Diana von Welanetz Wentworth is a New York times bestselling author of 10 award- winning books (including two of the Chicken Soup for the Soul titles), has had careers as a television celebrity chef and as the Founder of Inside Edge Foundation for Education (InsideEdge.org)
You may recognize her from years of hosting a long-running daily television series, The New Way Gourmet on the Lifetime Network. Connecting people around the table has always been her heart’s path.
In 1985, at the height of the Cold War, Diana and her late husband Paul von Welanetz traveled to the Soviet Union to be part of a documentary. They were so deeply touched by their fellow travelers, all leaders in human potential, that on their return, they reinvented their business focus. Thus began the Inside Edge, a weekly breakfast forum in three cities where business leaders gathered to hear cutting-edge speakers on the topics of psychology, scientific breakthroughs, global issues, success strategies, spiritual awareness and the arts. Diana was, and still is connecting people around the table but for a higher purpose.
It was at one of those meetings that Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen brainstormed their concept of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series.Diana later became their first co-author with the third book in the series, Chicken Soup for the Soul Cookbook (almost a million copies sold). She later re-partnered to write Chicken Soup to Inspire the Body and Soul.
The film rights to Diana’s romantic memoir, Send Me Someone: A True Story of Love Here and Hereafter (Renaissance Books and St. Martins Press), the story of how her late husband promised to send her a new love, was purchased by the Lifetime Network for development into a movie of the week.
It doesn’t matter what you are thinking, or what fear you have, if you just do it! Action is the only thing that matters. I can see that at the end of my life, I am not going to look back and say, “I wish I had taken more action”
