【推荐1】They call America’s Got Talent the biggest stage in the world, and I definitely felt like it that day last April. I stood on that huge, brightly lit stage in California. As I stared out at the audience of thousands, it hit me that this moment could change my life forever.

I’d always loved to sing and had already signed up for the school talent show in fourth grade when I started stuttering (结巴). I went from being a carefree 10-year-old to a shy one. I was afraid of speaking in class, ordering at restaurants, and even introducing myself. So I decided to practise over and over again. To my astonishment, the words came smoothly when I sang. My stutter disappeared. I felt so free onstage performing in the talent show.

By the summer I was 16, one afternoon I started practising my guitar at home. On the spot, I wrote a song I called “I Will Trust”. I sang about how lost I felt. The next day, I filmed a video of myself performing the song and posted it on YouTube. Hundreds of complete strangers left comments that I had cheered them up with my music.

Then I signed up for the America’s Got Talent audition (试镜). When I finished, the judges and the whole crowd were on their feet. I couldn’t believe it! Judge Cowell told me I had a pure and beautiful voice. When introducing myself to the judges and audience, I stammered my name, Amanda, and then my age, 18. “As you can probably tell…” I explained, “I have a bit of a speech stutter... But I found that I don’t stutter when I sing.”

I couldn’t hold back my tears. My stutter made me shy and fearful, but I was given the gift to speak through my music. My wildest dreams were coming true, dreams I’d never thought possible.

【推荐1】In order to be recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), you have to be doing something right. Since Sheryl Page, president and CEO of Page One Consultants in Orlando, was named Woman-owned Small Business Person of the Year by the State of Florida SBA in 2017, a lot of people have started to look at what she’s doing and how her company has become so successful.

Page, who runs an engineering and construction consulting firm, started the business back in 1993, but sort of dragged along for many years with no big success. There were plenty of times when Page could have thrown in the towel, but she kept pushing through.

Starting out in an industry mainly made up of male-owned businesses wasn’t easy, nor was the potential of finding enough money to support the quality services she had to provide client (客户) with. Page used as many as 15 credit cards to help the company stay in business in the early-to-mid 1990s. Then, she received a ﹩250,000 SBA guaranteed loan in 2001 to keep the company afloat after nearly a decade in business.

Since then, the company has doubled profits, hired more than two dozen new team members, acquired more than a dozen new company vehicles, and almost doubled its square footage. It’s a huge growth increase for a company that’s been around for nearly 25 years and speaks of the hard work and commitment of Page and her team.

When asked what her biggest piece of advice to small business owners would be, Page says, “Keep your faith and be patient. Don’t give up…don’t quit!” Those words have been heard in many cases and do sound cliché (陈词滥调), but when they come from someone like Sheryl Page, who is living proof of the good that can come from being patient, they ring truer than ever. If you learn anything from her company’s success, it should be that growth is rarely immediate, but that doesn't mean it isn’t coming.

【推荐2】My husband and I sobbed when we learned our home of twenty-eight years had been destroyed in the northern California Camp Fire. The souvenirs of our fifty-plus years of marriage along with many family heirlooms(传家宝) no longer existed.

Several weeks after the fire, we were allowed into the area where our home once stood. We had purchased spades, boots, protective gloves and plastic storage containers to take to the site of our former home. At the check-in point, we had to provide proof that we' d lived there. After that we were allowed to enter. I felt like an outsider in the place I’d called home for thirty years.

I'd researched online what things wouldn't be destroyed by fire and was prepared to find as many as possible while digging through the remains of our home. Tears streamed down my face as I dug into the ruins. Everything I found was a treasure to be restored.

Hours later, we loaded everything we'd rescued into plastic containers and loaded them into our two vehicles. I stood in the driveway and looked at the ruins. It was an empty feeling, and I questioned my strength to survive the oncoming challenges.

An afternoon wind started and unearthed partly burnt pages from books that had been buried under metal products. I thought about the books I'd lost and the comfort they'd given me, along with copies of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books that contained stories I'd written.

As I turned to leave, I noticed a piece of paper with burnt edges stuck to the top of my boot. I pulled it off and read the printed message: “If life seems difficult, I pause and reflect on the blessing sometimes hidden within every circumstance. With renewed faith and courage, I begin again.”

I framed that piece of paper and put it where I could see it often in every hotel room we stayed in during the coming months. The framed message now sits on a shelf in the home we settled into five months after the fire.

【推荐1】When Ben delivered milk to my home one morning before Christmas, he wasn’t his usual sunny self. He told me a customer had left without paying the bill $79, nor leaving her new address. So it meant that he had to cover the loss.

“She was a pretty woman,” he said, “With six children and another on the way, she was always saying, ‘I’m going to pay you soon when my husband gets a second job.’ I believed her, but she left. Isn’t it annoying?”

“Give her the milk. Make it a Christmas present to the kids who need it.” I said.

The holidays came and went. On a sunny January morning two weeks later, Ben was rushing to deliver milk when he saw a woman running down the street, waving money. He recognized her immediately-the woman who didn’t pay her bill.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I really have been meaning to pay you.”

She explained that her husband had come home one night and announced he’d found cheaper apartment. He’d also got a new job. With all that happened, she’d forgotten to leave the new address. “But I’ve been saving,” she said. “Here’s $20 toward the bill.”

“That’ s all right,” Ben replied. “It’s been paid.”

“Paid!” she exclaimed(惊叫). “What do you mean? Who paid it?”

“I did,” Ben said, “It went to the children as a Christmas present!”

【推荐3】20-year-old Colen Nulgit and his girlfriend, Shantelle Johnson, had gone out for a daytime fishing trip at Keep River National Park in Australia last week when their car became stuck in some mud (淤泥).

When they were unable to free the car from the mud, they began to worry. The park’s waterways are usually full of crocodiles, and the couple had already seen plenty of crocodile tracks running through the mud. Not only that, they had only brought a few bottles of water and little food for the trip.

Nulgit and Johnson tried to fall asleep in their car, but as the sun set and the nearby water levels began to rise, they feared that the high tide (潮水) would bring the crocodiles closer to their car. The young couple then moved towards dry land and hoped for rescue. They even used a piece of wood to write the word “HELP” into the mud along with a line pointed towards their car.

Thankfully, the couple had been careful to tell Nulgit’s parents where they were going and when they expected to be home; so when they failed to return the very same night, his worried mother called the police. Rescuers began searching the area by airplane the next morning. Upon hearing the sound of the plane, the couple started a fire so the rescuers would see the smoke. As the plane drew closer to the smoke, rescuers successfully located the couple after they caught sight of the “HELP” sign pointing towards the car.

Nulgit and Johnson were very thankful for the rescue. They now plan on putting together a set of emergency survival tools for the car.