The Big Drop

The day every writer looks forward to is here for me.

My newest book is published. The Success Paradox – How to Surrender and Win in Business and Life is available on Amazon here.

I’ve lost track … this is over 20 books I’ve authored, co-authored, ghost written or edited / contributed to that have birthed into the world. But this one is different. Here’s why.

I’ve always woven spiritual themes into my work. This book was commissioned by Forbes Books, a venerable old business brand. They are promoting it big time so perhaps it will gain more readers than my other books. I just heard in a zoom strategy meeting yesterday that their campaign more or less guarantees 5,000 sales. Here’s why so many people reading this could be important.

It’s heart breaking, the way our world has spiraled into chaos over the last few years. We’re friends, or you subscribed to this blog/podcast, because we care. I know you feel like I do: we want to make a positive difference … somehow.

This book might move the needle. Why? Because it confronts and exposes what I call The Mind Mistake: that we are misusing our conscious minds and this very well may be the source of all our human problems.

Background: I was hired to write the story of a South Carolina business man, Gary Cooper, who rose from the ashes of his life – he was an alcoholic, a workaholic, had ruined his business partnerships and his family relationships, and his doctor finally gave him less than a month to live – to become sober, happy, healthy, wealthy, reunited with his family, and a passionate advocate for mental health, all in just six years.

How did Gary do it? He let go. He surrendered and gave his life over to a higher power. His recovery has to be considered, on every level, something of a genuine miracle. What’s more, Gary has now dedicated his life to helping others who suffer from mental challenges (like he did) that can turn any life into a nightmare. You may or may not know this but mental illness has become a global epidemic.

And I think we discovered / stumbled on / intuited / remembered the solution.

To articulate the key element of this solution, based on Gary’s miracle turn around, I employed all my decades of writing experience to (tactfully) name the elephant in the room: until we make personal connection with God / Universal Intelligence our most important relationship, we will struggle, and we will go mad.

This is not easy to present without alienating some readers, including those who flinch at any mention of “God,” or religious people who either think they are already doing this but aren’t (proven by their judgmental / self-righteous attitude toward those they call sinners) or who interpret what I say as blasphemous (we are all one in God, even those who don’t read the Bible).

Here’s an excerpt from the book, me writing in Gary’s voice about his transformation. Notice how careful I’m being with the words, gently introducing this disruptive concept.

What’s most important to you?

When I ask audiences this question, I hear everything from caring for my family to following my passion, making a positive dif­ference in the world, fulfilling my potential, helping those in need, being successful, etc.

What’s most important to me now is being myself.

Conventional business practices prioritize doing, but I became radically more successful when I did the opposite. My focus on “being” may seem selfish, small, and narrow minded, but who we are being determines what we do. We instinctively know this and use the principle to advantage. We create brands for our businesses and also personal brands to establish ourselves as an authority in our field. But what about our “being signature,” comprised of the unique qualities of who we are inside how we show up in the world? What about the authenticity that’s often missing in a media-manufactured authority figure?

A celebrity CEO who respects himself doesn’t shame his employees, lie about manufacturing practices, or profit from products that harm the planet. A government official at peace with herself doesn’t vote in laws that sabotage her constituents, just to pocket a bribe or get reelected. And when someone harms another person, it’s a sure sign they aren’t right within themselves. A teenager with healthy self-esteem doesn’t fire an AK-47 at his classmates or commit suicide.

People who love and respect themselves will love and respect others. People who don’t know who they are, who are conflicted, unhappy, and frustrated but place the blame outside themselves, may not even notice or care about the suffering of others, let alone be motivated to help them.

What I wrote about here as “being myself” is only possible within that relationship with a higher power. And that’s the problem with our minds, The Mind Mistake, that sabotages our health, happiness, success, and wreaks havoc on the planet. Our conscious minds are out of alignment with that intelligence, substituting our own self-generated cleverness. Predictably, chaos ensues. Oops!

A.I. researchers worry about what they call The Alignment Problem, described this way: When the systems we attempt to teach will not, in the end, do what we want or what we expect, ethical and potentially existential risks emerge.

This clarifies where this alignment problem began - with our own personal artificial intelligence. How aligned am I, are you, all of us, with the Universal Intelligence orchestrating life everywhere, from the trillions of cells inside our bodies to the trillions of stars in the heavens? Perhaps not so much, as the evidence reveals.

This is a job for the conscious mind… but it’s never been educated how to.

And that, dear friends, is the secret we expose and the lessons we teach in our book.

It’s available on Amazon, ships on Tuesday. You can order it right now, right here.

I encourage you to buy the book and dive in as deep as you can. You’ll discover a riveting story that proves spiritual power can do anything, including what we routinely dismiss as impossible. That’s why we used the famous “impossible shape” on the cover.

And, if you enjoy the read, please write a review on Amazon, which only takes a couple of minutes. When we log enough of these before next Tuesday, we can achieve Best Seller status which will help sell more books to educate more people on what I now believe is the single greatest and most important revelation humanity needs right now, to course correct and address every problem from personal to global:

Namely, being in our right minds!