Days 1–10
Slavery
What got you where you are—and it isn’t a lack of faith.
Walk with God in the Second Half of Life, Go from Success to Significance, and Decide Today on Your Purpose, Family, and Business
Forty days alone with God. Every day brings the full Scripture passage, a true story with no sermon, and one decision you can check off before you turn out the light. No day runs past eight hundred words.
Get It on Amazon See What’s Inside
Numbers 14:34
One year for every day of fear. That’s the going rate, and it’s still being charged. The math hit home for me at thirty-three, in a hotel room in Tampa, on the worst night of my life. My first book came out of that night—not out of a seminar.
Who it’s for
It isn’t a lack of faith. You go to church. You believe. Nine times out of ten, it’s fear in a necktie.
Buying it for your husband or your dad? It’s forty days, not 365, and no day runs past eight hundred words. He can finish this one.
What the 40 days look like
Four chapters of ten days each—the same four stretches that generation walked, and the same four every one of us walks.
What got you where you are—and it isn’t a lack of faith.
Leaving isn’t arriving. Who are you when they take the title away?
Deciding is hard. This is where you write the plan.
Getting in isn’t the finish line. This is where you deliver.
One day, up close
Ten or fifteen minutes. Door shut, phone in another room. You, the passage, and a decision.
EXODUS 5:6–9 (NLT)
“Load them down with more work. Make them sweat!”
Printed in full on the page, every day. You never stop to look one up.
My daughter stalled at level eight in gymnastics—not for lack of strength or hours. “It’s just that I’m scared.” Then my son told me how long a hard hit really lasts: “About fifteen seconds, Dad.”
A true story, man to man. No pulpit.
Write down how many seconds the hit you’ve been dodging for months will really last, then put the date you’ll take it on the calendar.
One line, in ink, before bed.
Free tools
Every ten days of reading opens one of them. They’re free, right from your phone, and your answers stay on your device.
AFTER DAY 10 · WHERE DO I COME FROM?
Draw your story stage by stage, find the patterns that keep repeating, and name the fear that’s holding you back today.
Start My TimelineAFTER DAY 20 · WHO AM I?
Forty quick choices to find out what tools you were born with, your strengths, and your blind spots. The hammer or the screwdriver?
Take the TestAFTER DAY 30 · WHERE AM I GOING?
Your purpose turns into goals, measurable initiatives, and a calendar. Two or three hours a month, no more.
Build My PlanAFTER DAY 40 · DAY 41
Holding on to it is the hard part, and nobody does that alone. Thirty minutes on video, and the first one is on me.
See My Calendar
Who’s talking
At twenty-four I was analyzing billion-dollar acquisitions for one of the largest cement companies in the world. I designed the future of enormous companies and never designed my own.
At thirty-three, in the same month, my wedding was called off, I lost my job, and the world went into a financial crisis. One night, in a hotel room in Tampa, I decided my life was over. What came after wasn’t a seminar. It was a calendar. Fifteen years of one hour a day turned a pack-a-day smoker into a Boston Marathon finisher.
I founded Nóvament, a strategy and culture firm for family-owned businesses. For more than a decade I’ve sat across the table from owners who are where I was—in better suits—in more than 1,400 projects. I host the Líderes Ocultos podcast, and my family and I are moving from Monterrey, Mexico, to Texas.
If you’re in that hotel room tonight, put this down and call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. It’s free, confidential, and open 24 hours a day. You don’t have to carry this alone.
What they’re saying
“Kike’s brave and generous testimony, in a very simple and practical way, makes us reflect on what truly matters in life and what deserves our highest priority.”
Ricardo Saldívar
Former President & CEO, The Home Depot Mexico
“There’s no way not to get hooked on this book. [Kike’s] story is powerful, and it grabs you from the first page.”
Guillermo “Guille” Franco
Former player, Mexico National Team
Already finished it?
If the forty days did something for you—or didn’t—say so on Amazon. A short, honest review is how another man standing where you stood finds this book.
Start today
If something here hit home, the first step isn’t hiring anybody. It’s opening the book—or sitting down with me for thirty minutes, at no cost.