The Butterfly Effect

About the book

How Your Life Matters

What if giving a single book to your employees and friends could dramatically increase business productivity and transform personal relationships? That is exactly what The Butterfly Effect delivers—not through temporary encouragement, but through PROOF of how much each person truly matters.

The Science Behind the Story

In 1963, Edward Lorenz presented a bold theory to the New York Academy of Sciences. The audience laughed him out of the room. His idea—called The Butterfly Effect—claimed that a butterfly flapping its wings could set air molecules in motion, triggering a chain reaction that ultimately influences weather patterns on the other side of the planet. For years, most people dismissed this as an interesting myth. In the mid-1990s, however, physics professors from several universities worked together and proved the butterfly effect was accurate, viable, and consistent. Scientists have since elevated it to the status of a law: The Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions.

True Stories That Prove the Point

Now, New York Times best-selling author of The Noticer and The Traveler’s Gift takes that law and uses a series of true stories to show exactly how much one individual matters. Consider Joshua Chamberlain—a schoolteacher from Maine who made one bold move 150 years ago that positively changed an entire nation. He charged the enemy without ammunition, defeated them, and started a butterfly effect that continues to this day.

The Butterfly Effect also tells the story of Norman Borlaug, the man who hybridized corn and wheat for arid climates. Experts credit him with saving more than 2 billion lives. Yet Borlaug could never have achieved this without Vice President Henry Wallace. Moreover, without George Washington Carver, Wallace would not have been in a position to help Borlaug. And without one farmer from Diamond, Missouri, Carver would not have survived infancy.

The point? Everything you do matters. This little book is proof.

Who Should Read This Book

1. The disheartened: people who have given up on life, developed a negative attitude, and struggle to find a path forward
2. The skeptics: people who question the happiness and success of others and wonder whether life is simply a lottery
3. Business people, entrepreneurs, and achievers: those who are building careers or growing their own ventures
4. Pioneers, innovators, and leaders: from the U.S. president to the small business owner, from Camp David to the camp counselor—those who embrace optimism and seek tools to inspire the people they lead

From the Pages of the Book . . .

1. The United States exists as it does today because of one man: a thirty-four-year-old schoolteacher and a single decision he made more than a century ago.
2. Your actions cannot be hoarded, saved for later, or used selectively. Through your choices, billions of lives will change—caught up in a chain of events that you set in motion today.
3. Your actions carry value far greater than silver or gold.