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Stop Standing Still

A Personal Planning Guidebook

The title is a debt to a mentor — Carl Schweser's line, "if you're not moving, you're standing still." This is the guidebook for getting moving: a short, structured place to define your purpose, choose the activities that steer you toward it, clear the roadblocks, and turn "I wish" into "I will" into "I am."

$10–15

Paperback & ebook 6×9 · 108 pages A one-to-two-evening read

WHAT’S INSIDE

It's built as a workbook, not a lecture. Three things do most of the work.

The Personal A3

A single-page planning canvas — fourteen boxes that move you from purpose and vision through your current state, the people in your corner, your blockers and skill gaps, and your non-negotiables, out to goals, metrics, and a roadmap. The worksheets aren't an appendix; they're the spine of the book.

The Six-Step Method

Read it through once. Fill the boxes in your own hand. Talk to a mentor. Gather input from your inner circle. Move to implementation. Then monitor and adjust — because the roadmap is drawn curvy on purpose.

The Ingredients to Success

Nine qualities the work leans on: courage, grit, mental agility, grace, competence, financial literacy, curiosity, communication, and showing up. Not a test to pass — a frame for noticing what you're drawing on and what you're missing.

FORMAT & WHAT YOU GET

Paperback and ebook, about 108 pages at 6×9 short enough to finish in an evening or two, structured enough to actually use, with the planning canvas printed right where you're reading. $10–15, print-on-demand on Amazon.

WHO IT’S FOR

For anyone standing at an inflection point who wants a place to begin: people laying down a foundation, professionals who've drifted from the reason they started, recent graduates who were never handed a planning practice, and managers who landed in the role without a map. If you've been meaning to sit down and figure out what's next, this is the sitting-down.

FROM THE WISDOM WALL

Doing nothing and allowing yourself to remain stuck in an environment that doesn’t serve you is itself a decision.

— Andy Temte

THE COMPANION

When you're ready to go underneath the plan: The Modern Golden Rule.

Stop Standing Still is the practical first step. The Modern Golden Rule is the book underneath it, the floor-and-aspiration framework for how you treat other people, and yourself, while you do the work.