Montel Williams is charismatic, intelligent, resilient and passionate.  And he's a man on a mission when it comes to encouraging Americans to live well physically and emotionally.  True to character, after years of struggle with his own health and a transforming self-discovery, this husband and father of four talks the talk and walks the walk.  His rallying cry?  “Own the definition of you.”

The youngest of four children born in a Baltimore ghetto, Montel went on to become a decorated naval officer trained in engineering, cryptology and Russian.  He parlayed his stint as a motivational speaker in the nation's schools (“Mountain, Get Out of My Way!”) into 17 seasons of The Montel Williams Show.
Over the years we have watched him teach felons about the need for social responsibility, shed tears over the tragedy at Ground Zero, goad drug addicts into recovery programs and coax the survivors of the Virginia Tech Massacre into answering the question on everyone's lips:  How could this happen?