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The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success | 
 enlarge | Author: Andy Andrews
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $7.75
You Save: $12.24 (61%)
New (8) from $7.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  165 reviews
Sales Rank: 85064
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
ASIN: B0002H7GC6
Publication Date: October 1, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Much like the best-selling books by Og Mandino, this unique narrative is a blend of entertaining fiction, allegory, and inspiration. Storyteller Andy Andrews gives a front-row seat for one man's journey of a lifetime. David Ponder has lost his job and the will to live. When he is supernaturally selected to travel through time, he visits historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, King Solomon, and Anne Frank. Each visit yields a Decision for Success that will one day impact the entire world.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 160 more reviews...
 Two Thumbs Down September 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm always amazed when mediocrity somehow finds mass appeal. A song heard on the radio has a stock melody and banal, cliched lyrics and still becomes a hit. Obviously, after reading the overwhelming majority of positive reviews, I'll have to admit that Andy Andrews' "The Traveler's Gift" has resonated with a lot of people. It hasn't with me. I found the writing to be over-simplistic, juvenile, cliched, contrived and predictable. But beyond the literary merits or lack thereof, what about the moral message. It seems that the 7 rules for enhancing life are mostly concerned with financial success and that this is nothing more than a quick-fix-it manual for attaining personal wealth in the guise of a Christian leap of faith. I would find it difficult to pattern my life after Christopher Columbus who, according to many historical sources, tortured and murdered native Americans.
Moreover, why select historical figures involved in acts of war (Truman, Lincoln, and Chamberlain)? Why not people like Ghandi, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King?
Philosophically, I have problems with "The buck stops here" being a life-affirming bromide. The notion that we take responsibility for everything that happens to us in life is absurd. Surely a person who dies from a mugging attack or a serious disease does not bear sole responsibility for being victimized. Yes, the person who was mugged may have chosen to walk alone at night through a bad neighborhood and the person suffering from the disease may have eaten the wrong foods but there were certainly other factors involved.
In the hands of a talented writer, this could have been avery moving story with powerful messages delivered. In my opinion, it was anything but.
 Finding happiness and a better life by taking responsibilty for it September 26, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a business parable, but really more of a life parable. The book provides seven lessons about taking responsibility and control of your life. Rather than letting your circumstances provide you with reasons for reacting to life and letting difficulties turning into personal failure, Andy Andrews preaches what some call an internal locus of control. No matter what happens to you, it is up to you to take charge and do something about it. Book is about David Ponder. He is a middle-aged guy with a great wife and a daughter. Like so many people who have been in a comfortable job for decades and then lost it, he finds his life spinning out of control. Unable to get a job anywhere close to the one he had before, without health insurance, and getting fired for merely using the phone to talk with his wife about his sick daughter, he wonders if his family wouldn't be better off with his life insurance than him. Driving recklessly fast, he spins out on some ice and wakes up talking to Harry Truman, then Solomon, and so on until he wakes up with his wife and daughter worrying over him in a hospital.
The seven lessons are very good affirmations to meditate on every day of your life:
1)The buck stops here. I am responsible for my past and my future.
2)I will seek wisdom. I will be a servant to others.
3)I am a person of action. I seize this moment. I choose now.
4)I have a decided heart. My destiny is assured.
5)Today I will choose to be happy. I am the possessor of a grateful spirit.
6)I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit. I will forgive myself.
7)I will persist without exception. I am a person of great faith.
After each of his encounters in history, David reads a short essay on each of these lessons and, of course, we read it, too.
My own take is that this is a superb book for teenagers just deciding who they want to be in life, young adults who want to sharpen their path, and adults who want to get on a different and better path to getting control of their life.
No, this is not profound art. However, the lessons can have a profound affect on your life and help you enjoy more, achieve more, and bless the lives of others more.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
Good read... September 25, 2008
After running across his "7 Decisions" DVD, I was impressed enough to pick up the book. No surprise here, it's a great read with practical applications in life.
The Traveler's Gift September 11, 2008
The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal SuccessThis will remind you of the things most of us know but really need to remember every year, month, day. Easy to read and great to pick up again and again. Must have for your library.
A gift for the reader... August 28, 2008
I had heard about this book and had it on my "to read" list for sometime but was in no hurry to purchase it. One of my friends had read it and told me how highly he thought of it, so I moved it up the priority list.
I don't normally read fictional books, but this one was very good and I appreciated it when using it from a "self-help" growth book as the lessons the book provided I feel are extremely beneficial.
The lessons, which are seemingly simple that we should all know and apply, I feel were made stronger and possibly more 'memorable' by having them applied in the form of the story that was told. The use of historical figures to deliver the individual lessons appealed to me as well.
The book was a quick read and I found myself highlighting many pages for comments that really hit home. Statements such as "...while public opinion might sway back and forth, right and wrong do not" really stood out to me and I don't think it was necessarily because I filtered the line through the current political election mindset we're in.
In the end, I feel that this should be part of everyone's "to read" list of books.
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