Strength the beginning is usually in one's childhood. And I, I was a badly abused child. So needless to say, I was very sensitive to the way I was treated, and I wanted people to treat each other better, especially me. And I was very blessed. And then when I was 11, a neighbor introduced me to volunteering, I went to the Red Cross, and I became a junior Red Cross volunteer. And all of a sudden at age 11, you know, for the first time, people said nice things to me, they were complimenting me and thanking me for for the work I was doing. And, you know, thank God for volunteering, and I've been a dedicated volunteer the rest of my life, but I became sensitized to how people treat each other better because it was so much a part of my core. I went on, as a student at Northwestern University, I volunteered, venturing, Cobra, racketeer advice, Lord gang kids and the north side of Chicago. I continued volunteering, everything I raised my kids, and then eventually, I became a corporate advertising executive. And while at the same time I was volunteering, so I would, you know, I go do my volunteer work. And yes, I would help a child or two or a classroom. And then I go to my corporate office, and with a staff of 10 or 12 people, I routinely influence the buying behaviors of hundreds of 1000s of people. So one night, you know, I sort of had that moment thing, you know, people talked about the AHA, the white light, I don't know what you want to call it. But this moment happened in October of 1987, I'd come home from a particularly poignant, volunteer experience, feeling that elation about my success, but that says that there's never enough volunteers, there's never enough. And that night, I sort of had this, this, this revelation, that the months of the year, could be brand names for 12 aspects of helping people to get along better together. And the cool thing about the months are, that's the amount of time it takes to make a habit. So it's like, once I realized I had this revelation, I'm thinking to myself, who are you are up there, you know, don't give that to me give it to Ted Turner, or Bill Gates, or somebody who can really pull it off, you know, I'm just this little person. But you know, I started putting one foot in front of the other, I found a small community in Pennsylvania, where I was, we started there, within a couple of weeks. So what I did was we named each month of the year one of 12 has the aspects of getting along together, maybe you could put the slide up. So one of the book, Michael here shows the 12 habits. So I had the idea about the months being brand names for habits, but when in Somerset, Pennsylvania, where I started this a whole group of people, you know, students, the mayor, though owner of a local radio station, the head of the worship society, whole group of people got together and they spent almost nine months saying, Okay, if we're going to make January, a habit, you know, what should it be? If you're going to make February a habit? What should it be? So, I had the vision about making each month a brand name for one of 12 aspects of behaviors that inspire people to get along together. But the group of people in Somerset, Pennsylvania, helped think through what each month what each month's habit is. And there's actually if you read the book, you'll see there's a logic, like January's habit, is help others. That's because in December, there's help all over the place. And you know, everybody's raising money to give food to these kids and clothing and Christmas presents and on and on and on. But in January, all that giving drops of the toilet, and there's more suicides in January than any other month. All the research says it takes between 21 to 30 days to make or break a habit. That's why, you know, once I had this idea that we could make each month a brand name for one of 12 aspects and practice that the whole month. Like in my book, there's a reading for every day, but it's just a little half a page. So even though each day's reading is a little different, for that month, it's a little different insight on the same behavior. So by the end of the month, you've really deep into that behavior in your psyche and then your consciousness and it's become more a part of who you are as a person as it began in Somerset schools and, and throughout Pennsylvania it's probably been between two and 300 schools and communities.
Probably a couple 100,000 Kids, at least in a school. Usually there's a team, a 12 Habits team, you know who forms. Then we make posters and flyers, the kids even get pencils. These are table tents for the library to see the colors, they match the book. So that the kids are like surrounded by the habits during that month. And then the first of the next month is the 12 habit day, all the posters in the four months go down, the new posters go up, teachers have activities, and we celebrate each of these activities. Each of these habits going through the year and the first of the month starts a new habit, a lot of schools hold school assemblies. Some some schools work with a local radio stations, kids, right 32nd radio spots, and then they're invited down to the radio stations to actually cut the radio spots on help others or be appreciative or whatever the monthly habit is. I mean, people have so much fun, being good. Isn't that cool?
You see, the question is that I think the question that our our culture in the United States is answering incorrectly right now is what is the narratives? Is the narrative about our differences? Or is the narrative about our sames. And we need to have a higher ratio of the narrative being about how we're like to balance all this narrative about how and why we're different. You see what I'm saying? Well, I was gonna say, there's a, there's a Cherokee, a Cherokee legend, or parable, about an old grandfather, I think, reflects on where we are today, that reflects on the thing about good and evil. So this grandson is telling or this grandfather is telling his grandson about these two wolves inside of this, the the the wolf of evil and The Wolf of good, and they're fighting inside to gain control of us. And so the the young grandson says Book grandfather, which wolf wins, and the grandfather says, it's the wolf you feed. And we are feeding the the divisive, bad wolf, of what violence and anger and hate and separation that's hurting our country. So you know, the the upward triangle, you know, shows the upward movement, and at the bottom is, you know, the worst case scenario and where we are right now, which is separatism and racism and all these negative forces that are driving us apart, and know how the notice how the arrows are pushing away. So right now, I think we're, we're far from unifying, we're pushing away from each other as a society here in America, there was a period we went through where we had a big deal about appreciation of diversity, where we acknowledged that we were different, and we acknowledge our differences. But we worked on appreciating those differences in one another. And that still had an us and them to it, but at least the forces were pulling the US in them together. And that is one of the things to look at when we look at at healing some of the wounds in the divisionist. But what my book, and this model is saying is when we focus on ideals that we all have in common, that nobody is different about. I mean, is there anybody that doesn't want to be patient? And listen? Is there anybody that doesn't know that they need to count? I mean, is there not in 30 years? Has anybody ever disagreed with any of these 12 Common Ground core values? So when we put some of our emphasis on these 12 core values that were there are no differences that helps to bring harmony and balance to the negativity and divisiveness that's going on? is I call it the evolution from human relations to humane relations with an E on the end of human wouldn't that be cool if someday we all became humains. And that is we think that the media is the enemy, okay, the media, but the enemy isn't the media. The media could be our friend. My work is proving that what the enemy is, is the messaging that's in the media warning. This book is habit forming, may cause a happier life. You don't need to learn anything in this book. You know, it's just, I mean, unless you didn't know that being patient and listening was a good thing. Like, we've done lots of research, and we have done in different communities, the research, even though they're in different communities years apart, has been almost parallel after two to three years in a community. Independent research has shown that this is the mass community. This is man on the street questions have shown that almost 70% of the people after several years, say they feel more warm thing connected is their connectedness and their community. And almost 30% said that because they saw a message, they actually altered their behavior. And there's been research surveys where kids or people, you know, write down what is this? What are the 12 has done for you. And my absolute favorite, my favorite of the 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of answers to that question is a is a student in sixth grade. And it was in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, where I live now wrote, I am now nice to the people I used to be mean to
you it is not going to trickle down, it's going to trickle up. And Steve's bless your heart, corrected me and said, you know, these don't Trickle Up, it has to bubble up. So if every person who's hearing your broadcast, who's hearing me talk today is hearing us half this discussion, decides to get involved in these 12 habits. And I hope they do. Just remember, as they do, then they will be bubbling up unity right from their own person, they'll be bubbling into their family, they'll be bubbling it into their community, into their workplace, in their social media network, you know, they can start bubble up these 12 habits. And the beauty of it is that even though it might happen in fragmented places, you know, here and here and here and here, because we're already doing the say that was we're all doing March resolve conflicts, when suddenly it comes together, everybody will already be doing the same thing, when I'm suggesting is intentional evolution, from human to humane by designing a strategy to intentionally evolve, the way we behave and treat ourselves and one another. So that going forward, we can become a civil, a more civilized society, in our humaneness and in our ability to, to live from our hearts. And have that be the dominant theme of what civilization is rather than technology and stuff. A couple that wrote the biggest book on history ever written will and Ariel Durant summed it in a maybe it's a good close, summed that progress of civilization into one sentence, they wrote, like, hundreds of 1000s of words on civilization. And they're one single sentence, in some Asian civilization is just the slow progress toward being kind.
I would describe it as a world where everyone takes advantage of the opportunities that come to them every single day, to to be helpful to be a constructive part of the world, to make somebody's life a little bit better. You know, if you're a conservative, you know, we think government does too much, okay, and we don't want your government taking over everything. But governance taken over because people being there for one another has stepped back this morning, in the middle of whatever it was, I was doing a friend called whose heating heat went out and they knew I had a heater. So I drove over a heater. It took 20 minutes. And so I'm saying that, that a better world is when every single person wakes up in the morning is not only aware of themselves, but as aware of the people around them. They listen to each other, they think about each other, they have compassion for one another. And as Steven I think said or both of you said, you know Living from the heart. That's the idea of the better world. And the book, the habit, the habits of unity is a handbook. It's a tool. It's a map. It's a way to start someone on the path toward getting to Living from the heart more on a day to day basis. And as the book says, heeding the warning that if they do that they just might have a happier life.
