You Can If You Think You Can Book

One of the most motivating books I've ever read. Has the potential to change your life. I came into it not expecting much, just rhyming couplet, bumper sticker Christianity. I had far underestimated Peale's impact. Perhaps it's because I had seen Guideposts as being rather too simplistic and two-dimensional in the past. But I've had a mind-shift since the last time I read Guideposts, and I think I'm seeing Peale differently than I would have before. I used to be of the mistaken perspective that one must cultivate a cynical, fatalistic, and perhaps even nihilistic mindset in order to be considered a proper, open-minded, three-dimensional, intelligent person. However, Peale soundly dismisses that notion both explicitly and implicitly in this book, proving that the most intelligent and deepest mind is the one that takes life not with a grain of salt, but with a grain of sugar. This book is packed full of application and practical ways to change your mind to see life as bursting with opportunity and possibility. He also places much value, of course, in believing that all things are possible, and as you believe, your life will begin to flow toward achieving. But it's not "The Secret." Like I said, this is practical, faith-based stuff from the perspective that we deserve to be happy. You're not sending energy out into the universe and demanding the ether do what you desire. That's stupid. Rather, God is at the center of this. In fact, for all you fatalistic Christians (there are plenty of you, and I used to be one), Peale allows that sometimes your goals need to change. Sometimes the thing you thought you wanted is not the thing you really want. Sometimes it's not in God's plan. When that happens, shift your energy to working, striving, and praying toward the new goal. Don't pitch and moan about it. Do something. Peale shows you how. It all starts in the mind. If things aren't as bad as you think they are (they never are--think about it), then it stands to reason that perhaps things could be better than you ever dreamed. What's the best that could happen?