In 1962, four young women wanted to start a professional singing career. They began performing in their church and doing small concerts. Then came their time to cut a record. It was a flop. Later, another record was recorded. The sales were a fiasco. The third, fourth, fifth and on through their ninth recordings were all failures. Early in 1964, they were booked for The Dick
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Clark Show. He barely paid enough to meet expenses, and no great contracts resulted from their national exposure. Later that summer, they recorded "Where Did Our Love Go?" This song raced to the top of the charts, and Diana Ross and the Supremes gained national recognition and prominence as a musical sensation.
Winston Churchill was unable to gain admittance to the prestigious Oxford or Cambridge universities because he "was weak in the classics."
James Whistler, one of America's greatest painters, was expelled from West Point for failing chemistry.
In 1905, the University of Bern turned down a doctoral dissertation as being irrelevant and fanciful. The young physics student who wrote the dissertation was Albert Einstein, who was disappointed but not defeated.
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Opportunity
If you don't hear opportunity knocking, find another door.
Source Unknown
Every fiber of my small, seven-year-old body was fearfully shaking as we walked through Customs and explained the purpose of our trip: "We're vacationing in Miami," I heard my pregnant mother say as I clung to her dress. Even though I heard those words, I knew we would never be going home again.
Communism was quickly tightening the noose around the free enterprise system in Cuba, and my father, a successful entrepreneur, decided it was time to take his family and flee to a land where freedom, promise and opportunity still thrived. Looking back now, it was the most courageous decision I've ever seen anybody make.
Castro's regime was watching my father very carefully, making it necessary for my mother to bring my brother and me over first. My father met us a few weeks later. Miami International Airport overwhelmed me. Everybody was speaking in strange words that didn't make sense to me. We had no money, no familynothing but the clothes on our backs.
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Within a few months, we were on a church-sponsored flight to Joliet, Illinois, via Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. A burst of cold air greeted us as we walked out of the terminal into the still talked-about winter of 1961. It had snowed nearly four feet, and amidst the blowing drifts stood a young priest by a large International Suburban, waiting to take us to our new home. This was absolutely amazing for a Cuban boy who had never seen snow.
My father was an educated man and owned a chain of gas stations and a car dealership in Cuba. Unable to speak English, he adapted quickly by finding work as a mechanic; and thanks to St. Patrick's Church, we were able to find a comfortable although small apartment in a middle-class neighborhood. We didn't have a lot, but we had each other, a whole lot of love and my father's burning desire to succeed.
It was during this time that my father, with his tattered Spanish copy of Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, taught me one of the greatest lessons in life. He told me over and over again: "It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from or what color you are. You can do anything you put your mind to." These words gave me comfort and inspiration as my brother and I mixed into the great Chicago melting pot.
My brother Ed and I struggled in school because we couldn't speak English. It wasn't uncommon to be called a "spic," not to be chosen to be on a team or have our hand-me-down bikes stolen, but my father's words continued to burn inside of me. We also met some truly wonderful people who helped us overcome the obstacles of adjusting to our new surroundings. Many of these people are still my best friends today.
When I was 14, my father was already teaching me about the great principle of free enterprise. He gave me $18 for every set of valves and engine heads I would clean
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and grind (what we called a valve job). Later he taught me how to hire other people to do the work for me, and I went out and found new customers and collected moneybasically ran the business. Little did I know he was teaching me how to be an entrepreneur. America was truly a land of promise.
I was also fortunate to be born into a musically talented family, and I remember listening to my mother sing beautiful Spanish songs to me as I was growing up. These songs inspired me to sing in the church choir as a boy soprano, and because of this same influence, my brother Ed started a contemporary rock band. I attended every band rehearsal and at night harmonized with him and my mother. Later, through working as a laborer in a stone quarry and a scholarship, I studied opera and music at Southern Illinois University. After two years of college, I went back to work in the stone quarry and saved the money I earned for my move west to California.
My goal in moving to California was to break into the music business and cut my own records. It didn't take very long for reality to set in. I had to take a job selling health club memberships to support myself. Depression set in. I was broke and didn't know where to turn. Then I met Tom Murphy, one of the owners of the health club.
My father always told me that if you want to be wealthy, you have to do what wealthy people do, so I asked Mr. Murphy if we could talk over coffee to find out what made him so successful. It just so happened that Mr. Murphy was the business partner of Tom Hopkins, one of the country's top sales trainers. So, of course, he recommended that I start attending sales training seminars, reading self-improvement books and listening to sales tapes. He also introduced me to many successful business men and women and their published materials. I was so hungry for success that it didn't take long before I was the
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top salesperson in the company. But that wasn't good enough. After saving every penny I could, I invested in my own health club. By the time I was finished, I owned nine of the most successful health clubs and sports medicine facilities in the United States, but I still hadn't achieved my goalto cut my own record.
Recording my first demo was exciting yet discouraging, as I presented it to record company after record company. Each time I heard the word "no." Not to be defeated, I recorded the demo in Spanish and took it back to the same record companiesall with the same results. On the verge of giving up, I called my father to discuss what had happened. He said, "Omar, you're doing very well financially, aren't you?" I replied that I was. "Well, why don't you just buy a record company and record your music!"
When I went back to the record company I intended to buy, hoping to save my ego, I asked the company executives one more time to record my music. They said, "Omar, we can't help you. Go to Broadway. You'll be great there." You should have seen their faces when I told them I was going to be the new owner.
I then set out to finance, record and produce my first album in Spanish. From there I went on to be named "Best Latin Male Vocalist" and "Entertainer of the Year" in 1986, 1987 and 1988 "CHIN de PLATA" and "OTTO."
Today I am enjoying success as a public speaker and trainer with Tom Hopkins International. It's such a thrill for me now to help others learn how to find the right opportunities to achieve their career goals. Take it from me, my father was right: you can achieve anything you want in life when you set your mind to it.
Omar Periu
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Crusader Could Close Her Eyes to Trouble No More
God helps them that help themselves.
Benjamin Franklin
It was one ordinary woman with an extraordinarily simple request of city hall that helped turn around a blighted block and troubled neighborhood, and changed how the city of Roanoke, Virginia, interacts with its citizensand possibly, how America will reconnect with its government.
Florine Thornhill, 73, had no intention of causing such a stir. She just decided to do something small to make her block better.
So she marched down to city hall and asked a suspicious official if she c
ould borrow a lawn mower to clean up one abandoned and overgrown lot.
For years, she had walked her neighborhood with blinders to the blight, stepping past the decaying homes, drug deals and derelicts. One Sunday in 197% on her way to church choir, she passed an unconscious woman in the overgrowth of a nearby lot. Thornhill assumed it was a drug addict and walked on. But she couldn't dismiss the woman from her mind.
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What, she found herself wondering, would Jesus have her do? So she turned back home and got her son to help her get the woman to safety. Thornhill never learned the woman's name or why she was unconscious. But the encounter opened her eyes to the sadness and poverty she had spent so much time blocking out.
The mother of nineincluding one child with mental disabilitiesdecided to do what she could. She borrowed that mower and cleaned one lot.
Her neighbors became curious, then joined in. On weekends, 15 middle-aged and elderly residents soon were picking up the trash and mowing vacant lots.
In city hall officials noticed that the once-decrepit neighborhood had begun to shine. In 1980, Roanoke city officials asked Thornhill and her Gilmer neighbors to join in a pilot project with three other city neighborhoods. It would allow them to help set goals for the city, to show the officials how to turn their poor, urban areas around.
The experiment was successful thanks to Thornhill and the other ordinary people like her. Today, 25 neighborhoods are working in the system to improve Roanoke. Other Virginia cities have followed Roanoke's lead. The Roanoke model is being studied across America, as government officials try to involve the people they serve. Thornhill and her group, the Northwest Neighborhood Environmental Organization, won the 1994 President's Volunteer Action Award, presented by President Clinton for volunteer efforts that changed a community.
But Thornhill said her real measure of success is not in the White House recognition. It is in the children playing at a fully equipped park that was once an open-air market for drug dealers. It is in the homes that her group has been able to buy and rebuild with housing grants they tracked down and won with some city help.
It is in the professionals they have been able to entice
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back to Gilmer with low-interest loans, and it is in the part-time worker they have been able to hire to help organize neighborhood activities and get more grant money. ''It's just so wonderful to see the children coming home," Thornhill said. "I know they care; they will keep this neighborhood going long after I'm gone."
Toni Whitt
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Ask, Affirm, Take Action
Many things are lost for want of asking.
English Proverb
When my daughter, Janna, was a junior in high school, she was accepted as a foreign exchange student to Germany. We were delighted that she had been chosen for such a special experience. Then the exchange organization informed us that we had to pay $4,000 in costsand the money was due on June 5; two months away.
At the time I was divorced with three teenage children. The idea of raising $4,000 was completely overwhelming to me. Financially, I was barely making ends meet as it was. I had no savings, no credit for a loan and no relatives who could lend me the money. At first it felt as hopeless as if I had to raise $4 million!
Luckily, I had recently attended one of Jack Canfield's Self-Esteem Seminars in Los Angeles. Three of the things I learned at the seminar were to ask for what you want, affirm for what you want and take action for what you want.
I decided to put these new-found principles to work. First, I wrote an affirmation that stated, "I am joyfully receiving $4,000 by June 1 for Janna's trip to Germany." I
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put the affirmation on my bathroom mirror and carried a copy in my purse so I could look at it every day. Then I wrote out an actual check for $4,000 and put it on the dashboard of my car. I spent a lot of time driving each day and this was a visible reminder. I took a picture of a hundred-dollar bill enlarged it and put it on the ceiling over Janna's bed so it was the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing at night.
Janna was a typical 15-year-old Southern California teenager and wasn't too thrilled with these rather "weird" ideas. I explained them all to her and suggested that she write her own affirmation.
Now that I was affirming what I wanted, I needed to take some action and to ask for what I wanted. I have always been a very self-sufficient and independent person who didn't need anyone else's help. It was very difficult for me to ask for money from family and friends that I knew, and even more so from strangers. But I decided to go for it anyway. What did I have to lose?
I made up a flier with Janna's photo and her statement of why she wanted to go to Germany. At the bottom was a coupon for people to tear off and mail back with their check to us by June 1st. Then I asked for a $5, $20, $50 or $100 contribution. I even left a blank space for them to fill in their own amount. Then I mailed this flier to every single friend, family member and person that I knew or even slightly knew. I distributed fliers at the corporate office where I worked, and sent them to the local newspapers and radio station. I researched the addresses of 30 of the service organizations in our valley and mailed them fliers. I even wrote the airlines asking for free travel to Germany.
The newspaper didn't run an article, the radio station didn't do a story, the airline said no to my request, but I kept on asking and continued to mail out fliers. Janna
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began having dreams of strangers giving her money. In the weeks that followed, the money began to come in. The first gift was for $5. The largest single gift was for $800 from family and friends. But most of the gifts were $20 or $50some from people we knew, some from strangers.
Janna became enthused about the whole idea and began to believe that this could actually become a reality. One day she asked me, "Do you think this will work for getting my driver's permit?" I assured her that an affirmation would work. She tried it and she got her permit. By June 1st we joyfully received $3,750! We were thrilled! However, while this was wonderful I still had no idea where I was going to get the last $250. I still had until June 5th to somehow raise the remaining money. On June 3rd the phone rang. It was a woman from one of the service organizations in our town. "I know I'm past the deadline; is it too late?" she asked.
"No," I replied.
"Well we would really like to help Janna, but we can only give her $250."
In all, Janna had two organizations and 23 people who sponsored her and made her dream a reality. She wrote to each one of those 25 sponsors several times throughout the year, telling them about her experiences. When she returned, she gave a speech at two organizations. Janna was a foreign exchange student in Viersen, Germany, from September to May, and it was a wonderful experience for her. It broadened her perspective and gave her a new appreciation for the world and its people. She was able to see beyond the narrow Southern California life that she grew up in. Since then she has traveled throughout Europe, worked one summer in Spain and another in Germany. She graduated from college with honors, worked two years with VISTA at an AIDS Project in Vermont and is presently pursuing her master's degree in public health administration.
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The year after Janna's Germany trip, I found the love of my life, again by using affirmations. We met at a Self-Esteem Seminar, married, and attended a Couples Seminar. At that seminar we created affirmations together, one of which was to travel. In the past seven years we have lived in several different states, including Alaska, spent three years in Saudi Arabia and are presently living in the Orient.
Like Janna, my horizons have broadened and my life is so much more exciting and wonderful because I learned to ask, affirm and take action for the things I want.
Claudette Hunter
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A Life-Changing Experience
I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution.
Wernher von Braun