Forty days prior to turning forty years old, author Christopher Deal journaled the top forty lessons he has learned throughout the past forty years. He posted one each day on Facebook. In Forty Lessons I Learned on My Way to Forty Years Old, he shares those postings in book format. In this memoir, Deal reflects on a host of life experiences and explains each lesson, an eclectic list that includes: the importance of happiness in life; thoughts on living life in ones twenties and thirties; toxic friendships; the cheating relationship; water sports; take your mom on a date; know your college discounts; the drug years; anyone can change; party details; confidence and class; go with your instinct and dig deeper; and many more. Including Facebook screenshots, Forty Lessons I Learned on My Way to Forty Years Old narrates the stories of Deals life offering inspiration for others.

In this remarkable book Republican Dennis Hastert (R-IL) passes on the lessons he learned from his long political career.

WHAT I HAVE DISCOVERED IS THAT MOST PEOPLE GET STUCK ON A SINGLE ISSUE, A SINGLE BREAKDOWN, A SINGLE PROBLEM THEY ENCOUNTERED AND NEVER LEARNED HOW TO GROW PAST IT. ONE SINGLE EVENT IS OFTEN THE DEMISE OF MOST PEOPLE'S DESTINY. ONE SINGLE "BREAK" THEY CAN'T SEEM TO GET OVER. ONE FALL THEY CAN'T GET UP FROM. ONE DEATH THEY CAN'T OVERCOME, ONE DESTRUCTIVE MOMENT, ONE LET DOWN, ONE KNOCKDOWN, ONE DISAPPOINTMENT THAT WAS SO DEVESTATING TO THEM THAT THEY STOPPED LIVING. EVERY SINGLE THING IN YOUR LIFE IS THERE FOR A REASON, AND THAT REASON IS TO TEACH YOU SOMETHING YOU CURRENTLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND. EVERY PERSON, EVERY SITUATION AND CIRCUMSTANCE HAS BEEN THOUGHTFULLY, AND PURPOSEFULLY PLACED THERE TO HELP YOU GROW. AND THE PURPOSE OF THAT GROWTH IS TO LEAD YOU TO YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE. I AM WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW BECAUSE ALL OF OF THE THINGS I ATTEMPTED TO DO BEFORE THIS MOMENT I FAILED AT. HOWEVER, I REALIZED THAT "FAILURES" ARE ONLY LESSONS. DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE YOU'RE ALWAYS FINDING YOURSELF IN THE SAME SITUATONS IN LIFE, WITH THE SAME "KIND OF PEOPLE". IT IS SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU ARE REFUSING TO LEARN THE LESSON YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE LEARNING. AND ALL LESSONS IN LIFE WILL BE REPEATED UNTIL WE TRULY "GET" THEM. I BELIEVE THAT YOU WERE CREATED FOR GREATNESS. THERE IS ONLY ONE YOU IN THIS ENTIRE WORLD. THERE IS SOMETHING THAT ONLY YOU CAN DO, IN THE WAY THAT ONLY YOU CAN DO IT. YOU HAVE PURPOSE.THIS BOOK IS ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO FIND THAT PURPOSE AND LEARNING HOW TO UNRAVEL THE TRUTH WITHIN US ALL. THE WORLD IS FULL OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVESTATION BECAUSE BILLIONS OF PEOPLE ARE NOT LIVING THE LIVES THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE LIVING, WHICH HAS CAUSED A GREAT IMBALANCE IN HUMANITY. WE NEED TO GET BACK ON TRACK. DON'T LIVE LIKE A VICTIM, LIVE LIFE WITH VICTORY! YOU WERE CREATED FOR GREATNESS!

“What brought you the greatest joy? What do you wish you had learned sooner? What ultimately mattered and what didn't?” asks Dr. John Izzo. Based on a highly acclaimed public television series, this book takes the reader on a heartwarming and profound journey to find lasting happiness. Imagine for a moment that you are about to take a foreign vacation to an exotic destination. You have saved your entire life to travel there. It is a destination with almost unlimited choices of how to spend your time and you know you will not have enough time to explore every opportunity. You are fairly certain that you will never get to take a second trip to this destination; this will be your one opportunity. Now imagine that someone informs you that there are several people in your neighborhood who have been to that country, explored every corner. Some of them enjoyed the journey and have few regrets, but others wish they could take the trip again knowing what they know now. Would you not invite them over for dinner, ask them to bring their photographs, listen to their stories, and hear their advice? This is precisely the journey explored in this book. Dr. John Izzo and his colleagues interviewed over 200 people, ages 60-106, who were identified by friends and acquaintances as “the one person they knew who had found happiness and meaning.” From town barbers to Holocaust survivors, from aboriginal chiefs to CEOs, these people had over 18,000 years of life experience between them. He asked them questions like, “What brought you the greatest joy? What do you wish you had learned sooner? What ultimately mattered and what didn't?” Here Izzo shares their stories—funny, moving, and thought-provoking—and the Five Secrets he learned from listening to them. This book will make you laugh, bring you to tears, and inspire you to discover what matters long before you die.

Join Mark Covert, holder of the second-longest running streak in history, as he shares stories from the roads he ran to cover an astonishing 159,000 miles, and the wisdom learned during the forty-five years he kept The Streak alive.

“Heartfelt and ever-endearing—equal parts information and inspiration. This is a book to keep by your bedside and return to often.”—Amy Dickinson, nationally syndicated advice columnist "Ask Amy" More than one thousand extraordinary Americans share their stories and the wisdom they have gained on living, loving, and finding happiness. After a chance encounter with an extraordinary ninety-year-old woman, renowned gerontologist Karl Pillemer began to wonder what older people know about life that the rest of us don't. His quest led him to interview more than one thousand Americans over the age of sixty-five to seek their counsel on all the big issues: children, marriage, money, career, aging. Their moving stories and uncompromisingly honest answers often surprised him. And he found that he consistently heard advice that pointed to these thirty lessons for living. Here he weaves their personal recollections of difficulties overcome and lives well lived into a timeless book filled with the hard-won advice these older Americans wish someone had given them when they were young. Like This I Believe, StoryCorps's Listening Is an Act of Love, and Tuesdays with Morrie, 30 Lessons for Living is a book to keep and to give. Offering clear advice toward a more fulfilling life, it is as useful as it is inspiring.

For at least forty years, Calvin Trillin has committed blatant acts of funniness all over the place—in The New Yorker, in one-man off-Broadway shows, in his “deadline poetry” for The Nation, in comic novels like Tepper Isn’t Going Out, in books chronicling his adventures as a happy eater, and in the column USA Today called “simply the funniest regular column in journalism.” Now Trillin selects the best of his funny stuff and organizes it into topics like high finance (“My long-term investment strategy has been criticized as being entirely too dependent on Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes”) and the literary life (“The average shelf life of a book is somewhere between milk and yogurt.”) In Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin, the author deals with such subjects as the horrors of witnessing a voodoo economics ceremony and the mystery of how his mother managed for thirty years to feed her family nothing but leftovers (“We have a team of anthropologists in there now looking for the original meal”) and the true story behind the Shoe Bomber: “The one terrorist in England with a sense of humor, a man known as Khalid the Droll, had said to the cell, ‘I bet I can get them all to take off their shoes in airports.’ ” He remembers Sarah Palin with a poem called “On a Clear Day, I See Vladivostok” and John Edwards with one called “Yes, I Know He’s a Mill Worker’s Son, but There’s Hollywood in That Hair.” In this, the definitive collection of his humor, Calvin Trillin is prescient, insightful, and invariably hilarious.