Unlock Your Potential: The Ultimate Guide for Creating Your Dream Life in the Modern World
Jeff Lerner
Matt Holt Books/An Imprint of Ben Bella Books (August 2022)

“‘Potential’ means you ain’t done it yet.” Darrell Royal

I agree with the former head coach of the University of Texas football team. I also believe that although someone else — such as Royal, Jeff Lerner, Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, a family member or friend) may be able to provide you with a “key,” only you can “unlock” and then fulfill whatever your potential may be.

Why did Lerner write this book? “This is really three books in one — an autobiography of a high school drop-out turned jazz musician turned new-economy millionaire, a how-to/self-help book for YOU to create your own incredible story, and a full-scale manifesto that calls each of us to boldly step into a future that is being rewritten faster than most of us realize. Ultimately, this book is intended to do one thing — help millions of people escape a clearly broken system and achieve their full potential and their best, happiest life.”

The best self-help resources can indeed help to accelerate personal growth and professional development. The best of them activate and nourish self-motivation. No question about that. Having a compelling vision can help achieve so much that would otherwise seem impossible. However, always keep Thomas Edison’s insight in mind: “Vision without execution is hallucination.”

These are among the passages that caught my eye:

o Lerner’s entrepreneurial initiatives thus far (14-18)
o Purpose-driven personal and professional development (43-46)
o A candid self-assessment (54-56)
o A covey of steps to peak performance (60-69)
o Convertibg serious problems into “conquerable challenges” (99-106)

o Marshall Rosenberg’s four-step process for collaborative communication (108-111)
o The “Three Ps of Success” (125-134)
o SMART goal-setting (138-140)
o Hal Elrod’s SAVERS methodology (153-155)
o Eliminating procrastination (169-171)

o Preparations for a “new future” (179-188)
o “The Seven Types of Leverage (216-227)
o Lessons to be learned from failure (261-265)
o “How Interest Rates Are Supposed to Work” (275-277)
o Lerner’s thoughts about real estate: “The oldest and most wealth-creating asset class” (319-333)

Obviously, no brief commentary such as mine can possibly do full justice to the value of the information, insights, and counsel that Jeff Lerner provides in Unlock Your Potential. Equally obvious, it would be a fool’s errand for each reader to attempt to adopt and adapt all of the book’s material. That said, it remains for each reader to work their way through the narrative and– in  process — begin to formulate a set of (let’s say) 3-5 specific goals that are ambitious but achievable. Then identify some preliminary needs and those sources that can be most helpful when filling them. Make haste slowly.

Here are a few suggestions to widen and deepen the impact of reading and then re-reading this book. First, highlight the passages of greatest value and impact to you. Also, keep a lined notebook near at hand in which to record your own comments, questions, personal goals, professional goals, page references, etc. These two tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review of key material later. Meanwhile, keep in mind that, ultimately, you are almost wholly responsible for making the right decisions and then for whatever their consequences prove to be.

Also, keep in mind Henry Ford’s observation: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re probably right.” Attitude really is altitude. Only you can determine how high and how far you can go.