BY GREG CHISHOLM
Evan Ungar, The Jump Man, is an alumni of Sheridan College’s marketing program.
He has gone onto become a Guinness Book of World Records holder for the standing vertical box jump.
A standing vertical box jump is a vertical leap from a still position onto a higher platform. Late last year he set the record live on television in China at 64 inches.
Make the Decision is a self-help book that looks to change the game. Targeted to millennials, the book aims to give readers the tools to get from setting goals, to achieving goals.
He recently talked about the new book with the sun.
Tell us about the new book, Make the Decision.
The book as a whole is a goal setting book, it’s basically how to go from goal setting to goal getting. Our generation has big dreams and big goals but they don’t execute them. Not only that but they don’t have the attention span to go sit and learn and take themselves through all the self help and success books that have made some of the greats in these days.
You have books Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, those [type of] books are very long and very dry reads and you have to read them 100 times to get real good information out of them and maintain that knowledge because there is so much information in them.
So I worked with a lot of very successful, very wealthy people who are well established and what I’ve done is taken the steps that they’ve taught me and that I’ve used in my experience to gain my success and I’ve broken them down into 10 easy to read chapters. They’re not buffed up with stories and jazz, it’s straight to the point. It gives you, in each chapter a decision to make in order to get to your goal. You have a goal in mind, you start the book and by the end you should have your plan in order to get there.
What is next for you, after the book is released?
There is no question, I am definitely going to break another world record this year. It’s going to be for the single leg box jump. That’s coming soon, I feel it.
How high are you looking to go?
The current record is 39 inches. I’ve done 52. I don’t know where I’ll break it at, if I’ll do 52 or go higher, at least that mark.
What motivates you to keep breaking records?
I think limits motivate me. People set limits all the time and that’s their belief. When someone tells me “wow that’s amazing, no one’s ever going to beat it”, you know what I mean? A lot of times people saying you can’t is what often makes me say “I will”. I think that me just pushing myself, I am very competitive by nature and having these goals to hit is self-motivating. I look at it as a challenge and if I can do it, it’s my own reward.
Just how high do you think you can take the jumps either on one leg or two?
I will take it until limiting factors begin to stop me. Maybe I get older and my body isn’t functioning as well. I think I’ll take it close to 6 feet, if not over. I think I will jump higher than my height. At that point it will be pretty interesting.
Have you set any goals outside the book and jumping that you want to grab and go after?
There is so much, so much. I’m definitely going to start a charity or a not-for-profit which is already in the works. I want to be able to give back and I think that’s extremely important. You must give. You always have to be giving. That’s one of the first things I am going to do. In my book I also wrote about wanting to buy my parents a house and retire them. That’s something I’ll be doing. Another thing I want to do is start purchasing real estate all across the world and create a life where I can travel whenever I want to, go to different places and lastly I want to get into speaking. I’ve already started doing that, doing some speaking engagements at schools and businesses.
You’re an alumni of Sheridan College’s marketing program How much different did you picture your life going from where you are now?
I genuinely thought I’d wear a suit and tie everyday. I knew I would never work a desk job that would have me working in a cubicle. I thought I’d be on Wall Street with stocks, multi million dollar business deals. I really did believe that back then. It’s not that I don’t anymore, or that I don’t have the desire to be in some of those multi million dollar type business deals.
Your book is done in stages, so what really sets your Make the Decision apart from other self-help or motivation books in an already a flooded market?
Make the Decision really sets itself apart in that this book is for our generation. It’s for us, it’s not for anyone else. People can read it and get what they want from it. I am sick of saying our generation is this or that. No, they’re not. Where are the tools have come out for our generation, in our generation? You have all these out dated books, like textbooks in school. A lot of the information isn’t relevant. We need new textbooks, we got them, and we need new self-help books to help motivate the young generation, now we have it here. Make the Decision has taken out all of the fluffy buffer stuff. It’s a straight read. It’s a comparison of watching a two hours documentary vs. a one-minute Instagram video. Make the decision, how to get from goal setting to goal getting version of self-help. It’s going to give you the tools you need the decisions you need to make and it’s going to get you there, that’s the difference.
When and where can we get the book?
Make the Decision is going to be released on Amazon.ca and will be out Feb. 21. So it’s coming out very soon. After that it will come off Amazon and only be retailed on my website www.evanungar.com. We are going to have a deal on it on launch day, so you can get the book at a lower price. It comes with a free gift for purchasing on launch day. It’s only available in hard copy. I want people to [physically] hold the book. If you’re always on your phone or your tablet, you’re not necessarily going to take the information in differently. I want to take people out of that and remember the feel and smell of it.
