I heard a lot of things about “The Secret” but never really got the chance to read it or watch the movie that came out in 2006. I have a general stereotype about most self-help books – I don’t think most of them really do what they are made out to do. However, to my surprise – The Secret is completely different since it shares a similar philosophy to what I wrote in “The Dream.”

Our individual laws of attraction in the universe dictate our future. We choose our destiny by the decisions, feelings, and thoughts we make. When you look at your life – we all have moments we might think were miracles – but when we dig deeper we begin to realize – we created that positive energy to win and individually made them happen. When we were unsure about something, we dwelled about things, made negative energy consume us and never executed on what it was that we truly wanted.

Even as I went through the exercise of writing “The Dream” I began to have a flashback of all the great moments in my life – where failure was written all over it – but I chose to pick myself up and keep the eye on the prize. I didn’t let the negative noise around me stop me from pursuing any of them.

Everything starts with a dream – that singular emotion we all resonate is the beginning of our future. And that’s why; we all have that power to shape our own destiny.

Here’s also the first 20 minutes of The Secret Video:

After the sale of BlueLithium – I decided that after my role at Yahoo was complete, I wanted to write a book. The main reason why? I felt that my life has all been about defying the odds through mistakes and lessons I’ve learned, and I want to empower others to never give up and to continue to find their magic.

But, here’s the catch – I didn’t know anything about how to write a book or how to go about even getting it published. One of the things I realized early on – if you don’t know how to do a particular thing – go out and surround yourself on the people that do. So, I did exactly that.

Last year I signed up the William Morris Agency – one of the biggest talent agencies in the entertainment & media space. Outside of the television, film, and production talent they represent – they also have a very big literary department. My agent introduced me to one of their literary agents and I flew down to New York to discuss my intentions for “The Dream.”

As I walked into his office, I was asked a very straightforward question. Why do you want to write a book and your only “25” – do you even have enough to talk about in a book? My answer was – “the last 10 years of my life have been a complete roller coaster ride and truly unique – and that exact journey came with situations that tried to stop me from reaching my dreams; I want to share my story to let people know to never give up and the biggest shortcut to each success all starts with that first dream.” On the second question – whether there was enough to write a book  – after I walked him through some of the stories – he later realized I had too much to talk about in just one book. Nevertheless, he was convinced that there was a story to be told and walked me through the process.

The second part was to find a co-writer. So, I was introduced to five different ghostwriters that all at one point in their life had written books that made the New York Times best-seller list. I connected the most with Pablo Fenjves and selected him to work with me on the project. Next, we needed to write a book proposal which almost is like a “book summary.” After six weeks – we finished the proposal. Now, my agent went to work and sent the book proposal to all of the major publishing houses. Several were interested in meeting me to discuss the project and eventually I connected the most with Airie Stuart of Palgrave Macmillan. I remembered having an honest discussion of why I wanted to tell my story. And, frankly I told her – that even if only 5 people end up buying this book – I am confident that this will get them closer to finding their magic. I remember jokingly later telling her – I am hoping we sell more than 5 copies.

A few weeks after that meeting, we ended up selling global rights to Palgrave Macmillan (part of St. Martin Press) for the Dream. Pablo and I went to work – and after 8 hard months, finally completed the manuscript for the Dream. That was a huge experience in of itself, and at times a very humbling one.

To be upfront – I’m not doing this for profit (after all the cuts, my share would be $2 per book). My passion is clear. I think we’re all in this world to do great things. There are obstacles and insecurities that sometimes stop us. I am hoping after you hear my story – you believe that we all can defy the odds.

The Dream releases globally on October 23rd, 2008.
You can buy your copy on Amazon.com’s pre-release by clicking here: