The first time I announced the title of this book to a group of people, there were a few who said, “Why do you have to be so negative? Why can't you write a book called, “What's right with darn near everything”? I laughed. That wouldn't be my style at all. Most importantly, it's not what's right that is our problem; it's what's wrong that we aren't doing a damn thing about that is our problem. In this book, I'm not going to spend much time on what's right, instead I'm going to spend my time talking about what's wrong, why it's wrong, and what we can do about it.

Face it: things are a mess. I bet you will find it hard to argue with that statement. Our government is a mess: it's too big, it costs too much, and for the most part, it's ineffective. You can top that off with the fact that people have completely lost confidence in it and the politicians who run it. Recent polling says that 68 percent of people believe we are headed in the wrong direction.

It's not just government; businesses are a mess, too. Many have forgotten that businesses exist to fill a need, solve a problem, serve their customers well, and be profitable while doing it. A strong work ethic in employees has become a thing of the past. Too many leaders confuse leadership with popularity.

Families are no exception, either. Too many parents are indulgent, overprotective, and don't communicate or teach morals, ethics, or values. They are raising narcissistic brats who have no respect for others or for themselves. And while the economy is a mess in our country, it's simply a reflection of the disastrous way we handle our own money as individuals and in our families. People spend money they don't have buying things they don't need to impress people they don't like.

Individuals blame instead of taking responsibility. They rationalize their behavior. They are personally offended by almost everything even when it has nothing to do with them. They demand things, believing they are entitled to them instead of earning them. We even have a huge segment of society that has moved back in with their parents instead of sucking it up and figuring out how to make it on their own. They put more thought and more money into their grande half-caf Mochachino Frappuccino Crapacino than they do their savings accounts. They distract themselves with social media instead of working. I could go on and on and on, and every one of you reading this could add 50 more statements that would be true about what a mess people have become.

Education might be the area where it is the worst. College campuses are now full of safe zones where grown men and women can run and hide to protect themselves from the hurtful words of others. And yes, 18 years old is grown. We have 18-year-old men and women dying while defending our country so I consider 18-year-olds grown. Colleges have become bastions of uber-liberal ideas that charge exorbitant amounts of money to nurture oversensitivity instead of challenging thinking and encouraging growth.

Some of us wake up every day and read or watch the news and barely recognize the world we live in. And some of us never read anything and only watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians or The Bachelor or other drivel and are totally clueless about the world we live in.

Is all of what I've said here a series of broad, sweeping generalizations? Of course! But that doesn't make the statements any less true. They don't apply to everyone but they apply to more than enough. I recognize there are exceptions to each of these points. Not all leaders, families, businesses, schools, or government officials are a mess. But those are the exception and not the rule. I hope you are one of the exceptions to every one of the statements I've made. However, whether you are the exception to these statements or whether you are the epitome of one of these statements, you are going to have to admit that I'm right: things are a mess!

To be very, very clear: I am not saying that nothing is going right. I am not ignoring or discounting all of the good in the world. I see it. I acknowledge it. I applaud it. But that is not what this book is about. This book is not about what is going right. This book is about what is going wrong and what we must do to fix it. I am a firm believer that it is impossible to fix a problem unless you recognize and identify your issue as a problem, then go to work to fix it.

And we are already making some efforts to fix these things. But I believe that for the most part, we are going about fixing things backward. We are working at fixing things from the outside in. That rarely works and it is typically a temporary fix at best. You almost always create long-term change when you fix things from the inside out. But that requires more time and energy and sweat than most people are willing to invest.

We are building walls around our country to keep the bad guys out. And while I think that is a fine idea, we have bad guys we have created right here that are doing us just as much harm simply because parents are teachers and society didn't take the time to do the work to teach people that valuing life and respecting others and not committing crimes is a better way to live.

We are also building walls around our personal beliefs, ideals, biases, and prejudices. We create safe zones to protect us from the harmful words of others, instead of teaching people to be strong enough to withstand harmful words and kind enough not to say harmful words. To make matters worse, we have redefined a harmful word to mean anything you don't agree with. And while I agree that our individual rights should be protected, it seems that we only want protection for our rights, not the rights of anyone who disagrees with us.

We don't allow kids to play tag, hide-and-seek, or other games—or in some cases even have outside recess because they might get hurt. Or worse, their feelings might get hurt. We have even gone so far in some cities as to pay criminals not to commit crimes. Again, this is just an external solution to an internal problem. How about letting kids know that you don't always get picked and when you play, sometimes you get hurt. How about teaching people not to be criminals instead of rewarding them for being a criminal.

Our outer world is collapsing and needs to be fixed, no doubt about it. But as the old saying goes, “As within, so without.” Our outer world is only a reflection of our inner world. Our outer world is a mess because we are a mess.

I do believe we are facing the collapse of society, but it won't be because of the government, the liberals, the conservatives, ISIS, foreign enemies, the economy, obesity, cigarettes, drugs, or any other external factor. Our society will collapse if we continue to let our core values collapse. We have to fix the issues I am going to discuss in this book. However, here is the problem:

People typically only take action to fix their problem when it's damn near too late.

My goal is that people read this book, realize how bad things are, and decide to take action to fix things before it's too late.