Volume 15, Issue 45	World Business Academy Rekindling the Human Spirit in Business
	CONNECTIONS	December 17, 2001

Academy President Commends Book 

Our Senior Editor, Joe Simonetta, has written a remarkable book that I recommend highly, Seven Words That Can Change the World, A New Understanding of Sacredness (2001, Hampton Roads Publishing Company). Just released in November, this book has already received striking testimonials.

Neale Donald Walsch, best-selling author of the Conversations With God series, wrote the Foreward to Joe’s book. Allow me to share it with you:

Well, here it is. The Formula. The Answer. The Way.

Of course, everyone has The Formula, The Answer, The Way. This is not the private domain of gurus on mountaintops or teachers in temples. The guru in your heart knows The Formula. The teacher in the temple of your being has The Answer. And your soul itself is The Way. Still, it is nice to have it articulated so brilliantly, so fluently, so directly and unambiguously as we see it here.

When I first read this material, I found myself turning the corner of a page every time I came across something that I knew I wanted to slip into my talks. I give little talks around the world on life, the meaning of existence and the way to have it all make sense, and as I was reading Joe Simonetta’s words I thought, "Wow. I can use this as a reference. This is really good."

But by the time I got finished reading, I had turned down nearly every other page. I thought, "My God, I’m going to have to memorize this man’s entire book."

I knew then that I had to make sure I played my role in getting it to a larger audience, because I thought, "Gosh, if I’m responding to this book in this way, so will other people."

And I was right. Every other person to whom I’ve shown this material has said, basically, what I said when I put it down. Which was: "Whoa. What a powerful book. Really remarkable. Elegant simplicity."

This is a totally empowering piece of writing. Do not be misled by its small size. It is just as meaningful (perhaps more so) than any five or six-hundred page book I have ever read. If you are looking to help change our planet, if you are wishing to change your own life, you have just given yourself the most practical tools you will ever have. With these simple tools you will say, "I can do this. This is something I can do."

Tampa, Florida radio personality Joel Chudnow refers to the little gem of a book that you are now holding as "a thousand page book in a hundred pages." I like that. That pretty much says it.

There are three rules of life listed here. Three rules, seven words. Those seven words can heal the world. So I didn’t have to memorize Joe’s entire book after all. I only had to remember three rules, seven words.

Here they are. Seven words. A simple mantra that will work. A little secret that will renew your enthusiasm for life.

Here it is. The Formula. The Answer. The Way.

One formula. One answer. One way. There are others, of course. We all know that. There is more than one path to paradise. But this path is so simple. So practical. So easy. It allows us to come to a new understanding of sacredness without all the trappings of some other approaches—without years of study and meditation, without rituals to perform and masters to follow, without classes or workshops or seminars, without, well, much effort at all. Which is how it should be, it’s always seemed to me. Truth should be a simple thing.

So here it is. The Simple Truth.

Enjoy.

And pass it on.

                             Neale Donald Walsch

        

"The Academy is not just another association of business people to exchange information and foster        collegiality. It is about investing ourselves in a task of historic proportions."     Willis Harman

What more can I say, if the man who "converses" with God hails Joe’s work as "The Simple Truth?"  I doubt that I can add anything more to recommend it to you, except to say that this short little book is a quick read which will delight you with its pleasant pacing and deep insight. Rinaldo Brutoco                                                                               

Editor’s note: I am grateful to Rinaldo for his generous comments about my latest book. For anyone interested, there is more information on this book and others of mine at www.joesimonetta.com This last book, Seven Words That Can Change the World, is enjoying excellent reception by readers. Some reader reviews are listed with the book at www.amazon.com. One Los Angeles reader wrote the following about this book. I think she captured its essence better than even I could have. Allow me to share it with you:

"Seven Words That Can Change The World is a revolutionary book, at a time when we desperately need new insights and understandings to wrench us from the world that is so dangerously at the brink. It takes on the given on which religion is based, and instead of a figure to worship or emulate and an old story to be guided by, it inescapably brings the responsibility for our lives home to ourselves in the recognition of the intertwining of everyone at every moment in a oneness in which we all play a part. There can be no clash of belief systems, no wars for whose ideas or whose godhead has the goods, no one to be punished by, no one to placate or to please or to cheat in the reordering of reality that this book provides; instead, we are brought to a universal understanding that we need nothing external to keep us in line, and that, therefore, there isn't any way to lapse or fail or sin in any eyes other than our own and each other's. We are free agents, bound by the fundamental realties of existence, where the good life is in honoring life itself – in making ourselves healthy, our relationships kind, and our environment well tended. This is a big growing up we are invited into, and the inescapable logic of it can't fail to wake us up to a new reality. This simple little book may be the most profound read since the holy books of yore." Suzanne Taylor, Los Angeles, CA  www.theconversation.org

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