• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This is not a history book or even a “kiss and tell.” It will disappoint those who expected it to be about the rogues and rascals I have met in public or corporate life or who, for the last few years, kept asking if they would be mentioned in it. This instead is a book about the kinds of mostly anonymous, quiet encounters that I have had (and expect we all do) that leave not just a lasting impression, but enduring inspiration. I have more miles ahead in my journey. But for every positive, hopeful, or otherwise useful lesson I have learned, I first thank the people mentioned in this text who have bothered or happened to teach me those lessons.

I met Todd Shuster, my agent, after a lecture I gave at Northeastern University in Boston in the late 1990s. He came backstage afterward to introduce himself and to suggest we get together to discuss writing a book. I did not warm to the idea at first, but I did to him and through many conversations over many years we became friends. He was tireless in his effort to persuade me that I had a story or two worth telling to a broader audience. I am glad he did. More than anyone else, he deserves the credit for collecting some of those stories into this book.

Christine Pride was not the first editor to be assigned this project at Broadway Books, but she was the perfect one. I am humbled beyond measure by the enthusiasm for this project from all the folks at Broadway and throughout Random House, beginning with Steve Rubin and Stacy Creamer. But Christine’s personal empathy for the values expressed in this book made the work seem less like work and helped edge me along. And her understanding that my first priority was my “day job” as governor made a huge difference. With her help and fine touch, we finished something worthwhile.

I thank Jim Hirsch, an accomplished and successful author, for talking me through the discipline of writing, for coaxing lots of anecdotes out of me and the friends and family with whom he met, and for giving the text better shape. Todd lent a hand with interviews, too, and Michele Mansilla, my executive assistant and friend of nearly two decades, was indispensably generous in transcribing the interviews in her off time. I thank them all.

So many of the loved ones I write about in this book have passed away. It was thus perhaps a little easier to tell some of the intimate details about their lives and challenges. My wife, Diane, so central to my life and some of the lessons in this book, is to be specially thanked for her willingness to let me tell her story now, while she is still much in the public eye. For that additional reason, she is a remarkable example of strength and courage.

Our daughters, Sarah and Katherine, have had to endure the burden of all children of having their parents tell silly and sometimes embarrassing stories about them to others. However, most children do not have to bear having those stories published in a book. Fortunately, Sarah and Katherine are composed, confident, good-humored young women, and I know they can handle it. My pride in and love for them is boundless. I thank them for their support, consistent honesty, and love.

For those who read this book, I hope above all that they will reflect on and acknowledge the people who have shaped their own best values and given them a reason to believe. Knowingly or not, those are the people who help repair the world.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Vision is Essential

Chapter 2: Know Who You Are

Chapter 3: Try a New Perspective

Chapter 4: Learn to Love

Chapter 5: Save a Place

Chapter 6: Faith is How You Live

Chapter 7: Overcoming Kryptonite

Chapter 8: In Defense of Idealism

Acknowledgments