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Be the One: The Universal Roadmap to Create, Design, and Live an Unforgettable Life
In Be the One , Justin Prince offers a roadmap for success that will help you become the person you were designed to be.
Twelve generations, 4,094 individuals, all came before you. And each one made decisions that steered both their life and yours. But sometimes, there’s that “one.”
The one who chose to go a different way. The one who faced and embraced the hard times to reach the reward on the other side. The one who made the life-altering decision that ensured your very existence.
Now it’s your turn. You can set a course for success, which will ensure that your future generations also succeed. But what if you’re struggling? What if success is elusive, non-existent even? How can you “be the one” for those in your future when your present feels like it’s at “zero”?
In his debut book, author and speaker Justin Prince shares a roadmap, an instruction manual, which lays out simple but powerful steps that you can take—today—to reset your course and aim yourself toward success.
Filled with poignant stories and personal examples from Prince’s own life, this book will show you how to—
And learn the four words spoken by John C. Maxwell that changed everything for Prince.
Like your ancestors, you make choices that will affect not only you but all others in your path, today, tomorrow, and for years to come. Decide today to succeed. For yourself and for them. Decide to “be the one.”
Twelve generations, 4,094 individuals, all came before you. And each one made decisions that steered both their life and yours. But sometimes, there’s that “one.”
The one who chose to go a different way. The one who faced and embraced the hard times to reach the reward on the other side. The one who made the life-altering decision that ensured your very existence.
Now it’s your turn. You can set a course for success, which will ensure that your future generations also succeed. But what if you’re struggling? What if success is elusive, non-existent even? How can you “be the one” for those in your future when your present feels like it’s at “zero”?
In his debut book, author and speaker Justin Prince shares a roadmap, an instruction manual, which lays out simple but powerful steps that you can take—today—to reset your course and aim yourself toward success.
Filled with poignant stories and personal examples from Prince’s own life, this book will show you how to—
And learn the four words spoken by John C. Maxwell that changed everything for Prince.
Like your ancestors, you make choices that will affect not only you but all others in your path, today, tomorrow, and for years to come. Decide today to succeed. For yourself and for them. Decide to “be the one.”
224 pages, Hardcover
Published September 26, 2023
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 23, 2026
I've listened to the first chapters of the audiobook on Spotify.
From the short description, I expected a motivational book, maybe along the lines of imagining all your ancestors who made it this far, and now you have this life and all these opportunities to make the best of it.
That was not so. It begins with a rather cautionary tale on male incompetency, and continues with further male obsession with legacy ( "do it for your descendants"). All the while omitting the existence and contribution of women.
I found it so overshadowed by the patriarchal, also colonial, and - possibly -mormon undertones, that I just couldn't finish it.
"Be the One" begins with a retelling about how one of the author's forefathers dragged his wife and child from England to South Africa, of all places, in search of a better life - followed by descriptions on how savage the savages, i.e. the original South Africans were toward the colonizers. (No mention of the brutality by the colonizers towards them). Somewhere here, his unmarried brother dies.
A little caveat by the author à la"History is complex" ties up this episode.
Then, his ancestors relocate to the US. His ancestor, Prince senior senior senior, meanwhile has kept his UNNAMED wife continuously pregnant trhoughout this whole ordeal.
Then, he thinks he will find his luck in Utah. He forces his, again, pregnant wife with four small children to do the wagon trail with him. On this travel, she gives birth to twins, who subsequently die, she has to bury them in an unmarked grave, continue the journey, and then also dies on the trail. (Presumably due to sepsis or sheer exhaustion - we do not know, as we don't even know her name).
("In Utah, he did not only find his fortune but also GOD". - That's why I think it is written from a very Mormon author, because we can presume that the British colonizer was christian anyway beforehand, so to mention specifically that he found god in Utah, must mean he converted to Mormonism).
I was wondering if Prince Sen.sen.sen. Remarried in Utah, because I find it quite unlikely that he took care of the children himself. Patriarchal men then, as now, see women as appliances. If one dies, just get a new model. That's why names are relatively superfluous in their minds.
Anyway. The author then explains that this is not about his own ancestor - it's about how we can find inspiration in the story to be "the One" for our future children and our children's children, and so on....
This idea of a "bigger picture" is nothing specifically Mormon, but the obsession with legacy and genealogical thinking is particularly strong with patriarchs and, well, mormons (Latter Day Saints).
He continues that his motivation to make something of himself (translation: more money) was his son, Isaac. Oh, he had a first born daughter, and a wife too, but they remain unnamed at first, and he is not doing anything for his DAUGHTER.
To maybe provide, care for his wife is also not a motivation. No. But his SON is.
These omissions (the name of his daughter, his wife's role in his life, the name of his female ancestors, etc) paint a picture that for me is not motivational or inspirational.
It only inspires me to avoid men like that like the plague, and I don't think the author has anything to say to women. To be motivated by your future descendants implies that you will have children, which is not a given for any reader. Also the thought of your descendants standing in awe before your grave might not have such a universally rousing impact as it has for legacy obsessed males. (Oh and when we are talking about descendants, we are talking SONS and GRANDSONS here, if that wasn't clear.)
So if you are a woman who wants to live life for her own, if your whole plan for life is NOT to live vicariously through your SONS, imaginary or real, then - I would not recommend this book.
If you are, however, a Mormon man or just a regular christian man, you might relish the thought of LEGACY and find this book quite motivational.
From the short description, I expected a motivational book, maybe along the lines of imagining all your ancestors who made it this far, and now you have this life and all these opportunities to make the best of it.
That was not so. It begins with a rather cautionary tale on male incompetency, and continues with further male obsession with legacy ( "do it for your descendants"). All the while omitting the existence and contribution of women.
I found it so overshadowed by the patriarchal, also colonial, and - possibly -mormon undertones, that I just couldn't finish it.
"Be the One" begins with a retelling about how one of the author's forefathers dragged his wife and child from England to South Africa, of all places, in search of a better life - followed by descriptions on how savage the savages, i.e. the original South Africans were toward the colonizers. (No mention of the brutality by the colonizers towards them). Somewhere here, his unmarried brother dies.
A little caveat by the author à la"History is complex" ties up this episode.
Then, his ancestors relocate to the US. His ancestor, Prince senior senior senior, meanwhile has kept his UNNAMED wife continuously pregnant trhoughout this whole ordeal.
Then, he thinks he will find his luck in Utah. He forces his, again, pregnant wife with four small children to do the wagon trail with him. On this travel, she gives birth to twins, who subsequently die, she has to bury them in an unmarked grave, continue the journey, and then also dies on the trail. (Presumably due to sepsis or sheer exhaustion - we do not know, as we don't even know her name).
("In Utah, he did not only find his fortune but also GOD". - That's why I think it is written from a very Mormon author, because we can presume that the British colonizer was christian anyway beforehand, so to mention specifically that he found god in Utah, must mean he converted to Mormonism).
I was wondering if Prince Sen.sen.sen. Remarried in Utah, because I find it quite unlikely that he took care of the children himself. Patriarchal men then, as now, see women as appliances. If one dies, just get a new model. That's why names are relatively superfluous in their minds.
Anyway. The author then explains that this is not about his own ancestor - it's about how we can find inspiration in the story to be "the One" for our future children and our children's children, and so on....
This idea of a "bigger picture" is nothing specifically Mormon, but the obsession with legacy and genealogical thinking is particularly strong with patriarchs and, well, mormons (Latter Day Saints).
He continues that his motivation to make something of himself (translation: more money) was his son, Isaac. Oh, he had a first born daughter, and a wife too, but they remain unnamed at first, and he is not doing anything for his DAUGHTER.
To maybe provide, care for his wife is also not a motivation. No. But his SON is.
These omissions (the name of his daughter, his wife's role in his life, the name of his female ancestors, etc) paint a picture that for me is not motivational or inspirational.
It only inspires me to avoid men like that like the plague, and I don't think the author has anything to say to women. To be motivated by your future descendants implies that you will have children, which is not a given for any reader. Also the thought of your descendants standing in awe before your grave might not have such a universally rousing impact as it has for legacy obsessed males. (Oh and when we are talking about descendants, we are talking SONS and GRANDSONS here, if that wasn't clear.)
So if you are a woman who wants to live life for her own, if your whole plan for life is NOT to live vicariously through your SONS, imaginary or real, then - I would not recommend this book.
If you are, however, a Mormon man or just a regular christian man, you might relish the thought of LEGACY and find this book quite motivational.
Displaying 1 of 1 review