I’m on a mini-vacation right now. As I post, I’m sitting at my brother-in-law’s kitchen table in Navarre, Florida. Being in Florida, when I live in California, means I flew here. Flying means reading on airplanes. The book I chose was: The Survivors Club: The secrets and science that could save your life by Ben Sherwood. Glenn Beck interviewed Ben on Wednesday and Glenn said what an interesting book this was. I picked it up at the airport bookstore in Houston.

I’m almost done with the book. It’s excellent. I think the thing that impressed me the most was how much research went into the writing of this book. Mr. Sherwood read a ton, researched for hours all over the world and interviewed an enormous amount of people for the book. However, he went above and beyond the call of duty as an author when he subjected himself to situations that could have possibly killed him. He trained with the Navy on how to survive an air crash in the water, he was educated with professionals in the commercial airline field on how to escape a burning plane and he went on a centrifuge to experience G-forces. Any one of these three training experiences would kill me. If for no other reason than I would be scared to death (which according to the book is called the Baskerville Effect).

You’ll be happy to know that the two biggest factors he found for people living despite what may seem like overwhelming odds (due to either disease or trauma) were: faith and family. That brought me great peace of mind, because I live a faith-based, family-centered life.

The people who seem to have the greatest will to live are those with the most to live for; this is where family comes in. Many times the people he interviewed, who were in desperate situations, just decided that they wouldn’t die and leave their families alone. It was the single largest motivator for people to survive what seemed liked impossible odds.

I was delighted with Mr. Sherwood’s surprise that faith in a higher being made such a big difference, but more than that, I liked that Mr. Sherwood returned to the church of his youth because of what he learned from researching this book. I think this book could have a similar influence on others. I like books that help people to become better people. What books have you read lately that influenced you to become a more refined human?

Melissa