Success Memoirs

To an outsider, Anthony Hanna lives a charmed life. He’s a firefighter - every boy’s dream job. Even better, he regularly features in the Australian Firefighters Calendar. He’s a former police negotiator who worked on the frontline of critical operations. And as a teenager, he was a champion pole vaulter with Olympic potential. In this frank, honest memoir Anthony talks about the reality of living with mental illness.

Johnnie Calloway is a gifted story teller, and has written a superb personal account of his harrowing childhood, and adult life. Although he retells his experiences of emotional and physical abuse, neglect, heartache, and betrayal, and later his own addictions and struggles with mental illness, he manages to keep the listener thoroughly engaged and inspired by his strength and wisdom throughout this pause resister.

Rhonda Hayes promised to give her 35-year-old dying daughter, Sherry, anything she wanted. When Sherry requested that her mother sign up for a dating site, Rhonda was panic-struck. What would people think? Only nine months earlier, Rhonda’s devoted husband, Greg, had died from cancer. Keeping her promise, Rhonda acquiesced to Sherry’s wish. Together they completed a dating profile; moments before hitting "Submit", Rhonda added these words: My daughter has terminal cancer and she is my life right now. Why would I be on a dating site?

Sarah Nuse is an entrepreneur, wife, and mother of three. As someone who struggled with school her whole life, she turned lemons into lemonade by pushing through her college course load while also building a business from scratch. More than 20 years later, Tippi Toes boasts successful, thriving franchises around the world. Sarah's mission has come to fruition, tenfold.

A son learns that his estranged mother is dying from stage four cancer and reluctantly moves her into his home after a past of aggressive nurturing. They attempt to salvage the time she has left while he tries to repair his struggling marriage and cultivate his three teenage sons. Witness this young Black man maneuver his way through their creative and edgy relationship. His father walks with him through this chaotic door and continues to build his character as a son and a man. But will it prepare him for what lies ahead with his mother?

Not just for widows and widowers but for anyone who has lost a loved one, Grace shares how she turned her life around from a setback to a comeback and from impossible to I’m possible! Raw and courageous, she rises from the pain of being widowed and places herself on the road to finding life's purpose, self-empowerment, and true independence.

Becky married her college sweetheart and thought she would be married for life. Thirty years later, she had three grown children and a successful career, but her marriage was failing. Her husband was becoming increasingly unemployable as he sank deeper into alcoholism. She was unhappy, but she didn’t think she had the confidence or wherewithal to make it on her own.

When Casey fled her home to move 2,700 miles away at a moment's notice, she thought that she was escaping the trauma of her circumstance. She quickly crafted a new life - new job, new friends, new city, new adventures. What she didn't anticipate was being haunted by scars that were much older than the life that she had left. Journey with the writer a she peels back the fragile layers of her life; layers that she had not previously given voice to...until she was left with no other choice but to call them out.

Michele was a 32-year-old successful school principal and married mother of two, when she woke up one morning and could no longer hear. Doctors could offer no explanation. She spent frustrating years searching to make sense of the medical mystery. After three desperate years, doctors told Michele there was little chance of her hearing returning. Even as she came to accept this bleak diagnosis, she never stopped looking for answers. Why would this suddenly happen to a fit young woman in her prime?

Cutting Loose is not an ordinary self-help book but, rather, a refreshingly honest book that implores you to help yourself. The author Keith Tong fought and scratched his way through extraordinary hardships. His compelling journey through life has forced him to face his conflicts head-on and apply the power of positive thinking to improve his love, health, and financial well-being.

This personal memoir chronicles the first 25 years of her life living in abusive environments, how she survived and, ultimately, found her way into the supportive and caring arms of 12-step recovery programs. Along the way, she describes for the listener exactly how she survived the traumas of physical and sexual abuse, mental illness, suicidal ideas, grief and loss as well as her struggles with sexual identity, bulimia, addiction, and more.

Health and wellness entrepreneur Peter Darrow thought he had life all figured out. A native of the posh and privileged Upper East Side, the young millennial lived large, attending elite schools, throwing lavish birthday parties, and spending summers in the Hamptons. Then one day, his seemingly perfect, polished life came crashing down. Over the course of three hellish years, his father died, he inherited and burned through a shit-ton of money, his girlfriend dumped him, and his first business floundered.

Roma brings authenticity and refreshing keys that guide you out of despair, pain, and grief to a place where you can smile again. A life filled with one trauma after another: her daughter brutally murdered, and her husband and grand-daughter killed in a light plane crash. Roma has stepped out of the prison of grief and become a prisoner of hope and wholeness.

Since he was 12, Brandon Sulser has survived four brushes with death. One of those life-threatening injuries left him paralyzed from the chest down. Although his life story appears to be unfair, Brandon knows that life is only negative and hard if you allow it to be. And in his experience, we are all paralyzed in our own way, by bad choices, by circumstance, by illness, and more. His paralysis happens to be more obvious than most, but make no mistake; we are all paralyzed. But we don't have to stay that way.

The purpose of Soul Survivor is to tell the real life story of Joe Townsend, who was flying one day with his family, and due to mechanical failure, the small plane he was piloting crashed - killing Joe’s wife and two small daughters. Joe was critically injured and survived brain injury, a stroke, hours of surgery, and months of physical and emotional pain to survive and then to thrive. Through grit and determination, he then began to rebuild a new life. This inspirational real-life tale of overcoming adversity will get people to realize their own true potential.

Orlena Cain is an established Canadian radio and TV personality with over 15 years of celebrated presence in the industry. She has recently delved into further developing her writing talents with a background in journalism. In this candid memoir, she tactfully shares her tumultuous journey to find love and happiness in a bid to inspire others to discover the importance of healing and self-love in the wake of trauma.

Angela Trainer is a psychotherapist who, faced with the impending loss of her beloved “Captain” father to cancer, began writing down her thoughts, and feelings as she went through a maelstrom of emotions. Aware of the value of a written outlet for such feelings, her diary began as a private group on Messenger, growing to the extent that she began posting publicly so more people could - hopefully - benefit from her Journey. She never intended to write a book.

Anyone who says there is no life after death has obviously never died. “I was high as a kite by the time I got there. I dropped five hits of acid that night. I made it through the first two bands before I started peaking. Then it happened...." I was a runaway, a dropout, a drug addict, a thief, a trouble maker, and a drug dealer. I was given a second chance at life. It has been a hard road. My life has been a battlefield. It has been a constant struggle, but I couldn’t be more grateful. This is my story.

Kavita Basi had a wonderful life - a job she enjoyed, a wonderful family, and seemingly perfect health. Then an unexpected event took place and turned her entire world upside down. In Room 23, Kavita chronicles her time suffering from a subarachnoid hemorrhage - bleeding in the area of the skull surrounding the brain. With this diagnosis, Kavita went from being healthy and happy to battling a condition with a 50 percent mortality rate.

When I started writing a blog over ten years ago, I never dreamed, I would be sharing so much of myself in my own posts. I mostly thought, it would have bits about my life, or the news of current events. Instead, I found it a safe place to put all my fears, and insights that I discovered, while practicing yoga, meditation, reading spiritual books. It morphed into difficult memories of the stages of healing from a childhood of sexual abuse.