Author: Tavis Smiley - Talk show host, force behind The Covenant with Black America and entrepreneur, Smiley begins his life story in self-improvement and moves through self-empowerment into self-aggrandizement. After a Pentecostal upbringing in an Indiana trailer park in the early 1970s, he first tasted success in the "ultra white culture" of his high school, attended Indiana University and landed an internship with Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley through sheer "chutzpah." After running for city council, he broke into radio, becoming "a household name in black America" and receiving "a compensation package for a half-million dollars, the biggest in BET history."