Time Efficiency - Maximizing Minutes

There is one intensely important moment you are invited to participate in with a very focused attitude of determination. If you let it pass, you lose more than you may realize, perhaps forever. Grab it, and the rest of your life will be affected positively.

No matter how often you're told, you still believe that your death is in the 'far-flung future,' don't you? Even when we learn of other people dying, by the dozens or the hundreds, we're certain that it'll never be us. True, or not?

From nearly 700 Americans who will die just from being given the wrong medication in hospitals this week alone or the 8000 Americans who will die this week from tobacco use, to the unexpected phone calls carrying tragic news of a car crash, heart attack, or some freak accident, let's agree that at some point in time a newspaper will note your passing. You will be, for the most part, described in a single sentence. Having the intelligence to recognize that you have a starring role reserved in the form of an obituary will effect a sizeable influence on the actual content of that one last mention in the papers.

You will be described in glowing terms, or you won't. It's one or the other: you lived with passion & excellence, and others noticed it; or you didn't.

Those are the only two choices. Not surprisingly, the choice will prove to have been yours. The challenge here is that you still operate under the entirely mistaken impression that your eventual obituary will be determined by what you do next year, next month, or even the day after tomorrow.

Your perception is not consistent with reality. As Henry Ford said,

"You can't build a reputation based on what you're going to do."

You'll find powerful, life-changing impact in those words for the seven of every one hundred people who understand them. Do you understand? Go ahead, read it again. Understanding it enables you to boost just about every facet and feature of your life, personally, professionally, socially, sexually, financially, and healthwise.

The prolific presence of this critical moment is matched only by the rarity of its use. Make no mistake; it's the defining moment of your life, because it will define and describe who you are and how others view you. You'll surely agree it's a moment you can remember for as long as you live, and the moment which everyone will look back upon and remember most about you. It happens to be the moment that will reveal the actual words of your eventual obituary in one newspaper or another.

It's a moment worth thinking about. We'll return to it soon enough.

W. Mitchell survived having his face burned off in a gasoline fire. After 2 years, he was back in the mix, succeeding again. He ran for Lieutenant Governor of Colorado with a button that said, "Vote for me; I won't be just another pretty face in the governor's mansion."

If that wasn't enough for ANYONE to deal with, he then barely survived a plane crash, which left him paralyzed below the waist….so he let them take off his useless toes to create new fingers (the old ones had also burned off). Now get this…. he got out of the hospital… AND STARTED ALL OVER AGAIN!! Even without the use of his arms and legs he seems to be getting more out of life than, well, than 93 of out every 100 who read these words. He repeatedly identifies the resources he can use in this moment.

You'll undoubtedly nod your head and say, "Yep. Yep. How true. We really can do what we most want in life". You'll then return to your daily routine and do about as much today as you did yesterday. As proof, just look at the most recent 100 days of your life, and maybe even the most recent 1000 days of your life, where little has changed in terms of your effort levels.

Almost exactly 7 of every 100 people who read these words, although they usually have limited formal education, are smarter than the other ninety-three. If you're one of the seven, you're smarter because you understand, at a gut level, that if W. Mitchell can look past what he's lost, and focus each day on what he has left, then you can, too, and will. He's got a successful radio show in Colorado. What are YOU doing today to get ahead? In the words of the great James Earl Jones, "Shut up, shut up,SHUT UP! If you really knew better, you'd really DO better, wouldn't you? Don't tell us; show us. Better yet, show the most important person on earth, whose face can be found in your bathroom mirror.

The daily habits of Brian Dickenson really call out for attention. Because his neck muscles no longer transmit instructions from his brain, Brian Dickenson's head is supported by a brace. The only movements he can make are with his facial muscles, which still smile, and with his eyes. A camera in his computer calculates his gaze from the way his eye reflects a beam of infrare d li ght off of a blown-up screen with a keyboard on it. He looks at the keyboard on-screen, and the computer types any letter he looks at for more than half a second.

He became that one in ten thousand struck by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig's disease. It destroys nerve cells in the brain & spinal cord, preventing muscles from receiving brain messages. Because it doesn't affect the mind, Brian had to witness the gradual paralysis of his arms and his legs, his ability to swallow, to speak, even to breathe on his own.

He's already passed the point where 95 percent of ALS victims simply choose to stop breathing. But Brian Dickinson has chosen to keep on breathing & to keep on writing. His focus is what brings him to continue working. How does his life, and daily efforts, compare to your own? Answer the inner you who wants to be known for doing something better than others. Don't answer me; answer yourself. How does Brian Dickenson's daily efforts towards excelling at his work compare to yours?

With a lifetime passion and career centered on words, he takes more steps each day than you do. Granted, they're tiny steps. Still adds up to more than yours, doesn't it? He's pursuing his life's passion. It would appear that, in the game of life, this physically paralyzed man is kicking your ass from here to Rhode Island. He simply refuses to quit. His columns are becoming familiar to an ever-growing audience although he battles a most mysterious, lethal disease. Every day he reaches out for one more try. What's your excuse again?

What can we add to this? Details of Christopher Reeves, & his own inspiring story of struggle, determination, and success? The way Vinnie Pazienza took a broken back, and 'permanent paralysis,' stood up, walked… ran… and returned to being a champion professional boxer? Reminders of the teenage girl with polio, & braces…you know, Wilma Rudolph and her gold-medal perfo rmances at the 1960 Olympics? The fastest woman in all of history… who wasn't ever supposed to walk, let alone run!

Ricky Henderson broke 2 records: Stole more bases than any other player… and got tagged out (trying to steal bases) more than any other player.Only a fool would even think of ascribing this to coincidence. Think better! When you do something more times than anyone else, you will invariably break two records: striking out more than you ever did before, and hittin home runs more than you ever did before. This is an unchanging rule of life, covered by a number of axiomatic laws. It hasn't changed for me, please don't delude yourself that it might ever change for you. Try it ten times more, strike out more, and kick booty more. As a mathematical certainty, it will never change in your lifetime. Since it never changes, you can quickly, even immediately make use of this and benefit within minutes, hours, or days.

Faster than that you want? You'll have to wait for a miracle, just like 93 out of every 100 people, who allow others to decide the course of their lives. Otherwise stop running your mouth and get busy immediately. You are one=conditionally guaranteed to get phenomenal results within hours or days of the precise moment you believe that you will find a way to do it, whatever it takes. The one condition? Ya gotta believe, and if you knew so much, you'd be living the dream life now, yes, or no? Strikeouts lead to home runs.

Many baseball players have lifetime totals of 300 strikeouts. Three men, added up together, struck out literally thousands of times: Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, & Mickey Mantle!! As you may well know, these men also hit the most home runs. Babe Ruth struck out 1330 times for his 713 home runs. Hank Aaron was close behind. Mickey Mantle actually struck out 3 times for every home run he hit!!

Ty Cobb, with 90 broken records, and an amazing lifetime average of .367 was, far and above all others, the greatest hitter of all time, although he only succeeded one time for every three tries!! Think about it. Stop nodding your head and agreeing. Stop and think about this!!

We know for a fact that the way you spend your minutes is an accurate movie of how you're spending your life. It's the mental movie everyone will play when they get the news that you've moved on to your so-called final reward. How you use your individually precious minutes is how you're now using your life. This and nothing but this will determine the words that make up your obituary.

Who cares what you are capable of doing? Get real.
What we DO care about is w hat you're willing to do. Today. Now.

We both know that there are people around you who are better at what you do than you are. You may be surprised to learn that most of them will help you get up the ladder, provided you ask for their help, by making sure they see you busting your hump to do your best, and/or actually telling them you want to be more like them and asking if they'd consider being your mentor.

Try remembering that if they're doing it better than you, they know it better than you. Pride goes before the fall, doesn't it? Never in history has a human being succeeded fantastically... ...alone.

No one. Ever. That equals "never." From Bill Gates and Mahatma Ghandi to Alexander the Great and Michael Jordan, Socrates and Tiger Woods, Tony Blair and Grandma Moses -- they all had role models, they all had teachers.

People who know everything can be taught nothing.

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Those who stretch their current day's activities to include at least a few minutes of learning to do it better carry enormous advantage over everyone around them who is NOT using those few minutes. Even just five minutes per day getting better at anything from laughing or loving to pushups or pizza-flipping, brain surgery or politics: there are no known exceptions. Some of the things I love to do are: playing piano or guitar, painting, singing, laughing, physical affection, helping others, reading, and working on computers. Whoops, let's also include eating: I really love eating. So, I make it my business to try and do each of these things every day, even if only for a few minutes. Do you think there might be a connection between my skill levels... and the fact that I make it my business to do these things each day?

What a fantastic opportunity for you to use this instantly productive SuperShortcut:
FIVE MINUTES PER DAY.

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Think about when you personally get to that certain point where you find yourself looking back at the hundreds of individual months that have flown by and you're asking,
"Why didn't I ____________?"

Ask more people for what you want,
and ask each person more times.

Be precise in what you ask for, as precisely as you should identify what it is you actually want at the end of it all, and during the effort itself. Even if it's just an hour a week, don't let your life be just getting through the month without going broke and exhausted. Identify something that's worth developing a reputation for, so mething you'll enjoy having ten months's experience at, then twenty, and a hundred, and beyond. Long before you get to that point, you'll "suddenly" notice that your income has risen repeatedly. Money follows excellence, not the other way around.

Pick up a book, go to a museum, ride a go-cart, identify the career that you would most love to be a role model in. This is the most important day of your life, the only day in which to build your present and future reputation. Seize this day with gusto, it's filled with 1,400 separate minutes of exquisite, opportunity-filled minutes!

Before you can Carpe Diem , which is Latin for "Seize the Day," we begin first with Carpe Momentum, which means "Seize the Moment"

Seize the moment!! It's yours, you fool!!
This is the day, and this certainly is the moment...
... just for you.

Seize it!

Grab your life with both hands. Carpe momentum!!
Before it has passed, into the past.
Do it Now!

Popcorn Power

Karyn Johnson, aged 15, living in Harlem, being poor & ugly, was a fine example of 'loser.' With a baby daughter, no husband, she had to go on welfare, although she hated the idea. She and her child had to eat. This young teen mother, not even old enough to drive, became a drug addict. She did unspeakable things to get drugs, often with her daughter present. It got so bad that they both ate out of garbage cans.

Five long years of welfare. Finally put the kid into daycare, and got a job putting makeup on people in a local playhouse. Didn't take too long to lose the job.

Got another job putting makeup on people in a funeral home. Ghastly work, but she was hungry, and determined to make it on her own. Lost that job, too. Karyn talked to her 5-yr old daughter, and said, "Honey, let's start a fresh life, changing everything." She began simply enough: taking a step EVERY day.

They moved out of NY, and started again. Three years -- just about one thousand days -- later, after taking just about 1000 more steps than you, she repaid NY City's Welfare Dep't every penny she had accepted. Karyn Johnson had the same tool as you: a decision to ask better questions, and take at least one step every day. Period. She tapped into the amazing power of NOW. It's the reason why, after she became the highest-paid woman in Hollywood, you might have recognized the new name she adopted... Whoopi. She simply asked better questions, and produced better answers. What about you?

What will you do TODAY ?

We have blank lines here exclusively for your use.

Whoever you are, please humor me and fill them in.

I know that 90% of you will fill in the blanks later, right?
You lose, because we already know that you won't really do it later.

It's the reason your bank account is the size it is.

10% of you are smart enough to fill them in now. You can be certain that you will reap measurable benefits in the coming days and weeks

So, you want to have more _________________________

and learn how to get _________________________.

Until you actually pick up a pencil & jot some answers,
please don't read any further. Believe me, it would be a waste.

For those of you who wrote any detailed answers, or who do so in the next few seconds...... ...I can and will UNCONDITIONALLY guarantee that those who WRITE answers in the lines above by page's end will see marked, observable progress within days of today; you are proving that you are willing to take a step. Dozens of the greatest minds in history have observed that the smartest people are those who tap into the deep, unstoppable power found in the word "now;" not merely once, but many times many times over.

The power of "NOW" starts kicking in as soon as you want: 3 days, 20 seconds, or 10 minutes.

If you practiced something for 1000 minutes, would you be better at it than if you did not practice? Dumb question, right? If it's so dumb, what was the last thing important enough for you to practice at for 1000 minutes? If you can put down on paper just one thing you'd really really like, I will give you a magical secret that will bring you closer to your dream, in just days or minutes than you've ever been in your life all added up to this minute. No kidding. Here's the magical secret, and it is more powerful than you have ever understood up until this minute: First, write down one or two things that you really, REALLY want:

________________________________________

_________________________________________

Now use the back of your paper to write down 5 to 10 ideas, crazy or not, for turning it into reality. Just 5 to 10 ideas.

Do this for 15 minutes per day for 20 days.

That's right, just a few minutes of your life each day for 20 days. Every single human being who does this radically and forever changes the way they think, because the results are so accelerated, so compelling, that you'll never forget what you accomplished during this 20-day period: it's called 'genius.'

Albert Einstein spoke about it extensively, that genius is nothing more than the "infinite ability to take an infinite number of pains." It genuinely matters not a whit if you use this genius inside of you for mental tasks, musical tasks, financial, spiritual, emotional, sexual, academic, or any other human effort you can think of: just do it. Do it and see for yourself. Please, please, do NOT venture your opinion to any of us; we're really not interested in your opinon until AFTER you've done it... ... at which time you can be sure we'll hear each word you offer.

Loooooong before you get to idea #300, you will see some amazing things going on in your mind, and your life. Hey, it's your choice. I'm only here to remind you of the incredible powers you developed as a child to learn how to tie your shoelace (I had a smart dog, a German Shepherd, yet I never once saw him chew gum, or heard him say, "Excuse me" when he burped). Your brain executes many thousands of decisions just in the course of tying your shoelace!!

WAKE UP! It took you a whole lot longer to learn how to speak English or to drive a car than it does to create a list of what you want to do in this next year, and how you can go about doing it!!

Creating sentences, & deciding what words come out of your mouth? Show me a computer that can create and state a given desire. As you read these words, you are right now capable of performing many thousands of tasks, from steering a bicycle, to talking your way into or out of something. Every computer chip on this planet all added up together is but a fraction of the 100 billion-plus neurons you've got; each capable of a million functions.

Your Reticular Activating System is nothing more than a fancy secretary. It filters roughly eight million bits of information per second, deciding what to send "Upstairs" to the conscious mind, and what to send "Downstairs" to the memory storage department. When you decide that you're hungry, the Reticular System searches your brain for all stored info: "Burger King? Chinese? Do I have $$? Do I have time? What do I feel like eating?" You suddenly remember a new pizza place a mile back. You saw it when you passed, the Reticular System decided it wasn't important enough to send "Upstairs," so it simply stored the information until you needed it again. It searches AND FINDS, the info we look for, and brings it "Upstairs" so we can make a conscious choice. With a phone to your ear, taking a drink, slipping off of your shoes: you're making thousands of tiny, yet super-sophisticated decisions. Find a cat, or a giraffe that can hop into the car & go buy some milk!

I promise you, no matter who you are, from U.S. President of to that guy in the group home: Ask a question with repetition, and belief that you'll produce the right answer, and you will always, and without fail produce many answers to that question. You are now in control of a huge power to tap into right now. True power. Power is the "ability to act ." You have the equipment for first-class thinking. What you know is generally distant from what you DO with what you know.

At all times, you are using billions of separate computers within your brain that know how to work together. Since you use such incomprehensibly sophisticated methods for understanding what a "$" sign means, automatically and with little "conscious" thought, don't you see the logic in tapping into those same powers, ON PURPOSE, for accomplishing things you haven't done yet but would like to? Reality is proof that The chances of it happening accidentally are not as good as when there is specific and direct effort toward achieving it. That's agreeable, isn't it? Tapping into the power of NOW is your first step. Even if it's just writing down precisely what you want and why you want it, it only takes minutes for things to happen. You think I'm kidding? Prove me wrong. Prove me right. With deeds, not words. Just stop talking and DO IT!

Ooookay?

Just 5 - 10 ideas per day until you have 100 ideas.
100 ideas will be sufficient to make this the single most productive year of your life, guaranteed every single time.

This is one of the ten most powerful shortcuts ever developed in human history. It's better than a pile of cash, because aiming this shortcut at money-making will produce many piles of cash.

For example, let's say you want a date with the gorgeous creature next door.
Here are some ideas.

1. Write a love letter to the object of your dreams.

2. Dial 202 456-1414 and leave a message asking our President to make a phone call on your behalf.

3. Sprinkle Hershey's kisses from your front door to the front door of... well, you get the idea.
It doesn't matter if the ideas are reasonable or not, easily available or not. The primary purpose of doing this is to exercise your problem-solving muscles. Just as squeezing a tennis ball one more time every day or so will add up to highly-developed squeezing ability, so too will this writing exercise, known as a popcorn session, produce measurably better ideas and solutions for you, quickly and effectively.

By the time you produce 100 ideas, the odds are that no less than seventy will be ultimately inappropriate, ten of the 100 distantly workable, another ten or fifteen possible, and just two or three that will be pure, complete genius, and I do mean genius. Whether you have a second-grade education or a couple of master's degrees, it is an unchanging fact of human life that taking the few minutes per day necessary to come up with 100 ideas within five days will always produce at least a few wonderful, life-changing solutions. Always.

Do it.The most important part of this exercise is that you specifically include every idea you can produce, from those that are workable, to those that are seemingly impossible. No facet of this shortcut to getting much, MUCH better results is more important than the sheer number

Apply just this one power shortcut for 14.4 minutes pr day. Within 22 days you will have ample evidence that your income is increasing or about to. Within 100 days, you should see AT LEAST a doubling of your income.

It is hoped that you perceive the value of an unconditional guarantee that these shortcuts are universally applicable, from developing new skills for learning guitar, getting top grades with MUCH less effort, a new language, making more money, running five miles... or learning to tie your shoelaces, by far the most difficult thing you've ever done. Use your resources more through shortcuts like these, and then opine. What you know in your mind means far less to any of us than what you DO with what you know, hm?

Golden Losers

William J Blythe IV. What a name to begin life with, more so when you're born in a tiny town of 1200 people, with poverty a standard of life.

His dad died before he was born. His stepfather, Roger, used to beat Billy's mom when alcohol would take over in the house. Living in Hope, Arkansas doesn't promise too much, does it? Well, he did have 2 things going for him: he was a decent student, & his mom preached the value of persistence on a daily and oft-repeated basis. It would seem he learned well from her. With the Boy's Club, he went to Washington, D.C.; took a tour of the White House, and actually got to shake hands with the President of the United States. A photographer happened to be less than 5 feet away, and took a photo of the US President shaking hands with young Billy Blythe...... There's a lot to be said of that photograph, and of the smiling, near-arrogant gleam in the eye of that 16-yr old kid.

I still have a copy of that photograph, and I'd swear you can hear Billy Blythe's thoughts as he smiled into the eyes of JFK: "I admire you, I want to be like you, and someday I'm going to be US President." It's written all over his teenage face for history to examine.

Hard to decry or deny that look on his face, in his eyes. That young man was adopted by his stepfather, Roger. Naturally, he changed his last name. 28 years after the photo was taken, William Jefferson Clinton was sworn in as President of the United States. Four years later, he took the oath of office for a second time. Persistence is the greatest power on earth.

On Nov 8, 1970, New Orleans was losing a football game to Detroit, 17-16. Last play of the game. Everyone's wondering who's this 'big old crippled guy' walking onto the field, since it was quite obvious that the man was missing a hand AND the front of his right foot. The announcer advised that they were watching Tom Dempsey, the Patriot's official kicker. It was a kick heard round the world: Tom Dempsey, born with what YOU might call 'handicaps,' kicked the single longest field goal in the history of professional football: an astonishing 63 yards!! Needless to say, New Orleans won the game. Tom's persistence paid off.

I remember reading of a baseball player who made it to St Louis' professional team many years ago. Never hit a home run, never saved a game with a single play, but by God he was a professional player... even though he only had one arm!!! Like Jim Abbott, I suppose, who pitched 90 MPH fastballs for San Fransisco… DESPITE HAVING ONLY ONE ARM !!!

What's YOUR excuse for not pursuing your personal best?

Common to these people is the same identical first step:the ability to describe with exquisite precision what they want, usually in ten words or less.
When you see this happening with hundreds of people who've individually climbed up to the three highest rungs of America's corporate leadership, the scientific word is "pattern."

Patterns do not occur accidentally,
particularly patterns of excellence

Excellence is nothing more, and nothing less,
than doing something finely, and repeatedly: a pattern.
Paying heed to these patterns means reducing the trial and error process, and provides shortcuts to duplicating the desired result.

Secondly, most of them have written notes on what they're aiming at. If it's not worth putting into writing, it's probably not worth considering... ...unless, of course, you know more than the CEO's of our Fortune 500 companies.
Put it in writing!

Third, they asked for what they wanted more than anyone else.

They asked.

And asked.

And asked.

…And asked again.

And guess what they did AND STILL DO when they can't get that "Yes" ???

You guessed it, sister:

THEY ASKED AGAIN.

You've known since you were a child that the more times you ask for what you want, and the more people you ask for what you want…
… the more you will receive what you want.

When did you stop asking?
It's the single fastest way to get whatever you want in life.

That's why and how you'll prove how smart you are, and can be, using a simple technique which amounts to the single greatest power any human being has ever had, and certainly the single fastest shortcut available to you, or to anyone else who's smart enough to hush up and use it this very hour and day:Ask more people, and ask people more.

Now, let's put these high-powered tools to use together, which considerably,
measurably speeds up the quality and quantity of your results.

• Identify a dozen or more people who are already doing well at what YOU want to excel at.
• Write each of them a short note, along the lines of, "Hi, we both know you're top-notch in your field. I wish to make a contribution to the world as magnificent as yours. With expert guidance, I just know I can be in that top five percent." May I buy you lunch in hope that you'll be my mentor for 20 or 30 minutes?

More times than not you can expect an answer. At least half the time, you can expect an invitation to lunch. The one significant exception I've encountered is with entertainment celebrities. Although many are famous and wealthy, few of them give a long-term appearance of fulfillment or happiness. That makes it very difficult for them to share, Naturally, there are exceptions; to date, it has proven to be the rule.

For a hundred different career fields, we have people who've risen to the top faster and more effectively than others. I'm sure you can understand why they are considered to be the single best source of guidance for success in any field. For a few dollars worth of stamps, you'll be bowled over by the general decency and willingness to share that is such a basic part of a true role model.

The truth is, between 80 and 90% of our role models are people who 'started in their uncle's rented garage' or some such modest beginning.
Two college students renting a room in their aunt's attic came up with rent.net out of desparation to find an apartment. Within five years, both had hundreds of millions of dollars, not merely because it was a dot com company, rather, because it served several million hungry wannabe apartment and house-renters.

Every invention idea is laughed at and scorned... right up until the time that one decision maker believes in it, and backs it... all the way to success. Television, the electric light bulb, the Sony Walkman, and every other toy and contrivance you can imagine, began as a 'silly' dream in someone's mind. With over a hundred documented examples, there's a clear pattern. USE THE PATTERN, just as a dressmaker does.

A mother fed up with expensive toys too easily and quickly broken, creates simple, durable toys for her kids and their friends, next thing you know people are paying her to make more for theirkids... and seven years later her toy company is grossing a hundred and eighty million dollars per year. Can you imagine her husband's eyebrows when this housewife approaching forty tells her husband she needs money to start a toy company although she's never had a paying job in her life?

How about a guy so broke at Christmas he uses his grandma's recipe? Note that this was a WRITTEN recipe. Ah, that magical written map that guarantees success whenyoufollow the map, hm?

Because he couldn't afford Christmas gifts, he decided to bake chocolate chip cookies to give all of his friends and family, placing each dozen cookies in a little brown paper bag. Be honest, now: what possible expectations of success do you personally prognosticate and predict for a man of 42 who cannot sign his own name because he's completely illiterate? He had a dream, and the second he got someone to help him by putting that dream on paper with a written deadline,and a list of people who could help him, and the smaller steps necessary to take a "silly" dream all the way to reality.... it transmogrified from a dream into a goal. Literacy Volunteers of America, known as LVA, began teaching him, at age 42, how to read the alphabet, and enunciate "Dick and Jane see Spot," while his friends and family clamored for more of those incredible cookies.

In between his reading lessons, he rented a shack on the beach in Hawaii, ran a very long extension cord to an outlet he could 'borrow' electricity from, and baked the cookies he decided to call Famous Amos Cookies.

Since he had no money for marketing or advertising, he took the simplest, shortest path to success: he went to grocery stores, approached the manager or owner and stuck out a bag, saying, "Hi, please taste one of these and tell me if you have ever had such a delicious cookie." One bite was about all it took for store after store after store to take every bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies he could produce and deliver.

He asked, and asked, and asked, and then asked again. All smart people know what happens when you ask for something hundreds, and yes, even thousands of times...SUCCESS is what happens.

Within seven years, this (formerly) illiterate and financially destitute broke adult was able to thank the LVA for teaching him how to read as a grown adult. He thanked them handsomely; with a check for ten million dollars.

A postcript to the legend of Wally Amos is also useful for you and I to learn from. You see, ten years after he founded the company, he decided to retire to a life of teaching other illiterate adults how to read. He sold the Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Company for forty million dollars. Sadly, people he thought he could trust ripped him off for the majority of his money. The only business he'd known was baking chocolate chip cookies, and that's it.

The moment that his noncompetitive clause expired, he was back in the chocolate chip cookie business, with a new company, and a new cookie. He proved that Charlie Jones was right in saying, "It's not how hard you fall that matters, it's how high you bounce."

It would've been easy, and maybe even understandable if Bill Clinton had 'bought into' the level of mediocrity so endemic, so common, in those raised in poverty, or with alcohol-fueled abuse, or worse. ...and no one would've been surprised if Wally Amos had never amounted to much; after all, he was still bumming around at 42, illiterately, no less. In their case, as with most of our Masters and Millionaires, they found others who did it well, and they copied them. Wally copied his grandma's recipe, and Bill Clinton copied his heroes, JFK and Abraham Lincoln. Several encyclopedias today include that famous photograph of a 15-year old 'country bumpkin' shaking hands with his role model, the U.S. President.

This is not an endorsement for being just like Mike, as the famous ad exhorts us. It's a simple, powerful reminder that there are faster, easier, smoother paths to your own success. They have been paved by the blood, sweat and tears of those who pioneered the field you wish to excel in. Go ahead; call them, write them, email them, send them tape cassettes of you recording yourself asking them to be your mentor for a half-hour. Reap the fruits of asking, because no power on earth will ever bring you more than the power of asking for what you want... asking it of those who are in a position to say yes, and able to back up that yes.