You know that you are moving, but you really aren't going anywhere. Confined by and defined by laziness, loss, or limitations, you continually live beneath your potential while living up to everyone else's expectations. You are living a life led by compulsion. You have lost touch with the power of propulsion. It does not matter whether you are sixty-two, twenty-six, or sixteen and two months; your potential, performance, and prosperity can elevate just as quickly as you decide to live a life of purpose. In The Flight of Your Life, Charles and Yvana Bailey use accounts of their personal wins and losses over a combined fifteen years of national and international athletics, entrepreneurship, coaching, and ministry to daringly inspire you to put yourself in the propulsive position and to maximize every passion, performance, or the people you encounter as you create the life that you have been created for. Give yourself this pre-sent. This is the ticket for The Flight of Your Life. Charles and Yvana have dedicated themselves to the power of propulsion. Over a decade of marriage; five degrees in business, science, health, and communications; and managing multiple streams of income and influence, they have committed themselves to enlarging their platforms in order to create room for you to take the flight of your life. “. . . sage advice, and a disciplined approach, for anyone desiring to succeed at their purpose in life . . .” - Rick Whitted, Author & Speaker, Outgrow Your Space At Work “. . . a wake-up call and a plan of action for those who have been waiting on life . . .” - Carolina Flores, CEO of Hi Hello “. . . an appropriate step for those who hear their calling but need the courage to respond.” - Sam Kendricks, Olympic Medalist, Soldier “. . . a really good look into the reality of overcoming obstacles.” - Fletcher Cox, Super Bowl Champion, Philadelphia Eagles “. . . a book that every service member should be given at the moment they enter into service . . .” - Marcus Campbell, Command Sergeant Major, U.S. Army Retired “The book is outstanding. Well worth reading.” - Joe Walker, Jr., US Olympic Committee National Track and Field Coach of The Year

This is not just another day; this is another blessed day that the Lord has kept me to inspire someone. My hope is that someone will find a thought on a particular day that will be an inspiration to them to share with family and friends.

Chance rules our daily lives in many different ways. From the outcomes of the lottery to the outcomes of medical tests, from the basketball court to the court of law. The ways of chance are capricious. Bizarre things happen all the time. Nevertheless, chance has a logic of its own. It obeys the rules of probability. But if you open a standard book on probability, you may very well feel far removed from everyday life. Abstract formulas and mathematical symbols stare back at you with almost every turn of the page.This book introduces you to the logic of chance without the use of mathematical formulas or symbols. In Part One, you will meet the fascinating pioneers of the mathematics of probability, including Galileo Galilei and Blaise Pascal. Their stories will introduce you, step by step, to the basics of probability. In Part Two, various examples in all areas of daily life will show you how chance defies our expectations time and again. But armed with the basic rules of probability and a good dose of inventiveness, you will be able to unravel the counter-intuitive logic of chance.

“A clever, even witty examination of the manipulation of language in these days of neoliberal or late stage capitalism” (Counterpunch). From Silicon Valley to the White House, from kindergarten to college, and from the factory floor to the church pulpit, we are all called to be innovators and entrepreneurs, to be curators of an ever-expanding roster of competencies, and to become resilient and flexible in the face of the insults and injuries we confront at work. In the midst of increasing inequality, these keywords teach us to thrive by applying the lessons of a competitive marketplace to every sphere of life. What’s more, by celebrating the values of grit, creativity, and passion at school and at work, they assure us that economic success is nothing less than a moral virtue. Organized alphabetically as a lexicon, Keywords explores the history and common usage of major terms in the everyday language of capitalism. Because these words have infiltrated everyday life, their meanings may seem self-evident, even benign. Who could be against empowerment, after all? Keywords uncovers the histories of words like innovation, which was once synonymous with “false prophecy” before it became the prevailing faith of Silicon Valley. Other words, like best practices and human capital, are relatively new coinages that subtly shape our way of thinking. As this book makes clear, the new language of capitalism burnishes hierarchy, competition, and exploitation as leadership, collaboration, and sharing, modeling for us the habits of the economically successful person: be visionary, be self-reliant—and never, ever stop working.

Five decades ago, I was challenged to read the Moynihan Report (1965). Then and now, I take issue with much of the content, which smacks of deficit thinking, blaming the victim, and a blindness or almost total disregard for how systemic racism and social injustices contribute to family structures. I recall being professionally and personally offended by interpretations of single?parent families, which were often negative and hopeless. Moral development, criminal activity, poor educational outcomes, poverty, and apathy of many kinds were placed squarely on the shoulders of these families, especially if the families were/are headed by Black mothers. Eurocentric and middle class notions of ‘real’ families like those depicted on TV shows and movies dominate, then and now, what is deemed healthy in terms of family structures – with the polemic conclusion that nuclear families are the best and sometimes only structure in which children must be raised. These colorblind, economic blind, and racist blind studies, reports, theories, and folktales have failed to do justice to the families in which there is one caregiver. Their stories of woe and mayhem make the news and guide policies and procedures. The stories of children who have been resilient have been unheard and silenced, they have been under?reported and relegated to the status of ‘exception to the rule’. Perhaps they are exceptions, but there are more exceptions than we may know. This book is designed with those stories of resilience and success in mind. The book is not an attempt to glorify single?parent families, but such families are prevalent and increasing. High divorce rates are impactful. And some parents have chosen to not marry, which is their right. While not glorifying single?parent families, we are also not demonizing them or telling their stories void of context. Yes, income will often be low(er), time will be compromised when divided between offspring, work, and other obligations. Likewise, we are not glorifying two?parent families as being ideal; their context matters too. How healthy are married couples who don’t really love or even like each other? How healthy are those parents who have separate sleeping arrangements/bedrooms? How healthy are those families who have oppositional parenting styles and goals for their children? This is the 50th anniversary of the Moynihan Report, and I am concerned that another 50 years will pass that fails to balance out the stories of single?parent families, mainly those whose children succeed and defy the odds so often unexpected of them. I agree with Cohen, co?author of the updated report: "The preoccupation with strengthening marriage as the best route to reducing poverty and inequality has been a policymaking folly”. Further, 50 years after Moynihan released the controversial report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, a new brief by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) and the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) titled, "Moynihan's Half Century: Have We Gone to Hell in a Hand Basket?," finds that the changes in family structure that concerned him have indeed continued, becoming widespread among Whites as well, but that they do not explain recent trends in poverty and inequality. In fact, a number of the social ills Moynihan assumed would accompany these changes in family structure—such as rising rates of poverty, school failure, crime, and violence—have instead decreased. (see this)