“experience, and most of those experiences are painful and costly. If you can learn from someone else’s pain and expense, you are a wise person, indeed. I would encourage you to read this book, cover-to-cover, but also keep it as a reference text using the sections and individual columns as a resource you can revisit as your life journey calls for specific wisdom. It is my hope that this is not a one-time encounter that you and I are having. My hope is, in the coming months and years as you travel toward your own personal”

“wife and two children on the spot of barren dirt that hours before had been his home and everything he owned, he spoke the words I will keep with me always. He said, “We have lost absolutely everything. We have nothing left other than the clothes on our backs.” Then, after a brief pause, he continued, “But I guess we are lucky since our whole family is safe and sound. We have everything important.” To have lost everything and still have everything seems contradictory, but it’s not. As I reflect on the lessons presented by the young father, I realize that we all spend a lot of time accumulating things that in the final”

“You will hear your heartbeat again when your life is in rhythm, and there is no doubt that you’re doing what you were made to do. That’s your heartbeat; that’s when you’re truly alive and not just existing”

“great legacy starts with a great life, and every great life starts with a great plan.”

“In order to be truly happy in the largest sense of that word, we must have something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to.”

“believed that God is always a good God. Facing difficulties, he lost his job. His home was about to be taken and all seemed hopeless. Braxton prayed”

“gain or profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted and encouraged. Permission will”

“You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, ackowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins.”

“In the end, a person is only know by the impact he or she has on others. The Gift of Work: He who loves his work never labors. The Gift of Money: Money is nothing more than a tool. It can be a force for good, a force for evil, or simple be idle. The Gift of Friends: It is a wealthy person, indeed, who calculates riches not in gold but in friends. The Gift of Learning: Education is a lifelong journey whose destination expands as you travel. The desire and hunger for education is the key to real learning. The Gift of Problems: Problems can only be avoided by exercising good judgment. Good judgment can only be gained by experiencing life's problems. The Gift of Family: Some people are born into wonderful families. Others have to find or create them. Being a member of a family is a priceless privilege which costs nothing but love. The Gift of Laughter: Laughter is good medicine for the soul. Our world is desperately in need of more such medicine. The Gift of Dreams: Faith is all that dreamers need to see into the future. The Gift of Giving: The only way you can truly get more out of life for yourself is to give part of yourself away. One of the key principles in giving, is that the gift must be yours to give-either something you earned or created or maybe, simply, part of yourself. The Gift of Gratitude: In those times when we yearn to have more in our lives, we should dwell on the things we already have. In doing so, we will often find that our lives are already full to overflowing. The Golden List: Every morning before getting up visualize a golden tablet on which is written ten things in your life you are especially thankful for. The Gift of a Day: Life at its essence boils down to one day at a time. Today is the Day! If we can learn how to live one day to its fullest, our lives will be rich and meaningful. The Gift of Love: Love is a treasure for which we can never pay. The only way we keep it is to give it away. The Ultimate Gift: In the end, life lived to its fullest is its own ultimate gift.”

“and better, makes us all proud. But let us never forget that, when you’ve lost everything that you own, but you still have your friends and family around you and the desire to go on, you still have everything.”

“the desire and hunger for education is the key to real learning.”

“The only way to truly get more out of life for yourself is to give part of yourself away.”

“Every day is a gift because it can either be the first day of the rest of our life or be our last day here on earth.”

“... sometimes in life, you either laugh or you cry. And I prefer to laugh.”

“I have always found it ironic that the people in this world who have the most to be thankful for are often the least thankful, and somehow the people who have virtually nothing, many times live lives full of gratitude.”