"In the president’s biography and business career, the role of positive thinking is hiding in plain sight. From childhood on, Trump worshipped in the temple of the movement’s prophet, Norman Vincent Peale: Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church. Indeed, Peale presided over Trump’s first wedding in 1977. Trump’s father was a die-hard adherent of Peale’s preachments, as is his daughter Ivanka, who wrote in her 2009 self-help tract, The Trump Card, that “perception is more important than reality” and you shouldn’t “go out of your way to correct a false assumption if it plays to your advantage.”"
"Peale’s midcentury self-help bible, The Power of Positive Thinking, is, at its core, a distillation of the message of the Christian faith into a series of achievement-minded axioms. “Picturize, prayerize, actualize” was Peale’s mantra, and he applied this simple formula to every facet of the believer’s life—but most especially to the sphere of material advancement, which was the surest sign of divine favor in the hermetic social world of Pealeism."
"The Power of Positive Thinking remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 186 consecutive weeks and helped launch the modern self-help industry; more than five million copies remain in print today. Peale’s gospel became the success creed for a newly corporatized and prosperous American social order. "
Comments
In fact there is even a relation to the current president:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/20736/Trump-White-House-Self...
"In the president’s biography and business career, the role of positive thinking is hiding in plain sight. From childhood on, Trump worshipped in the temple of the movement’s prophet, Norman Vincent Peale: Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church. Indeed, Peale presided over Trump’s first wedding in 1977. Trump’s father was a die-hard adherent of Peale’s preachments, as is his daughter Ivanka, who wrote in her 2009 self-help tract, The Trump Card, that “perception is more important than reality” and you shouldn’t “go out of your way to correct a false assumption if it plays to your advantage.”"
"Peale’s midcentury self-help bible, The Power of Positive Thinking, is, at its core, a distillation of the message of the Christian faith into a series of achievement-minded axioms. “Picturize, prayerize, actualize” was Peale’s mantra, and he applied this simple formula to every facet of the believer’s life—but most especially to the sphere of material advancement, which was the surest sign of divine favor in the hermetic social world of Pealeism."
"The Power of Positive Thinking remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 186 consecutive weeks and helped launch the modern self-help industry; more than five million copies remain in print today. Peale’s gospel became the success creed for a newly corporatized and prosperous American social order. "
It does help explain many of the unusual aspects of the president.