A Place to Practice Success

We bet you already know the place we're going to suggest. Yes, the pool hall. No. Your sanctuary.

All the tools of the sanctuary — the Light at the Entry-way, the Main Room, the People Mover, the Information Retrieval System, the Video Screen, the Ability Suits, the Ability Suit Practice Area, the Health Center, the Playroom, the Sacred Room, and the Master Teacher — are invaluable tools in visualizing and affirming your Dream.

Think of all the experts — past, present and future — you can invite in on the People Mover. ("Mark Twain told me today, 'Courage is the mastery of fear — not absence of fear.'" Amaze your friends!)

Think of how much fun you can have wearing the Ability Suit of your Dream in the Ability Suit Practice Area. If that becomes too vigorous, you can sit down and watch yourself being successful on the Video Screen. The Information Retrieval System is the perfect place to go whenever you think, "I wish I knew about..."

And, of course, there's the Master Teacher. What a friend, guide, supporter, fellow-traveler, champion and bon vivant.

All this — and so much more — is only the close of an eyelid away. Use it. Often.

Find a Hero

We all need a hero, a role model — someone who had a Dream as big as ours, and lived it.

Your hero may be alive, or may "belong to the ages." Either way, he or she can live in your heart.

Kevin Kline met his hero, Sir John Gielgud. Kline was in awe. "Mr. Gielgud," he said, "Do you have any advice for a young actor about to make his first film in London?"

Gielgud stopped and pondered the question for some time. At last he spoke, "The really good restaurants are in Chelsea and the outlying regions — you want to avoid the restaurants in the big hotels."

Pianist Vladimir Horowitz asked the advice of the great conductor Arturo Toscanini. "If you want to please the critics," Toscanini told him, "don't play too loud, too soft, too fast, too slow."

"Meet the sun every morning as if it could cast a ballot," Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. told novice political campaigner Dwight D. Eisenhower. A few years later, President Eisenhower met another of his heroes, golfer Sam Snead. When Eisenhower asked him for some advice on how to improve his golf swing, Snead coached, 'Tut your ass into the ball, Mr. President!"

Eisenhower himself became a hero to millions. "This must have been how Eisenhower felt just before D-Day," Larry Appleton explained to Balki Bartoukomous. "All around him the troops sleeping; not Ike! He knew that one single mistake could change the course of world history." Balki had only one question: "Was this before or after Ike met Tina Turner?"

A young George Gershwin came to the already famous Irving Berlin, looking for a job as piano player. After hearing some of Gershwin's music, Berlin refused to hire Gershwin. "What the hell do you want to work for somebody else for?" Berlin asked, "Work for yourself!"

A playwright asked his hero, George Bernard Shaw, if he should continue with the profession of playwrighting. "Go on writing plays, my boy," Shaw encouraged, "One of these days one of these London producers will go into his office and say to his secretary, 'Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says, 'No,' he will say, 'Well, then we'll have a start on the rubbish.' And that's your chance, my boy."

Heroes don't have to be real. Some find fictional characters more inspiring than real-life heroes. To this day, thousands of people write to Sherlock Holmes at 221-B Baker Street. There is currently a bank at that address. It dutifully responds to every letter, "Mr. Holmes thanks you for your letter. At the moment he is in retirement in Sussex, keeping bees."

One of the nicest things about heroes is they were human. There's hardly a hero you can name who didn't have heroic flaws. (Even Holmes had his weaknesses — that seven-percent solution of cocaine, for example.) Judy Garland once said of another singer, "The first time I saw her perform she was so good I wanted to run up to the stage, put my arms around her — and wring her neck. She just has too much talent!"

When we realize that our heroes became heroes flaws and all, it gives us hope. "You mean we don't have to be perfect to fulfill our Dream, to make a contribution?" Hardly.

It takes commitment, courage and passion to live a dream and make a contribution. Heroes had these qualities along with their flaws. And you have those qualities, too.

And, of course, when you find one, go visit your hero often in your sanctuary.

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