With all the attention being given lately to Eckhart Tolle’s groundbreaking book A New Earth, I wanted to make sure another amazing and transformational book didn’t go unmentioned. The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die by John Izzo will change your life, and the way you look at death. It is, quite simply, one of the most powerful books I’ve read in years.

Bestselling author and PBS host of the series based upon this book, Izzo interviewed over 200 people between the ages of 60 to 106 to glean from them their wisdom, insight and experience about what really matters. The result is a book that will transform you, even as you laugh, cry and stand in awe at the sheer joy these “wise elders” have to impart. Their stories range from the tragic to the romantic, the adventurous to the commonplace, but each man and woman Izzo spent time with has so much to offer to those of us still struggling to figure it all out.

The five secrets are simple yet profound. I will not tell you them here, but suffice it to say you already know on some level what they are. Reading about them being put into action by these amazing people makes all the difference between knowing something, and actually allowing it to change your life.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It opened my eyes and my heart to things I have been shutting out and gave me priceless food for thought that might have taken me another thirty years to glean. The stories are profound; even the one-sentence life-changing thoughts are, well, life changing, because sometimes the most simple of things make the most impact. This book is like having a hundred grandmothers and grandfathers each to tell us exactly what they know, where they’ve been, and what they’ve seen.

Get this book and absorb the wisdom it is offering. It will change your life and make the rest of it a journey to finding what really matters, and enjoying the process along the way.