Book excerpt: The first glimpse into the life of a quiet giant, An Enterprising Life chronicles the life and times of billionaire entrepreneur Jay Van Andel, a founder of the wildly successful Amway Corporation.-- Together with partner Rich DeVos, Jay Van Andel -- ranked #6 on Forbes magazine's wealthiest persons list -- created Amway, one of the world's largest direct-sales operations.-- With an army of 3 million distributors in 80 countries worldwide, Amway earned $7 billion in annual sales in 1997, based on the 450 nutrition and wellness, personal care, home care, and commercial products available through Amway catalogs.-- Amway co-founder Rich DeVos's own book, Compassionate Capitalism (Dutton, 1994), was a New York Times bestseller.Jay Van Andel has led an extraordinary life, filled with adventure, hardship, faith, and, of course, great success. This autobiography now sheds new light on his life, providing Amway employees and distributors (over 400,000 in North America alone), as well asbusinesspeople and entrepreneurs, with the story of a great leader whose vision has created a company that goes beyond commercial -- a company that has for decades helped people help themselves.