According to the Bible, You shall love your neighbour as yourself ' is the royal law' (see Biblical quotes on page 66). Obey it and you will automatically obey all God's commands. By the same token, the profound truth that Vision and mission are the hallmarks of greatness' constitutes the royal road to success! If you allow yourself to be ruled by this principle, you are bound to observe all seven of the golden rules that are laid down in this book. It is, you might say, the secret of life.

A step-by-step method to successful dating and, ultimately, marriage. This book shows you how to examine yourself to know exactly what you want and where you're headed. Don't date blind--date smart; the chuppah is closer than you think.

Celebrated gymnast Mary Lou Retton shares the inspiring philosophies behind her success--and offers seven practical gateways to finding true happiness in your own life. Who can forget Mary Lou Retton's perfect vault and winning smile? Fifteen years after her Olympic triumph, Mary Lou is no longer the little girl on the Wheaties box--she's a dynamic, accomplished mother of two who has become one of America's most sought-after motivational speakers and inspiration to people everywhere. Now, in Mary Lou Retton's Gateways to Happiness, she shares her secrets for achieving a balanced, fulfilling career and life and presents seven gateways that can help you cultivate lasting happiness every day. Based on her remarkable experiences as an Olympic athlete, professional speaker and spokesperson, Christian, wife, and mother, Mary Lou Retton's Gateways to Happiness shows that, even with life's challenges and obstacles, true happiness is always within our reach. The seven gateways she presents--Family, Faith, Relationships, Attitude, Discipline, Health, and Laughter--are the tools we can use to improve our sense of contentment and well-being, as we follow our true dreams and ambitions, take care of our bodies, devote more time to the special people in our lives, and make our relationship with God an integral part of every day. For each gateway, Mary Lou provides concrete suggestions, action plans, and even recipes to help you embrace its principles and make it work for you. From communication exercises, to time management, to spiritual disciplines, Mary Lou's warm hearted prescriptions and advice will help you discover your deepest needs, reduce stress, and open the door to a life filledwith peace and joy. Flavored with inspiring stories from renowned athletes and celebrities, and brimming with the trademark enthusiasm and energy that have made her such a beloved American figure, Mary Lou Retton's Gateways to Happiness is a fresh and engaging collection of wisdom that will enable you to realize your true, God-given potential. The next time you look in the mirror that winning smile will belong to you! From Mary Lou Retton's introduction. On August 3, 1984, I stopped being just Mary Lou Retton from Fairmont, West Virginia, and discovered that overnight I'd become "America's Sweetheart." Without the unfaltering support of my family, and without the strength I received from my faith in the Lord, I never would have made it through this difficult period. They helped me understand that this overwhelming transformation in my life was not something to run away from, but rather to be embraced. I came to realize that it was just one part of the larger journey I was on--what Dr. Billy Graham calls our "journey toward happiness." Even with all my preparation and training for success in the Olympics, I was never aware that I was also preparing for something else. Something which would last for the rest of my life, long after I was able to mount a balance beam or stick a perfect landing. I was training for happiness. True joy and happiness are within reach for all of us no matter how bad our circumstances may seem, I believe that our happiness depends on how we respond to certain basic opportunities, or gateways, that God has opened to each and every one of us--Family, Faith, Relationships, Attitude, Discipline, Health, and Laughter--gateways that will take us onestep further down the road to true happiness.

By 1964 the storied St. Louis Cardinals had gone seventeen years without so much as a pennant. Things began to turn around in 1953, when August A. Busch Jr. bought the team and famously asked where all the black players were. Under the leadership of men like Bing Devine and Johnny Keane, the Cardinals began signing talented players regardless of color, and slowly their star started to rise again. Drama and Pride in the Gateway City commemorates the team that Bing Devine built, the 1964 team that prevailed in one of the tightest three-way pennant races of all time and then went on to win the World Series, beating the New York Yankees in the full seven games. All the men come alive in these pages—pitchers Ray Sadecki and Bob Gibson, players Lou Brock, Curt Flood, and Bobby Shantz, manager Johnny Keane, his coaches, the Cardinals’ broadcasters, and Bill White, who would one day run the entire National League—along with the dramatic events that made the 1964 Cardinals such a memorable club in a memorable year.

Life is a battleground. Every single one of us will face difficult times. It is war! And the war is intense. Challenges and hurdles are part of everyday life. Problems and difficulties are companies of every human being. It is a fact that, as long as we are walking through this journey called life, we are bound to face challenges and fight battles. It is the fight to win the battles, overcome the challenges and crossover the obstacles that leave us journeying through life with a dysfunctional and skewed mindset. When we encounter painful experiences, the pain sinks deep into the brain. When this happens, the painful memories outweigh the happy memories in the vortex of the mind. This book is written to help you know that through the transformation of the mind, you have the power in your hands to turn your circumstances around for your good. It’s all in the mind and our mindset is everything. Our brains are programmed to think in a certain way and we as human beings have the power to reprogram our mind to think the way we want it to think, break out of mental imprisonment, win the battles of the mind and ultimately become success conscious.

Can the U.S. keep its dominant economic position in the world economy with only 30% of its population holding bachelor’s degrees? If the majority of U.S. citizens lack a higher education, can the U.S. live up to its democratic principles and preserve its political institutions? These questions raise the critical issue of access to higher education, central to which are America’s open-access, low-cost community colleges that enroll around half of all first-time freshmen in the U.S. Can these institutions bridge the gap, and how might they do so? The answer is complicated by multiple missions—gateways to 4-year colleges, providers of occupational education, community services, and workforce development, as well as of basic skills instruction and remediation.To enable today’s administrators and policy makers to understand and contextualize the complexity of the present, this history describes and analyzes the ideological, social, and political motives that led to the creation of community colleges, and that have shaped their subsequent development. In doing so, it fills a large void in our knowledge of these institutions.The “junior college,” later renamed the “community college” in the 1960s and 1970s, was originally designed to limit access to higher education in the name of social efficiency. Subsequently leaders and communities tried to refashion this institution into a tool for increased social mobility, community organization, and regional economic development. Thus, community colleges were born of contradictions, and continue to be an enigma. This history examines the institutionalization process of the community college in the United States, casting light on how this educational institution was formed, for what purposes, and how has it evolved. It uncovers the historically conditioned rules, procedures, rituals, and ideas that ordered and defined the particular educational structure of these colleges; and focuses on the individuals, organizations, ideas, and the larger political economy that contributed to defining the community college’s educational missions, and have enabled or constrained this institution from enacting those missions. He also sets the history in the context of the contemporary debates about access and effectiveness, and traces how these colleges have responded to calls for accountability from the 1970s to the present.Community colleges hold immense promise if they can overcome their historical legacy and be re-institutionalized with unified missions, clear goals of educational success, and adequate financial resources. This book presents the history in all its complexity so that policy makers and practitioners might better understand the constraints of the past in an effort to realize the possibilities of the future.