Mr. Ed Malloy is the mayor of Fairfield, Iowa, the home of KRUU 100.1 FM.
Ed recently spear headed a campaign, which got Fairfield designated, as
one of Iowa’s great places. The town will receive a five hundred
thousand dollar grant as a result. Mr. Malloy is also a successful
businessman who is currently President of Danaher Oil.

U.S. Congressman Jim Leach

Richard DeAngelis

U.S. Congressman Dave Loebsack

Buddy Biancalana

Buddy Biancalana is the former first round draft pick and shortstop for the Kansas City Royals. He was the star of the 1985 World Series and received the highest number of MVP votes for any position player. Mr. Biancalana is currently coaching professionally as well as working to develop peak performance in athletes. Buddy has appeared on Late Night with David Letterman and the Today Show.

Jonathan Freeman

Jonathan Freeman is a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army having recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. He has his BA from the University of Michigan and has an MA from Harvard University.

Steve Posner

Steve Posner is a Lecturer at the University of Southern California. He is also an expert on the Middle East and the author of Israel Undercover, Secret Warfare and Hidden Diplomacy in the Middle East. Mr. Posner’s newspaper commentaries have appeared in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the International Herald Tribune. Steve holds Masters degrees from the University of Southern California and Harvard University.

Tim and Laya Hawthorne

Tim and Laya Hawthorne. Tim is the president and founder of Hawthorne Direct, America’s leading long form advertising agency. Tim has also worked for CBS and ABC Television. Laya is the producer, director, and writer of a documentary that was done for the non-profit organization, World Teach.

Ari Berman

Mr. Ari Berman is a contributing writer for The Nation Magazine and a Nation Institute Puffin Foundation writing fellow. Ari is a graduate of the Northwestern University. Ari has appeared on MSNBC and the Fox News network as a political analyst.

Ed Petersen

Mr. Ed Petersen is a former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He retired from the FBI in 1987 after twenty-seven years of service. During that time Mr. Petersen investigated a wide range of federal violations including general criminal matters, international and domestic terrorism, and foreign counter intelligence.  He has also served as the director of security for major league baseball.  Mr. Petersen is currently one of the directors of Buckley Petersen Global, a private investigative and consulting company.

Dr. Stanley Cheren

Dr. Stanley Cheren is a medical doctor who is a former faculty member of Boston University Medical School. Dr. Cheren has published numerous articles including a series on violence in sports, which appeared in the New York Times. He recently returned from Guatemala where he has been working with a Maya village to improve the community’s quality of health care. Dr. Cheren is a graduate of Harvard University and Tufts University Medical School.

Pedro Noguera

Dr. Pedro Noguera is a professor of education at New York University. He has also been a professor at the University of California Berkeley and Harvard University. Dr. Noguera is the author of several books and over one hundred and fifty articles. He is considered one of America’s leading authorities on urban education. Dr. Noguera has appeared on numerous television and radio programs including the O’Reilly Factor.

Kevin Clawson

Mr. Kevin Clawson is the president of the non-profit, Reach the Children. Reach the Children provides underprivileged children opportunities for self-reliance by strengthening families and communities.

They operate in fourteen countries throughout Africa.

Mary Lou Johnson Pizzaro

Ms. Mary Lou Johnson Pizzaro works for the U.S. State Department and is currently stationed in the U.S. Consulate’s Office in Lagos, Nigeria. She works closely with the local community there and has also done State Department work in South Africa. Ms. Pizzaro has degrees from the University of Nebraska and Harvard University.

Gil Alba

Gil Alba. Former New York City Police Department Dectective, Mr. Alba now heads up Alba Investigations, www.gilalba.com. Gil has appeared on numerous radio and television shows including MSNBC, CBS News, ABC News, and the O'Reilly Factor.

Noel Boxer

Mr. Boxer worked in the Clinton White House and is now the country coordinator in the Republic of the Congo for the non-profit, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs,
www.ndi.org/.

Dennis Raimondi interviews presidential candidate Barack Obama

"Hannah Riley Bowles" is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School and on the staff of the Center for Public Leadership. She is engaged in research on negotiation and leadership. She is interested in how people negotiate for resources and opportunities to advance into leadership positions and when gender differences tend to arise in negotiation expectations and performance. She teaches and has conducted case research on leadership in crisis and complex multi-party conflict. Earlier in her career, she was a research associate at Harvard Business School, Strategic Environmental Associates, and Conflict Management Group.

She was a technical advisor to the Minister of Natural Resources, Energy & Mines of Costa Rica and served in 1995 on the Costa Rican delegation to the UN Climate Change negotiations. She was fellow at the Argentinean National Institute of Public Administration, the West German Parliament, and Oxford University's Forestry Institute. Bowles is the faculty director of Women & Power, the Kennedy School's executive program for women leaders from the public, private and non-profit sectors. She won the Kennedy School's 2003 Manuel Carballo Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has a DBA from the Harvard Business School, an MPP from the Kennedy School, and an AB from Smith College.

Former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach has recently been named the new director of Harvard University's Institute of Politics.

Mr. Leach has agreed to take a leave from Princeton University, where he is the John L. Weinberg Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School.

Prior to his arrival at Princeton, Leach served 15 terms in Congress as a Republican representative from eastern Iowa. During his congressional career he served as chairman of the House Banking and Financial Services Committee and the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, and was author or co-author of several significant pieces of legislation, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, reforming the financial services industry. He was educated at Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University, and the London School of Economics.

This will be the former Congressman's second appearance on Speaking Freely.

Craig Jessop,
Music Director, Mormon Tabernacle Choir

When Jessop became music director of the Choir in October 1999, he stepped into a position tailor-made for him. Not only had he served as the Choir's associate director from 1995 to 1999, he had also been a member of the Choir for four years during college. Growing up, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was his musical inspiration.

Under his leadership, the Choir has continued to live up to its tradition of excellence and has explored new territory in the musical and performance realms. As the music director of not only the Choir, but also the Orchestra at Temple Square and the Temple Square Chorale,

Jessop draws on the strengths of these three entities and combines them as appropriate to enhance the level of musical excellence in performance.

Mr. Steven White is a producer, director, and actor. Steven’s grew up in the film industry. His father was a cinematographer for Cecil B. DeMille. Steven is currently the founder and president of the Shakespeare Ensemble Company based in Fairfield, Iowa.

Walter Frederick ("Fritz") Mondale was born in Ceylon, Minnesota on Jan. 5, 1928, the son of Theodore Sigvaard Mondale and Claribel Cowan Mondale. He spent his boyhood in the small towns of southern Minnesota, where he attended public schools. After he helped manage Hubert H. Humphrey's first successful U.S. Senate campaign in 1948, he earned his B.A. in political science from the University of Minnesota in 1951. After completing service as a corporal in the U.S. Army, Mondale received his LL.B (cum laude) from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1956, having served on the law review and as a law clerk in the Minnesota Supreme Court.

This week on Speaking Freely, host Dennis Raimondi has a short interview with Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giulliani. Giulliani, the former mayor of New York City, who was traveling through Iowa, is the Republican national frontrunner, though he is presently fourth in the polls in Iowa.

A lawyer, businessman, and politican from the state of New York, Giuliani served in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, eventually becoming U.S. Attorney.

Giuliani later served two terms as as Mayor of New York (1994–2001). Giuliani gained international attention during and after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. In 2001, Time magazine named him "Person of the Year" and he was knighted by Quenn Elizabeth II.

This week on Speaking Freely, host Dennis Raimondi has an interview with former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who came into KRUU-FM studios.

Wilson was in town stumping for Hillary Clinton. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is the CIA covert operative allegedly outed by administration officials in retaliation for Wilson's Op-ed piece in the NY Times. Wilson's personal and direct challenge caused the President to withdraw claims Bush made in his 2003 State of the Union address that Saddam Hussein was seeking yellowcake uranium for nuclear weapons, the White House's central justification for invading Iraq.

Plame has just released a book, "Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House," about her experiences which led to Dick Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby being convicted of perjury. Libby's sentence was commuted by President Bush this past July. 'Fair
Game' was the term the president's then-chief strategist, Karl Rove, used regarding the vicious smear campaign unleashed against Plame and Wilson, in hopes of softening the serious blow to White House credibility.

Michelle Obama, wife of United States Senator and presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Ms. Obama received her BA with honors from Princeton University and her Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Obama

Jacob Soboroff, representative of WhyTuesday.org

Why Tuesday is an effort to make America's democracy stronger through increased voter participation.

www.whytuesday.org

Ari Berman

Mr. Ari Berman is a contributing writer for The Nation Magazine and a Nation Institute Puffin Foundation writing fellow. Ari is a graduate of the Northwestern University. Mr. Berman has appeared on MSNBC and the Fox News network as a political analyst.

Mitt Romney
(born March 12, 1947) was the 70th Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Elected in 2002, Romney served one term and did not seek re-election in 2006; his term expired January 4, 2007. Romney is a Republican candidate in the 2008 United States presidential election.

He is a former CEO of Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, and the co-founder of Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm. He also served as president and CEO of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games held in Salt Lake City.

Dal LaMagna

JACQUELINE MUREKATETE
Internationally recognized for her work as a humanitarian, speaking out for victims and survivors of genocide. Jacqueline was not yet ten when she lost her immediate and extended family in the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Her story has been featured in the NY Times, the Washington Times, NPR, CNN, PBS, NBC, ABC, and other leading media outlets worlwide.

Josh Romney, the thirty-three-year-old son of presidential hopeful, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Josh is on the campaign trail for his Dad. Josh recently visited all ninety-nine Iowa counties.

Allan Cox, the author of Your Inner CEO, and founder of Allan Cox and Associates, Inc. Allan has authored seven previous books, including the best seller, Confessions of a Corporate Headhunter.

GOVERNOR BILL RICHARDSON OF NEW MEXICO

Governor Richardson is currently a candidate in the 2008 United States presidential election. He previously served as a U.S. Representative, Ambassador to the United Nations, and as the Secretary of Energy. He was chairman of the 2004 Democratic National Convention as well as Chairman of the Democratic Governors' Association.

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Richardson

GUSTAVO COLLANTES OF HARVARD

Gustavo Collantes is a Research Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, who focuses on energy and climate change policy, particularly as they relate to transportation, and the economics and politics of low-carbon energy alternatives.

Gustavo will be at the Kennedy School of Government, while retaining collaborative research with the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Davis. Until recently, he led the Policy and Business Strategy track of the Hydrogen Pathways project at UC Davis.

Jackie Dodd, wife of U.S. Senator and presidential hopeful Christopher Dodd of Connecticut [D]

Jackie Dodd spent 20 years working in national security policy, foreign affairs and trade for the US Government. As CEO and Vice Chair of the Export-Import Bank during the Clinton administration, Mrs Dodd visited over 90 countries around the world, leading trade negotiations and opening new markets to US goods.

Prior to her executive branch experience Mrs Dodd worked on issues of national security in the Congress, she holds a MA in National Security Studies from Georgetown University.

Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
Senator Dodd served as a U.S. Representative from Connecticut from 1975 until 1981, when he became a U.S. Senator. He served as general chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1995 to 1997. He is now the state's senior Senator. He currently serves as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Congressman Tom Udall of New Mexico.
Congressman Udall serves on the House Appropriations Committee's Subcommittees on the Interior and Environment; Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; and, the Legislative Branch. He is also the Co-Vice Chair of the House Native American Caucus and a member of the Bipartisan Rural Caucus, the Democratic Hispanic Working Group, the Education Task Force, and the Congressional Law Enforcement Caucus, among others.

He is currently campaigning on behalf of Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico who is seeking the Democratic Party's nomination to run for president in 2008.

SENATOR HILARY RODHAM CLINTON

Senator Clinton is the U.S. Senator from New York, and a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential election. She is married to Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States, and was the First Lady of the U.S. from 1993 to 2001.

MRS. ELIZABETH EDWARDS

Mrs. Edwards is the wife John Edwards, the former U.S. Senator from North Carolina who is currently seeking the Democratic Party's nomination to run for President in 2008.

Representing John McCain

Dennis Raimondi speaks freely with Iowa Senator Charles Grassley

Charles Ernest "Chuck" Grassley (born September 17, 1933) is the senior United States Senator from Iowa. He is a member of the Republican Party. He chaired the Finance Committee from January to June 2001, and from January 2003 to December 2006, and currently serves as the committee's Ranking Member.
Grassley has been ranked as high as the third most powerful senator. A late December 2007 poll shows Grassley remains highly popular in Iowa, with 66% approving of his job.

Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D. is a best-selling author, popular television personality and sought after motivational speaker, who has been a pioneer in the field of personal transformation. She was one of the first people to popularize the idea of self-help in the 1980's and one of the first nationally recognized female motivational teachers on
television.

Barbara is the author of fourteen best-selling books which have sold over eight million copies. Her first book, How to Make Love All the Time, was a national bestseller and launched Barbara's career. Barbara has written regularly for magazines including Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, McCalls, Readers Digest, Redbook, and Family Circle. 

This Week's Guests:
FORMER U.S.CONGRESSMAN MICKEY EDWARDS. Congressman Edwards was a member of Congress for 16 years and chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee. He was national chairman of the American Conservative Union and one of three founding trustees of the Heritage Foundation. He has taught at Harvard and Georgetown and is now on the faculty of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a vice president of the Aspen Institute. He has been a regular columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles
Times and a weekly commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. He lives in Hingham, Massachusetts and Washington, DC.
Congressman Edwards is the author of the book RECLAIMING CONSERVATISM. How a Great American Political Movement Got Lost and How it Can Find Its Way Back.

Marci Shimoff is a best selling author. Her most recent book HAPPY FOR NO REASON: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out, soared to #1 on many national bestseller lists including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com, and has debuted at #2 on The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.
Marci is the woman's face of the biggest self-help book phenomenon in history, Chicken Soup for the Soul. Her six bestselling titles in the series, including Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul and Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul, have met with stunning success, selling more than 13 million copies worldwide in 33 languages and have been on the New York Times bestseller list for a total of 108 weeks. Marci is one of the bestselling female nonfiction authors of all time. In addition, she is a featured teacher in the international film and book sensation, The Secret.

OMAR MCDOOM IS A RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE BELFER CENTER AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY'S KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT. His research agenda covers civil wars, genocides, and ethnic conflicts, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. His current research project looks at Rwanda's genocide and in particular the question of civilian participation in violence. He spent a year interviewing genocide perpetrators in Rwanda's prisons.

FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR JESSE VENTURA.

Governor Ventura was elected in the Minnesota gubernatorial election of
1998 as an Independent and member of the Reform Part. His victory is
considered one of the greatest political upsets in U.S. history. His
most recent book is entitled, "Don't Start the Revolution Without Me."

ARTHUR S. BERGER, THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MUSEUM'S SENIOR ADVISOR FOR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

In this position, he focuses on the Museum’s international relations, VIP and Development-related outreach, and key aspects of the Museum’s public relations.

Camie Bargerstock designed her a curriculum entitled The Cultural Organization of Death and Dying in which she studied America's perceptions, rituals, and systems surrounding death, dying, and grief, a reality she observes as rooted in a culture of fear and denial. She envisions a new paradigm, one that nurtures and embodies the end of life journey as a part of life and creative rite of passage worth crossing.

Robby Benson
is an American film and television actor, television director and educator. As an actor he was nominated for the three Golden Globe Awards. As a director Robby helmed over 100 episodes in television, from Friends to an entire season of Ellen.As a composer Robby has written scores for films, received two RIAA Gold Records for songwriting for Diana Ross and for The Breakfast Club soundtrack. Open Heart the musical by Robby Benson will open at Fairfield's Sondheim Center June 20.

Laura Dawn is a political activist and singer/songwriter. She has been the Cultural Director for MoveOn.org and the MoveOn PAC since March 2004.She appears on Moby's latest album Hotel, and she toured the world with him for 7 months in 2005.

Andy Zelleke is the co-directorof the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to joining Harvard’s Kennedy School faculty, Zelleke was a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.His articles on corporate governance have appeared in Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review, Directors & Boards, and Corporate Governance: An International Review.

Laura Dawn is a political activist and singer/songwriter. She has been the Cultural Director for MoveOn.org and the MoveOn PAC since March 2004.She appears on Moby's latest album Hotel, and she toured the world with him for 7 months in 2005.

Dennis Raimondi speaks with Broadway and popular star Randy Jones who will be featured in the Stephen Sondheim Center production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor live in the studio. Dates & times of the show are as follow:

July 11-13, Fri/Sat 7:30pm & Sat/Sun 2pm; July 17-20 and 24-27, Thurs/Fri/Sat 7:30pm
& Sat/Sun 2pm. Also,
the world premiere of Banjo Boy will be August 8-17.

Constance Brenneman is currently an On-Air television host for My 64 Cincinnati, cable channel 11, and an intervention counselor working within an alternative school in the Ohio Public School System. She is completing a documentary on the Maharishi Effect, or Superradiance Effect called Waves of Peace. Constance has guest starred on the ABC TV shows "The Practice" (1997) and "Alias" (2001) and co-starred in the feature film Swing (2003/I), shot in the San Franscico Bay area and directed by Martin Guigui.

Austan Dean Goolsbee is a senior economic adviser to the Obama campaign. He is an economist and is currently the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of
Business. He is also a Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a member of the Panel of Economic Advisors to the Congressional Budget Office. He has been Barack Obama's economic advisor since Obama's successful U.S. Senate campaign in Illinois..

Singer/songwriter Paul Fauerso Paul founded the Loading Zone in 1966. They were the opening act for such legendary groups as The Who, Rod Stewart, the Grateful Dead, Sam and Dave, Big Brother and the Holding Company with lead singer Janice Joplin, and dozens more. Paul went on to write and record music inspired by the teachings of His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

AWARD WINNING TEENAGE CLASSICAL PIANISTS REBECCA WEN, MEIGEN YU, AND JOHN WEN ALONG WITH THEIR TEACHER FEILIMN LIN. John Wen was this year's winner of the Annual Chopin Youth Competition. They will be performing this Saturday Sept 6 at 7:30 pm at the Sondheim Center of the Performing Arts. www.icpianists.com

RABBI ABRAHAM COOPER
is the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish
Human Rights organization he helped found in 1977. For over three
decades, Rabbi Cooper has overseen the Wiesenthal Center’s
international social agenda ranging from worldwide anti-semitism, Nazi
war crimes and Restitution, to extremist groups and tolerance
education. Rabbi Cooper'S editorials have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Toronto Star, Le Monde and the Japan Times. www.wiesenthal.com

Dr. George Weiner is one of the chief authors of the Obama - Biden Plan to Combat Cancer, announced by Senator Obama September 5, 2008. Dr. Weiner is an Iowa cancer doctor and researcher who worked on the plan in a personal capacity. He also serves as Director of the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa and is the chair of the Iowa Consortium for Comprehensive Cancer Control.

James Glave is a former magazine senior editor and a onetime editor for Conde Nast’s Wired News. He has contributed to numerous other publications including Wired, Details, The New York Times Magazine, and This Old House magazine.

His most recent book is "Almost Green."

www.glave.com

Mr. Paul Dalio is a second year student in New York University's Graduate School of Film. Graduates include Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese. Paul is currently working with world renowned film director David Lynch in setting up an online TV station.

Anne Raimondi will discuss her non-profit work in Bali, Indonesia over the last two years. She will give her impressions of what it is like adjusting to living and working in a foreign culture - the challenges and rewards.

Sam Oppenheim is a photographer and author. He spent the last year working on his new book, Encountering India From Kashmir to Kanyakumari: A Year Long Photographic Odyssey. Sam is a teacher in the New York City Public School System.

Jack Garcia is considered by his peers and leading FBI experts to be the most successful undercover agent in the history of the Bureau. He was featured this week on CBS 60 Minutes discussing his book, "Making Jack Falcone, An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family."

In his 26 years of service with the FBI, Garcia is best known for his undercover role as "Jack Falcone," who penetrated the Gambino crime family of La Cosa Nostra in New York for nearly three years. The case resulted in the arrest and conviction of 32 mobsters, including the top members of the Post John Gotti Gambino crime family.

Mr. Ed Petersen is a former agent of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. During his time with the Bureau, Mr. Petersen
investigated a wide range of federal violations including general
criminal matters, international and domestic terrorism, and foreign
counter intelligence. He has also served as the director of security
for major league baseball. Mr. Petersen is currently one of the
directors of Buckley Petersen Global, a private investigative and
consulting company. He will discuss his role in solving the case of the
kidnapping of former Exxon executive, Sydney Reso.

Mariel Hemingway,
as the granddaughter of the illustrious author Ernest Hemingway, was
destined to be in the public eye. But at just thirteen years old,
Mariel became famous in her own right as she made her feature film
debut in Lipstick. Four years later, she earned an Oscar nomination for her role in Woody Allen's film Manhattan.
Mariel is an actress, model, yoga instructor, mother of two teenage
girls, and one of the leading voices for holistic and balanced living.
She is the author of Mariel Hemingway's Healthy Living from the Inside Out. Her new book, just out, is Mariel's Kitchen: Simple Ingredients for a Delicious and Satisfying Life.

Ariane de Bonvoisin is an author, entrepreneur and an
expert on change. Ariane graduated from the London School of Economics
at age 19, then went on to receive her MBA from Stanford University. In
2000, Time Warner tapped her to become the managing director of a new
$500 million digital-media venture fund. She also worked with talk show
host Charlie Rose. De Bonvoisin began working on First30Days.com in
2006, and In May 2008, HarperOne published her book, The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Any Change (And Loving Your Life More). She has appeared on the Today Show on NBC and the Early Show on CBS

U.S. Army Colonel (ret) Dan Nolan was one of the first
a growing group of army officiers who have beeen pushing the military
to go green as part of national security. They are known as "the green
hawks". While in the military, Dan was a principal advisor to General
Tommy Franks. He also commanded the 1st Armored Division Artillery. Dan
is a graduate of the United States Military Academy West Point. [Click
on Colonel Nolan's pic for a recent New York Times piece on Army Green.]

Lisa Nichols is a contributor to two of the largest self-development phenomena in history: She was a featured teacher in the hit DVD The Secret, and she wrote two books in the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Lisa Nichols has appeared on Oprah, Larry King Live, and Extra. Ms. Nichols has been featured in O, South Africa, The Oprah Magazine, and was a guest life coach on NBC's Starting Over.

Richard Downes
is a seasoned international journalist; Richard Downes regularly
cohosts the most popular daily RTÉ radio program "Morning Ireland" and
reports for television news and for the RTÉ current affairs flagship
"Prime Time." During the 2003 war, he stayed in Baghdad and covered the
collapse of Saddam's regime from within. Vincent Browne described him
as "the best reporter covering the war." Downes lives in Dublin with
his wife and two young children. His latest book is In Search of Iraq: From Baghdad to Babylon.

Sarah Reinertsen
was the first female leg amputee to complete the Ironman Triathlon
World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. Sarah was born with proximal
femoral focal deficiency, a bone-growth disorder that eventually lead
to her becoming an above-the-knee amputee at the age of seven. She was
featured on the cover of Runner's World and was named one of the first eight "Heroes of Running" in the magazine. Ms. Rienertsen has also appeared on the cover of Triathlete magazine and Max Sports & Fitness magazine. She also scooped up the well-deserved ESPY award in 2006.