Never Give Up and Keep Your Eye on the Prize

This month, I signed a book deal with Morgan James Publishing to publish a book based on The Trust Transformation, the evidence-based training program I wrote with Dr. Omayra Mansfield and use in my coaching programs.

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I have been working on a book since 2007. Most people who know me, know this has been in the works and a dream of mine. Even my children (who were 13, 10, 8, and 5 in 2007) have been asking me, “Daddy, when’s the book going to be done?” My answer to friends and family has always been the same, “when it’s the right time.”

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It all began when my friend Wendy Kurtz, MBA, APR, CPRC, Fellow PRSA took me to a book writing conference in 2007. In the sessions led by Mark Victor Hansen , Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul), Brendon Burchard (Life’s Golden Ticket, High-Performance Habits), James Malinchak (Secret Millionaire), and others, I found myself inspired with a few ideas that I felt were worthy of a book. Through the next year, I began crafting an outline based on ideas I had been sharing with the clients I worked with regarding how they should focus on building, cultivating, repairing, and restoring trust as a foundation for improving their communications and reputation.

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The next year I returned to the conference with the concepts under the title “Business Self Defense” – this aligned with the ideas and my martial arts experience. I had an opportunity to get some brutal and honest feedback from several agents and publishing experts and walked out with what I called Outrageous Trust. I was fully committed to developing this idea into a program, keynote speech, and book.

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When I left my agency and went to work at the University of Central Florida College of Business, I had a wonderful place to test my ideas, gain insights, and sharpen the concepts. While there, I pitched the idea of a book to several publishers, including a former employer, Florida Hospital (now AdventHealth). My friend Todd Chobotar was the publisher at Florida Hospital Publishing and took an interest, encouraging me to put it into a formal proposal. That said, he informed me that the organization’s publishing priorities had changed, and the focus was on developing evidence-based training programs that would then be published as a book. He had two concepts already in the pipeline and would need to put a hold on an Outrageous Trust book.

I kept sharing the message, training people who were interested, and looking for the right opportunity for publishing. Some of my early adopters were JRaynond Construction, CareerSource Central Florida, and HCA. Each of these companies engaged in the training, adopted a trust contract, and saw immediate results for their efforts.

In 2016, I was recruited to return to Adventist Health System, the parent company of Florida Hospital. The return occurred at a transformational time for the organization including the appointment of a new CEO and a national brand launch. As executive director of corporate communications, I was responsible for the internal and external communication teams at the corporate office. In addition, I was asked by the publishing team if I would collaborate with them to turn the Outrageous Trust program into an evidenced-based employee training program, including information for health and well-being. To ensure we had the right balance of health and well-being content, I partnered with Omayra Mansfield to co-author the program. This was the genesis of The Trust Transformation.

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The Trust Transformation was launched in 2017 when Dr. Mansfield and I trained the team that would provide ongoing training to AdventHealth employees. To date, more than 5,000 AdventHealth team members have gone through the program and thousands of others have heard the message or participated in training outside AdventHealth through the programs, presentations, and speeches Dr. Mansfield and I have given over the last four years.

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Last year, I decided to leave AdventHealth and find a way to expand my work around The Trust Transformation. I partnered with Stockworth Institute to develop content, attained my coaching credentials, and am working with numerous CEOs to improve their outcomes through the transformational power of trust. In addition, Dr. Mansfield and I completed the manuscript for the book and began looking for a publisher.

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The search for the right publishing opportunity is overwhelming. There are countless ways to “self-publish” a book and a challenging system to secure traditional publishers. We invested time, energy, and resources into finding the right path to get our message out to the world in book form. I was introduced to Morgan James Book Publishing at one of those early publishing events I attended in 2007-2008 and their model seemed perfect for our personal and business objectives. So, we submitted a proposal, and our expectations were exceeded by their reception. David Hancock and his team shared a complete alignment of values and an entrepreneurial spirit for building a business.

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This is an incredible journey, and I am grateful for every turn of the road along the way. The people I’ve met worked with, trained, and learned from have all contributed to the book that will be published. It took discipline to get the information put together in a format that truly helps people and get results, patience to live through various stages of life, and experience the value and power of trust in all of it. My faith drives who I am, and I believe God orchestrated everything to be where I am today and be able to share this message here now and through a book, published by Morgan James very soon.

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So, never give up. It may take longer than you want it to, but it will happen if you keep your eye on the prize. My advice is to stay focused on how you can help others and make a difference each and every day.