
Affectionately known as "America's #1 Success Coach," Jack Canfield is the originator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and a leading authority in the areas of self-esteem, achievement motivation, and peak performance. [www.jackcanfield.com]

Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and Editor in Chief of the Huffington Post and the author of twelve books. [www.huffingtonpost.com]

Seth Godin is a prominent author, blogger and speaker. [www.squidoo.com/linchpin]

Krishna Kaur is the founder of YOGA for Youth, a program that takes yoga, meditation, and stimulating discussions on the philosophy of yoga to urban youth. [www.yogaforyouth.org]

Norman Lear has enjoyed a long career in television and film. He is also a political and social activist and philanthropist. [www.normanlear.com]

Leilani Münter is a professional race car driver and an environmental activist who uses her voice in the number one spectator sport in America as a catalyst for change. [www.leilanimunter.com]

By going undercover to meet slaves and slaveholders, Kevin Bales exposed modern slavery's penetration into the global economy. He co-founded Free the Slaves, which has helped to liberate thousands of slaves. [www.freetheslaves.net]

Sophie Chiche, lifebyme.com founder and curator, enjoys asking deep questions and living a life of meaning. Today she's launching Shape House, an urban sweat lodge, a place to melt away fears and fat. [www.shapehousela.com]

Entrepreneur and writer Mastin Kipp founded TheDailyLove.com, which merges pop culture with inspiration, and co-founded The Love Yourself Company, an apparel company that has started a global self-esteem movement. [www.TheDailyLove.com]

Liz Phair is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. [www.lizphair.com]

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is Chairman of The Elders, a group of world leaders who address some of the world's most pressing problems. He works energetically for human-rights and in his ministry. [www.tutu.org]

Zainab Salbi is the founder and CEO of Women for Women International, a group dedicated to helping women survivors of war rebuild their lives. [www.womenforwomen.org]

Despite his physical challenges, Sean Stephenson has taken a stand for a quality of life that has inspired millions of people around the world. He's a professional speaker, psychotherapist, and author. [www.timetostand.com]

Kia Miller teaches Yoga at Yoga Works in Los Angeles, leads teacher trainings, and runs retreats and workshops on meditation, chakras, pranayam, and mantras, and other practices. [www.kiamiller.com]

Simon Mainwaring is an ex-Nike/Wieden creative, former Worldwide Creative Director at Motorola/Ogilvy, branding/advertising writer, author/speaker/blogger, Australian, idea geek. [www.simonmainwaring.com]

Shannon Bindler is a style editor, life coach, and the co-founder of Get Up Girl, an empowerment company that inspires women to shine. [www.getupgirl.com]

Grammy-nominated art director/designer/photographer Mathieu Bitton has designed over 450 CDs and movie posters. He's a renowned collector of and authority on black films and their soundtracks. [www.candytangerine.com]

Opus Reps founder and agent-producer Jorge Perez travels the world producing photo shoots with great photographers and celebrities. He's also very involved with Meals on Wheels in Los Angeles. www.opusreps.com
inspire

Open up your kitchen window and smell the fragrant garden. Be inspired to create a centerpiece from your beautiful blossoms.
On your hurried walk to the subway early in the morning, pass a homeless person sleeping on a makeshift bed on the edge of the sidewalk. Be inspired to volunteer at your local food bank.
Watch your children at silly play. Be inspired to videotape them and catch those moments for eternity.
Inspiration is the visitor that shows up unannounced … then leads you by the heart and by the mind.
Like a butterfly fluttering around you, inspiration flies forward and away, forward and away – teasing, teasing you. Finally it alights upon your sleeve, and you stare in wonder at its beauty. You marvel that it has landed on you. And you smile. You might not have captured it, but it has certainly captured you.
I welcome inspiration. It’s the key to my writing of poetry, blog posts, and personal essays. Something stirs me, grabs me, forces me to look deeper, think deeper, feel deeper … then get it written down.
One of my greatest inspirations has been my late father, Jacob Adler. To know him, to have watched him in life – and in death – has produced a richness that I’ve tried to capture in words over the years. Writing about him gives me the sense that I’m re-creating him for others, for those who knew him and for those who didn’t.
My father helped bring me into the world, and I’ve shared him with the world. A word, an action, or a memory might stir me to write about him, and once I’m moved by the inspiration, it just blossoms. The poems I’ve written about my father over the years are some of my greatest accomplishments.
I yearn for inspiration. It breathes life into me. It breathes life into my words – as it should, for the word inspiration literally means “breathed upon.”
I write. Not because I can. Not because I want to practice. I write because I’m inspired.
– Pearl Adler Saban


Explore More Meaning
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leadership consultant. author. storm chaser.
Deidre Combs provides leadership and cross-cultural conflict skills as a consultant, coach, author, mediator, and professor. She developed the core foundations course for Montana State University's Leadership Fellows Certificate Program. [www.combsandcompany.com]
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