It Starts at the Dinner Table: What I Wish I Knew Before I Left Home

By Dr. Eric N. Haley

“It Starts at the Dinner Table,” is a self help book to help 11-25 year olds to set goals and plan out their life, so that they can be successful. To often, young people drift along in life and lose too many valuable years wherein they could be productive. We fall into the 40/40/40 rule of life. What happens is our parents encourage us to get a good education in order to get a good paying job. It goes like this. We get serious about life at age 25 and work 40 hours a week for 40 years; and then retire on about 40% of our income from Social Security, and any monies that we have saved from our retirement plans. This book teaches you to get ahead of the curve by showing you how to set attainable goals. Studies show that people that write down their goals reach their goals three times more often than people who don’t write down their goals. It Starts at the Dinner Table is knowledge shared by five generations of Haleys. It will help you practice simple habits over time that will help you not only be successful, but discover your destiny to impact the world!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669837756

Dr. Eric N. Haley

Rev. Dr. Eric N. Haley was born in Blytheville, Arkansas in l954. His family matriculated to Compton, California in 1961. Dr. Haley has a B.A. from Claremont Men’s College ( now called Claremont McKenna College) a master’s degree from National University, and a doctorate in Theology from Sacramento Theological Seminary (Modesto extension campus). He is a pastor of Little Zion Baptist Church of Mendota, CA and recently retired from teaching in the public school system for 26 years. His hobbies are coaching football and basketball, writing, and working with youth groups. His short play, “The Salvation Game,” was published in Teen Power magazine and he is also the author of, “ Invertebrate America: The Spiritual Implosion!” Website: haleyministries.com

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Copyright © 2022 by Dr. Eric N. Haley.

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version

(Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic

Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

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Rev. date: 08/02/2022

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

It Starts at the Dinner Table

Subtopic: What I wish I Knew Before I Left Home

Introduction

God Is Real

The Right Perspective About Money

Personal Development

Making the Right Career Choice

Following Basic Principles to Succeed

INTRODUCTION

This booklet was written to help youth understand how to prepare for the day when you will leave home. There is a right way and wrong way to leave the nest. When you leave, you want to receive your parents’ or guardians’ blessing, not leave on bad terms.

If you leave on bad terms you’ll probably be force to come back home under a cloud. You’ll have to suck in your ego and comeback more humble than when you left.

When I was growing up I was fortunate enough to have five generations of relatives around to be an example and give us advice on whatever we were facing in life: at home, between siblings, at school, or in the neighborhood. Usually on Sundays we visited either a grandparent, great grandparent, or one of our aunts or uncles’ houses. We children played all afternoon until someone called us in to eat supper. There at the dinner table family members exchanged wisdom from all ages and perspectives. No problem was too big or small. The head of the household blessed the table and generations of knowledge was shared for all to hear.

So, I hope the following pages will help you prepare to meet life and all its challenges when you venture out on your own.

GOD IS REAL

Everybody believes in something. Philosophy is the study of human thought about the meaning of life and the highest truth. Is there a god? Who is the right god? Even people that don’t believe in god, who are called atheist, believe in something even if it is themselves. Philosophy attempts to answer the reason why we exist.

There is a sacred book called the Bible that explains how God has revealed himself to mankind. This book was written by over forty authors, covering a period of 1600 years, and compiled into 66 books. It’s divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament. There are 929 chapters in the Old Testament and 260 chapters in the New Testament. The theme in both parts is that the God of the universe has provided salvation to mankind from his spiritual adversary called the Devil; aka: Lucifer, Satan, the dragon, Abaddon, Accuser, adversary, angel of light, Antichrist, and Apollyon, just to name a few.

This salvation is needed because the bible explains to mankind that we all have sinned, except Jesus Christ. To sin means we have all fallen short of God’s standard and done something wrong—lying, stealing, killing, falsifying, coveting, cheating, gossiping, etc. in our life time. The Bible teaches that the wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23) A wage is a type of payment. Nature has been cursed because our original parents —Adam and Eve obeyed the Devil instead of doing what God told them to do in the Garden of Eden. Thus, all