner with a professional process and a ghostwriter who kept him on point.
The second book, Be Kind, moved faster because the timelines, structure, and interview process were already in place from the first.
The Return Isn't Book Sales. It's Authority.
Ask Gui for a revenue number tied to the books and he'll push back. He compares the return to brand advertising: it builds awareness and authority rather than a direct sales line. As he puts it, "You write a book to become a subject matter expert and an authority."
The books now show up across everything Dakota does. Every event doubles as a book signing. He sends signed copies to anyone who asks, and readers have recognized him from the books alone, including once on a plane. Publishing his beliefs also created a forcing function: once a leader's principles are in print, the whole organization can hold him to them.
His Advice to Leaders Still Sitting on a Book Idea
Gui closes with two Dakota-isms he uses to push his team past their own hesitation: turn your brain off, and throw your hat over the wall. Both point to the same thing: stop overthinking, take the first concrete step, and let the rest follow. Get clear on what you're genuinely passionate about, then find a partner who's done it before.
The clearest proof sits inside Dakota itself. A member of Gui’s team, a 26-year public-school administrator, saw what the books did and decided to write his own, to pass on what he'd learned to people just starting out. For Gui, that ripple effect matters more than any sales figure.
Get your copy of The Dakota Way and Be Kind today!
