To Inspire:

Looking for ways to spend your three day Labor Day weekend? Below, Edward Grinnan, Editor-in-Chief of Guideposts Magazine and author of The Promise of Hope, shares some of his favorite personal development websites and authors. Check some of them out and make it a great weekend!

Favorite Personal Change Websites:

• Guideposts.org  True stories of hope and inspiration…and much more. A place to inspire and be inspired by others through the power and magic of storytelling.
• first30days.com  Ariane de Bonvoisin takes you through the first and most crucial period of any change…the first 30 days.
• explorersweb.com  Get inspired by people who do great and daring things.
• bestfriends.org  Animals can change our lives and make us more human.
• empowermentthroughadventure.com  Lori Schneider was the first person with MS to climb Mt. Everest. Need I say more?

Favorite Personal Change Authors:

• Norman Vincent Peale  The Godfather of Positive Thinking. Peale told us it was all right to be happy. His thinking changed the way we live our lives.
• Dale Carnegie  One of the great originals. He helped us learn to relate to others in a healthy, positive way.
• Rollo May  The title of his greatest book says it all: The Courage to Create. He taught us that we didn’t need to be trapped in our old ways of living and thinking.
• Bill Wilson  The cofounder of A.A. changed the course of history by offering hope to hopeless alcoholics. Certainly one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, along with Peale.
• M. Scott Peck  Brought gravitas and depth to the self-help genre. Change is good but it is a struggle and sometimes life is difficult. That is where our faith must play a role.
• Og Mandino  His fable of change and transformation endures to this day. A must (and very fast) read.
• Zig Ziglar  One of the great speakers and generators of one-liner wisdom ever. Brought faith into the public square.
• Wayne Dyer  The practical optimist. Shows how a positive attitude can help us in daily living.
• Mahatma Gandhi  He embodied his own philosophy: Be the change you want to see in the world.
• Shakespeare  Everything there is to be said about the human condition he said, and most of it lifts our hearts. No one understood love better and gave it more poetry.