Your Passport to Parenting explores parenting ideas from around the world, providing stories and lessons that demonstrate how values-based parenting can help create meaningful bonds between you and your child, while teaching them to be kind, secure, and empathetic.

If you would have told me that in the year 2020 I would stand at the White House podium and communicate with the American people as COVID-19 ravaged the globe and violent protests beset the nation, I would have told you that you were crazy. But Jesus Christ had this very plan for my life.

Nothing Is Missing is a “sparkling and impassioned story” (Glamour) of what it takes to show up for yourself—and the joy that can come once you do. Raised in a home where food was unstable and anger was the norm, Nicole learned that she needed to take charge of her own safety and security. So she did: She got into an elite private school by talking to a stranger in her dad’s cab, she strategized her way onto Wheel of Fortune to pay for college, she adopted three girls after meeting their mother panhandling, she quit her job to launch her own business, and she struggled.

Alejandra Campoverdi has been a child on welfare, a White House aide to President Obama, a Harvard graduate, a gang member’s girlfriend, and a candidate for U.S. Congress. She’s ridden on Air Force One and in G-rides. She’s been featured in Maxim magazine and had a double mastectomy. Living a life of contradictory extremes often comes with the territory when you’re a “First and Only.” It also comes at a price. With candor and heart, Alejandra retraces her trajectory as a Mexican American woman raised by an immigrant single mother in Los Angeles.

An inspiring personal story of redemption, second chances, and the transformative power within us all, from the founder and CEO of the nonprofit charity: water. In the tradition of such best-selling books as Shoe Dog and Mountains Beyond Mountains, Thirst is a riveting account of how to build a better charity, a better business, a better life - and a gritty tale that proves it’s never too late to make a change.

Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.

When a bomb imploded her building on April 19, 1995, Amy fell three stories and was buried alive for over six hours. In the aftermath of her trauma and loss, Amy enacted the power of hope to transform from victim to champion in her work, education, health, spirit, and love. Her open, vulnerable, and seemingly impossible journey reveals the raw power of authentic hope. No matter how heavy our burdens weigh - from our careers, health, addictions, insecurities, trauma, or loss - Amy reminds us that hope is a verb we can enact today to transform our lives into the future of our dreams.

When we’re moving at 115 MPH, we rarely see the wall coming. But it comes for all of us and when it does, we grasp for lessons, for meaning, for purpose. Each moment (good or bad) and each win or loss, provides us an opportunity to learn, and if we choose to take it, that opportunity can change our lives - and the world - for the better. The human spirit craves connection. Authenticity. Belonging. Touch. Gratitude. Purpose. We need to make our interactions count.

Are the biblical stories of angels in the Old Testament being witnessed today? Are UFOs messengers from God? Chris Bledsoe, a deeply religious family man and successful business owner from North Carolina was on the verge of the unthinkable after losing everything in the 2007 financial crisis and suffering from a debilitating chronic disease. Fishing along the banks of the Cape Fear River with three co-workers and his teenage son, he walks away from the group and cries out to God in a desperate prayer for help.

Born with the gift of hospitality, Kreis Beall helped create one of the nation’s most renowned resort destinations, Blackberry Farm, in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountain foothills. For decades, she was a fixture in the travel and entertaining world and frequently appeared in the pages of popular home and design magazines. But at the pinnacle of her success, Kreis faced a series of challenges that reframed her life, including a brain injury that permanently impaired her hearing and the conclusion of her 36-year marriage to her best friend and business partner, Sandy Beall.

Ayrion has been training to fight since he was old enough to walk. As far back as he can remember he’s always had one dream - to be the youngest warrior of his clan. Unfortunately, Ayrion learns the hard way that being the best isn't always a good thing. After a tragic accident rips away his dreams and leaves him without a home, Ayrion heads south to the capital city of Aramoor in hopes of starting a new life. That journey will test him in ways he had never expected, forcing him to use every ounce of his training just to stay alive.

On a chilly spring morning in Brooklyn, 19-year-old Linda Sarsour stared at her reflection, dressed in a hijab for the first time. She saw in the mirror the woman she was growing to be - a young Muslim American woman unapologetic in her faith and her activism, who would discover her innate sense of justice in the aftermath of 9/11. Now heralded for her award-winning leadership of the Women’s March on Washington, Sarsour offers a “moving memoir [that] is a testament to the power of love in action” (Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow).

Success is not born out of skill, school, where we’re from, who we know, or what we scored on the SAT. None of us were born ready. None of us started life knowing how to fly a plane or launch a company or knit a sweater for our dog. But we are born with something more important than skills. We’re born with optimism—the initial seed for success. Optimism fuels the belief that you can be the one to create the good the world needs. But you’ve got to hone it. And practice it. And determine to live from it.

In 2016, Nuseir Yassin quit his job to travel for 1,000 consecutive days. But instead of the usual tourist traps, Nas set out to meet real people, see the places they call home, and discover what unites all of us living on this beautiful planet - from villages in Africa and slums in India, to the high-rises of Singapore and the deserts of Australia. While he journeyed from country to country, Nas uploaded a single 60-second video per day for his Nas Daily Facebook following to highlight the amazing, terrifying, inspiring and downright surprising sh*t happening all over the world.

You will be amazed, entertained and inspired by Lowell's remarkable life; the triumphant rises, the terrible falls, and the redemption that led him late in life to follow an unfathomable and Titanic opportunity. Written and narrated by Lowell Lytle, this unabridged audio version of his best-selling book contains almost eight hours of entertainment, inspiration, and action. Listeners should prepare to be carried back in time, to laugh, to cry, to shake their heads in wondrous disbelief, and to hold their breath through some of his many gripping adventures.

Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.

When Kevin Tuerff and his partner boarded their flight from France to New York City on September 11, 2001, they had no idea that a few hours later the world - and their lives - would change forever. After US airspace closed following the terrorist attacks, Kevin, who had been experiencing doubts about organized religion, found himself in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, with thousands of other refugees or “come from aways”. Channel of Peace is a beautiful account of how the people of Gander rallied with boundless acts of generosity and compassion for the “plane people".

On September 11, 2001, Lisa Beamer was thrust into the national spotlight after her husband, Todd, became an American hero by preventing terrorist hijackers from almost certainly flying United Flight 93 into the White House or the United States Capitol. Instead, Todd led a group of passengers to resist the hijackers, forcing the plane to crash into a Pennsylvania field. Todd and the other heroes of Flight 93 gave their lives so that untold others would be spared. Nothing could be more heroic. Lisa is now telling that story, and much more.

Just when Stacy Morrison thought she had it all, her husband of 10 years announced that he wanted a divorce. She was left alone with a new house that needed lots of work, a new baby who needed lots of attention, and a new job in the high-pressure world of New York publishing. Morrison had never been one to believe in fairy tales. As far as she was concerned, happy endings were the product of the kind of ambition and hard work that had propelled her to the top of her profession.

An activist calls for better support of young families so they can thrive and reflects on her experiences as a Black mother and college student fighting for opportunities for herself and her child. Pregnant Girl presents the possibility of a different future for young mothers - one of success and stability - in the midst of the dismal statistics that dominate the national conversation.

A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn't built for all of us and of one woman's activism - from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington - Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann's lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a "fire hazard" to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher's license because of her paralysis, Judy's actions set a precedent that improved rights for disabled people.

What is enough? From cleaning out closets to avoiding the grocery store for weeks at a time, Jeff Shinabarger is on a journey to find out what is "enough" in every aspect of life. Follow his community as they ponder one question: What would happen if we created a culture in which we gave away whatever was more than enough for us? How would our habits change if we shed the excess of money, clutter, and food in our lives? In More or Less, Jeff invites us to create our own social experiments to answer the question "What is enough?"

You think you know what you want in life. You've tried to achieve those things. But if you still don't have them, the culprit may be closer than you think. In this perspective-altering program, the world-renowned Pitbull of Personal Development(tm), Larry Winget, exposes the things you are doing right now to unknowingly prevent your own success in the most important areas of your life.

When Chief Joe Pfeifer led his firefighters to investigate an odor of gas in downtown Manhattan on the morning of 9/11, he had no idea that his life was about to change forever. A few moments later, he watched as the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. Pfeifer, the closest FDNY chief to the scene, spearheaded rescue efforts on one of the darkest days in American history.

Shyima Hall was born in Egypt on September 29, 1989, the seventh child of desperately poor parents. When she was eight, her parents sold her into slavery. Shyima then moved two hours away to Egypt's capitol city of Cairo to live with a wealthy family and serve them eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. When she was ten, her captors moved to Orange County, California, and smuggled Shyima with them. Two years later, an anonymous call from a neighbor brought about the end of Shyima's servitude - but her journey to true freedom was far from over.