 |
Hello %PERS_NAME%,
In the spirit of The Traveler's Gift, The Noticer blends common wisdom with stories of struggle, loss and despair set in Orange Beach, Alabama. As a loyal supporter of Andy's, the Andy Andrews team wants to give you an EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK into this spring's hottest new book!
What is The Noticer about?
 |
Orange Beach, Alabama, is a simple town filled with simple people. But they all have their share of problems — marriages teetering on the brink of divorce, young adults giving up on life, business people on the verge of bankruptcy, and many of the other obstacles that life seems to dish out to the masses.
Fortunately, when things look the darkest — a mysterious old man named Jones has a miraculous way of showing up. A man of indiscriminate age and race with white hair and wearing blue jeans, a white T-shirt and
|
carrying a battered old suitcase, Jones is a unique soul with near angelic qualities. Communicating what he calls "a little perspective," Jones explains that he has been given a gift of noticing things about life that others miss. In his simple interactions, Jones speaks to that part in everyone that is yearning to understand why things happen and what they can do about it.
Your EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK
|
|
"Later that day, I crawled back into my home under the pier. Laid neatly on my tackle box were three more orange books. Again, they were all biographies. Joan of Arc. Abraham Lincoln. Viktor Frankl. I picked up the Frankl book first; I was unfamiliar with him. The book was titled Man's Search for Meaning. As I scanned the back cover, I learned that Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the Nazi death camps during World War II. His wife, father, and mother were all murdered."
|
 |
It's all about perspective ... I could hear Jones's voice rattling around in my head.
Suddenly, I noticed that there was a piece of paper folded into the book. As I removed it, I could see that it was a napkin. On it, Jones had written:
Young Man,
Read this one first. I am proud of you.
Jones
Tears filled my eyes as I carefully placed the letter back into the book. It had been a long time since anyone had been proud of me.
Today, I can remember distinctly that the next three books were Harry Truman, Florence Nightingale, and King David. Then I was given Harriet Tubman, Queen Elizabeth I, and John Adams. Numbers thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen were Eleanor Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and Joshua Chamberlain. Tucked into the Chamberlain book was a note from Jones, simply instructing me to please return these last three to the library myself, which I did — and I checked out George Washington, Anne Frank, and Christopher Columbus — on my own.
It wasn't long before I noticed that Jones had gone.
* * *
So, if you have ever heard me speak at a corporate event or read any of my books and wondered how I came to read more than two hundred biographies — books that led me to the seven principles — now you know. It was an old man named Jones who took an interest in (or pity on) a young man going through the worst time in his life.
I have thought of Jones every single day now for almost twenty-five years. When I was married, I had hoped he would be there. I wanted him to sit in the first row — where my father would have been. When each of my boys was born, I walked outside the hospital alone, in the half-light of an early morning, hoping to find Jones waiting, smiling, ready with advice and comfort about my future as a father. There have been so many times I've wished for just an hour alone with that old man. But I never saw him again.
Until last week.
|
 |
Can't get enough of The Noticer?
Pre-order the newest, inspirational book from Andy Andrews here before it's released on April 28, 2009!
Stay tuned ... more exciting excerpts from The Noticer are on their way!
|
Best wishes,
The Andy Andrews Team
|
|
