The author of the New York Times bestseller How Starbucks Saved My Life perks up America with inspiring lessons on finding true happiness at any age and any stage of life.

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, Michael Gill has distilled his experiences into fifteen meaningful lessons, including:

*Leap with Faith: Sometimes it pays to leap without looking and say yes without thinking (Gill accepted the Starbucks job immediately, on a whim).

*Let Yourself Be Helped: Pride is even more paralyzing than fear.

*Look with Respect at Every Individual You See: 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, How to Save Your Own Life provides empowering words and hope for anyone facing a reversal of fortune. True fortune, Gill discovered, lies not in fate but in discovering the innate capacity we all possess to rescue ourselves.