Home Featured Content Paul D. Jones Wants You To Schedule for Success

Paul D. Jones

Teaching Us How To Schedule For Success

As Told to Hasan James

 

 

Root Mag: Your new book, Scheduled For Success is very necessary, especially to the African American community. Many people live their day-to- day lives, by just getting by. How does one necessarily schedule for success?

Paul Jones: Number one, people have stopped dreaming because they spend more time focused on bills and the problems of life. Somewhere along the line, they tucked away their original vision that God had for them in the first place; therefore they never really implement their true gift, true talent or true ability. Sometimes you just have to make time for success, even if it’s just and hour, you have to reflect back for a moment and think about how you really want your life to be. Sometime people have the get rich quick mentality but they don’t realize that you must take baby steps.

Root Mag: What is the premise of the book, “Scheduled for Success”?

Paul Jones: Well the main thing I want people to understand is that success is not just financially; it’s success in your personal relationships, success in marriage and success in your family. I’m a father so success for me is being a good father. It’s also success in your financial matters, business matters and health. A little over a year ago, I weighed over one hundred pounds more than I weigh today and I lost the weight because I fit certain things into my daily schedule.  All it takes is buying a planner from Staples and scheduling daily exercise in your day. So the whole basis of the book is to get people to really look at the foundation and the root of why to have a schedule versus just putting something on a piece of paper that reminds you to be some place at a certain time, but that place may not be the place that’s going to lead you to your destiny or where you want to be in life.

Root Mag: The bible says, “Write the vision and make it plain.”

Paul Jones: And that’s all that is. It’s remarkable because sometimes people don’t realize that you get busy and the next thing you know something else comes up and then you get busier, then someone calls you and then they get on your schedule and you get busier and before you know it you’ve lost a whole day. That morning you may have had an idea of what you wanted to accomplish that day, but throughout all the chaos and the craziness of the day; you get to the evening you realize that 60-70% of what you wanted to accomplish did not get accomplished because of all of the other distractions throughout the day. There’s a chapter in the book entitled “The Source”, that deals with this. And instead of you considering the source of the information you run and put that mess on your schedule and then you wound up in trouble and your wondering how did you end up in that spot. When a person has a schedule, no matter what comes their way, they have to figure out how to fit that into their schedule then they’ll know. In life you have to understand that there’s assets and there’s liabilities and you only want to put things that are going to add value to you, which are assets; all of the other things are liabilities. The way I break down liability is: lying to you about your ability. If we just get that point alone, anything that lies to you, is taking away from the person you are. Ultimately, nobody takes someone who is unorganized seriously.

Root Mag: I see that you also worked at a multi-billion dollar corporation and now you’re actually public speaking and motivational speaking. What is that experience like?

Paul Jones: It’s a joy. My main objective is to improve the lives of as many people as possible. When I look back at my upbringing, I realized that my mother showed me nothing but love. In fact, I never knew we were broke until I actually left the house.

Root Mag: I can relate to that too.

Paul Jones: Momma held it down so much that I didn’t know we had problems. From that experience it gave me the passion to want to be a better man so that I can go out and teach others. I believe that there are a lot if young entrepreneurs out there but we need mentors that can go to those individuals and tell them what’s important and teach them how to manage a daily budget. When you look at what’s going on in the political world right now, we’re always hearing we need budget cuts, we need financial fiscal awareness of what’s going on and when they speak of the DOW, most young people don’t know what the DOW Top 30 is. Specifically in the church, if they see someone who is successful, some people look at it wrong. Well I’m here to stand up and say not only is it right, but as long as you’re keeping God first and the right principles of your lives correct, then we’re helping to improve the lives of people.

Root Mag: Do you believe in the tithing system?

Paul Jones: Absolutely! I am where I am at today because of the tithing system. I am a 100% tither and offering giver. I believe that the more that I give, the more I will receive and I would not be talking to you right now about success if I was not a tither and offering giver. I believe that I have to give to God first before you do anything else if you want to be successful.

Root Mag: Specifically in the African American community, we don’t like to talk about money matters. Why do you think that is the case?

Paul Jones: Because we never had any [Laughs). I never liked anyone talking to me about money when I didn’t have any because nobody was trying to show me how to get it, especially legally. In the African American community people get envious because we were taught back in the slave days to go against one another. You had the house slave and the field slave and unfortunately some of that mentality still exist today. We haven’t had enough good examples in our community and the people who did well financially were not the norm. In other communities, it’s normal to be able to send your kids to private school or to attend college and not have to take out a loan. When you take things that are not as normal and you look at the history of our people, you begin to see the pattern. My great-grandmother sat in the back of the bus so that I don’t have to. Although I have a choice to sit back there, I choose to sit in the front because my great grandmother didn’t have that choice. So in honor of her, I’m going to sit up here and I’m going to enjoy and see the view that they never got to see. That’s why education is important to me because there were people before us who was kicked and spit on for trying to get an education in places like Alabama and Arkansas and because of their struggles, we don’t have that problem today. All I’m doing is telling people to have faith, and don’t be afraid to step out and realize that we have come a long way.  As the word says, “We’ve come this far by faith”. Believe me, we only came this far because somebody else was praying for us. Now we have to pick up the baton and keep on going. Imagine where we could be twenty years from now if we all decide to schedule for success and work in unity?

For more information on Paul Jones, Follow him on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/scheduleforsuccess and on his website at www.paulyjones.com.

If you want to schedule for success in your life, pick up the new book by Paul D. Jones, “Schedule for Success” IN STORES NOW and Online NOW!

 

 

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