Young Author Turns Passion Into Project

 Jordan Gross, 23, is hoping that his new book “Getting COMFY” can encourage people to make a positive change in their lives by adjusting their morning routines.

By Connor Beach
cbeach@longislandergroup.com

After graduating from Northwestern University, Jordan Gross started down a traditional career path with which many locals can relate.

Gross earned a masters in management from Northwestern and took a corporate management position in New York City last July, but the 23-year-old from Dix Hills said he wasn’t truly enjoying it.

“I kind of reevaluated and thought that what I was really enjoying was waking up early, doing my morning routine, having my time to myself and writing about it,” Gross said.

Gross quit his corporate position in December and decided to finish a project that he started two years earlier in college: writing a book.

The Half Hollow Hills grad was always an athlete growing up, but once he went away to college Gross said he lost the structure that athletics, particularly soccer, brought to his life.

“I realized that I wasn’t living up to my full potential,” Gross said.

Gross began writing a manuscript about his morning routine two years ago as a student, and in January he published “Getting COMFY: Your Morning Guide to Daily Happiness.”

COMFY, an acronym, stands for calm, openness, movement, funny and you. Gross describes the book as a “five step morning process” to relieve the stress and anxiety that many people feel in the morning.

“It’s a little bit different then your usual self-help book because I am providing recommendations rather than a definitive plan that you have to adhere to,” Gross said. “Go through what I have to offer, make yourself a human guinea pig and then implement those strategies into your life, and you will hopefully see some results very quickly.”

More broadly, Gross said the book encourages readers to seek experiences that force them out of their comfort zone through personal stories and strategies.

Gross said he did not write the book with any particular audience in mind, but that his writing style does reflect a millennial, conversational voice.

“As long as someone is trying to make one little change in their life and seek personal development that will allow them to be the best possible version on themselves, then ‘Getting COMFY’ is the book for that person,” Gross said.

“Getting COMFY” has been available on Amazon since Jan. 31, and Gross said the wide-ranging audience has far surpassed his expectations.

Gross said that the readers who did offer him feedback told him that “Getting COMFY” did force them to “start thinking about the way I approach my day a little bit differently.”

“That’s really all that I was looking to do when I wrote this,” Gross said. “If somebody makes a one degree shift in their life because they read this book, then I feel like it’s doing its job.”

Gross will have an opportunity to receive more feedback on “Getting COMFY” when he appears at Book Revue in Huntington for an interactive discussion and book signing on Tuesday, May 8 at 7 p.m.