Seeds of success: An encouraging word from a noted neurosurgeon . . .

Saw this in the latest World magazine. From an interview with Dr. Ben Carson (upon whose story the movie Gifted Hands, starring Cuba Gooding, was based). Carson was raised, from the third grade on, by a mom who was married at 13 and never went beyond third grade herself. And if you want additional strikes against him: he's black.

This is a brief, edited section from an hour-long interview available on YouTube. (See below.) This section, however, particularly struck me. I think those of us who are involved in educating the next generation(s) [which, I hope, is virtually all of us!], I think the message is vital.

(NOTE: The section below comes from 6:04 into the video and ends at 10:55.)

Were you really considered the dumbest kid in the class in the fifth grade? I was the safety net: No one had to worry about getting the lowest mark on a test as long as I was there. My nickname was Dummy. Once we were having an argument about who was the dumbest person in the school. It wasn't a big argument—everyone agreed it was me—but then someone tried to extend that argument to who was the dumbest person in the world. I said, "Wait a minute, there are billions of people in the world." They said, "Yeah, we know that, and you're the dumbest."

On that particular day, to make matters worse, we had a math quiz and you had to pass your paper to the person behind you. They would correct it and give it back to you. Teacher would call your name and you had to report your score out loud. Great if you got 100 or 95! Not so great if you got a zero and just had an argument about who's the dumbest person in the world.

I started scheming: "When teacher calls my name, I will mumble and maybe she'll think I said something and write it down." The quiz had 30 questions. When she called my name I said, "neimnmm." She said, "Nine! Benjamin you got nine right? Oh, this is wonderful, I knew you could do it if you just applied yourself. Kids, I want you to understand what a significant day this is. Benjamin got nine right. If he can get nine right anybody can."

Finally the girl behind me couldn't take it any longer. She stood up and said, "He said none!" The kids were rolling in the aisles. If I could have disappeared into thin air never to be heard from again in the history of the world, I would gladly have done so. But, I couldn't. I had to sit there and act like it didn't bother me—but it did. Not enough to make me study but it did bother me.

My mother saw all these failing grades. She didn't know what to do, but she prayed and asked God to give her wisdom to know what to do to get her young sons to understand the importance of intellectual development. She then let us watch only two to three TV programs each week. With all that spare time we had to read two books apiece from the Detroit Public Library and submit to her written book reports. She couldn't read them but we didn't know that—she would put little checkmarks and highlights and underlines.

I hated it in the beginning, but after a few weeks I began to enjoy it. We were desperately poor, but between the covers of those books I could go anywhere, be anybody, do anything. I began to imagine myself in the laboratory conducting experiments; discovering new galaxies, microcosms, knowing stuff that nobody else knew. Within a year and a half I went from the bottom of my class to the top, much to the consternation of all the students who used to call me dummy. The same ones who called me dummy in the fifth grade would come to me in the seventh grade, "Benny, Benny, Benny! How do you work this problem?"

. . . I had the same brain but a very, very different outlook. As I began to read about people of accomplishment, it dawned on me that the person who has the most to do with what happens to you in life is—you. It's not the environment. It's not somebody else. You can take control of your own life. I started having a very different philosophy than a lot of the people around me.

A lot of them called me nerd, Uncle Tom, all kinds of things. I would shut them up by saying, "Let's see what I'm doing in 20 years and let's see what you're doing in 20 years." They must have believed me because when I graduated from high school they all voted me most likely to succeed—which means they knew what was necessary to succeed, but were too lazy and trifling to do it themselves. That's what negative peer pressure is all about. The more young people we can get to understand that, the more people of accomplishment we will see.

You can watch the entire interview here:

Why you should do what you love

I'm sure you have heard the advice to do what you love rather than love what you do. I thought the following podcast from RadioLab did a great job of explaining the logic behind it.

Regular speed.

Double speed.

Wisdom for the ages

I think the following aphorisms are worth some thought:

* "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." --Attributed to Henry David Thoreau. (I agree!)

* "The secret of a man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested." --Attributed to William Dean Howells. (A wise man, I think! . . . Or, at least, a wise observation.)

* "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." --Attributed to Mark Twain. (I'll buy that!)

Great Baseball Players . . . and Success in Life

I was perusing some old articles I've written and found this one, from about two years ago, about a book by a guy named Frank Bettger: How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling.

Bettger was an associate for several years of Dale Carnegie (of How to Win Friends and Influence People fame).

Bettger’s book was written in 1947, so it’s a bit dated in language. But its principles seem valid for today as well.

I thought Bettger’s next-to-last chapter had something very useful for just about any of us to consider as we think about our lives: what we’re doing, what we hope our kids will do, and how we may want to encourage them.

See what you think.

On pp. 179-184, Bettger recounts how he watched the great Babe Ruth at a game in 1927. He then draws a lesson from what he saw.

Thirty-five thousand wildly excited baseball fans . . . were giving Babe Ruth the "razzberry"--and good! Bob Grove, one of the greatest left-handed pitchers of all time, had just struck Babe Ruth out on three pitched balls for the second successive time. Two runners were on the bases.

As the great slugger returned to the bench amidst wild and abusive jeering, he looked up into the stands with an unruffled smile, just as he did the first time, gave his cap a polite little tip from his perspiring brow, stepped down into the dugout, and calmly took his drink of water.

In the eighth inning when he came up for his third turn at bat, the situation was critical. The Athletics were leading the Yankees [Ruth’s team], 3 to 1. The bases were full, and two were out. . . .

[The count went oh and two (no balls, two strikes) when] Babe took that magnificent swing, . . . missed, . . . staggered--and went down. He had literally swung himself off his feet. . . . Finally, regaining his feet, the Bambino brushed the dust off his trousers, dried his hands, and got set for the next pitch. Grove delivered the ball so fast, none of the fans saw it. Babe swung—but this time he connected! It was only a split second before everybody seemed to realize what had happened. That ball was never coming back again!

It disappeared over the scoreboard and cleared the houses across the street--one of the longest hits ever made in baseball.

As Babe Ruth trotted around the bases and across the plate behind the other runners--with what proved to be the winning run--he received a wild ovation from the crowd. . . .

Later in the season, . . . Grantland Rice interviewed Ruth. "Babe," he asked, "what do you do when you get in a batting slump?"

Babe replied: "I just keep goin' up there and keep swingin' at 'em. I know the old law of averages will hold good for me the same as it does for anybody else. . . . If I strike out two or three times in a game, or fail to get a hit for a week, why should I worry? Let the pitchers worry; they’re the guys who’re gonna suffer later on."

This unshakable faith in making the law of averages work for him enabled Babe Ruth to accept his bad breaks and failures with a smile. This simple philosophy had much to do with making him baseball’s greatest slugger. . . .

[W]e now read of the amazing record of the immortal Babe Ruth, with his unapproached total of 714 home runs;¹ but another unapproached world’s record of his is carefully buried in the records, never to be mentioned--striking out more times than any other player in history. He failed 1,330 times!² One thousand three hundred and thirty times he suffered the humiliation of walking back to the bench amidst jeers and ridicule. But he never allowed fear of failure to slow him down or weaken his effort. When he struck out he didn’t count that failure--that was effort! . . .

Study this average: In 1915, Ty Cobb set up the astonishing all-time [modern baseball] record of stealing 96 bases.³ In 1922, seven years later, Max Carey of the Pittsburgh Pirates set the second-best record, 51 stolen bases.⁴ Does this mean that Cobb was twice as good as Carey, his closest rival? I’ll let you decide.

Here are the facts:

	Cobb	Carey
Attempts	134	53
Failed	38	2
Succeeded	96	51
Average	71%	96%

We find that Carey’s average was much better than Cobb’s, but Cobb tried 81 more times than Carey. His 81 tries produced 44 more stolen bases. He risked failure 81 more times in one season than his closest rival. Cobb goes down in history as the greatest base-runner of all time. He is generally regarded as the greatest player of all time.⁵

Ty Cobb refused to fear failure. Did it pay him? . . .

Do you believe in yourself and the things you want to do? Are you prepared for many setbacks and failures? Whatever your calling may be, each error, each failure, is like a strike-out. Your greatest asset is the number of strike outs you have had since your last hit. The greater the number, the nearer you are to your next hit. . . .

When you try too hard and become overanxious, you look bad. You are bad. Yes, keep going, but don’t be afraid to lose today. Today is not going to make or break you. You can’t bat .300 every day. The crowd loves a good loser; everybody despises a quitter. . . .

Nobody will remember the times you struck out in the early innings if you hit a home run with the bases full in the ninth. . . .

It was Shakespeare who wrote: "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."

So why do I quote this section from Bettger’s book?

Besides providing a bit of entertainment, I think most of us could probably use a bit of encouragement to take risks, "go where [we have] never gone before."

Clearly, we should always seek to IMPROVE our averages if we can. BUT . . . I think we need to keep in mind that sometimes we need to take the risks, and lower our averages, so that we can achieve what we want. Carey isn’t remembered or applauded for his astonishingly high success RATE in stealing bases; Cobb is remembered for his astonishing PRODUCTION of stolen bases.

Ruth isn’t remembered for his relatively high strikeout percentage. He is remembered for his record-setting homerun production.

What do you want to be remembered for? What do you want your kids to be remembered for?

¹ Of course, The Babe has been surpassed by one person, so far (Hank Aaron; 755 career home runs), and Barry Bonds--not yet retired--is very close behind (748 at this moment).

² The Babe has also been surpassed by 70 other men since Bettger’s book was written! Indeed, according to an All-Star spreadsheet I consulted, Reggie Jackson holds the career strikeout record: 2,597--almost twice Babe Ruth’s and some 661 more than his next closest All-Star rival, Willie Stargell. Indeed, among the All-Stars, Bobby Bonds, Lou Brock, Mickey Mantle, Harmon Killebrew, Willie McCovey, Rank Robinson, Willie Mays, Carl Yastrzemski, and Hank Aaron also have all produced more strikeouts than did Babe Ruth. But I don’t think many of us remember these men for their strikeouts. It was other aspects of their game--most of them, in fact, their remarkable hitting ability--for which we remember them. (See also http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting/histrk1.shtml for the "complete" Strikeout story.)

³ Cobb’s modern baseball record has since been surpassed nine times: by Maury Wills (104 bases in 1962), Lou Brock (118 bases in 1974), Ron LeFlore (97 in 1980), Rickey Henderson (100, 1980; 130, 1982 [current modern baseball record]; 108, 1983), and Vince Coleman (110, 1985; 107, 1986; 109, 1987).

⁴ I don’t know how or why Bettger makes this claim about Carey. There are many people who have stolen more than 51 bases in a season.

⁵ No question he was a great and exciting player. But there are others who would press him hard for the title. --Just one astonishing Cobb statistic, however: he stole home 54 times during his career! And he stole second base, third base, and home plate during the same inning four times during his career!

A letter to my family: About living strategically . . .

Yes, the following is a direct quote. It took me a few days to decide how much of it (if any) I should post online. I'm comfortable . . .

I spent an hour and a half or two hours talking with a banker [last] Friday morning. Dan specializes in helping families work through discussions about subjects like those I have been writing about in my blog.

He urged me (and us) to think and talk through our personal, individual vision and mission statements. We--each of us--need to know what we, individually, are about before we can legitimately and reasonably begin to form broader family mission and vision statements.

Among the questions he suggested we ought to consider:

• What are my key or highest values? What things are most valuable to me?

(By way of example, for me, let me note that I would list: integrity (think of the title of my book!); honesty (almost the same as integrity!); openness; good communication (notice a pattern?!?); bringing people together through good communication; inquiry; inquisitiveness; learning. . . .)

• What would it mean for me to be "effective" or "successful" in LIFE?

This, of course, has to do with more--far more--than "money." I think it has to do with what I would want people to remember me for when I die.

I think of the yacht we saw in Boca Raton a couple of weeks ago: the "Golden Rule." Beautiful boat. Cost multi-millions, of course. Has a crew that sit and tend and coddle it. (We saw them polishing it.) Beautiful! . . . And it probably sits docked 48 of 52 weeks a year . . . or more. Totally for show.

But before I got thinking about all those things and realizing the realities behind the boat, my first thought, when I saw its name was, "'Golden Rule'! 'Golden Rule'! That's great! You [owner, whoever you are] believe in the Golden Rule!?!" --Truly. There was great joy in my heart.

I had to think a moment to remember what "The Golden Rule" is all about: "Do unto others as you would . . . "

That's when it hit me: "Now, wait a minute! . . . I'll bet you [owner] don't mean 'Do unto others . . .'! I'll bet you're referring to that 'other' 'Golden Rule': 'Them's that's got the gold sets the rules.' . . . Oh, how funny. [bitter] How foolish and futile. . . ."

So this owner--whoever he or she is (or they are)-- . . . this owner owns this magnificent yacht, the biggest one in the marina. And when s/he dies: will anyone care? Is that--owning the biggest, most magnificent yacht--what s/he wants to be remembered for?

That's not what I want to be remembered for.

But what do I want to be remembered for?

I haven't ever really thought that through!

I want to think that through. And I want you, as my heirs, part of my "legacy," to think that through, too. So you (and I!) can be very purposeful in our lives, successful . . . whatever "successful" means.

Before God, what do we believe success looks like? For us? Individually?

I'd like us to think and talk about it.

Dan suggested that we should each write a paragraph or two (or the equivalent in simple bullet points). Just to get started.

Though it wasn’t Dan who urged me to blog about these things, in essence, my blog, recently, has included stuff--a very concise summary of 14 values, for instance, plus a whole lot of musings on the broader subject--that I think may help me to write my purpose or mission statement.

*******

One other thought that may help us.

I think we (or at least I) always want to create a "final" document. But I don't think we should approach this project with such a thought in mind. If we have written such a document and we happen to die before we revise it, then, obviously, that will prove to have been a "final document." . . . But as long as we keep living, this purpose statement/mission statement doesn't have to be . . . indeed, it almost certainly ought not to be a "final document."

And I say all that partially (I hope) to free you from the feeling that you must make some kind of perfect, final, absolute, never-to-be-varied statement.

I don't think so.

I think Luke once wrote a mission/vision statement. That was back between his junior and senior years in high school. It might be interesting for him to share with the rest of us what he wrote . . . and then to see how he might alter it today.

My main purpose, here--for you as well as (and maybe primarily) for me--is to get us to live more strategically or, perhaps better, as strategically as possible.

Okay. Enough.

Love,

Dad