The Hope Quotient: Measure It. Raise It. You'll Never Be the Same.

by Ray Johnston

What’s at the heart of every thriving person, every thriving marriage, kid, and business?

Hope!

The Hope Quotient is a revolutionary new method for measuring—and dramatically increasing—your level of hope. Hope is more than a feeling; it’s the by-product of seven key factors. When these are present in your life, they cause hope to thrive.

Factor 1: Recharge Your Batteries Nobody does well running on empty.

Factor 2: Raise Your Expectations You don’t get what you deserve; you get what you expect.

Factor 3: Refocus on the Future It’s time to throw away your rearview mirror. No one goes forward well when they are looking back.

Factor 4: Play to Your Strengths Be yourself; everyone else is taken.

Factor 5: Refuse to Go It Alone Never underestimate the power of support. Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto.

Factor 6: Replace Burnout with Balance Burning the candle at both ends isn’t as bright as you think.

Factor 7: Play Great Defense Avoid these five toxic hope killers that can threaten your future.

Using seven years of research, powerful biblical illustrations, and compelling human-interest stories, Ray Johnston explains how these seven essential factors will support, sustain, and strengthen your hope. And when consciously built into your life, how they will unleash hope in your marriage, your kids, your career, your church, your community, and the world.

Discover your HQ level, the most important contributor to your overall success, and then learn how to improve it. Because when hope rises—everything changes.

FLAP

It’s the one thing that can change everything!

When you have hope, eleven things are unleashed in your

You have more satisfying relationships.You’re more productive.You’re less affected by stress.You’re more successful.You’re more satisfied.You’re more compassionate.You’re more willing to help people in need.You’re physically healthier.You hold yourself to higher moral and ethical standards.You’re more likely to assume leadership.You’re more likely to see God as loving, caring, and forgiving.This book will help you discover your HQ level and learn the seven key factors that, when built into your life, unleash hope. When you have genuine hope—not trite, pious platitudes but authentic hope that produces inner strength and confidence—anything is possible.

Genres: Christian, Nonfiction, Christian Living, Faith, Self Help, Leadership, Family

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2014

Reviews

[Shirley Conley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most interesting thing I found in this book was an acronym for increasing your FAITH.
Based on 1 Samuel 17 the story of David and Goliath.
F- 1 Samuel 17:26 Focus on God
A- 1 Samuel 17:45-47 Anticipate God's help
I-1 Samuel 17:28-32 Insist on being involved
T-1 Samuel 17:38-40 Take time to prepare
H- 1 Samuel 17:51-52 Have an impact on everyone around you.

Worth reading.

[Saturnberry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh no.

[Nathan Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my top ten life changing books

[Susan Mattinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

Author claims this isn't a book of "pious platitudes and anemic answers", and then drops Seven Factors That Raise Your Hope Quotient that each sound like clickbait YouTube video titles. He constantly contradicts himself, sometimes in side-by-side sentences: "Goal setting is not hope. Hope is something you intentionally build into your life." (Intentionally building practices/factors into your life sounds suspiciously like goal setting.) Author seems confused between the definitions of Hope and Faith ("Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hebrews 11: 1) and Author writes "Hope is not wishful thinking...The kind of hope on which I've built my life is a confident expectation that God has better days ahead."

Not to mention very unnuanced descriptions of overseas mission projects/trips, and talk of the plethora of ways that the Church has been "the greatest force for good in all of history" without any acknowledgement at all of the damage that white, Christian colonialism has done to cultures in its misguided attempts to be a "force for good" (please read "When Helping Hurts" by Corbett & Fikkert).

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hope is a very important thing in our lives, and in this book, Ray Johnston gives us an overview of why and what he learned after many years of experience in the field. I'm confident that this book has a lot to give many people, including me, but I'm not very impressed with it being a good book as such. The biggest weakness is that the book is a storytime overload, and lacks the theoretical fundament to keep the information grounded. Some examples are good, but other miss and other again are poor analogies that only try to prove a point. There are also all too many "points" made, instead of the build of a solid framework of hope. It lacked in writing what it had as a potential, but on the other hand, it may have had enough of an impact to impress hope in many readers and inspire for further thinkings on it.

[Analie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someone gave me this book as a gift, and I'm so glad they did. This book makes a solid case that our "HQ" (Hope Quotient) is a huge contributor to our well-being and success in life. There's so much wisdom and practical advice here -- for example, Ray and his wife decided that "if someone was too discouraging, we wouldn't spend much social time with them." What we're called to be and do as Christians is that important. We need to recharge our batteries; we need supportive people in our lives; and we need to be operating in our spiritual gifts.

[Edmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of the best books/audiobooks I have ever read. If you are feeling low, struggling with your life, THIS IS THE BOOK TO LISTEN TO OR READ. I listened to this book and I probably will listen to it again and will get the hardcopy and read it. It's that good. It's full of hope and gives you so much hope. He takes it from a religious/Christian perspective, but I think this book is fantastic for everyone. He tells what's wrong with churches today, which is spot on. Wow, I can't believe this book has taught me so much. Thanks Ray!

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic read. This should be a must read for anyone in leadership at any level, but really, it should be must read for everyone. His analysis and breakdown of the power that hope can bring to an organization, a family, an individual, and beyond is spot on. Back that up with sound biblical application and it's even better.

[Elouise Sherwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just what I needed to read

This book is full of Hope and Encouragement, you will not be disappointed if that's what your looking for .

[Maria James-Shier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for the soul.

[Deb Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book! Hope is as essential as the air we breathe and raising our hope quotient can bless every part of our lives.

[Nate Aeilts]

Without comparison, the worst book I've ever read. Utterly without an original thought or even an attempt at one, this is a soul-sucking lesson on the vacuous, robotic pursuit of money at its lowest.

[Doris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful uplifting book. I actually listened to it and found the narrator’s voice very easy to listen to. Gave actual ways to put HOPE into our everyday lives.

[Maire Marran · Rating 5 out of 5]

The one quote that immediately stood out to me was “You don’t get what you deserve; you get what you expect.”

Good, challenging book on raising your expectations for your life.

[Tina Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it twice! Taking being encouraged as my own responsibility! Every leader needs to read.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read!

[Krystle Wainscott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring, but draws some conclusions i would not have drawn. Good thought provoking book.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love, love, love when a book exceeds my expectations.

I honestly didn’t know how I’d like The Hope Quotient by Ray Johnston (Thomas Nelson, 2014) when I first received it for review. And I am more than happy to tell you that you’ll want to read it too. It’s a fantastic book.

Ray Johnston is a founding pastor of a megachurch in California (Bayside, which has multiple campuses) and the founder of Thriving Churches International. In The Hope Quotient, he discusses how essential hope is to every aspect of life and seven factors to raise your hope to thrive in life.

By just the back cover copy, this book seems like a self-help, 7-step program kind of book, which is why I was a little skeptical. And, really, it does offer some direct, practical steps to take. But, it’s also so much more.

Ray spends the first three chapters of the book welcoming the reader into a conversation about hope. Ray explains how many people who feel tired, drained, overwhelmed are actually discouraged. And discouragement means a lack of hope. That lack of hope affects every decision, every thought, every interaction. But, hope. Hope changes it all. Particularly because that hope comes from grace-given love from God.

He offers the main point of the book right away:

“…thriving people thrive for one reason – they commit to things that produce inner strength and hope.” – p. xviii

The rest of the chapters support and detail that point, along with how to spill that hope onto others.

“The truth is the greatest gift you or I can give anyone is hope.” – p. 5

But the author doesn’t just state the positives of hope. He offers entertaining, inspiring, and powerful stories from his own experiences and others’ to surprise, put you in awe, and cheer. His tone holds a pleasing balance of goofy, clever humor and intriguing observations and calls-to-action. The numerous amount of stories, references, and quotes from others help support his mainstay that it takes a team to thrive.

This book covers topics from rest to personal gifts/skills to fear to community, all within the realm of building and sharing hope to live life for God. (Read here for an introduction to the chapter titles.) Divided into 17 chapters in 3 major sections, this book offers ideas you can incorporate into your marriage, family, career, and community, but without being hokey or judgmental.

This whole book inspires me to do two main things: take appropriate actions to make sure I stay encouraged (because that affects everyone around me) and make every effort to be an encourager to others (spread encouragement rather than discouragement).

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Hope Quotient takes you on a journey on how powerful hope can be in our life and why we need it operate in it daily if we really want to thrive. I have actually never really read a book solely on the topic of hope so I was a little skeptical on which way Johnston was going to about it. I was pleasantly surprised how interesting and informative he was on the topic and his writing style made it all come together very well. Never felt bored reading this book, but was always curious what other little nugget of information was Johnston going to say in the next few pages. I also think this would be a great book for those involved or would like to get involved in leadership. The importance of hope in Leadership is vital if you want to be able impact those around you. I love the portion where he lists great people of the Bible and how their focus was what they would become (hope for the future) instead of a focus on their small start. A couple examples straight out of the book:

"Thomas started out wracked by doubt but ended up taking the gospel all the way to India.

Timothy started out shy, fearful, and insecure but ended up becoming the apostle Paul's protege.

Paul started out persecuting Christians but ended up writing the majority of the New Testament. "

There is a test that comes with the book and you can take it online. I did it about mid-way so that I could learn more about my weak areas of when it comes to having hope. My two main weak areas were: Factor 1: Recharge Your Batteries Nobody does well running on empty and Factor 6: Replace Burnout with Balance Burning the candle at both ends isn’t as bright as you think. And in a nut shell I need to re-prioritize my life and check myself throughout time-consuming seasons. Oh, and the quote on page from 114, really got me thinking, "If the devil can't make you bad, he'll just make you busy, because it will have the same effect."

All in all I really liked this book and I learned a lot from it. I think it will help me recognize hopelessness and discouragement better in those I lead and have relationship with. But I am curious to see if someone who really struggles with depression read this book how it would impact them. So, if you are looking for a book on hope and thriving then I would encourage you to pick this one up. It's got some great insight.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers® book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

[A.C. Cuddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hope Quotient by Ray Johnston

“What’s at the heart of every thriving person, every thriving marriage, kid and business? Hope! The Hope Quotient is a revolutionary new method for measuring—and dramatically increasing – our level of hope. Hope is more than a feeling; it’s the by-product of seven key factors. When these are present in your life, they cause hope to thrive.”

I wondered when I first decided to read this book if it was going to be just one more feel-good, pop-psychology book – Certainly from the title and the cover I thought it might just be that.

However, I am glad to say that I was wrong. With the retelling of some excellent stories, personal anecdotes and a good amount of biblical truths and illustrations, the author, Pastor Ray Johnston, brings it all down to the key facts. What Hope is and what it is not.

Hope not only liberates, it unleashes compassion, it encourages people, it motivates and helps people attempt new things, helps people to find new strength, and propels people forward. Hope is not some unreliable sensation. It is not wishful thinking or blind optimism and it is not an unnecessary luxury.

Part two of this book discusses the seven factors that will raise your hope quotient. While part three talks about what could happen if we unleashed hope in our marriages, our careers, our churches, our communities and our world.

This book is not just lip service to yet one more wide-eyed smiley person telling you that it’s not that bad, just have hope. The author takes care to walk us through the practical steps of raising our hope quotient. It was an interesting read.

For more information about The Hope Quotient, go to: http://hopequotient.com/

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

*Reviews of this book were posted at the following locations:
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Deeper Shopping, Goodreads, and to be featured on my blog at http://titus3.wordpress.com

[Mary Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is IQ, EQ, and now HQ—ways to gauge your intelligence quotient, your emotional quotient, and now your hope quotient. Ray Johnston’s book, HQ: the Hope Quotient, is a timely emphasis in our world of broken relationships, terrorism, systemic evil, and mind-numbing poverty. He describes the sources of hope in God in ways people can restore and nurture hope in their lives, their families, and their communities. He says “Hope is more than just an emotion you feel. It’s a state of being you create. Hope can be learned” (Ray Johnston, HQ - The Hope Quotient, Thomas Nelson, 2014, p. 21) His insights are practical and psychologically sound. But this is not merely a self-help book. He says “All discouragement that has parachuted in my life has come from three sources: circumstances, other people, and me” (p. 30). Therefore, he is insistent that people need five different kinds of relationships to maintain the life-building characteristic of hope: “Vision casters, soul sharpeners, models and mentors, heart healers, and tail kickers—who love us enough to tell us the truth…Hope is a forward-facing confidence…I’ve built my life in a confident expectation that God has better days ahead. I get these ideas directly from the Bible and what God tells me there about hope” (p. 22, 107-111). Johnston’s book is important for people from all backgrounds and psychological orientations. A good read at Christmastime when suicide rates are the highest. Five stars.

Dr. ML Codman-Wilson, Ph.D. 12/01/2016

[Beth Peninger]

Abandoned.

The title caught me. Hope is an intriguing subject matter to me for so many reasons. What makes the difference between two people in the same exact situation, one feels hopeless and the other hopeful? Sometimes they are even members of the same family! Hope is vital. It's what can keep us going when it is vibrant in our lives and when there is a lack of hope then it is the distress signal that something must change. Hope is a necessary ingredient for life.
I got 82 pages in, found something else to read and have read several other books since then. Johnston's thoughts on hope didn't keep me engaged. I finally decided to call it quits when every time I thought about picking up the book to finish it I started desperately searching for something else to read instead. As Bill Engvall would say, "Here's your sign."
It's not that Johnston writes poorly, he doesn't. He's okay. It's that he writes what has already been said/discussed before. He has, at least in 82 pages, introduced nothing new or profound about hope to consider. He writes as if he is though - and to be fair, for some people it probably is very new ideas or ways to think about hope. It just wasn't for me. I also had a slight 'distaste' while reading the pages I did, Johnston is pretty 'christianese' and I can barely stomach it anymore. It just wasn't for me.

[Lisa Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good read - the basic idea being that Christians have the verse about "faith, hope and love" - and we talk a LOT about faith and love but not very much about hope. People that are hopeless give up on marriages, jobs and their futures, but people full of hope never do. This book is about how to improve your "hope quotient" so that you are full of hope and therefore have a better outlook on life. There is also a code on the back of the book so that you can take a quiz and see what your Hope Quotient is. I liked the book -- my only complaint being that it would be an easy book to read, shelve and never do anything about. You'd have to actually put these things into practice for it to do anything positive in your life!

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking for hope? Facing difficult circumstances or extradorinaiy challenges? Sometimes life throws us huge curve balls and the things we know to be true go flying out the window because we react instead of being proactive to the situation. The Hope Quotient offers fresh perspective on hope with a biblical perspective in mind. It offers a positive spin and a way to get rid of the negative naysayers from your life, thoughts and un healthy patterns you may have allowed into your life. Finally, I found this book to be incredibly uplifting as I am going through a difficult circumstance and sometimes it can be hard to see beyond yourself or situation. Well done!

[Ellen Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really learned quite a bit from reading The Hope Quotient. Some of it I already knew, like I hold onto mistakes for too long and beat myself up over them. It also reconfirmed that I am often tired and work too hard. What I really liked, though, is that it told me how to deal with those issues and it gave me the scriptural backup I needed to do so. If you want to be more successful in your different areas of your life, read The Hope Quotient by Ray Johnston, take the test and learn what you need to do.

[Donna Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad I Listened to the End

This was one of the September "Monthly Deals." When I first started listening, the author seemed to make a lot of statements like, "Most people . . ." and then proceed to say say something that is not true for anyone I know. And, "If you do (whatever), the result will invariably be (something unlikely) -- without citing any authoritative study. And it seemed redundant in places. But I kept listening. In the end, I did feel more hopeful -- and that's saying something because my nephew was kidnapped by a non-relative almost 2 years ago.

[Christa Cordova · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an awesome book - perfect for anyone going through some sort of a major trial, or just facing all the minor trials that any given day brings. I highly recommend it to anyone who needs a shot of hope and encouragement.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't finish this book, I liked the theories on increasing and measuring hope, but found after 2 discs I was probably a positive person already, I can recommend it for anyone who finds themselves down in the dumps often . Good Stuff

[Lynn Dickerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book over an extended period of time, taking it in slowly but deeply. It was excellent. Well written with humor and many real life examples. While it's definitely a Christian book, it's not preachy I liked it very much

[Bruce Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book. Ray is infectious and full of life. Appreciated his insights, encouragements and challenges. I'm not a 5 of this, 4 ways to do that, 3 of these type of guy, but the book is a good read for all. Check out your HQ!