My friend Don considered himself a musician. He played the tambourine in junior high school and, by my recollection, wasn' t very good. He also thought of himself as a singer, but he couldn' t carry a tune in a bucket.
Years passed, and we lost touch. I went to college and graduate school, becoming a philosophy professor at the University of Notre. Don nurtured his dream of becoming a singer-songwriter and moved to Nashvelle.
Once there, Don made the most of limited resources. He bought a used Car and slept in it. He took a job working nights, so he could visit record companies during the day. He learned to play guitar. As the years passed, he kept writing songs, practicing and knocking on doors.
One day I got a call from a friend who also knew Don. "Listen to this," he said, then held the phone close to his speakers. I heard a good song playing. Good singer. "That' s Don," my friend said. "Capitol Records. It' s on the country charts. Can you believe it? "
I couldn' t believe it. A song Don had written and recorded. He had made it. Don Schlitz has since had 23 songs. As a result of his focused concentration, the teenage dreamer became a success.
What Don did almost intuitively is based on principles I' ve discovered in reading the world' s great literature on human excellence and personal success. I' ve found three basic conditions we need to satisfy to launch ourselves into a life of true success.
Define your goals. The quest for success always begins with a target. Too many people wander through life like sleep-walkers. Each day they follow familiar routines, never asking, "What am I doing with my life?" And they don' t know what they' re doing because they lack goals.
Goal-setting is a focusing of the will to move in a certain direction. Begin with a clear conception of what you want. Write down your goals and date them—putting them into words clarifies them.
It' s important to visualize yourself accomplishing your goals. While losers visualize the penalties of failure, winners visualize the rewards of success. I' ve seen it among athletes, entrepreneurs and public speakers.
I' ve done it myself. I was terrified of air travel. Friends quoted statistics contrasting air and highway safety, but it made no difference. I had read too many articles describing crash scenes and imagined these scenes vividly. I had programmed myself, without realizing it, to stay off planes.
Then one summer I had the opportunity to fly on a private plane with friends to a resort. I didn' t want to miss out on a great vacation. So I spent two weeks imagining a smooth flight on a beautiful sunny day and an easy landing.
When the day arrived, I was eager to go. To every one' s surprise, I got on the plane and flew. I loved every minute of it, and I still use the techniques I employed that day.
Seek out those who know more than you. My father was 17 when he left the farm in Calneron, N. C., and set off for Baltimore to apply for a job at the Martin Aircraft Company. When asked what he wanted to do, he said, "Everything."
He explained that his goal was to learn every job in the factory. He' d like to go to a department and find out what was done there. When the supervisor determined his work was as good as anyone else' s he' d want to go to a different department and start over. The personnel people agreed to this unusual request, and by time H. T. Morris was 20, he' d made his way through the huge factory and was working in experimental design for a fantastic salary.
Whenever he went to a new department, he looked for the guys who had been around forever. These were the people novices usually avoided, afraid that next to them they' d look like the beginners they were.
My father asked them every question he could think of. They liked this inquisitive young man and showed him shortcuts they had developed that no one else had ever asked about. These sages became his mentors.
Whatever your goals, plan to network with those who know more than you. Model your efforts on theirs, adjusting and improving as you go.
Pursue your vision with stubborn consistency. The biggest difference between people who succeed and those who don' t is not usually talent but persistence. Many brilliant people give up. Who wants to run the risk of getting knocked down again and again? But highly successful people don' t quit. It' s often been said that they are just individuals who got up one more time than they fell down.
我的朋友唐一直自认为是一个音乐家，他上初中时打过手鼓，然而，我记得他打得并不好。此外，他还自认为是一个歌唱家，但是，他把握不准音调。
许多年过去了，我们早已失去了联系。我读了大学和研究生，毕业后在圣母玛丽亚大学担任哲学教授。为了实现当歌手和歌曲创作者的梦想，唐继续奋斗着，并且把家搬到了纳什维尔。
刚搬到那里，唐就开始充分利用有限的资源，他买了一辆二手小轿车，晚上就住在里面。为了能够在白天的时候拜访唱片公司，他找了一份晚上上班的工作。此外，他还学习弹吉他。这些年来，他一直坚持创作歌曲、练歌，并且不断地去唱片公司寻找机会。
有一天，一位朋友给我打来电话，他也认识唐。他在电话里说：“听听这个。”然后，他把话筒放到扬声器的旁边。我听到一首很好听的歌，歌手唱得很棒。我的朋友说道：“那就是唐，朱庇特唱片公司，这首歌已骗登上了全国歌曲排行榜，你相信吗？”
这简直令人难以置信，这首歌是唐创作和演唱的，他实现了梦想。从那时开始，唐· 施利茨一共录制了23首歌曲。正是由于对梦想的执著，唐终于获得了成功。
我曾骗读过关于人类美德和个人成功的世界优秀文学作品，发现唐几乎是凭着直觉在做的事情却遵画了书中的一些画则。我发现，走向成功需要具备三个基本条件：
树立目标。对成功的追寻往往源于目标的树立。有许多人就像梦游一样，在生活中迷失了方向。他们从来不问问自己：“我正在做什么？”每天只是做着相似的事情。因为没有目标，他们也不知道自己在做什么。
树立目标就意味着集中精力，然后朝着一个明确的方向前进。你首先要清楚什么是自己想要的，为了让这些目标更加清晰，用笔记下来，然后写上日期。
想象自己实现目标的情景也是一件很重要的事情。失败者想到的是失败后遭到惩罚的情景，而成功者想到的则是成功后的荣誉。从运动员、企业家和演说家的身上，我都看到了这点。
对于这条画则，我深有体会。我曾骗很害怕坐飞机旅行，于是，朋友们就找来空中与地面交通安全性的对比资料给我看，然而，这些对我来说只是徒劳。我读过许多描写飞机失事的文章，并且能够非常逼真地想象出那些画面，我无意中就把自己变成了一个恐惧飞机旅行的人。
此后的一个夏天，一个与朋友乘坐私人飞机度假的机会降临到我的身上。我真的不想失去这个非常棒的度假机会，于是，我用了两周的时间，一直让自己想象在一个阳光灿烂的日子平稳地乘坐飞机旅行，最后顺利着陆。
到了起程的那一天，我迫不及待地想开始度假之旅。我登上飞机，然后坐着它在天空飞行，这让大家都感到很意外。我很享受坐在飞机上的每一分钟，直到今天乘飞机旅行的时候，我仍然使用这种方法。
寻找比你懂得多的人。我父亲在17岁的时候离开北卡罗来纳州的卡梅伦农场，动身前往巴尔的摩市的马丁飞机公司求职。当父亲被问到想干什么工作的时候，他答道：“所有的工作都想试试。”
他解释说，他的目标就是把工厂中的各种工作都学会。他想去一个部门，搞清楚那里的工作，当主管人员觉得他的工作像其他人一样出色时，他就去另一个部门重新开始。人事部门的人员同意了这个与众不同的请求。到H.T. 莫里斯20岁的时候，他把这个大工厂里的所有工作都做了一遍，并且开始担任薪金很高的实验设计。