ABOUT THE BOOK
NEW YOU! WHO KNEW?
Life is messy. It flashes by as you wonder what your future will be and how to influence it. You struggle to take charge of your life and it’s frustrating. Trying new things never works as well as you hoped. Why isn’t your story as wonderful as those you read about?
YOU are the focus in New You! Who Knew? Each chapter helps you build the core skills you need for everything else to fall into place. The surprising but enduring foundations encourage you to build a life to be proud of. Without these, many people experience unnecessary frustration and disappointment.
Be the captain of your own life! Follow step by step to learn the fundamentals needed to overcome challenges, accomplish goals and persist when the going gets tough. By making the principles your own, every relationship and effort will improve, guiding you to lead your own way through life.
WHY THIS BOOK WHY NOW
No other book on the market:
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Is written specifically for this vast and underserved audience.
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Covers the foundations of your values, self-efficacy, and self-compassion in an approachable way.
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Avoids the hyperbole and inflated promises that so often lead to discouragement and even lower esteem.
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Is easy to digest and learn from wherever you are, whatever your background, whatever your age, whatever your income.
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Includes the 10 enduring principles of motivation and the latest in behavioral science.
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Will help you be more successful in every other effort you make.
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Helps you overcome a victim's mentality and guides you through the process of becoming the captain of your own life.
From the Author
The vision was to create the leading integrated patient centered health home on the planet. I was working with smart and dedicated physicians, dentists, nurses, therapists, community health workers and others. It was an exciting time as we strove to implement the best practices in facility design, staffing, coordination, technology and more. I had this nagging feeling, however, that we were missing something important.
Our model put the patient at the center of the care team. Not in some marketing slogan kind of way, but in very fact. I realized that despite everything that we were trying to do for our patients, that unless they were able to effectively function as the captain of the care team all our efforts would have limited effectiveness. We wanted to be effective.
I knew that this thing had to do with personal change, and I was studying various change models. My “WOW” moment came in 2018. As it turns out, at the core of every personal change model hides personal motivation. This is your drive, what gets you up in the morning and keeps you going through the day. It is what helps you get more done, feel more connected, feel good about yourself, and be balanced. It helps you overcome setbacks, deal effectively with feedback, and make progress on your own vision of a great life. All great lives, no matter how normal they appear on the surface, are built on the principles of personal motivation.
Some people think that these traits are inborn, you either have them or you don’t. That is false. No matter your history, education, culture, language, or income you can develop these traits. This gave me hope that all our patients could benefit from this understanding.
I spent the next two years researching and writing and discovered 10 core principles that create personal motivation. You must put some effort into making the principles part of your life, but not a lot of time or effort. So this doesn’t have to take over your life or become the dominant theme of your life.
My book, New You! Who Knew? Is an attempt to make these principles understandable and implementable for normal everyday people who don’t have a lot of time or energy to put into self-development. You might think of your life at this moment as a point on a vertical line. Other people at this same moment might be above or below you on this line. Where you are at, how you got there, and where other people fall on that line does not matter. Not one bit. The only thing that matters is that from this point forward you are making progress.
The principles and tools in the book put you in the captain’s chair of your life. I don’t just plop you there and say, “swim”, however. Principle by principle the 10 chapters guide you on a path that is of your own making. The book is only a guide. By the end you will have the basic tools, based on enduring principles, needed to be more effective, self-directed, resilient, connected, hopeful, and balanced.
Your life is important. My sincere hope is that you will engage with the principles and sit squarely in the captain’s chair of your own life, capable – confident - balanced.
David R. Edwards
