What do you desire people to get out of this book?
In the first chapter of my new book The 3-Minute Difference I talk about my shortcomings. You know I was a Christian and wasn’t walking the walk either. I was a Christian author who had four credit cards maxed out and I was a financial adviser. So I think you have to go through the journey.
Do you think that this transparency is going help Christians say, “Alight I think I can trust this guy and what he’s saying to me?”
I hope so. But if they think it’s a sales pitch, they still won’t do it [take advice]. I moved pass trying to make everybody happy. I don’t want to make every reader happy or everybody on the Internet like me. I just want to tell them the truth. If you need someone to be politically correct, you need to get another book, because my book talks about core attitudes of people. In 3-Minutes, we spent 40 years researching this. After going around America and speaking to groups, counseling on marriages, speaking to kids on probation, and dealing with dysfunctional adults that have their credit cards maxed out and who are 100 pounds overweight--I found that they need to be told the truth that their attitude is in their way. My friend Zig Ziglar says “You’re stinking thinking.” Way to go Zig. That is the simplest way to put it. The problem in America is that we have too many false beliefs. We learn those false beliefs out of our attitude. That’s why taking the 3-Minute Survey is such a big deal.
So this is not a quick fix.
If that’s what you want, don’t buy my book, because quick fixes have failed.
Isn’t this approach more like cognitive therapy, choosing better thoughts?
Whatever name you want to put it. It’s being conscience of one’s attitude and looking at and being honest. [It’s taking the survey] and saying I have a low number here and I am weak there. I’m going to improve that, like I am too controlling, I'm going to be less controlling, or I make excuses that I’m fat because I’m big boned and have a low metabolism and a bad thyroid. No, it’s the fork in your mouth. In the church today if you’re fat and broke, you’re ok. Adultery, alcohol, and drugs are bad. The Bible talks about gluttony.
What are your thoughts on this nation, being a depressed nation?
We took discipline out of our schools. We took prayer out of our schools. We got away from the basics. Now we have single parent families, because the family unit has been broken. Johnny watches bad behavior and now he’s infected. He goes to school and they become infected. My daughter is a kindergartner teacher and half her class is on some kind of medication of some kind because of depression or anxiety. It’s a broken home and the pharmaceutical companies capitalize on this and the doctors are making money along with the pharmaceutical companies because it’s to their advantage to have every child in America on a drug. How did we survive in America for the last 200 years without pharmaceuticals? We’re depressed. Of course we’re depressed. We should be--we’re in a mess. We’re in crises.
What is the remedy?
In our book we talk about altering your life in 91 days. Almost nobody will do the 91 days. Maybe out of the 100 who start, you maybe get 10 that finish it because Americans are good at talking the talk, but not we’re walking the walk. It comes down to accountability and responsibility, which goes back to my 40-year story. We learned to be an unaccountable and irresponsible society because we got a free pass if you didn’t do what you were supposed to. I believe if we go back to Biblical principles, honor your word, do what you’re supposed to and make good choices, [we can change our lives].
Take the survey! and check out The 3-Minute Difference.
