Shari Arison

Every person - with his or her own skills, abilities and uniqueness - can contribute to others and bring great joy to those that fortune has not smiled upon.

Hopefully I'm a role model for positive change for everyone - not just women. It's very important to find balance between men and women.

Spending years between America and Israel, I have gained a global view, and the planet is my home.

I feel we all have a stake in our community as much as we do in our own spirits, and seeking avenues of generosity is the direct path to peace among us.

People look at me as spiritual... but I am also very logical, very business-minded. The two come together.

In my new book, 'Birth,' my goal is to share the path I have traveled in the spiritual sphere and in the business and philanthropic sphere in order to reveal the essential connection between the two.

Once you realize that everything happens for a reason, attitudes towards matters such as illnesses, or lawsuits, for example, change.

The good inside of all of us is wrapped in a layer of apathy, and we forget how much potential we have within us, in each and every one of us, to change the world for the better for ourselves and our children, and thus to bring about oneness.

Change is not in the hands of government, not in the hands of a leader or guru, and not in the hands of the powerful or wealthy. It is in our hands: the hands of each and every one of us.

In 'Birth,' I explore the nature of the new world we are approaching with my business-spiritual model, a new model for a new world. This view will enable individuals, companies and even nations to move from collapse to positive change, and bring together the spiritual and the material, giving birth to a new future.

Many of us are experiencing a phase of change, shedding outdated patterns and liberating ourselves from the old by moving on to the new. The year 2012 is an important one for mankind, a pivotal year. The potential for this exists in the mere fact that the majority of us are yearning for change.

I have recently been able to see the new world - the quiet, the tranquility and the freedom it will bring with it. This is very comforting knowledge for me because I already know that what I envision eventually becomes a reality.