Father and daughter share pages of wisdom

If you’re one of those people who never knows what inscription to grace dear old Dad with in his Father’s Day card, this could be the book for you.

“Decide, Act, Believe, Succeed: Quotes to Help Find the Champion in You” was culled from Paul Zelinka’s personal collection of more than a thousand varieties of canned wisdom.

Chances are that there’s a quote in there that fits your dad — plus your mother, brother and the really weird aunt who comes around on holidays.

“I want this book not just to be a passive book that you can flip through, but a book of action,” Zelinka said.

Action and fathers happen to be two things that Zelinka, a personal trainer and owner of Titan Fitness in State College, knows a lot about. He co-authored the book with his daughter, Sarah, a soon-to-be sophomore at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Zelinka’s inspiration took its cue from the colorful index cards he used to hand out to clients at Titan Fitness. A particularly grueling workout would be rewarded with an inspirational quote from the likes of five-time Olympic swimmer Dara Torres.

“If it helps just one person, it’s great,” Zelinka said.

Speaking of help, Zelinka was in need. He had more than a thousand quotes and nine chapters to organize. Sarah, a self-described bookworm, seemed like the perfect candidate to lend a hand.

Game to stick a toe in the publishing industry, she quickly discovered that even the biggest of breaks isn’t without its dull spots.

“Going through the quotes was pretty tedious, but I devised a logic system that involved each category of the book having certain key words and connotations. After that, it was easy to got through the quotes and sort it based on the system I made. There were also lots of Netflix breaks,” Sarah said.

One thing she had going for her was the inside track on the way the other name on the book jacket thinks and feels about life.

It was easy for her to look at the extensive list of quotes and assume her father’s point of view.

“We are really close so it’s never been hard to communicate with each other, and we always joke around and have fun no matter what we are doing,” Sarah said.

Zelinka is just happy that he’s able to share a book cover with his daughter. With her in Virginia and him in State College, the two don’t get to see each other as often as they would like.

Now they’ll always have Amazon.com, where the book is available for purchase.

“We finally arrived at the finish line together. That to me, far and away is the best thing,” Zelinka said.

This story was originally published June 16, 2017 at 8:36 AM with the headline "Father and daughter share pages of wisdom."