Jim McCann’s latest offering is a self-help book he wrote with Johns Hopkins psychologist

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The road to personal and professional success is filled with uncertainties, challenges and other obstacles. Still, it’s a journey with opportunities to thrive. So, it helps to have not only a roadmap, but also an analysis that offers guidance to help people carve their best possible path.

That’s the gist of Lodestar: Tapping Into the 10 Timeless Pillars of Success, a new book by Jim McCann and George Everly Jr.

McCann is the founder of 1-800-Flowers, headquartered in Jericho, whose weekly newsletter, Celebrations Plus, has 10 million subscribers – a base most authors would love to cultivate. He is also the chairman of Worth Media Group, which focuses on leadership on a global platform, including a book-publishing arm. Everly is a Johns Hopkins University clinical psychologist, public-health scholar and author. Everly writes about and researches resilience, stress management, psychological first aid and more.

The book fits into the self-help category.

“We’re all trying to improve and get better all the time,” McCann, who considers himself a lifelong learner, told LIBN.

That quest helps fuel the self-help book category, a $10 billion industry. Readers arguably reach for these books because they want to excel, or, at the very least, do better, both personally and professionally.

And while there’s a lot of material to plow through on the self-help shelves, McCann and Everly did the legwork for readers by seeking out recurring themes in what they deemed “the most influential and credible self-help books of the last century.”

The authors developed what McCann described as a “Cliff Notes” approach to hone in on the “best principles” to “think about learning and continuing on the path to self-improvement.” The authors examined the prevalent themes through science and their personal insights, along with those from well-known leaders.

Each chapter ends with lessons, from what the authors say are the best self-help books, along with practical tips so that readers can put these learnings into practice.

Writing the book with Everly, McCann said, has been a learning experience. This includes the ability to rewire the brain.

“He’s taught me about this idea of neuroplasticity and that our brains are evolving and learning all the time, and they get better at whatever we do,” McCann said. “Ergo, you’re a worrier. Your brain’s getting better at worrying. If you’re anxious and you embrace anxiety, your brain will get better [and] more receptively anxious.”

Similarly, pessimists may lean into negativity because the brain becomes good at it. Yet they can shift to optimism, which can be learned and help people become happier and more confident, according to the book.

The book took two-and-a-half-years to complete, and was supported by a team of researchers. In collaborating, the authors dedicated late afternoons on Saturdays, as well as two-hour sessions that often took place weekday mornings at 7 a.m.

“Throughout this process, I can fully confess that I couldn’t carry George’s water intellectually,” McCann said. While some are intimidated to be around intellectuals, McCann said he leans into his self-confidence. “I can get better by hanging around and interacting with really smart people,” he said.

Lodestar – the authors describe the term as “one that leads, inspires and guides” – is published by Worth Books, launched by Worth Media through a partnership with Forefront Books and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

Worth also hosts a series of conferences, dinners and other events, including a recent discussion at Harvard University with The Chopra Foundation by Deepak Chopra, as well as a climate summit in conjunction with the U.N. Climate Week in New York.

The Worth platform can bode well for the company, and presumably would-be authors attending the company’s thought leadership events.

“I’m really excited about the future of Worth,” McCann said. “We’re doing a lot more publishing now.”