Andy Andrews is an internationally known speaker and novelist whose combined works have sold millions of copies worldwide. He has been received at the White House and has spoken at the request of four different United States presidents. Andrews' bestselling book, The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success, is an international bestseller that remained on the New York Times bestseller list for four and a half months; it has been translated into nearly 20 languages. Andrews lived a relatively normal life until the age of nineteen, when both his parents died, his mother from cancer, his father in an automobile accident. Andrews says he made some bad choices at this… point in his life found himself homeless, sleeping occasionally under a pier on the gulf coast or in someone's garage. He begain to ask himself, "Is life just a lottery ticket, or are there choices one can make to direct his future?" Over time, he read more than two hundred biographies of great men and women. How did they become the people they were, he wondered. Were they simply born this way? Or were there decisions made at critical junctures in their lives that led to such success? Andrews finally determined that there were seven characteristics that each person had in common. This became the basis for his story in The Traveler's Gift. Andrews also wrote The Butterfly Effect, The Heart Mender, The Noticer, and The Noticer Returns.