Peale's Wife Carries On Gospel and Empire

At a breakfast meeting of DuPage County business leaders lastweek, the question was posed: "How many of you have read The Power ofPositive Thinking?"

About 80 percent of the estimated 300 in attendance raised theirhands.

"Great! That's great!" said Ruth Peale, widow of the man whopenned that ground-breaking self-help book in 1952 - Norman VincentPeale.

While it may conjure up '50s business images of martinis and menin hats, more than 40 years after its introduction, Power still hasits aficionados. With a reported 15 million copies sold globally, itholds the record for the top spot on the New York Times best sellerlist (98 weeks). With about 150,000 copies sold a year, it remains asteady performer.

Combining self-help and religious faith, the book hasinfluenced business circles for decades.

Norman Vincent Peale died almost a year ago, on Christmas Eve,1993. His 88-year-old widow now presides over his publishing empire,which includes the magazine Guideposts, a publication that claims torival Time magazine with a circulation of 3.8 million readers.

After an address to the Oak Brook Business Executive Club lastweek, Ruth Peale said she believes the book's attraction amongbusiness people, though less than it once was, still continuesbecause "business people have a lot of problems today."

"They have problems in melding a staff together, problems ofbeing jealous and dealing with jealousy, from the bottom to the top,"she said. "The drive to succeed is enormous today."

She said business people also face "tremendous ethical problems- decisions that have to be made to stay competitive."

"I think Norman gives them a message that they can think about,that brings them to a place where they can make those decisions," shesaid.

Two Chicago area firms, Crouse Communications and the DuncanGroup, are tapping into Peale's continuing popularity through a newPBS production, "Positive Thinking: The Norman Vincent Peale Story."

The program, airing locally at 9 p.m. Tuesday on WTTW-Channel11, follows Peale's life, beginning with his boyhood as the son of aMethodist pastor in Bowers ville, Ohio. The program chronicles Peale's career as an insecureDutch Reformed Church minister who attained enormous influencethrough his close associations with the business and political powersof the mid-20th century.

He was particularly close to Richard Nixon. The formerpresident told the program's producers, in one of his last interviewsbefore he died, that Peale's popularity can be uncovered in a simplemessage: "No matter how tough it seems, when you think everything isjust going to pieces and nothing can be done about it, you've got tothink positively - there's a way out."

Today, young executives are more likely to read "`MinuteManager" type business books than Peale, experts said. However, manybusiness books contain nuggets of Peale, and many older topexecutives have read Power.

Today, Peale's empire continues, with his wife chairing theboards of its various nonprofit entities. She has been described asthe business brains behind the Peale movement.

Based in Pawling, N.Y., the Peale Center for Christian Livingholds seminars on positive thinking and runs an educational programfor children called "Positive Kids," used in 9,000 American schools.In addition to Guideposts, it publishes another magazine called PLUS.

In the works: A third magazine, Positive Living, will belaunched in January; efforts are under way to form a nationwideorganization of small group meetings to practice positive thinking; anew audiotape series from a library of 800 to 900 sermons, and therelease of some of Peale's unpublished writings.