We are so blessed, we get hundreds of emails a day that say, “John, I’ve worked this plan for one year and I can really see my growth.” So what I would love is for readers to do that for a year and then email me.
When you finish reading the book [Today Matters], take the daily dozen and list them in order of how well you do them. For example, the one that I would put at the highest for me is attitude or relationships because I'm really strong at both of those. At the bottom would be health. What I tell people is, "Take one month and work on one of the daily dozen for a whole year." And so it's really a one-year personal growth plan.
We cannot accomplish as much as we think we can in one day and we can accomplish more than we think we can in a year. Isn't that true?
People say, "John, what's your personal growth?" And ask "How do you grow?" And I tell them. I thought, "Why do I keep telling them, why don't I just write a book on what I call personal growth?" And that's what this [Today Matters] book is.
For many many years, I've taught, not only leadership, but I've taught people that they need a personal growth plan. Growth is not an automatic process for you or me or anybody.
I wrote the book [Today Matters] because I have a passion to help people personally grow. Really what it is, it's a personal growth book.
I think passion gives you the energy to do what is right, and discipline makes sure you do what is right. So I look at them as kind of cousins maybe.
I think passion and discipline are wonderful, complementary things.
I think that self-discipline has to be accompanied by passion.
Sometimes I hear people talk about discipline of self and I think, if you don't have passion, I might discipline myself for a week or two but only passion will hold me steady.
I thought that because I wasn't a sickly person - I never have been - I thought I was healthy. So I assumed health. I didn't have it.
Sometimes I think it's a lack of knowing the areas. Obviously, everybody knows that health is important so that's - but why was I not doing the right thing? Because I was deceived.
I think the hardest thing for a person is to know what those twelve things are that they need to work on that will bring the return of success to their life.
I don't think every person is going to have the same twelve, but I think out of the twelve I have, nine of them every person will have. Three of them are a little bit of an option, but I say go get your own three, it's no problem.
I think once a person realizes that they are every day either sowing into their life either potential success, or sowing into their life potential failure, they would all of a sudden go okay, I've got to figure out what I'm going to do.
What I find them struggling most isn't with one of the twelve [things from daily list]; I find them struggling with what decisions to make.
I tell a person, "If I could go home with you tomorrow and you and I could spend the day together from maybe 8:00 to 6:00, and we went out to a restaurant at 6:30, I could tell you with a high degree of accuracy how successful you're going to be." That's huge because I'm just going to look and see, what kind of attitude do you have, how do you relate to people, how well do you prioritize your life? I'm going to see all of those things in the process of a day.
I guess I'd rather be loved than respected.
I would rather be viewed by the reader as I'm just taking a journey with you, and here's what I'm learning, what are you learning? Oh, you do this better than me. Than to be viewed as kind of like an authority.
I thought if I was open and honest, it would help the reader to get open and honest, and they also would realize sometimes when you write a book, people think you're an expert and that's not always true.
I want to always be viewed by my readers as a friend and not as an authority or an expert.
I tried to write the book [Today Matters] with integrity and say, health is one of my daily dozen, and I work on it, but I don't have this right.
I had a horrible life habit that I had to change. And I think it's very true, the later we make decisions in life that are important, the harder it is to manage those decisions.
I think we impress people by our success, but I think we impact them by our failures.
The last decision I made was my health when I had a heart attack when I was 51.
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