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Today I’m going to talk about you about a self-help book that has a very interesting story. But first let me tell you how I ended up reading this book.

I was very skeptical and critical of self-help books. I always thought they were written to fool people into thinking the world was a bed of roses, when it actually isn’t. I kept criticizing authors like Brazilians Augusto Cury and Lair Ribeiro without even having read their books.

That changed when one Friday afternoon in 2008 I was watching the Oprah Winfrey show and it talked about the Law of Attraction. I thought, “This is a lot of nonsense so I’m going to turn it off”. Somehow I didn’t turn the TV off and I watched the whole show. Well, on the show was Louise Hay, a best-selling author who’s over 80 years old and who started her career as a writer after she was 50. Some other authors like Cheryl Richardson and Bob Doyle were with her and Oprah showed a some parts of the movie based on Louise’s You Can Heal Your Life book.

I stopped for a second and went on Youtube to look for some videos. Ta-da! There it was, the whole movie was there and I couldn’t stop watching until the last part. So I decided to read the book, after all I was interested in the message that this woman, who had gone through so much, had to say.

I looked and looked but couldn’t find this book available in any Brazilian bookstore, either in my city or online. They didn’t even have versions in English, Spanish or French, the languages I can read in. I was almost paranoid trying to get hold of this book, but I ended up giving up. As it turns out, my vacation time from school was over and I went back to work.

At the time I worked at this village school, with most students from rural areas and when classes stopped in July I was told they were going to renew the school library because there had been a donation of books.

As it turns out, as I entered the school on the first day of class the principal walks up to me and says, “Adir, our new library is fantastic and there’s the English language part so you can use some readers and games in your classes, ok?” That was great because I love working with easy readers with the kids. I went to the library and guess what was the first book I laid my eyes on? You’re right, Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life book was there, in English, in a library at a school in a village with 300 people. What are the odds of that happening?

To make a long story short, I took the book home and devoured it. At first I was reticent to some ideas but in a whole, the book is only about feeling good about yourself, loving yourself so you can love others and good things can come to your life.

The book is a light read and there are only good things about it, without exceptions.

Well, this was a very personal podcast and I hope you like it! See you next time!

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