our daughter after Emerson, who wrote, “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path, and leave a trail.” What a trail to leave, a healthy Earth and good will among men (and woman).
Your degrees today and your work to come are the means to leave a trail. Your family is another. I will look for you in this church in the years to come as you build and find your happiness.
Thank you USF and Go Dons!
INTRODUCTION
Our country is not doing well. In the last several years, intense negative emotions such as hate, fear, resentment, and distrust have dominated the headline news. Toss in problems from pandemics and politicians fighting over scientific facts and we have a divided, often dysfunctional society. This makes effective action to combat global warming, job loss, economic stagnation, virus outbreaks, and other threats next to impossible.
To reverse this negative and dangerous trend, we will need a social revolution. People don't necessarily need to love their neighbor, but they should at least respect their neighbors through simple acts of consideration, kindness, and even compassion.
When someone receives respect and compassion, life can change dramatically in an instant – for both the recipient and the sender. Caring can spread quickly and be just as contagious as a disease, but in a good way. Ultimately, this spreading of kindness can create a society that can act and work together for the common good.
The USA should become the United States of Affiliation, not Antipathy. This needed social revolution may take time to counteract the negative forces omnipresent today, but that's the reason for this book. This book is my way to help the process along and make the world a better place for everybody.
Inside, you'll read about people I personally know or have heard about from the people closest to me. Many of these people are famous and household names, like President Joe Biden, whom I first met when he visited my company for a pre-election fundraiser. These are troubled times, and Biden seems to understand that coming together can accomplish things that disunity will impede or make impossible. It is too soon to know if he has the magic to do this.
Others I write about are like Larry Ellison of Oracle fame, who bought my software company where I worked as an Oracle executive for a time. His domain was not as large as Biden's, but he built a powerful and lasting company. Some have referred to Ellison as a modern-day Genghis Kahn, but he has certainly done very well for his children financially.
Part of this story includes Nobel Prize winners as part of this story, along with many ordinary people whose stories deserve to be told because they all showed kindness. Their caring provides plenty of evidence that you don't have to be a bastard to succeed. In fact, being a nice person can actually enhance your chances of success.
Kindness and caring only needs to start with one person, and it can spread to many others, one person at a time, crossing international borders and leaping across entire continents and oceans. Caring and kindness can spark the next revolution, because in the end, we are all our brother's keepers. We just need to learn that compassion is never a weakness but a strength, and the best way to learn how to change the world is to see how others have done it first.
CHAPTER 1 The Most Important Choice in the World
Imagine you're a kid in a candy store. Everywhere you look, there's a treat you'd like to try. Paralyzed with indecision, you can only look from side to side, fearing if you choose one candy, you'll miss out on the opportunity to choose another one.
With so many tempting choices, you'd think it should be easy to choose something. After all, if everything looks appealing, how can you possibly lose? Yet there is a way to lose – by being afraid to choose anything. When the candy store owner finally closes the doors, that's when you'll realize you wound up getting nothing, despite being surrounded by everything, all because you couldn't make a decision.
Don't be a kid in a candy store.
You have to make a decision right now that will affect the rest of your life. The longer you procrastinate, the harder your decision will get. You also can't let someone else make this decision for you. It's all on you, yet many people go through their entire lives without making it.
No matter how old you may be, where you live, or what you're currently doing, this decision is vitally important because your life depends on it.
This decision is simple. When will you decide to take charge of your own life?
As straightforward as this question might seem, it's still deceptively difficult. That's why most people avoid answering this question or refuse to acknowledge that it even exists. Yet whether you answer this question or not, your reaction will reveal two important truths.
First, are you willing to take responsibility for your life right now? Once you take responsibility for your life, guess what? You now hold the key to the greatest force in the world, which is nothing more than the power of choice.
You have shaped your life up until this point, which means you also have the power to shape your life differently now and in the future. Sure, what others do in your life matters, but if you're the only one who can control your life, then you can change your life for the better, no matter who may get in your way or what anyone else might say.
Taking responsibility for your life and acknowledging that you're in control automatically removes all excuses. That can be scary but also empowering because that means you can change your life for the better at a moment's notice.
That's true power that no amount of money can buy.
Just as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz finally learned that she had the power to go home at any time, you always have the power to improve your life at any time. Once you acknowledge that you alone hold this power, you'll possess the greatest force in the world, which is the ability to shape the future of your life at any time.
If you don't think you have any control over your life, ask yourself what you could do right now that would make your life infinitely worse. Most likely, you can come up with dozens of ways you can make your life worse than it is right now, but if you can make your life worse, that also means you can also choose ways to make your life better.
Before you can make your life better, you need to believe that's even an option.
Once you know you hold the power to choose between making your life better or making your life worse, you must choose to make your life better. Then you must take action to make your life better. It's that simple.
Remember the three Cs of life: Choices, Chances, and Changes. Until you make a choice to take a chance, your life will never change. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.” Author and motivational speaker Wayne Dyer said, “When you abandon making choices, you enter the vast world of excuses.”
Don't make excuses. Start changing your life for the better today. Once you know what you want to change in your life, you can then make a choice. If a choice doesn't quite work out the way you want, you can always make another choice. The power of choice makes you capable of doing anything you want. The most important decision you can ever make is deciding that only you can change your life and you can keep making new choices at any time until your life turns out the way you like.
Will you make mistakes? Of course. Will you run into problems? Yes. Can your choices
