Michael Gill's lemons-to-lemonade memoir chronicled his transformative years working at Starbucks after losing his high-powered job, his marriage, and his health (he developed a brain tumor). In response to overwhelming requests from readers who wanted to know how they, too, could weather downturns, he has distilled his lessons into 15 meaningful lessons, including:

• Leap...With Faith: Sometimes it pays to leap without looking and say yes without thinking (Gill accepted the Starbucks job immediately, without a second thought).
  
  
• Let Yourself...Be Helped: Pride is even more paralyzing than fear.
  
  
• Look...with Respect at Every Individual You See: Gill, the son of writer Brendan Gill, was raised to avoid eye contact with those who were different, cloistered in a privileged world. Now he realizes the potential in all who cross his daily path.
  
  
• Lose...Your Watch (and Cell Phone and PDA!): Our obsession with productivity produces madness, not gladness.

Offering living proof that extraordinary happiness is found in ordinary moments, this book provides empowering words and hope for anyone facing a reversal of fortune. True fortune lies not in fate but in discovering the innate capacity we all possess to rescue ourselves.

208 pages. Hardcover. 2010.