cover image Life by the Cup: Ingredients for a Purpose-Filled Life of Bottomless Happiness and Limitless Success

Life by the Cup: Ingredients for a Purpose-Filled Life of Bottomless Happiness and Limitless Success

Zhena Muzyka. Atria, $25 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4767-5960-9

Muzyka’s charisma leaps off the pages of this unconventional, touching, and personal guide to success. Her son was born with a kidney disease that threatened his life and left Muzyka deep in debt after paying his surgery bills. Using her family’s Gypsy teachings and her talent for crafting tea blends, she built Zhena’s Gypsy Tea into a multimillion-dollar company. Her message about building a socially conscious tea business combine lessons from her bootstrap entrepreneurship (holding a “friends-and-family branding party”) with self-improvement techniques such as meditation, reciting daily prayers, or keeping a journal. In a business memoir that recounts the origins of her original tea cart, her first visit to Sri Lankan tea fields, and her panic over a big purchase order, the author means for each chapter to be “read in the time it took to have a cup of tea.” Just as she infuses her tea with meaning and passion, Muzyka’s authenticity, artistry, and innate business sense make for a potent blend. Agent: Alex Glass, Trident Media Group. (June)