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More Courage, More Confidence
In Heroes of Change, you explore how meaningful change grows through relationships, repeated choices, and shared purpose. Why was this an important book for you to write?
For a long time, I believed change happened because extraordinary people possessed something the rest of us didn’t. More courage, more confidence, more talent, or simply more certainty. But as I observed people whose lives had transformed schools, neighborhoods, businesses, and even national conversations, I discovered something surprising. They weren’t extraordinary because they had all the answers. They were ordinary people who kept saying yes to the next right step. At the same time, I was wrestling with many of the same questions in my own life. Why do some people continue becoming while others slowly settle into who they think they already are? What allows hope to survive when life becomes difficult? And perhaps the biggest question: what actually changes a person? This book became my attempt to answer those questions. Not with theory alone, but through the stories of people who have lived them. In many ways, writing Heroes of Change changed me as much as I hope it changes its readers.
Many of the people featured in the book work in very different areas, including education, business, justice, spirituality, and community service. What common qualities did you discover among these “heroes of change”?
What surprised me most was how little their résumés mattered. On the surface, the people in this book have almost nothing in common. One founded a nonprofit. Another transformed education. One serves formerly incarcerated men and women. Another spent years on Wall Street before finding a completely different calling. Their careers couldn’t look more different. Underneath, however, they shared a remarkably similar journey. Each experienced an awakening—a moment when they could no longer ignore that something wasn’t quite right. They felt pulled toward a calling that was often unclear and uncomfortable. They eventually reached a point where they had to leap without guarantees. And none of them made that journey alone. Relationships, belonging, and communities of trust were not side stories; they were the very environment where transformation became possible. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that none of them saw themselves as heroes. They simply kept emerging and becoming.
The book combines interviews, personal memories, research, and storytelling. How did you balance sharing other people’s journeys with your own reflections?
That balance evolved over time. When I first began writing, I imagined myself as a narrator standing outside the stories, carefully documenting what these remarkable people had accomplished. But the longer I spent with them, the more I realized that I wasn’t simply observing transformation—I was experiencing it myself. Eventually I understood that the book would be incomplete if I pretended to be objective. My own questions, doubts, failures, and moments of awakening became part of the story because they mirrored what I was seeing in everyone else. The research helped explain why change happens. The interviews and observations showed what change looks like. My own reflections explored what it feels like from the inside. I hope readers finish the book feeling less like they’ve read biographies and more like they’ve joined a conversation that invites them to see their own story differently.
How can readers apply the Heroic Change Model in their own workplaces, families, or communities?
One of my hopes for the Heroic Change Model is that people won’t see it as another leadership framework to memorize. Instead, I hope they’ll recognize where they already are in the journey. Maybe they’re in an awakening, sensing that something needs to change. Maybe they’re wrestling with a calling they keep trying to ignore. Maybe they’re standing at the edge of a leap that feels risky. Or perhaps they’re emerging into a new version of themselves they don’t quite recognize yet. The model reminds us that transformation is rarely a single dramatic moment. It’s a series of small choices made over time, almost always in the company of other people. We often think changing the world begins by finding extraordinary people. I no longer believe that. I think it begins by creating spaces where ordinary people—including ourselves—feel seen, challenged, supported, and courageous enough to keep becoming.
Author Links: heroic-change.org | molebash.com | Facebook | LinkedIn
“In sports and in life, meaningful change is built over time through commitment, trust, and the people around us. Heroes of Change will resonate with coaches, teams, athletes, and leaders, but at its core, it is a book for anyone who wants to make a difference. These stories remind us that change is possible and that each of us can be part of something bigger than ourselves.” —Greg Byrne, Athletic Director, University of Alabama
What if change isn’t something we do alone? What if it’s something we grow into together?
In Heroes of Change, Philip Molebash shares the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things: a Jesuit priest building kinship with former gang members, a bus driver turning routes into lifelines of belonging, a social entrepreneur reimagining education, a business leader redefining success, and an actor inviting deeper questions about meaning and purpose.
Woven through these journeys is the Heroic Change Model—Awakening, Calling, Leaping, Emerging, and Becoming—which reveals how transformation really happens: slowly, imperfectly, and in community.
This is not a book about saving the world. It’s a book about showing up for it and discovering that the most powerful change begins when we choose to belong.
Mariners Miners and Misfits
Mariners, Miners and Misfits is an ambitious work of genealogy and family history that traces Dan Martin’s paternal line from prehistoric Atlantic Europe through centuries of life in Cornwall and, eventually, into Canada. Using Y-chromosome research, parish registers, census records, wills, tax assessments, newspaper reports, and family memories, Martin builds a narrative that reaches far beyond a conventional family tree. The result is both a personal ancestry study and a broad account of how geography, labor, migration, and historical upheaval shaped one family over roughly nineteen thousand years.
The book is strongest when it places individual ancestors inside the working culture of Cornwall. Its chapters on Celtic identity, tin mining, the Stannary Courts, smuggling, maritime trade, and Cornwall’s reputation as Britain’s “Wild West” give the genealogy a vivid social setting. Rather than presenting names and dates in isolation, Martin considers what it meant to be a tinner, parish clerk, yeoman, craftsman, coach proprietor, or miner in a community where kinship and practical skill could determine survival. These sections make the book especially appealing as Cornish history, British social history, and mining history, while the recurring tension between Cornish custom and English authority gives the family’s story a distinctive regional character.
As the narrative moves closer to the present, it becomes increasingly intimate and emotionally involving. The account of William “Billy” Martin is a particular centerpiece, following him from Cornwall and Wales to Manitoba, where he worked as an artist and decorator, became an accomplished cattle breeder, suffered devastating personal losses, and spent his final years in a mental hospital. The later chapter about the author’s father, James, continues this approach through family recollection, rural Canadian life, hardship, marriage, and community. Here the book works as a multigenerational biography and personal memoir, showing how archival discoveries can recover the complexity of people remembered only through photographs, brief stories, or unanswered questions.
Martin writes with open affection for his ancestors, and that sense of connection gives the book its conversational warmth. He clearly labels uncertain early generations and speculative prehistoric scenes, while using documented evidence more firmly as the record becomes clearer. The combination of research, historical reconstruction, photographs, maps, and personal reflection makes Mariners, Miners and Misfits a substantial example of genealogical nonfiction. It’s a story about continuity, but also about adaptability: mariners become miners, miners become clerks and craftsmen, and Cornish descendants cross an ocean to begin again. By the final personal note, the family tree has become something more human, a long chain of labor, loss, humor, resilience, and belonging.
Pages: 200 | ASIN : B0H4D33D4R
Heroes of Change
Heroes of Change is an engaging work of inspirational nonfiction that explores how meaningful change grows through relationships, repeated choices, and shared purpose. Philip Molebash organizes the book around his five-part Heroic Change Model: Awakening, Calling, Leaping, Emerging, and Becoming. Rather than presenting this as a rigid sequence, he treats transformation as an ongoing cycle filled with setbacks, discoveries, and renewed commitments. The result is a thoughtful personal development book that asks readers to reconsider heroism as the everyday work of noticing people, widening the circle of belonging, and continuing to show up.
The book’s strongest material comes from its deeply observed portraits of people building change in distinct settings. Father Greg Boyle and the Homeboy Industries community demonstrate radical kinship; Curtis Jenkins turns school buses, hallways, and security work into spaces of care; Talia Milgrom-Elcott builds collaboration across institutions; Dave Bolotsky brings conscience into commerce through Uncommon Goods; and Rainn Wilson uses humor, spirituality, and inquiry to examine how people find meaning. Molebash gives each story room to breathe, including the missteps, resistance, and uncertainty that make the subjects feel human. The book succeeds because it connects large questions about education, business, justice, and community to specific people and lived experiences.
Molebash’s style is conversational, reflective, and often playful. Childhood memories, movie references, family stories, research, and interviews move together with surprising ease. A kickball do-over becomes a way to discuss grace, a bus driver’s “purpose belt” becomes a practical metaphor for vocation, and a spiral staircase becomes an image of collective growth. At times, the book’s many metaphors and restatements slow the momentum, especially when an already powerful story is followed by several layers of explanation. Still, the warmth of the narration keeps the ideas grounded, and Molebash’s willingness to examine his own ambition, doubt, faith, and need for belonging gives the leadership and personal development themes an appealing honesty.
Heroes of Change is a hopeful leadership book, a study of community transformation, and a personal meditation on becoming. Its central argument is both simple and demanding: people change through people, and lasting progress depends on communities where care, trust, storytelling, and purpose are practiced consistently. The book leaves readers with useful language for recognizing change in their own lives, but its greater accomplishment is emotional. It makes quiet service visible and treats belonging as something active, built one conversation, invitation, meal, classroom, workplace, and second chance at a time.
Pages: 210 | ASIN : B0H3XV8459
Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star – 2nd Edition
Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star is a candid memoir about identity, ambition, secrecy, and survival. Its provocative title captures only the most visible contradiction in Merritt’s life. The book begins in a deeply religious South Carolina family, follows him through the fundamentalist culture of Bob Jones University, and traces his path into the Marine Corps, gay pornography, law school, corporate legal practice, addiction, and recovery. These experiences aren’t presented as separate reinventions. Merritt shows how each identity grows from the same desire for belonging, approval, masculine legitimacy, and personal freedom. “We all go to bed with our secrets,” he writes, establishing concealment as both the memoir’s organizing theme and the condition under which much of his adult life unfolds.
The memoir is particularly effective when it examines the psychological demands of living under institutional judgment. Merritt’s fundamentalist education teaches him to distrust his sexuality, while the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy requires him to divide his private life from his public service. His decision to perform in adult films becomes an act of rebellion, risk-taking, and self-assertion, though the book gradually reveals the emotional costs beneath that defiance. Merritt writes knowledgeably about military culture and conveys genuine affection for the Marine Corps even as he condemns policies that forced gay service members to live contrary to the values of honor, courage, and commitment. That tension gives the narrative depth because his conflict isn’t simply with hostile institutions. It’s also with institutions that shaped him, rewarded him, and supplied the discipline through which he understood himself.
Merritt’s prose is direct, energetic, and often darkly funny. He has a lawyer’s instinct for context and a storyteller’s eye for absurdity, particularly when describing military bureaucracy, religious hypocrisy, media respectability, and the elaborate performances required to appear successful. The later chapters adopt a heavier emotional register as professional pressure, circuit-party culture, substance use, depression, and a suicide attempt narrow his world. Yet the memoir doesn’t treat recovery as a clean narrative correction. Sobriety develops unevenly, through meetings, therapy, accountability, grief, and repeated failures. The accounts of his father’s ALS diagnosis and the death of his close friend Gary broaden the book beyond personal disclosure, turning it into a sustained consideration of mortality, friendship, and the limits of self-reliance.
This second edition benefits from the reflective perspective Merritt brings to his younger self. He acknowledges earlier omissions, including his decision to erase an HIV-positive Marine named Jay from the original account, and evaluates his choices without reducing his past to either confession or self-defense. The result is a memoir that preserves the urgency of youthful rebellion while adding the moral clarity of age and sobriety. Its final insight, “We are all connected,” is earned through a narrative filled with estrangement, secrecy, loyalty, and loss. Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star is ultimately a record of one man’s effort to integrate the identities he once believed could never coexist, and of the difficult recognition that personal freedom requires not only courage, but honesty, responsibility, and sustained connection to others.
Pages: 468 | ISBN : 978-0758209689
Authentic and Vulnerable
Marketing Fastrack is part memoir and part workshop detailing your successful transition from grief-coach training to marketing consultancy. Why was this an important book for you to write?
So often, it is hard for a new business owner to see clearly how to get started. They compare themselves to established businesses with established marketing systems. But that was not how those businesses began! So I wanted to reveal a quick way to launch a new business, product, or service, using a short book. My intention is to help entrepreneurs and experts launch their business quickly and affordably within 90 days.
Why did you decide to write a concise, highly focused book instead of a comprehensive marketing manual?
I have written a comprehensive marketing and branding manual, Turn Words Into Wealth: 7 Ways to Make 7 Figures as a Thought Leader. So if people would like to take a deeper dive, they can read that comprehensive book. The gift hardcover book is available here: https://turnwordsintowealth.com/
Readers discover that Fastrack was the name of your late husband’s racing yacht. Why was it important to share that story?
I wanted readers to know that the title of the book, Marketing Fastrack, was personally meaningful to me. My late husband loved racing our sailboat, Fastrack. It also modeled one of the core ideas in my book: that being authentic and vulnerable is a way to build connection and trust with ideal clients.
If someone could implement only one idea from Marketing Fastrack, which would you hope they choose?
If they only implement one idea, I would love readers to embrace the idea of a 90-day test to see if they have product-market fit. So many people make the costly mistake of spending a lot of time and money hoping that people will buy what they plan on selling. Hope is not a wise business plan. Instead of hoping, launch quickly with a minimal version and see if people are willing to buy what you’re selling. If they do, optimize. If they don’t, go back to the drawing board.
Author Links: GoodReads | YouTube | Same Page Publishing | Turn Words Into Wealth | Website | Amazon
Someone half as good as you just charged twice as much, and got the client. If you’re a successful expert or entrepreneur, that’s not bad luck. It’s bad marketing.
Marketing Fastrack reveals a simple, fast way for your marketing to become remarkable. This short book generated $250,000 of new business in 90 days, and inside you get everything you need to model it: the real emails, the real follow-up sequence, and the real application forms.
No fluff. No theory. Just the clear roadmap, so you can follow it.
In this book, you’ll discover how to:
Prove your next offer will sell, in 90 days, for less than 3 months’ rent
Become famous in your niche, so you’re the expert everyone quotes
Turn a one-hour conversation into a short book that attracts opportunities
Avoid the 3 marketing mistakes sabotaging your success
Leverage your time to reach thousands of ideal prospects
Get your Greenlight Gameplan tailored to your business and the Age of AI
Follow the exact sequence that turned a short book into $250,000
I learned this the hard way, so you don’t have to. Now I help clients craft full-length, high-authority books. I still use this short-book method whenever a client needs fast results. In this book, I’ll show you exactly how to model it, step by step, so you skip the years of trial and error I went through.
If you want more income, more influence, and more invitations to speak, this is your shortcut. Bonus gift inside, so look for it. I’ve helped clients land their own TV shows, add six figures in six months, and raise millions for their startups.
Bad marketing isn’t free. It’s paid for in lost clients, lost income, and lost opportunities.
Winner of the Pinnacle Book Achievement Gold Award.
I’m Aurora Winter, MBA, founder of Same Page Publishing, creator of the Spoken Author method, and host of Strategic Basics. Formerly a TV writer-producer, I’m the author of ten books, including Turn Words Into Wealth: 7 Ways to Make 7 Figures as a Thought Leader, updated for the Age of AI. My work has been featured in Success, Elle, ABC-TV, CBS-TV, and hundreds of podcasts. I’ve reached millions with my marketing messages, and now I help my clients do the same.
Let your reputation walk into the room before you do.
Get Marketing Fastrack today.
I’ve Made Plans
Mia J. Hanks’s I’ve Made Plans chronicles the author’s life after leaving a twenty-nine-year marriage marked by coercive control, emotional abuse, and covert narcissism. Beginning with the finalization of her divorce, Hanks shifts the focus from the dissolution of the marriage to the demanding work of creating a life beyond it. Her account follows a series of practical and emotional turning points, including confronting intimidation, rebuilding self-worth, establishing boundaries, managing isolation, and rediscovering personal freedom. When she leaves the courtroom with the realization that “My future now belonged to me,” the statement becomes the foundation for everything that follows.
The memoir’s greatest strength is its use of specific, everyday experiences to illustrate the lasting effects of abuse. A compromised storage unit, a bag of circus peanuts, a solo road trip, a broken thermometer, and an airplane journey all become meaningful markers of recovery. These episodes show how control can shape seemingly ordinary decisions and how reclaiming those decisions can restore confidence. Hanks writes in a candid, accessible voice that gives the book the intimacy of a personal conversation while maintaining a clear sense of purpose. Her willingness to examine her own people-pleasing, fear, guilt, and complicity in maintaining appearances adds depth to the narrative.
Each chapter is organized around a lesson, such as “Self-care is not selfish,” “Boundaries are necessary,” or “Freedom is priceless,” and many conclude with a journal prompt. This structure makes the book both a memoir and a reflective guide for readers navigating divorce, trauma, or major personal change. The later glossary, diagnostic criteria, list of covert narcissistic traits, and support resources extend its practical value. Some ideas recur across chapters, but the repetition reflects the gradual nature of recovery and reinforces the central themes of self-trust, autonomy, and deliberate healing.
I’ve Made Plans is ultimately a grounded account of reconstruction. Hanks presents healing as a collection of choices rather than a single transformative moment, and the construction of her new home provides an effective final metaphor for rebuilding her identity. Her concluding reflection, “I already love this life not because it is perfect, but because it is mine,” captures the memoir’s emotional center. Honest, encouraging, and thoughtfully structured, the book offers survivors a recognizable portrait of life after abuse while showing how freedom can be strengthened through boundaries, faith, self-care, and purposeful action.
Pages: 92 | ASIN : B0GX31KVYT
Two Hearts, One Man: God’s Story Within
Andrew J. Trueblood’s Two Hearts, One Man: God’s Story Within is a deeply personal Christian testimony centered on the life of James, a man whose catastrophic motorcycle accident becomes the dividing line between two radically different versions of himself. Before the crash, James is described as angry, materialistic, demanding, and openly hostile toward religion. After surviving injuries that should have killed him, he awakens with an intense awareness of God and a capacity for love that surprises everyone around him. The title captures this transformation well. James still has the same physical heart, but spiritually, he’s living with an entirely new one.
The account of the accident and recovery gives the book its emotional foundation. Trueblood doesn’t gloss over the severity of James’s injuries, his loss of independence, or the depression that follows. Some of the most affecting scenes are also the simplest, such as James begging his wife, Shannon, not to leave for work or practicing alone until he can take a few steps. Shannon’s loyalty adds another kind of love to the story. Her care for James is steady, practical, and often painful, which gives the spiritual elements of the book a strong human anchor.
As the book continues, it expands beyond memoir into a wide-ranging meditation on faith, Scripture, salvation, suffering, money, church culture, marriage, politics, the environment, and personal responsibility. Its structure follows James’s post-injury thought patterns, moving between memories, biblical interpretation, present-day reflections, and stories he understands as evidence of God’s involvement in his life. The book openly describes his mind as a bridge that carries him from one subject to another, and that wandering quality becomes part of its personality. Reading it can feel like sitting across from someone who has spent years thinking about God and now feels an urgent need to share everything he has learned.
James’s voice is strongest when he examines his own weaknesses rather than speaking only in general terms. He admits that cars, money, comfort, and personal ambition continued to compete for his attention even after his spiritual awakening. His observation that “God’s timing is perfect, and it was obvious mine is as flawed as my thoughts” captures the book’s mixture of humility, conviction, and dry humor. Another memorable line, “Your relationship with God will only be as good as you are willing to make it,” summarizes the challenge James places before the reader. For him, faith isn’t a label or occasional habit. It’s a demanding relationship that requires surrender, service, discipline, and daily attention.
Two Hearts, One Man is ultimately a testimony about spiritual rebirth and the long, uneven process of learning to live according to that rebirth. James’s transformation doesn’t end when he wakes from the coma. It continues through pain, doubt, temptation, volunteer work, biblical study, medical setbacks, and repeated moments when he believes God is redirecting him. Trueblood presents these experiences with complete sincerity, creating a book that feels less like a polished theological argument and more like an earnest conversation about what faith has required from one particular man. Readers drawn to Christian testimonies, stories of survival, and reflections on total commitment will find plenty here to consider.
Pages: 172 | ASIN : B0G54CXTP8
