The First 5 Pages of My Book ??

Below you will find the very first section of my book.

You can grab a free digital copy or pay for a paperback book by clicking here.

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A Head’s Up - Warnings of What’s to Come

This book is really the first thing I’ve actually written with any sort of passion and foresight. I’m not exactly known for my way with words. Halfway into the process, I slipped into a reflective mode, reading and

hatching away at every passage, article, word, and section. Doubting absolutely everything. Edits, rewrites, deletes. The equivalent of balls of crumbled yellow Post-It notes tossed at a wall. Piles and mountains of them. I wanted the book to start off with a bang. Something that would seize the audience’s attention and put into perspective what was at stake. A real, honest-to-God reflection of success and triumph. For months, the following placeholder catapulted this book into action:

[Insert Inspirational Tale. Mike? Kobe? Jobs? Barack?]

No, that's not a typo. I literally had that there because I wanted to kick off the book with an inspirational tale that would grab your attention as a reader. Something that would really set the stage. As I went on and wrote the rest of the book, this section haunted me. It dogged my heels, not because it was impossible to truly drag out an eloquent and gripping, sometimes even stunning, story of one of those amazing people surpassing insurmountable odds, but because after a while, although they still managed to inspire me, their tales didn’t exactly click with the way the book was turning out. They enticed and encouraged, they influenced and moved, they roused and motivated, but the way I was analyzing them felt hollow. Let me explain.

These paragons are the yardstick by which we measure success. They are the mirror image of what we want to be. They, and a thousand others, are the stories of what it means to be authentic and not only follow your dreams but obtain them. Each one of their hard-earned lessons needs to be dissected and examined...but they are still very much flawed creatures. Why? Because to err is human1. As I dug deeper into this book, I began to understand a bit about myself. I began to reflect on the lessons I had learned, the lessons I will teach you, and the lessons they had taught me. I began to understand how certain beliefs and dogmas shaped the person I am today, and how other exercises simply clashed against the reality of who I am. This book, as it turned out, was as much as an exploration of who I am as a symposium of what I’ve got to say. The deeper I fell down the rabbit hole, the more I challenged my beliefs, and the greater insight I acquired.

As I neared the end of the book, I realized that it was shaping me as much as I was shaping it. It was making me reevaluate what I knew, concentrate on what mattered, and take a step back and truly observe who I had become. So, I went back to the beginning and read that line over and over again:

“Insert Inspirational Tale. Mike? Kobe? Jobs? Barack?”

Each and every one of the successful people that I studied will have their say in this book, but I certainly couldn’t start with one of their stories...mainly because their stories weren’t mine. I can begin to know the way President Obama’s father's abandonment truly shaped him. I could reread the transcripts. I could examine his interpretations. I could delve deep into his biography, but that moment - way back in his childhood - when he finally understood what had occurred and he started to grapple with that loss, was gone. I was getting third- hand knowledge and, above all, a personal narrative that had been dulled by time and shaped by politics. I wasn’t getting the emotional rawness of that kid, I was getting the savvy, mature, and spin-doctor analysis of the President. I was getting the brand and the shaped story, not the reality. The reality, that moment, had been doctored and photoshopped.

As humans, we have an amazing ability to re-tell history, particularly our own. It’s something innate and something we don’t do consciously. We have an identity and that identity is intently tied to the narrative we want to show and we want to believe in. We’re nothing more than what we show the public. When something from our present, which will soon become our past, strikes a discordant note with that ideal, we go into triage. We wax, we edit, we color, we smooth it. We do this process until we’ve told the new version of that event, painted by our own biases, so frequently that we no longer recall the actuality of what happened...just the story. Our Hollywood-edited version.

Sociologists call this “Narrative Bias” or “Narrative Fallacy.” In short, it refers to a person’s tendency to interpret information as being part of a larger story or pattern, regardless of whether the facts support the full narrative. It is something that is done at an unconscious level.

This is something we have always fallen victim to. It comes naturally to us. As humans, we don’t deal with numbers, stats, or facts; we deal with emotions. We are sold the idea of a cause and are rarely moved by the numbers and figures; instead, we donate to the example - the individual heart-rending tale. We don’t donate to the plight of the millions of refugees, but the struggles of the poster child. This is because as humans, we’re not that adept at facing the truth. The truth hurts and in many cases, it goes against the idea of who we are. We don’t like figures, we like tales. The truth is harsh. So, when we’re faced with a truth that causes us pain, regret, or shame, we start to mold it until it barely resembles its former self. We craft it into something perceptible that adheres to our identity. This bias, with which we later retell our tales, is something common in all of us. It’s something we always do. We do it to such an extreme that, thanks to technology, we are now outsourcing it. We no longer have to rely on what we tell but what our onscreen persona displays. Or are you the person you purport to be on Facebook?

A great example of this inherent quality can be found in our social media feeds. Look back at your feed – is it real? Do those pictures tell the whole story? You seem like the perfect couple, everyone marveling at both your chiseled bodies and your interactions, but do those pictures and stories tell the whole tale? Do your friends and audience members know of the constant bickering? Or that maybe you were faking that smile because a second ago you had been in an argument? Do they know that your family holiday was plagued by traffic, family squabbles, your parents’ constant criticizing, the fact that the turkey gave you a stomach ache, that you had to sleep in an uncomfortable pull-out couch, that your cousin got hammered and made a fool of himself? No, you CHOSE the perfect pic, and that one pic will in time become the memory of that Thanksgiving dinner. Over time, that personage you sell overrides the truth. In a year or two, you’ll look at that photo and gloss over all the turmoil and unhappiness and remember only the good times. You’re telling a story and that story is you.

We all do this. I’m as guilty as you – just look at my feed on Instagram. And Mike, Kobe, Jobs, Barack, all their feeds - books, social presence, articles - were cherrypicked and worked by experts. They tell their version. Not so much what they want you to know but what clicks with their brand. Is it a false story? No. Not in the least. It’s simply a story that adheres to the narrative; the narrative they have devised and the narrative we have linked them with.

Those constructs and archetypes are only reinforced through each retelling, the legend or ensemble no longer built on the facts, but on the idea promoted on the moral. Each anecdote lined with meaning. Each true-life story slowly becoming a parable and transforming into a fable; a fairytale. Those historical events slowly morph into oral traditions, children's stories with simple themes, and moral certitudes that slip into the collective subconscious. The human condition examined in simple sound bytes. Haven’t you noticed that Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and all other forms of digital social interactions are based on an allegory or a story to teach? When you go online, to be successful, you have to sell an idea: yours or someone else's. Successful people, after a while, cultivate that paradigm; every story they have, every tale they tell, lined with meaning; part of their legend. Meaning and symbolism they ascribe after careful edits and after it has been tested on focus groups.

They do this under the same care we do it. There’s no ill intent, there are no ulterior motives, it’s simply how we are constructed. It’s how we communicate with one another, not through facts but stories. The Origin Of Species by

Darwin might be a great book, but as a race, we find more significance and are influenced more profoundly by Star Wars. Evolution and natural selection, the building blocks of life, coming in a third or fourth place to Jedi Knights and Sith Lords.

So, I really can’t tell you what psychological torment or shifting dynamics Obama’s personality endured during those bygone days of parental woes. I can’t properly convey the bodily trials endured by Kobe during his training, let alone the emotional merry-go-rounds he had to live through every single day. I can’t do justice to them, and to you, because I’m only reading their Facebook feeds. I’m only dissecting their biographies, their after-action reports, their mythical construction.

As I said, I can’t lecture on what pre-teen Obama felt on that day...but I can talk about how I felt the day my father died. I can’t talk about Kobe’s sacrifices every morning, but I can tell you about my routines and how they’ve helped shape me into the man that I am today. I can use their framework, their folklore, and their “once upon a time” to better understand my own stories. To better comprehend my struggles. To rework my tales from the ground up.

Once more I’m met with that phrase:

[Insert Inspirational Tale. Mike? Kobe? Jobs? Barack?]

And I think, now that the book is almost finished, that it was the wrong Post-It/ reminder for so many reasons. I should, first and foremost, talk about myself. This is not an attempt at legend building or self-adulation; I’m as screwed up as the next guy. Why? Because, honestly, I’m not perfect. I’ve had a ton of downfalls just like anyone else. I have some triumphs and victories, but for every “atta boy” on social media, I have had a thousand more fumbles and times where it seemed like my life was falling to pieces.

My name is Ish Verduzco and I’m a proud Latino from Los Angeles, California. A first-generation college grad from very humble beginnings. Extremely confident in my ability to achieve anything that I set my mind to, but still struggling with self-doubt and imposter syndrome at times. Addicted to learning, growing, and pushing myself to be a better version of myself each and every day, yet I still floundered in most of my classes from elementary school to university. A DJ, a Podcaster, a former Athlete, an Entrepreneur, a Marketer, and now, an Author.

This is as much my tale, as it is Obama’s, Beyonce’s, Oprah’s, the Rock’s, Kobe’s, Michael’s, Jobs’, and dozens more...but, more importantly, it is yours.

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1- To make grand errors is human. We all make errors and stumble along the way; it’s part of the whole human existence. Oscar Wilde - because frankly if you’re out of quotes and want a really good one, you can always unearth one of his nuggets. He once said, “If you’re not making errors, then you’re simply not living.”

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Grab your copy of the book here.