John Kennedy, whose book, ‘12 Simple Words’ has taken off in sales — and more importantly, impact — recently was on The Chris Voss Show podcast.
Voss’ long-running podcast (16 years) has had more than 27 million views.
Kennedy’s book is about 12 words in the Boy Scout oath (trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent), but it’s so much more than that.
It could be described as a self-help book for society.
Here’s an edited version of how Kennedy described the origin of the book, its meaning and its potential purpose.
“I had been wanting to write this for a long time, and I started trying to write it as a business book — if you followed these 12 words, you could be successful, and it never really came together,” he said.
“A couple years ago, I decided to look at it a different way, and I just looked at it how they impacted me. But also, in the book are what I call other voices, where I grab people to from all walks of life. And I said, pick a word, write about it. Why is it important to you?
“If these words meant something to me, did they mean something to somebody else? And that was important.”
That led to the biggest goal.
“What I was trying to do is remind people that we gotta talk,” he said. “You don’t have to agree all the time — and there’s nothing wrong with arguing or telling somebody you don’t believe what they say is right.
“Thing get to a point where we do silly things like cancel people, if you don’t say the words that I want. What value does that have in the long run? Absolutely none. Because in the end, nobody talked about the problems that we were facing.”
Buy the book here.
Watch the podcast here.
