Deion Sanders’ new book aims to inspire

In Deion Sanders’ new book, the number 21 has a symbolic meaning.

As a player, Sanders wore the number 21 on his NFL jersey. On February 21, 2021, he became the 21st head coach for Jackson State. He also wears the number 21 on his Coach Prime jersey. Deon’s son Shilo also wears the number 21 as a safety for Colorado.

“It was kind of a nod not only to his jersey number, but to the book on leadership that had the biggest influence on him,” the book’s co-author, Don Yaeger, said, according to USA Today.

Yaeger is referring to John C. Maxwell, who wrote the foreword to Sanders’ book. Maxwell is a speaker and author who wrote “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” in 1998.

“John Maxwell told me something so powerful last week,” Sanders told TODAY. “‘I wrote books to reach people I couldn’t normally reach.’ So through that mechanism, I could touch you, inspire you, encourage you, and I’m not even there yet.'”

“The Little Engine That Could” by Watty Piper changed Coach Prime’s life.

It’s normal for literary works to influence our lives during childhood and beyond. For Coach Prime, Piper’s The Little Engine That Could left a lasting impression and has become one of his favorite books to guide him through life.

“Several engines have passed that train by — because they were too good or too powerful, too this or too that — and they didn’t want to waste their time because it wasn’t their ideal,” Sanders said in an interview with the New York Times. “Some of you are ‘not the ideal in life’ and you’re working to get across those tracks. You’re sitting on the side of the road, on that track, just waiting and saying, ‘I think I can, I think I can.’ What are you going to do in life to get to the other side where you can bless multitudes of people who believe in you?”