Long before writing children's classics like Dragons Love Tacos and Those Darn Squirrels, Adam Rubin was living the bachelor life in New York City. Life was full of possibilities.

One night, Adam and a friend were enjoying a bottle of sake at the bar of a small Japanese restaurant in Williamsburg when a group of women walked in and grabbed a table. Every time Adam looked over, one of the women caught his gaze.

Brave from the sake, he decided to say hello. It would be one of the most consequential decisions of his life. 

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Samir Wagle had just filed for divorce, resigned from his job as CEO of Protein Bar, and quit drinking. It was long overdue but that didn't make it any easier.

On a particularly dark day,  Samir got home and decided to take his five year old son on a walk. He was lost, disoriented, and hopeless. 

And then his son picked up a stick. What followed was a series of revelations that would begin Samir's journey out of the darkness.

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Long before his time as the Editor in Chief of Car and Driver, Eddie Alterman helmed a small startup magazine called MPH, the Maxim of car magazines. Imagine that.

In late 2004, when the highly anticipated Porsche 911 and Corvette C6 were on the verge of release, Eddie and his team scored a couple of specimens and decided that the best photo op would be in the middle of the night in front of Central Park, followed, naturally, by a head to head race in the park itself.

What could possibly go wrong?

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When Clinical Professor of Managerial Psychology Linda Ginzel put together a set of handouts for her capstone leadership class at the University of Chicago Booth School of business, students started to ask for extra copies for bosses, spouses and neighbors.

She said no. These were just class handouts for her students, after all.

One day, a student asked for a copy for his  school age children. And before she could stop herself, she agreed.

This exchange began her journey into becoming an (accidental) author.

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Mark Achler had just finished writing his first book when the CEO of the publisher suggested he find a sponsor. A novel idea, but if it could offset costs and raise visibility, why not?

Although unorthodox, it worked. But little did Mark know that the publisher's CEO had an unbelievable past and it was all about to catch up to them both.

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Delia Cohen was an organizer of TED talks when she learned that a few countries had done TED talks in prisons. Why on earth, she wondered, would anyone do that? Who would speak? Who would attend?

So she decided to do some homework and as it turned out, not only was the demand there, this would be an opportunity to drive positive change for the incarcerated and could even lead to justice reform.

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James Beard award-winning food writer Kevin Pang did not have a good relationship with his father. They would speak occasionally, but exchange only the most superficial of pleasantries. 

Then, one day in 2012, Kevin got an email. The subject: "Jeffrey Pang wants you to check out this YouTube video."

What followed was a journey of reconnection and rediscovery between father and son on a scale that neither could have ever imagined.

Kevin tells the story of how the email sparked a previously unfathomable reconciliation.

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Sian Morson is close with her mom. Although the two live hundreds of miles apart, they speak every day.

After her mom had a stroke, the family decided to have a camera system installed in her house to keep an eye on her. 

One day, Sian's mom stopped answering her phone and when Sian checked the cameras, they were all offline.

Sian shares the story of the terrifying ordeal and the resulting surprise epiphany about her own life.

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Josh and Jesse were planning to get married. It should have been a breeze. Except it was the spring of 2020, she was in Germany and he was in NY, and the EU had just closed its borders.

With the constantly shifting regulatory and travel restrictions, not to mention the difficulty of securing the required documentation, most people would have put it off.

But not these two.

What ensued was an adventure spanning three countries on two continents, clandestine visits with cash payments, and a tense standoff at a registrar in a London suburb.

Would love conquer all?

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Nick Epley's train ride to his University of Chicago office used to be a predictably uneventful affair: 45 minutes of people looking out the window or staring at their phones, oblivious to the world around them. But one morning, the behavioral scientist decided to try something different. When a woman sat down next to him, he complimented her on her hat. 

That compliment began a conversation that would change the trajectory of Nick's research over the ensuing decade, and it would change the way Nick approached his life.

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