TRAVELING HOPEFULLY: How to Lose Your Baggage and Jumpstart Your Life

This book takes its title from a quote by Robert Louis Stevenson—"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive," which serves as Gill's core philosophy. The communications consultant and executive coach explores the desire many people have to disentangle themselves from childhood traumas and move forward in life. Gill uses personal stories of her own apparently abuse- and neglect-filled childhood as a way of illustrating that even the biggest emotional obstacles can be overcome. The first section of the book points out that only by acknowledging and processing our past can we get rid of the negative themes that often shape our adult lives. From there it's a journey to discover who we are as individuals and what we can offer the world. She offers 21 "hopeful tools" to aid readers in reassessing themselves and their goals, with lots of exercises along the way (e.g. how to convert a negative self-image into a positive one). This book is sometimes painful but inspiring, as Gill's goal is to transform her readers from dreamers who are dissatisfied with life to doers who have renewed purpose and ambition. (Oct.)

Forecast: Gill manages Dr. Phil McGraw's franchise—so she should get a leg up from him in the media world, which will boost sales.