The Road Less Traveled

Yeah, yeah.

One of the things that helped me through that time was a book by Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled.

And in there, he talks about the difference between community and true community.

And he talks about the four stages of true community.

Oh.

I said, "Oh, really? Like what kind of books do you write and edit?" She said, "Well, the last book I wrote is called Further Along the Road Less Traveled, which is the sequel to The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck."

No way.

I said, "Wait a second.

How, what do you mean you wrote that book?" She said, "Well, Simon & Schuster bought from him, uh, uh, tapes of his classes.

They had them transcribed, and they asked me to write the book." And I'm going, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe this.

I've just met a woman that wrote the sequel to The Road Less Traveled." And then she says to me, "But you know what, Rabbi? Someone should write a Jewish Road Less Traveled."

Yeah.

This happened so that we might learn to trust not in ourselves, but in God.

You know, the eminent psychiatrist, what was his name? Scott Peck, who wrote The Road Less Traveled.

He said this, fearing pain, Because we fear pain, he says, almost all of us, to a greater or lesser degree, attempt to avoid our problems.

We procrastinate, hoping they'll go away.

Well, you know, one of my favorite books during this time, and I was living in, this is when I was living in Europe.

I was on the European tour of West Side Story and I'm sitting on a tour bus driving through Germany, reading The Road Less Traveled.

Wow.

I'm 23 years old reading The Road.

on a search.

So

I'm reading The Road Less Traveled.

And I remember one line that M. Scott Peck wrote, and he said, you have to forge an identity before you can surrender one.

He's the first guy who wrote The Road Less...

He wrote, he's the first self-help book, The Road Less Traveled, which was, uh, on the self...

I mean, it was literally the, the first one, [laughs] and it was, uh, uh, it was on the bestseller list for 25 years.

And it was really, uh, about a spiritual book written for, by an atheist who later became a born-again Christian.

I cut out the New York Times where I interviewed the 101 best marketers in fiction, nonfiction.

And I interviewed Scott Peck, who'd been to Road Less Travel and was at Harvard with Jack.

And I've waited out his name on the New York Times list.

And I put Mark and Jack tickets over.

You know, it's so funny.

In my lowest time of my life, not only was I reading Chicken Soup for the Soul, but I started to watch different movies and read different books.

And you were in a particular movie that truly inspired my wife, who forced me to read it and then watch the movie.

It was called The Secret.

That's so smart.

That's how the book came about.

But as far as marketing it goes, we learned something called bypass marketing, the idea that most people at that time did not buy books in bookstores, which is true today because they mostly buy them on Amazon.

But they were buying them in flower shops and in airports and in grocery stores and chiropractic offices and anywhere.

Gallagher isn't the first psychiatrist to feel such duty.

Dr. M. Scott Peck, the late author of The Road Less Traveled, conducted two exorcisms himself, something Gallagher considers unwise and dangerous for any psychiatrist.

It's not like someone is walking into my office and say, you must be possessed.

He may not have asked to join the hidden world of exorcism, but he is an integral part of the community today.