Facing Hard Truths: How Americans Can Get Real, Pull Together, and Turn Our Country Around

by Stephen J. Cloobeck

Overview

"It’s a great book and he should be proud of it."
—President Bill Clinton

Successful businessman, activist, and philanthropist, and 2026 candidate for governor of California Stephen J. Cloobeck applies an unflinching problem-solver’s eye to America’s most pervasive challenges.

Cloobeck built his reputation transforming dysfunctional companies at the brink of ruin into performance powerhouses. In Facing Hard Truths, he focuses this proven business acumen on our most pressing concerns like immigration, crime, the cost of living, and the coarsening of political discourse. He offers sometimes tough—but always sincere—lessons learned over a lifetime of public and private sector experience.

From his first job bussing tables in a small California restaurant, to his time operating a global hospitality juggernaut, to helming federal public-private partnerships, state agencies, and local organizations, Cloobeck’s journey propelled him from busboy to boardroom. In this book, he relies on the action-oriented principles that drove his personal success to outline a plan that will take California, and America, from flailing back to flourishing.

With a refusal to pander and a no-nonsense assessment of today’s most salient issues, Cloobeck argues our country’s ability to effectively navigate the future depends on a reaffirmed commitment to:

• Integrity
• Collaboration
• Respect for rules and norms
• Economic inclusivity
• A return to competence
• Putting others first
• Fostering of social trust

In Facing Hard Truths, Cloobeck’s engaging storytelling and straight-shooting proposals leave readers feeling heard, respected, and above all, eager to set aside political differences and get back to what really matters: creating an America that is more affordable, liveable, and opportunity-rich for all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633311077
Publisher:	Disruption Books
Publication date:	06/03/2025
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Stephen J. Cloobeck is the founder and former CEO and chairman of Diamond Resorts International—a business that grew to become the second-largest vacation ownership company. A busboy turned entrepreneur with more than thirty years’ experience across every aspect of hospitality, he is the author of Checking In: Hospitality-Driven Thinking, Business, and You. He is the former Chairman of the State of Nevada Athletic Commission.
 
Cloobeck was appointed by former Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to serve as the inaugural chairman of the board of Brand USA Inc., a US government-formed nonprofit corporation with the sole mission of promoting travel to the United States. In 2004, he was appointed by former governor Kenny C. Guinn to Nevada’s Standing Committee on Judicial Ethics and Election Practices. A native of Encino, California, he currently resides in Southern California.

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

How the hell did we get here?

I ask myself this question almost every day. Making my way around Los Angeles, I encounter traffic-clogged streets, trash-strewn sidewalks, empty storefronts, and tent encampments occupied& by the unhoused. I also hear stories from folks I meet about how tough life is today. It used to be that you could work hard and enjoy a reasonably comfortable middle-class lifestyle, even without a college degree. Not anymore. The cost of living is out of control. And thanks to sky-high home prices and an insurance crisis, it’s almost impossible for working people to buy a home.

But California’s problems don’t stop there. What was once was a place of aspiration, immortalized in songs like the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin’,” is turning into a nightmare. Rising unemployment. Failing schools. Increasing retail theft. The nation’s highest poverty rate. A health care crisis. An enormous budget gap, in the tens of billions of dollars. It’s no wonder so many residents have been leaving the state in recent years. As one demographer says, noting the state’s population declines, “California is no longer the preferred destination it used to be.”

Communities across America suffer from many of the problems that beset California. What I find most frustrating is that it doesn’t have to be this way. I still remember what my home state used to be: a place of dynamism and hope, with safe communities, clean streets, and the best schools. During the final few decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, California was a place where businesses thrived and created opportunities for millions. It was a place where hardworking people from other states and around the world came to better their lives and claim their share of the American dream. Growing up, I would ride my bike around my neighborhood in Encino or to my Little League games, just being a kid and never having to worry about my personal safety or whether my family would lose our modest home. I’m sure you, too, can recall better days in the communities where you live.

So, how did we get here? Our country still has the same natural resources it did decades ago. It’s still the world’s largest economy. It still has deeply engrained democratic institutions. What has changed, as I’ll argue throughout these pages, is us—both the citizens and the leaders of this great democracy.

As a nation, we’ve lost sight of how to come together and solve problems for our collective benefit. Politics has become entertainment. It’s a place to feel strong emotions, especially negative ones, as cynical politicians vie with one another to take ever more extreme positions. Other politicians today are well-intentioned and public-spirited, but they often lack the moral clarity, strength, and skills to drive meaningful progress. California and communities across America can enjoy better days again, but only if our elected leaders get serious about making life better, and if the rest of us hold them accountable for doing so.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Enough Already

Hard Truth #1
Life Is Tough—Get a Helmet.

Hard Truth #2
A Team That Is Divided Cannot Win

Hard Truth #3
Rules Are Rules

Hard Truth #4
The Best Economies Benefit Everyone

Hard Truth #5
Leadership Is About Competence, Not Celebrity

Hard Truth #6
True Success Requires Putting “We” before “Me”

Hard Truth #7
Social Trust or Bust

Conclusion
It’s Up to Us

Editorial Reviews

"It's a great book and he should be proud of it."
—President Bill Clinton

"This world needs more of Stephen's fight to ignite that spirit in all of us to keep going and come together to do what's right. He's a person who doesn't just talk but delivers.”
—Cory Booker, US Senator, D-New Jersey

"Cloobeck’s toughened, real-world optimism, his essential humanism, is obvious and cheering throughout the text. A provocative, stirring call for greater civility."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Stephen offers a new lens through which to view the most pressing issues of our day. For anyone looking for a way out of the political morass, Facing Hard Truths seeds new ideas that I, for one, certainly hope take root.”
—Stephen F. Sisolak, businessman and 30th Governor of Nevada

"A must read if you live in California and are concerned about its future.”
—Robert Shapiro, internationally renowned litigator and serial entrepreneur

“Entrepreneur, philanthropist, and California gubernatorial candidate Stephen J. Cloobeck is stepping into the national conversation.”
—Los Angeles Magazine

“We need more leaders like Stephen that are willing to step up and stand in the gap and make sacrifices to create real change.”
—Gary Brecka, renowned human biologist, biohacker, and longevity expert

"It is often said that a teacher learns from his students. I have had the honor of mentoring many students in my lifetime and learning from them. I will always remember the lessons from one of my mentees, Stephen J. Cloobeck, on the 'Meaning of Yes.'"
—Michael Milken, financier and cofounder of the Milken Family Foundation

"[Cloobeck] shows his policy chops by outlining creative ideas and practical solutions to some of the toughest problems facing California and America. But as his 'hard truths' make clear, those solutions don’t stand a chance without the right attitude."
—David Suissa, Jewish Journal

From the Publisher

2025-01-02
A California businessman looks at the current state of life and the law in the United States.

Former Diamond Resorts International CEO Cloobeck delivers several stark messages in his new book, perhaps none blunter than when he warns his readers about the very real potential for fundamental changes in the American world. “We shouldn’t presume we’re immune to tyranny,” he writes. “The United States may not be Russia, but in our country, too, people and institutions feel increasingly free to bend, break, or ignore the law when it serves their interests.” Surveying the current state of American society, Cloobeck sees ingrained patterns of deterioration in the fabric of social trust. “As a nation, we’ve lost sight of how to come together and solve problems for our collective benefit,” he warns. “Politics has become entertainment.” Cloobeck, who’s worked for many years in many levels of management, argues for reversing this creeping public cynicism, advocating a sense of “genuine service” in all levels of bureaucracy. Cloobeck’s toughened, real-world optimism, his essential humanism, is obvious and cheering throughout the text. He repeatedly reminds his readers that both research and anecdote attest to the fact that, apart from any reciprocation, helping others feels good. This kind of pragmatic altruism is central to his vision of civic renewal: “We must change how we see one another, learning to set aside the various categories of race, class, gender, ethnicity…so we can connect more simply and directly as people and fellow citizens,” he writes. “We must learn totrustagain.” Readers will appreciate this ringing call to civil renewal, but since this book appears in a year when a convicted felon takes power after winning the popular vote while promising to rule as a dictator, those same readers may view books like this to be sadly anachronistic.

A provocative, stirring call for greater civility in the shadow of rising barbarism.

Kirkus Reviews