Move Ahead with Possibility Thinking by Robert H. Schuller

In many ways Robert H. Schuller was the model of the modern megachurch pastor. He can be seen as a successor to Norman Vincent Peale in his blend of religion and self-help. They both preached that what you think matters.

Schuller wrote about what he called possibility thinking. He put it in the title of his book Move Ahead with Possibility Thinking.

Possibility thinking is a focus on how valuable ideas can be implemented and worthy goas achieved. Schuller contrasts this with impossibility thinking, a focus on why something won’t work or can’t be done. He believed a lot of great ideas were killed at conception in a rush to find problems, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Move Ahead has the feel of a how-to book. Each chapter looks at some aspect of practicing possibility thinking. He breaks them down into a list of steps; he even numbers each step. He elaborates on the steps, usually including an illustrative story. Many of these stories draw on his experience founding a new church in California or on the experiences of members of his congregation. Other come from famous people, many of whom he had met.

Schuller speaks often of Christ and his religious faith. However, if you removed these references from Move Ahead, it would still be a self-help book—just a little shorter.

Robert H. Schuller also wrote

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good

Self Love

You Can Become the Person You Want to Be

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

I Declare by Joel Osteen

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

Reposition Yourself by T. D. Jakes

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

You Can, You Will by Joel Osteen

Schuller, Robert H. Move Ahead with Possibility Thinking. 1967. Old Tappan, NJ: Spire Books, 1978.

Break Out by Joel Osteen

In Break Out, Joel Osteen encourages readers to leave behind limiting beliefs and stretch themselves to have faith for and achieve a bigger life. The themes of this book are very similar to those of his other books.

First, Osteen teaches that God can turn things around. Your past is not an indicator of your future. God can make things change quickly. In the meantime, Osteen encourages readers to do what is right.

In light of this, one should dream big dreams. Not only can God turn things around, He can accomplish more in your life than you can imagine. Hope for things that seem beyond your reach; God can help you achieve them.

Because you are not living alone, but always have the aid of God, you don’t have to worry about being inadequate. If you lack anything you need to achieve your God-given dream, He can provide what you need.

This likewise should affect your prayers. Talk to God about your bid dreams. Especially talk to God about the promises in His Word or examples of how He had provided similar help to others.

As I have mentioned in reviews of other books by Osteen, his works are not especially or uniquely Christian. Like the works of Norman Vincent Peale or Robert H. Schuller, if you strip out any mention of God, you’ll still have a self-help book. An the self-help messages may help you be happier and achieve more. A Christian message, however, cannot be stripped of Christ, why we need him, and what He does for us, and still have content.

Joel Osteen also wrote

I Declare

You Can, You Will

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested it

Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

Creative Living for Today by Maxwell Maltz

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good by Robert H. Schuller

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Osteen, Joel. Break Out: 5 Keys to Go Beyond Your Barriers and Live an Extraordinary Life. New York: FaithWords, 2013.

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good by Robert H. Schuller

You may remember Robert H. Schuller from the Hour of Power television program. He was a popular figure who attracted celebrities to appear on broadcasts of worship services from the Crystal Cathedral. He preached what you might call a gospel of positivity, making in consciously a successor to Norman Vincent Peale and in some sense a predecessor to Joel Osteen. The Crystal Cathedral and the Schullers have floundered after his passing. Life’s Not Fair, but God is Good was published in happier times for them.

Reading the book two decades after it was published gave me an opportunity to look back. One of the things that struck me is that Schuller wrote of the fall of the Soviet Union soon after it occurred. He had high hopes for Russia and the other countries shifting toward a more democratic form of government. He looked forward to flourishing Christianity, greater freedom, wealth, and opportunity for long oppressed people. I’m not sure what he would think of the current state of affairs, especially in Russia, but clearly fall short of the hopes he expressed.

The book also prompted me to recall the Hour of Power. A routine segment featured Schuller interviewing someone, recorded live before the congregation of his church. Though it is not mentioned, I suspect many of the interviews recounted in the book may have come from the show. These guests were often famous performers, athletes, and politicians. Others were people who overcame troubles of all sorts, handicaps, injuries, financial setbacks, abuse and losses. The common thread through these interviews was how people succeeded through faith in God’s grace, hope, positive outlook and persistence.

Speaking of themes, I should say something about the book. The title expresses the theme: Life’s Not Fair, but God is Good. Schuller concedes that sometimes life sucks. Bad things happen to everyone, and sometimes the worst things happen to those who seem to deserve it least. In spite of that, people can lead lives of purpose and joy because God is good. The Great Redeemer can man something beautiful out of the ugliness of life. Not only can He, He will.

I suppose the meat of the book is advice on how to live in the gap between the unfair circumstances we experience and the awesome goodness we can know even in the midst of them. In this, Schuller presents a mix of Christian philosophy and self-help positive thinking. We can’t always choose our circumstances, but we can choose our reactions. Schuller encourages hopeful, positive responses based on the acknowledgment of God’s goodness. Prayer, belief, gratitude, good works, humility, forgiveness, connection to others, generosity, patience, and vision are tools we have, or can develop, to be overcomers in the face of obstacles. We master these skills under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit as we get to know Christ better.

Robert H. Schuller also wrote Self-Love.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The 4:8 Principle by Tommy Newberry

Gratitude by Melody Beattie

I Declare by Joel Osteen

It’s Not About Me by Max Lucado

The Joy of Supernatural Thinking by Bill Bright

Just Say Thanks! by R. T. Kendall

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

Quiet by Susan Cain

Stop Whining, Start Living by Dr. Laura

This Year I Will… by M. J. Ryan

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Schuller, Robert H. Life’s Not Fair, but God is Good. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991.

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Become a Better You by Joel Osteen

Become a Better You was Joel Osteen’s follow-up to his first book, Your Best Life Now. Osteen even presents the book as a continuation of the theme and purpose of its predecessor.

Each chapter is a topical sermon on reaching your potential in some aspect of life. The aspects are personal growth, positive self-image, relationships, habits, faith and passion.

I have previously criticized Osteen for taking self-help advice and wrapping it up in religion. I see Norman Vincent Peale and Robert H. Schuller in much the same light. A defense all of these pastors might raise is that they are focusing on practical matters of living well. A head full of religious knowledge that doesn’t change your life for the better is doing no good; it’s not the life Christians are called to.

I agree. I also see in Jesus and the apostles teachers who could both delve deep into the scripture and provide very practical instruction based on it. Religious meditation and working to make the world a better place—even if little seems to come of it—go hand-in-hand in Christianity.

In one area Osteen has a strong foundation: relationships. It is clear from the Bible that God cares very much about how we relate to and treat each other. Osteen’s use of scriptures are apropos in these chapters. The sermons hold up when read with a Bible in the other hand; something that is weaker in the other chapters.

Joel Osteen also wrote

Break Out

I Declare

Readings from Your Best Life Now

You Can, You Will

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

Complaint Free Relationships by Will Bowen

Creative Living for Today by Maxwell Maltz

Faith by Jimmy Carter

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good by Robert H. Schuller

The Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology by Maxwell Malts

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

Self-Love by Robert H. Schuller

You Can Become the Person You Want to Be by Robert H. Schuller

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Osteen, Joel. Become a Better You: Seven Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day. New York: Free Press, 2007.

Readings from Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen

Daily Readings from Your Best Life Now, is a daily devotional adapted from Joel Osteen’s breakout bestseller Your Best Life Now. The primary divisions of the book follow that of the source material. Likewise, the body of each short chapters is adapted closely from the original material. However, this book is organized differently. It is divided into 90 chapters, each one kept short in order to fit into a daily reading schedule.

At the top of each chapter is a reference to a passage of scripture. The chapters in the book are not expositions on the scripture; Osteen is plain in the introduction that that was not his intention. Osteen’s books, like his televised sermons, are topical rather than expositional. I thought that the connection between the scripture reading and the chapters were sometimes tenuous.

I’ll admit I took much longer than 90 days to finish this book (I probably first opened it shortly after it was published in 2005). That may have injured my sense of the book as a whole, but I think that the book was written with the hope that each chapter would be able to stand on its own as a sermonette of encouragement.

Encouragement is a good word for the book. It’s the theme through every part from encouragement to dream bigger to encouragement to press on in the hard times.

That leads also to what I think is the weakness of the book, and Osteen’s ouvre in general. It seems to draw from the theme and concepts of self-help as much (or more) as from the Bible. Even in the introduction, Osteen speaks in one sentence of wanting people to draw near to God and in the next of helping readers “unlock the doors of a fuller life.” These are not mutually exclusive pursuits, but that depends a lot on your concept of a fuller life.

I don’t mean to be too critical of Osteen. Obviously, I read several of his books and books by his predecessors as preachers of positivity in popular culture, Robert H. Schuller and Norman Vincent Peale. I have felt encourage by reading the books of these men, but I also leave there books feeling like something much deeper is missing.

Joel Osteen also wrote

Break Out

I Declare

You Can, You Will

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

Creative Living for Today by Maxwell Maltz

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good by Robert H. Schuller

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

Self-Love by Robert H. Schuller

You Can Become the Person You Want to Be by Robert H. Schuller

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Osteen, Joel. Daily Readings from Your Best Life Now. New York: Warner Faith, 2005.

You Can, You Will by Joel Osteen

In You Can, You Will, megachurch pastor Joel Osteen discusses qualities of a winner. Actually, Osteen might say that you’re already a winner, you just need to start believing and acting one to see in come to fruition.

First, winners have a vision and they stay focused on in. A practical way that Osteen suggests to keep your vision before your eyes is to put things in your environment, like sayings or objects, that remind you of your vision.

Winners stay focused on their goals. In particular, they don’t get derailed by trying to please everyone or to please people who are never happy. They know the difference between being kind and generous and taking improper responsibility for the happiness of others.

Osteen encourages people to expect good things to happen. Reinforce this belief by actively remembering good things that have happened to you in the past.

Be positive intentionally. Do your best to enjoy whatever you can in your current situation, even while you hope and work for something better.

Winners strive for excellence. Do the best you can and look for ways to improve. Show your desire for excellence by taking care of yourself and your things.

Always be growing. If you’re not working to improve your abilities, you’ll get left behind. Besides, if you have big dreams, there are probably many things you need to learn and improve on your way to achieving them.

Make service a lifestyles. Try to make life actually better for actual people. As a bonus, you’ll have more satisfaction with life.

Finally, be enthusiastic. Stir up your passion. It’s easy to get bogged down and discouraged, so you have to intentionally maintain a good attitude that will carry you through rough times.

Mostly, this is standard self-help material. Osteen touches on a more deeply and fundamentally Christian topic in the chapter on serving others. The Bible repeatedly describes God as a helper of the poor, widowed, orphan and oppressed. He repeatedly expresses the pleasure he takes in His people when they help needy people.

Though he doesn’t devote a chapter too it, Osteen emphasizes the need to surround yourself with good people. You need to spend time with people who will challenge and encourage you. Spend as much time as you can with people you want to be like.

Joel Osteen also wrote I Declare.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

Creative Living for Today by Maxwell Maltz

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good by Robert H. Schuller

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Osteen, Joel. You Can, You Will: 8 Undeniable Qualities of a Winner. New York: Faith Words, 2014.

You Can Become the Person You Want to Be by Robert H. Schuller

As a megachurch pastor of a previous generation, Robert H. Schuller wrote several books about what he called possibility thinking. In You Can Become the Person You Want to Be, Schuller puts for the idea their own beliefs, or “impossibility thinking,” holds that people back. People allow fear and perfectionism to hold them back. The delay to form perfect plans, they quit when they discover the slightest flaw, the turn back when things get tough. As a result, many people are missing out on the life they want.

In contrast, Schuller encourages what he calls possibility thinking. Recognize that there is no perfect plan. Look for the good and start building on it to improve your life.

He offers advice for building possibility thinking. For instance, get to the root of fear. Very often you will find that things you fear are things you can handle, or possibly the aren’t very bad at all. Instead of being insurmountable roadblock, you fears are often things you can handle (or learn to overcome, or get help with) if they even happen.

If you have a good idea, start now. Do not delay. Start small and build in stages.  If you believe you can solve the problems that you must overcome to do a worthy thing, you will. Schuller offers several problem-solving tips.

Throughout the book, Schuller encourages the use of affirmations. He even lists several. Affirmations activate your faith and build your possibility thinking.

Schuller’s book is flavored with religion, as you would expect of a pastor. He doesn’t suggest that God is a major factor in things until the later chapters of the book. Even so, the religious tone of the book are not really any stronger, and only a little more specific, than what you might find in a host of other self-help books.

Robert H. Schuller also wrote

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good

Self-Love

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

I Declare by Joel Osteen

Language and the Pursuit of Happiness by Chalmers Brothers

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Schuller, Robert H. You Can Become the Person You Want to Be. New York: Hawthorn, 1973.

The Solution by Lucinda Bassett

You may have heard of Lucinda Bassett and the Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety. I remember hearing her on radio commercials talking about a book or audio program. You may have seen her infomercial or an appearance on a talk show, notably Oprah.

As you can guess form the name of her business, Bassett focuses on helping people overcome stress, anxiety, and fear. That is the purpose of her book, The Solution.

The first part of The Solution is a description of the problem. Of course, a certain amount of fear, stress, and anxiety are natural. They are our built-in emotional and physical responses to threats in our environment. They become problems when we experience them too often, when they capture us in constrained and unsatisfying lives. The worst part is that much of the fear, anxiety, and stress we experience is our own doing, responses to worries and imagined threats.

Worry turns our imagination into our worst enemy.  We seek out threats, conjure catastrophes, and foresee the worst. Bassett says we can turn this around. We can train ourselves to use our imaginations positively, to seek opportunities, to foresee desirable results. This notion is fundamental to most self-help, but Bassett frames it a little more interestingly. We can worry positively. A great worrier can be a great success.

These worries and the habitual behaviors they trigger, are rooted in a core story. This is another opportunity for reframing. A core story that once lead to defeat and discouragement can become motivation to strive for something better. Exercises in the book guide the reader in discovering his core story.

The second half of the book presents six strategies for dealing with stress and anxiety.

•  Detachment is about accepting and letting go of things you cannot change, being honest, and holding on to peace.
• Security is about improving your attitudes and beliefs about money and getting your financial house in order.
• Good health is important to coping with stress. Diet, exercise and sleep are the keys to good health.
• Compassion is a potent antidote to anxiety. Show yourself compassions by stopping the negative messages you repeat to yourself and intentionally practice positive self-talk.
• Reconnects with you dreams and decide what you want, the develop a plan to achieve your goals. Put the plan into action.
• A balanced life looks different for different people, but balance helps us all feel less anxious. Set your priorities, act on them, and live with purpose in the moment.

 
The strength of the book is Bassett’s own experience. She is someone who was once hindered by anxiety who has turned her imagination from and enemy to an ally. She reframed her core story from one of loneliness and lack to motivation to have a good life of family and abundance. Bassett also enlivens the book with stories of her clients, popular figures, and historical people.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain, Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Bassett, Lucinda. The Solution: Conquer Your Fear, Control Your Future. New York: Sterling, 2011.

Unfu*k Yourself by Gary John Bishop

Gary John Bishop offers straightforward, and sometimes rudely stated, advice on getting your life together in Unfu*k Yourself. If you’re drawn in by the title of the of the book, you may feel your life is screwed up. Bishop suggests it is very likely your own fault, but you have the power to do something about it.

 “You have the life your willing to put up with,” Gary John Bishop, Unfu*k Yourself

It starts in your head. Thousands of thoughts flow through your mind every day and many of them are nonsense. Instead of reacting to crazy-making thoughts and feelings, let them go. You can learn to choose the thoughts you pay attention to.

Even so, our head can get in the way. The blessing and curse of our minds is that they are really good at moving us toward what we want. Subconsciously we all want security. Unfortunately, our subconscious minds can have some messed up ideas about what security is and how to achieve it. We achieve security with great success even if it makes us miserable.

Fortunately, we can train our minds to achieve a different success. We can learn to let go of thought that drive our self-defeating behavior.

We can reinforce our changing habits of thought by taking action. Rather than getting wrapped up on our own heads a fighting thoughts and feelings that come from our imaginations, we an face reality and do things that might actually make life better. Action is both the cure for self-defeating thoughts and the way to handle real problems.

As the title of the book, it is part of the trend in self-help to use tough talk and crude language. I don’t know that I need that to get a kick in the pants. However, I appreciate writing that uses simple language and gets to the point; Bishop does that.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

Language and the Pursuit of Happiness by Chalmers Brothers

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

You are a Badass by Jen Sincero

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Bishop, Gary John. Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life. New York: HarperOne, 2016.

What I Read (2)

Date: March 9, 2005
Title: Doing Work You Love
Author: Cheryl Gilman
Thoughts: I was encouraged most by Gilman’s own story—a job hopper who pieced together what she really wanted, started her own business and did well in it. I’m looking forward to having a similar story.


Date: March 17, 2005
Title: The Road to Serfdom
Author: F. A. Hayek
Thoughts: I think we were designed to be free to largely govern ourselves, for conscious and love to be our law. When we fell, God authorized some to use force to restrain and punish wrongdoers. Now it seems government restrains everyone in everything. As important as it is to submit to proper authority, authorities must stay within their bounds.


Authors I adore:
Walker Percy
Zig Ziglar
John C. Maxwell
Isaac Asimov
Norman Vincent Peale
C. S. Lewis
J. R. R. Tolkien
Dava Sobel
Edwin Black
Dashiell Hammett
G. K. Chesterton
John Steinbeck
Raymond Chandler

Date: April 14, 2005
Title: Winning with People
Author: John C. Maxwell
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Date: April 14, 2005
Title: How Full is Your Bucket?
Author: Tom Rath
Thoughts: It is amazing how the themes of love, the golden rule, giving and receiving, sowing and reaping, looking for good in others, focusing on what is worthwhile, and building up others leads to more success for you and those you influence.

Live the life God calls you to and all is really good.



Date: April 22, 2005
Title: You Can if You Think You Can
Author: Norman Vincent Peale
Thoughts: Through this book, the Bible, and other things I’ve read and heard, I believe God is transforming me into the man He designed me to be—better than I can now imagine.


Date: April 23, 2005
Title: The Sacred Romance
Author: Brian Curtis & John Eldredge
Thoughts: “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what God has in store for his lovers does not mean “we have no clue so don’t even try to imagine,” but rather, you cannot outdream God” (quote from the book).

John Eldredge also wrote Epic and Walking with God.


Other parts of What I Read:
Part 1

The Centuy Mark: 100 Book Reviews Posted on Keenan’s Book Reviews

We’ve posted reviews of 100 books on this blog so far. The most recent 25 are listed below in alphabetical order by title.

1089 and All That by David Acheson
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Tested by Time by James L. Garlow
The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague de Camp
Are You Dumb Enough to be Rich? by G. William Barnett II
Don’t Grow Old—Grow Up! by Dorothy Carnegie
Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps by Peter Galison
Getting Started in Consulting by Allen Weiss
The Great Bridge by David McCollough
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
How We Got Here by Andy Kessler
IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black
The Millionaire Maker by Loral Langemeier
No More Christian Nice Guy by Paul Coughlin
The One Minute Millionaire by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen
The Pinball Effect by James Burke
Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale
The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
Self-Love by Robert H. Schuller
Simple Pictures are Best by Nancy Willard
Starting from Scratch by Wes Moss
The Success Principles by Jack Canfield with Janet Switzer
University of Success by Og Mandino
You Can Write for Magazines by Greg Daugherty

Additional Reviews:
First 25 Books Reviews
Reviews 26-50
Reviews 51-75

Make Miracles in Forty Days by Melody Beattie

Beattie, Melody. Make Miracles in Forty Days: Turning What You Have Into What You Want. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.



Melody Beattie doesn’t guarantee that her book Make Miracles in Forty Days will deliver definitive miracles in that exact timeframe. Readers would rightly be skeptical if she did.

Beattie can sound New Age-y, referring to God, a Higher Power, and Life almost synonymously. This may be a way to acknowledge some sort of god without being too sectarian, in the manner of twelve step programs. Even so, she presents her method as something that operates on universal law, independent of religion or belief.

Her perspective on miracles is a little different, too. Miracles aren’t necessarily big. Miracles aren’t supernatural; they're natural in the sense that they are the results of universal laws. They are extraordinary, however, because they are beyond our power to bring about on our own.

These things don’t put the book too far out from its kindred on the self-help shelves. It’s not typical, though, in that Beattie turns some typical self-help concepts on their heads. It is far from your typical gratitude list. It is certainly not positive thinking. If anything, it may seem like an opportunity to indulge in the type of thinking proponents of The Secret and their ilk would have you avoid.



The heart of the method is this: express gratitude for the things for which you are least grateful. All the stuff that hurts you, negative feelings, and the things that make you nuts are candidates for these expressions of gratitude, even if you don’t feel remotely thankful.

You may have things for which you can’t say you’re thankful. That’s okay. Beattie writes about those issues.

How does this create miracles? Beattie doesn’t explain. She doesn’t seem interested in picking it apart. It came to her in a moment of inspiration, at a low time in her life, and it worked for her. It has always worked for her since. She has taught her method to a few others and it worked for them.

Part of the miracle method is that it provides permission to acknowledge and release emotions. The relief that comes from that may be a miracle to many. Maybe it provides perspective. Maybe it reveals what we truly want and don’t want so we start making better decisions. Maybe it’s magic.

There are many examples in the book. She draws on her own story and on the experiences of others. It may be hard to say they had miracles. They seem to be happier, and if gaining happiness was something beyond their own power, it fits the definition Beattie uses. Many might find happiness to be miraculous.

Melody Beattie also wrote
Gratitude

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
365 Thank Yous by John Kralik
The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith
Thanks! by Robert A. Emmons
Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klaus

In contrast to this book, here are some more traditional self-help volumes
Acres of Diamonds by Russel H. Conwell
Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale
The Secret of the Ages by Robert Collier
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
The Success Principles by Jack Canfield with Janet Switzer
You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

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