9 Months, 17k Downloads, Personal And Social Responsibility

From Conception to Childbirth

Monday, March 7^th will be exactly NINE months since the first book in the award-winning Manual For Living series was published. Looking back it has been a fascinating journey. The Manual took 10 years to write and edit, and to see how much impact it has had in the time required to complete the cycle of childbirth is truly amazing. We have had interviews on well over 50 local and national radio stations, great publicity from oodles of newspapers and bloggers, sales from bookstores, yoga studios, rehabilitation/health centers and much more, and on February 28th the Manual For Living achieved download number 17,341 from the Apple iBookstore!

I wouldn’t be here without you, so allow me to say thanks and to express my tremendous gratitude for your support. There are also a few angels in particular who have guided this portion of my journey, to whom I would like to express my sincere and specific appreciation:

THANK YOU! Simon Warwick-Smith, Jackie Hendricks, Dan Millman, Ed Shapiro, Judith Briles, Aaron Stewart, Mark Gerzon, Evelyn Alisbo, Kim Gerulatt, Donna Gould, Benita Levy, Scott Cluthe, and of course Oprah (thank you in advance for having me on your show – smile)! There are more angels to acknowledge, but you’ll just have to wait until next time. Thank you for all of your support, guidance and passion!

Take Personal and Social Responsibility

With all of the vitriol surrounding politics, religion and the government, its easy to jump on the bandwagon and blame everyone else for all of the problems in our life. The truth is that the current state of our world is the direct result of all of the choices we’ve made throughout our entire life. We are and our current life is the sum total of OUR decisions, yet our future need not reflect our past. We must remember that the ONLY way to change the future is to change the present – and lest I need remind you, the present is now.

The definition of responsibility is “the ability or authority to act or decide on one’s own, without supervision” (Collins English Dictionary). Isn’t that the art of being human? Who else could possibly be responsible for the choices we make? Aren’t we given the freedom to believe what we choose, to act as we desire?

Do you really want to change your life? Just remember that now is the time – not tomorrow or next year. Our lives are naturally filled with challenges and opportunities for growth – and it is how we find our joy through these challenges that distinguishes a life committed to greatness from one that revels in pettiness and mediocrity.

The choice is ours and the time is now to create our lives in exactly the method and manner we desire. But first, we must take responsibility for our choices – thus empowering ourselves to create our lives exactly as we desire.

Touching Lives

One of the most rewarding parts of writing and publishing a book is the feedback I receive along the way…much of which touches my heart and my soul in ways I often can’t fully explain.

Shortly after I started my first business many years ago, it was time to hire my first employee. I hired an energetic, very smart, passionate and engaging young man who turned about to be a terrific hire. His time working for me was extremely positive and at times filled with some very interesting memories.

Many years had gone by when I ran into him in Boulder. Shortly thereafter, he went out and purchased my book and recently I received the following letter that I would like to share with you:

“I bought this book as I left a job without a plan, trusting that if you jump off the cliff you’ll land on your feet because the universe loves you. Manual For Living was released just as I was making my decision to jump and felt like a sign so I bought it. I was glad I did. This book accomplishes what it sets out to do.

I should back up a little though. I worked for this author about ten years ago at one of his companies. For most books this would be irrelevant but for this topic I think the experience and character of the source is what makes all the difference, and that’s something I can tell you about first hand. Chernoff is perfectly suited to write a manual for living. Just as you would only hire a fit personal trainer, Chernoff has the results in his own life. This is someone who lives with clarity on his own terms, has overcome severe adversity, functions at a very high level, is truly helpful to others and enjoys every bit of his experience. The title actually cracks me up. I picture a few exotic car engineers standing around their latest creative pursuit asking, “who should we have write the owners manual?”. Yes, this is our guy.

You can spend time with this book going through each section or you can pick it up, open it at random and spend 2 minutes finding a topic to contemplate before you head out to run errands. It’ll help you either way to stay on track or, depending on your circumstances, at least remember which direction the tracks are in. I highly recommend this one.” – Brendan Roberts

Until next time, many blessings on your journey!

Seth