Detroit author Conrad Prophet came to the Southfield High School on Oct. 4, to speak to students about his autobiographical book “Knowing the Rules of the Game.”

Some senior English classes had read Prophet's book as summer reading homework.

Upon his arrival, several Southfield High seniors greeted him with biographical posters that they made about Conrad's life after reading his book.

After the students' brief poster presentation, Prophet began to elaborate on his life and his book, which offers advice to young African-American adults on how to be successful in life.

He has written two books - “Last Year Before Reality” and “Knowing the Rules of the Game” - and is in the process of getting his third book, a sequel to “Last Year Before Reality,” into stores.

But he didn’t start off as a writer. He had other jobs such as an employee of United Parcel Service and the manager of a K-Mart.

He spoke and wrote about having to endure a job that was below his ability level. “It’s very competitive out there for you," he told seniors. "It seems like it is easier to win the lottery than to find a job.”

Prophet later said, “It took me a number of years to find my niche.”

Although it took a few jobs to realize it, writing was definitely that niche, Prophet said.

He said “Knowing the Rules of the Game” was his way to show students what life after high school is like. He said that he wasn’t prepared for reality after he graduated from Ferndale High School, in Michigan, so he wanted to educate students so they wouldn’t make the same mistakes that he made. He used his own personal experiences to show his readers how not to react to certain situations that they may encounter.

Prophet says he has always enjoyed conflict and controversy. “I used to fight every day,” he said. His conflict-oriented attitude carried on throughout his life and he was criticized because he was an African-American with a position of power. He had to be able to control himself to be able to keep his jobs. Unfortunately, he said, that didn’t always happen. He said, “I did not handle racism…in a way that a mature adult would handle it.” So he uses his life experiences in his book to show his readers how to react to situations in less confrontational ways.

These insights, along with some of his other work-related experiences, were included in his book, which was published in 2005 by Xlibris Corporation.