بخش 1

Start Where You Are

Live your life so that whenever you lose it, you’re ahead.

—WILL ROGERS

Actor, humorist, commentator, entrepreneur

AN INTRODUCTION TO LESSONS 1 TO 10—UNIVERSAL LESSONS FOR PURSUIT

You may not realize it just yet, but you have already started. By listening to these words, you’ve already begun to ask the important questions for any and every pursuit you may choose to undertake.

The power of the present offers each and every one of us that same new beginning. You don’t have to have lived on the streets or have traveled in high-powered circles. The present throws out a welcome mat as an equal-opportunity invitation to come into your own—in order for you to shine as brightly as you were designed by the forces of the universe to shine.

Here in my early fifties, blessed beyond my dreams, yet with so much more still to learn, I have finally attained a bit of wisdom that almost every life lesson in this book has helped me to grasp. And that is simply that if I look back at everywhere I’ve been—down every wrong turn, side alleyway, slow detour, or careening in the fast lane at my own peril—every stage of the journey in what has been my life so far was exactly where I needed to be at that time.

I know that applies fully to you as well. Whether you’re starting on a brand-new path, or braving new obstacles, or trying to get past excuses and fears that have hindered you in the past, you, too, are where you need to be. What’s more, you have every possible resource you can name already at your disposal.

Direction to these resources is what the first ten universal life lessons are here to provide for all of us. All too often we forget or overlook the abundance of resources that we already have. Much of the time, as you’ll see, what we most need is right there at our fingertips—asking to be acknowledged and utilized.

We’re talking about resources you’ve probably used before but may have forgotten or overlooked. Or maybe you’ve got the knowledge but have never known how to utilize it in a practical way for your specific concerns, hopes, and dreams. These are resources that you don’t need anyone to hand to you. They’re within you—waiting to be acknowledged and valued. But like anything else that we already have, as I tell my kids, “it’s a stomp-down, butt-naked fact” that you’d better use it, or lose it!

There is never a better time and place than right now, right here, for you to make the conscious choice to look more closely at what you already have. The questions you’re willing to ask may take you in a direction you haven’t yet imagined, as they did me, and further than you might believe possible. But start here so that you can harness the mountain-moving power of the present that the following lessons can help you to do. They’re here at the start to reveal to you the true gift of being where you are. Of course, as the saying goes, that’s why they call it “the present.”

LESSON 1

Without a Plan, a Dream Is Just a Dream (the C-5 Complex)

KEYWORD: Pursuit

Not too long ago I was invited to Washington, D.C., to speak to a group of veterans on how to pursue happyness.

This was an honor for many reasons. First of all, as a proud navy veteran myself, I knew I’d be in good company. So many times when I’ve been asked if I ever regretted choosing to enlist rather than going on to college after graduating from high school, I’ve answered simply and to the point, “Never.”

Besides the fact that I came away with training as a medic that would have rivaled a degree from a top medical school, the navy provided me with a stepping-stone to civilian life when I took a position overseeing a cutting-edge scientific research laboratory at the Veterans Administration Hospital in San Francisco and at the University of California there. Since then, without question, I count the lessons in the service and at the VA as central to my every success.

The opportunity to speak to the veterans group in Washington, D.C., was also meaningful because it allowed me to honor the army service of my uncles—my mother’s brothers who had been father figures to me. Their traditional values—hard work, duty, sacrifice, family, plus the love of adventure—had been part of my upbringing, even though I came of age in a much different era.

All of that said, I have a profound respect for today’s veterans and wanted to express my gratitude in a meaningful way. Many in the group who would be in attendance had returned from recent tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, while others had served previously—in different branches of the military during the 1990s and 1980s, as well as in Vietnam and Korea; there were even a few who were veterans of World War II.

Some of these men and women were dealing with ongoing medical and psychological issues, either in treatment or on waiting lists at overcrowded VA facilities and overextended support systems. Some of the younger vets had come home to positions at work that had been filled in their absence or that didn’t exist anymore. The odds of finding a better job were much less likely than obtaining employment at lower salaries with fewer benefits, or having to hit the pavements to hunt for openings elsewhere.

Current statistics tell us there may be as many as 1 million homeless veterans living in America and that military veterans have come to represent one-third of the adult homeless population in this country. And those estimates are conservative.

As I prepared my remarks, I couldn’t help but be outraged by those statistics—not only as a vet myself, but even more so as a citizen of this country. Plain and simple, our veterans of war and of peacetime deserve better. But I suspected that my sense of injustice over their struggles was not the best way to strike up a conversation about how to overcome them. Then again, I didn’t want to go in and deliver a rousing pep talk without offering something tangible and even possibly transformational.

In the end, I decided rather than arrive with all the answers, I’d start with a question, and maybe, if I paid attention, I’d learn something. That’s just what happened.

The question was—what is the single most important ingredient for successful pursuit? In other words, I asked them, when you look at every remarkable story of anyone who ever made possible something that everyone else believed was impossible, what allowed them to succeed where others have failed? Or, if you look at someone who epitomizes the kind of pursuit that inspires you, what does he or she have that you don’t?

“You have to start with a dream,” said one of the older veterans. There was lots of agreement until someone wisecracked, “I have a dream, but she’s married.” Then several other veterans talked seriously about their dreams, visions, hopes, and desires. Some dreams were related to having a home, financial security, a different career, a better-paying job, or just a job. Others had to do with wanting an improved lifestyle for their family or a longing to pursue an education in a different field or to continue where they’d left off. There were business venture ideas, investment plans, glamorous dreams of becoming a Hollywood mogul-type, and desires of working to do more to benefit others. Some dreams were more basic: “To feel more hopeful,” “Sobriety,” “Peace of mind,” “To have a better day today than yesterday.” As I listened, it struck me that—as usual—God had put me into a situation to teach me something new. With that, it hit me what the lesson was—that, yes, dreams can inspire and motivate you like nothing else, if you believe that you’re capable of making them happen. But if you don’t take the necessary steps to make them happen, dreams are just mirages that mess with your head! The key ingredient, the one thing that marks the difference between those who do and them that don’t, is very simply one tangible thing: a plan. Hence: A dream is just a dream without a plan.

Where do you get a plan? You create one!

Out of that memorable session with a group of my heroes, a gathering of American veterans, a creative way to apply this lesson for anyone who wants and needs a plan for any pursuit was born. I dubbed this planning device the “C-5 complex”—so good for you it can be used as a change-your-life daily supplement.

The five Cs to supercharge your pursuit with a worthy plan are five words: Clear, Concise, Compelling, Committed, Consistent. The first example that came to mind in the middle of my remarks that day was from my family history, back in the 1940s, when many of my relatives, with no prior experience, planned to escape bigotry, poverty, and fear by traveling north to freedom and opportunity. With a dream that clear and concise, they were motivated to pool their meager resources and mechanical know-how in locating a car to transport them from dirt-poor, rural Louisiana to “as far north as it will roll.” As for compelling, in those days getting the hell out of the land of Jim Crow and lynch mobs was probably as compelling as you could get. Once they hit the road, with car breakdowns and misadventures, they could have stopped, given up, or even turned back, except for the commitment to the plan and one another. They had to remain committed, not just on safe, sunny days but on a consistent mile-by-mile basis, all the way to as far north as possible.

Actually, my uncles famously intended to go to Canada but broke down in Milwaukee and decided to put down roots and go to work there. Even so, their plan succeeded and their pursuit of a better life for themselves and their kids set the stage for everyone in the family who followed—including my mother, pregnant at the time with me.

Whether the endeavor is as direct a path as getting from point A to point B (or thereabouts) or as strategic as mounting a military offensive—as some of the veterans observed—or in planning an undertaking that is outlandish, massive, or over the top in scope, the C-5 complex is a tool that you can apply as you go, turning something fluid or complicated into something manageable.

Being clear first about what you want to do or where you want to go is mandatory. Very often, in the course of making myself available to folks who have come to me for thoughts, advice, guidance, and/or inspiration, I find myself becoming frustrated by the lack of clarity as to what they’re hoping to hear from me. On the flip side, whenever anyone clearly presents their ideas or plans to me, my attention is drawn in immediately. The contrast was evident when I was approached by two young would-be community organizers in different ways. One was a former gang leader who came highly prepared with a small piece of paper on which he had written notes for himself. He was somewhat nervous and soft-spoken when he explained that most of his former colleagues were in jail or dead and that his dream was to motivate kids to avoid the pitfalls of gangs, drugs, and violence. He had already developed and tested a program for working with teens to create options that were legal, profitable, and educational. Sounded clear, somewhat promising. I assumed he was going to make a play for financial support. But instead, when I asked how he saw me helping him, his clear response was: “An introduction to a few community leaders who’ll hear me out.” I picked up the phone and made it happen.

Another would-be community organizer was much less clear about what he wanted from me, other than, as he said, “advice on how to help people less fortunate than me.” Even though he was a college graduate and had an academic background, he was vague about what area of community organizing excited him, how to get started, what resources he might need, and what steps he should take to begin. It was beautiful that he wanted to help people, don’t get me wrong. But he still needed to clarify what it was that he wanted to help people do.

Being Concise, the second “C,” is vital to your plan so that you focus your vision, not spin it out or re-create the universe in a day. Short and to the point. It’s how best to communicate with yourself and with others.

In my younger days, I can remember how challenging it was to explain my big dreams and visions without becoming too grandiose or going off on tangents. Whenever I was able to articulate an idea tightly—just as I learned to give short, snappy names to important life lessons—it gained major steam. In order to be concise, the operative takeaway is to keep it tight.

A concise plan might include a series of action steps to be taken, but they too should be concise and doable in such a fashion they can be checked off a list over time. If you want someone to sign on to your plan and support you, the ability to communicate your vision and action steps in five minutes or less is a good way to test how concise you are.

When your plan of pursuit is clear and concise, you’re then ready to make sure that it’s Compelling. This third “C” is about engaging your own inner “wow factor.” It means that you’ve identified something about what it is you want to do or the route you’ve chosen that excites you and others who can believe in your dream, too. Compelling means that you’ve sold yourself. After all, if you wouldn’t buy it, why should I?

Committed is about your level of passion. Can you be thrilled to get up every day and work at whatever it is to get you through to the next station? Are you committed to a path that is important to you? Good, because that kind of commitment is contagious! Commitment is my stock in trade, my old standby—whether it has been for breaking generational cycles or for breaking down barriers to opportunity.

Behind every successful pursuit of happyness that I’ve ever witnessed is a level of commitment that would have to be rated “above average,” even borderline fanatical. When I asked one of my Wall Street mentors, Gary Shemano, what it was that made him decide to take a chance on me when I was still a very green stockbroker, he said that it was a tenacious commitment to learn—to attach myself like a pit bull to his thigh and not let go until I mastered everything that he knew.

This fifth “C” is the proof of whether you can be committed not just on certain days but every day. It’s the ultimate seal of the deal, the ingredient that determines whether you win or not. Consistency is about showing up in life and in your pursuit on a regular basis, in your relationships with others, in work, and in play. It propels you along on the arc of the journey, through the sum of the action steps you’ve set out in your plan. Consistency is your touchstone, the make-it-or-break-it part of pursuit that will take you anywhere and allow you to make possible the impossible, and then see your dream come to fruition.

As most of us can agree, no pursuit comes with a guarantee—which is why this lesson comes with the advisory that plans may have to be retooled as circumstances on the ground change, rough patches are hit, and repairs are required. But don’t let that keep you from asking yourself, right now, right here, what your dream is and how you plan to pursue it.

LESSON 2

We All Have the Power of Choice

KEYWORD: Empowerment

In 2003 when I was honored to attend an event as the recipient of a fatherhood award being given to a handful of men who were selected for being positive role models. When I took my seat at this event, it was with pride to be in the company of fellow honorees—among them the great James Earl Jones (who, as Darth Vader, famously said, “Luke, I am your father”), security expert Frank Abagnale of Catch Me If You Can fame, and renowned jazz artist Dave Koz.

So there I was, feeling fantastic when the award presentation began. Perhaps in an effort to move the program along or to create drama, the emcee read a startling introduction that suddenly changed the mood for me. Basically, it suggested that I was a fluke!

Not just me. Apparently, according to statistics, given the demographics of where and how some of us grew up, based on the households or neighborhoods where we were from, and our socioeconomic or racial backgrounds, it could be predicted that we would continue generational cycles, abandon our kids, and never amount to anything, much less become contributing members of society. As for happyness and a life that included its pursuit, that too was not supposed to happen to somebody like me who came from where I did or from a similar background. This logic suggested that success was for the gifted or talented few who manage to transcend their origins, those who are lucky, or basically flukes.

The longer I sat there listening, the more I thought the whole line of reasoning was a load of BS. I had to ask myself why this statistical slant bothered me so much, and I thought about the bigotry of low expectations for far too many of us that’s been around for too long—even from well-meaning experts. As I recalled my childhood growing up in the ‘hood in Milwaukee, which included stays in foster homes and with relatives, I remembered how my mother, Bettye Jean Gardner, my most important influence and mentor, had instilled the idea that it was up to me to choose who I was going to become in this world. She gave me that power.

As I sat in my chair, not too comfortably, I saw my life pass me by as though in a highlight reel of important choices. For starters, I recalled my first major decision made at age six that when I grew up, I was going to be there for any children I might have one day. And it was because of that choice, when I became a single parent with a toddler son, we faced a period in the early 1980s of being among San Francisco’s working homeless. The reason that I retained custody of Christopher Jr., rather than park him in foster care or send him to live with relatives until I had attained basic financial security, was the experience of being abandoned by my own father.

Another pivotal decision that came to mind that night was the audacious choice, made at eight years old, to grow up to be Miles Davis. In my teens, of course, I had to make another choice when Momma set me straight that he already had the job of being Miles Davis. While I couldn’t be Miles, I did resolve to be world class at something else one day—though it took more choices to find out what that was.

In this highlight reel were daily memories of Freddie, my stepfather, an illiterate, physically abusive alcoholic, who took pleasure in letting me know that he wasn’t my daddy either—sometimes at the end of a shotgun barrel. It would have been so easy to become him. But my empowerment came from making the conscious choice to be everything that he was not, and to not be anything that he was, which I’ve indeed succeeded at.

Was I a fluke? Was I one of the lucky few to ever break out of the rut? Not by a long shot. There are folks everywhere in every walk of life who are defying statistics every single day. Far too few awards are being given to the millions across the country and around the world, and in every community, who are succeeding in parenthood and personhood. Not in spite of the odds, but sometimes because of them The power of choice, not chance, was what made the difference.

But instead of saying that, when I went up to the podium, I couldn’t help but say what I’d been muttering under my breath—that the statistics weren’t the cause or the blame for successful or failed fathers. And as for the expert opinions? All I had to say was, “That’s bullshit.” For a second I thought—oh, no, there goes my mouth, getting me in trouble again! Fortunately, however, I was able to make my next point with a little less colorful language by saying that I didn’t see myself as the exception to the rule; rather, I believed that I was a representative of everyone who came out of similar backgrounds but chose something different for ourselves.

That was the simple yet true life lesson drawn from that evening—that we all have the power of choice in determining who we ultimately become. Out of a ballroom of one thousand people, I heard countless stories from individuals who had overcome the odds, saying that they’d come from those neighborhoods and those homes, and didn’t think of themselves as lucky, accidental, or exceptional. All of them could remember the moment of choice in their lives when they made up their minds and stated to the world, in essence—I’m going to go another way; I’m going to be different when I grow up.

The consensus of the evening was that limiting individual potential from studies of demographics was indeed BS. Even James Earl Jones, aka the voice of Darth Vader, tapped me on the shoulder to say that he was with me on that.

As I have said ever since that night—when Darth Vader says something is bullshit, it probably is bullshit!

The application of this lesson is that it gives us permission to call BS the next time we hear something that is not true to who we are or when anyone imposes limitations on us. And that includes calling bullshit on ourselves when we give too much credence to chance and not enough to choice.

If you haven’t been flexing your choice-making muscles lately, you might want to begin by recalling memorable choices that you’ve made in your life so far. Have you ever looked at what was coming your way and said, “No, thank you, I’m going to find something better”? Have you ever ignored your wiser instincts and gone along with the program followed by everyone else, only to regret it later on? My opinion is that whenever you own your choices, whether they lead to better or to worse, you are empowering yourself. Now go flex those same muscles and take a look at the plan you’re developing or contemplating for your dream.

Why not choose one small-sized actionable item that’s in that plan and act on it today? With action comes traction and before you know it, you’re empowered to take on the more daunting challenges.

LESSON 3

The Cavalry Ain’t Coming

KEYWORD: Attitude

A journalist once asked me how I was able to hold my head up during the period when my son and I were homeless. He wanted to know how I was able to overcome the shame. My fast response was—“Wait a minute. We were homeless, not hopeless.” He seemed surprised and couldn’t understand how that was possible, even when I pointed out that our state of homelessness never defined who we were. My attitude at the time was that it was only a temporary condition, one that I was being given the opportunity to change as I became skilled in the field of my choice. But I did have to admit that what was difficult was the awareness that my son and I had entered a class of people, invisible, even among homeless people—working families who are homeless, too. The reality is that invisibility does add to the weight of loneliness, of thinking that no one can understand your situation but you. That makes heavier the baggage that only you can carry to improve your situation.

One of the reasons, in fact, that I first decided to break my silence and talk about my story publicly was to increase the visibility of the rapidly growing numbers of people who are joining the ranks of those affected by what I’ve long referred to as “white-collar homelessness.” Over the last couple of decades it has been estimated that 12 percent of the homeless in this country have jobs and go to work every day, and that in some communities the number is as high as 30 percent. These aren’t the people you see panhandling or begging on the corners, but families who go to jobs and work as hard or harder to get ahead as those in better circumstances.

So how was it that my son and I were able to weather homelessness without descending into helplessness or hopelessness? The answer to that was presented to me in one of the most important life lessons my mother ever tried to impress on me. Even though there would be a few close calls before I’d really grasp the point of this particular all-purpose, all-weather life lesson, it absolutely made an impression on me when Momma gave me the gift of her distinctive wisdom in the form of a passing comment.

It happened to be during one of the rare occasions when no one else was around, leaving my mother and me to share an experience that gave us both real joy—watching old classic movies on television. On this night, we were caught up in the story line of a vintage Western. At the climax of the action, just when all appears to be lost, and the bad guys with guns blazing are closing in on the lone hero—who must confront the reality that his horse has run off, his sidekick’s been killed, and he’s out of ammo—a look of worry finally crosses his tough guy face. As he gazes up at the western sky, with cactuses and armadillos in the background, he scans the horizon but sees no help in sight.

It was at that very moment that Momma turned to me and gave me a look that said—pay attention, son, this is important—as she pointed to the TV set and spoke words that would resonate forever: “See that? The cavalry ain’t coming.” For a second, I refused to accept this edict, arguing that the sound of thundering horses and the cloud of dust kicking up in the distance was the sign of the cavalry on its way. The relieved expression on the hero’s face matched my own assumption. Of course, that’s until he looks again to see that it’s the bad guys after all.

Needless to say, the lone hero in this Western prevailed in the end. And his victory against the odds had everything to do with ending his reliance on a cavalry to rescue him. Here’s the hitch: before his own amazing ingenuity could make possible a reversal of his fortune, he had to reclaim the self-reliant attitude that made him a hero in the first place.

Eventually, the reality that no cavalries are being dispatched to any of us good guys, no matter how deserving of help we are, allowed me to be clear about the choices for all lone heroes. On the one hand, you can choose to blame the bad guys and feel as down and out as you please—even though that’s not going to feed you or your loved ones. The other choice is to rise to the call and become your own cavalry.

How do we do that? The first step, I’ve learned, is to own up to where I am and how I got there. Nine times out of ten, extenuating circumstances aside, I have come to the conclusion that wherever I am, I’ve arrived there by choice. Yes, I can speak to factors outside of my control and blame them for the predicament or make excuses about why things didn’t work out like they should have, especially if no one reached out to help me. Maybe it’s all true. But that doesn’t change where I am. Only by acknowledging, “Hey, here is where I am, and I’m here because I steered my horse here,” can I make the next choice to ride on out to the sunset where I’d really like to be. Or, as I’ve updated this lesson to twenty-first-century terms, “I’m here because I drove here.” Now it’s going to be up to me, and no one else, to change direction and to drive to that better place.

If you’re not there yet, not ready to take ownership of your choices, you may benefit from some examples of folks who are still blaming the bad guy posse or waiting on the cavalry.

There’s one cousin of mine who might remind you of someone you know. He is a walking soap opera, constantly caught up in drama that he apparently had no part in creating. Whenever he’s had a shot at happyness, something disastrous and completely out of his control had to happen to thwart his dreams—something that you know, before he even says a word, he needs to borrow money to handle. Well, did aliens from another planet abduct him in their spaceship and force him to lose his car in a poker game? No, of course not. He drove there.

For drama junkies, as we all can be on occasion, it’s never too late to change the dynamic by copping to the truth.

Maybe you also know someone who could be seen as my cousin’s counterpart, overdriven individuals who keep taking on more and more responsibilities, yet who avoid acknowledging they haven’t attained their goals because of their own choices. I’m thinking of so many people I meet and hear from—highly responsible men and women who run businesses and charities, raise families, juggle multiple duties and activities, yet feel that they’ve left their real dreams somewhere back in another life. They might begin statements by saying, “Oh, if only I had more time, what I’d really like to do is….” Or “If I were younger, I’d be able to do….” But when asked how they drifted away from what they felt so passionate about, they rarely own up to saying, “This isn’t what I had planned, but, well, yes, I drove here.” When asked if they’ve ever thought about reclaiming their dreams or reinventing their lives from scratch, there is usually an excuse why that won’t work or what the downside would be. Still others are waiting for circumstances to come along to snap them out of where they are and transport them elsewhere. By any other name, that’s still the cavalry.

Another kind of excuse comes from folks who can’t admit they drove to where they are—based on claims that the system is stacked against them and they’ve been beaten down by “the man.” We all know a few of these guys and gals. They see no reason to pursue happyness, they say, because with racism, sexism, and other oppressive isms, we’re basically powerless. Not to defend any of the isms out there or any dehumanizing system, but isn’t powerlessness what “the man” wants you to feel? The late South African human rights activist Steven Biko put it this way: “The most important weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” My mother and Steve Biko must have compared notes at some stage of the game! They certainly would have agreed that no matter where you are, only you have dominion over your mind, your beliefs, and your attitudes. So if you look at your situation and let go of excuses or blame, and you choose to believe that you can alter your position on your own, you’ll deprive the system, the man, or the ism controlling you.

Whenever you want to energize your pursuit, the application of this lesson will not let you down. You can start by recalling those times in your life when your can-do attitude was front and center. Maybe you can remember as well when you didn’t wait for someone to tell you what or what not to do, but you went ahead, rolled up your sleeves, and went to work. As you look at where you are now, you can also ask yourself if perhaps you have been waiting for the cavalry. However you answer, now that you know it ain’t coming anyway, ask yourself what your next can-do step is.

LESSON 4

Start with What You’ve Got in Your Hand

KEYWORD: Ingenuity

“Start with what you’ve got in your hand” is a lesson that originates in the Bible story from the Old Testament when God first appears in a burning bush to Moses and tells him to go down to Egypt and lead the Israelites out of slavery to freedom. You may recall how at first Moses—who had once been an adopted prince of Egypt but is now a humble shepherd—insists he is the wrong person for the job and even argues with God, using the excuse that he doesn’t have the means, the skills, or the power to make possible the impossible.

Moses asks, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh to lead the Israelites out of Egypt?” The Lord tells him not to worry, reminding him, “I will be with you,” and then lays out his plan, which is for Moses to go and give Pharaoh an ultimatum to free the slaves or incur the wrath of God.

“But,” Moses objects, “suppose they will not believe me, nor listen to my plea. For they may say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” Then God asks Moses, “What is that in your hand?”

“A staff,” says Moses, referring to his sheepherding stick.

“Throw it on the ground.”

When Moses does as he has been asked, the stick hits the ground and turns into a serpent.

“Now, put out your hand,” the Lord says to him, “and take hold of its tail.” This time when Moses does as asked, the snake turns back into a staff. Then Moses is shown how to use his hand to provide other signs to prove he has been sent by God—including the ability to make water from the Nile turn to blood.

All but convinced, Moses still argues that he can’t do this task because he is “slow of speech and tongue,” which eventually causes God to send Moses’s brother Aaron along with him as a fellow spokesperson. But God’s bottom line to Moses is that he must lead and he must go to Egypt with “your staff in your hand; with it you are to perform signs.” It wasn’t until my adulthood that I came to appreciate how much this Bible passage has to teach us about not placing limitations on ourselves because of a perceived lack of skills or resources, or because we feel that we are not at a high enough station to dare to do great things. Moses had a lot more going for himself than he was able to admit. God didn’t need to tell him exactly what to do, step by step. Instead, the point was that he should be resourceful and use his God-given gift of ingenuity to make the best of those resources—starting with what he had in his hand.

The reason that this passage has always resonated for me—and has become increasingly relevant as I’ve learned to apply it as an adult—is that it was taught to me on a practical basis from as far back as I can remember by my mother, the epitome of ingenuity. By direction and example, throughout many trials, Moms offered consistent proof that when any kind of resource appears to be lacking, you can still “start with what you’ve got.” So many times I heard her say, “Boy, I’ve done so much, with so little for so long, that I can do anything with nothing.”

In the course of sharing with others how I saw her as living proof of the premise that you can start with nothing and do anything, I’ve discovered that many folks have someone they know who exemplifies ingenuity like my mom. For that reason, I would suggest that one of the best ways to apply this lesson is to consider borrowing from the example of the most resourceful person you know, and see how your own strengths rise to the surface of your awareness.

Once you begin to recognize those underused strengths, your next step is to trust your own ingenuity to make use of them, to lead you out and lead you up. Yes, the staff you hold in your hand may not be anything out of the ordinary, but with it you can do miraculous things, as the Bible tells us.

Apply this lesson literally. Start with what you have in your hand. Maybe it’s your determination or the determination of someone who has inspired you. It may be your parenting skills or your ability to learn. It may be your faith. It may be your story of overcoming challenges. It could be the pen you choose to put to paper. It may be your curiosity, your imagination, or your compassion. Even if it seems to be nothing, this life lesson is that you can do anything you choose with it. Be ingenious. Be proud of your resourcefulness. Know that the tried-and-true adage “where there’s a will there’s a way” actually applies to you, too.

LESSON 5

Baby Steps Count, Too, as Long as You Go Forward

KEYWORD: Purpose

Many of the most profound, applicable life lessons seem so obvious or basic that we tend to skip over them. So it was with one of my favorite mantras—baby steps count, too—which is such a part of my pursuit of happyness that my team at the office got together a while back and printed that slogan on T-shirts.

Long before I ever could have appreciated this transformational life lesson or before those words had ever been spoken by me, its essence had first been demonstrated by one of the unsung mentors of my childhood—Uncle Joe Cook.

Joe wasn’t actually an uncle, but rather a cousin on my stepfather’s side of the family, and he was possibly the only person I ever saw whose mere presence could diffuse the violence that threatened to explode from my stepfather, Freddie, at any given moment. Uncle Joe had an almost sedative effect on the old man.

At one time in his early days when he lived down south, Uncle Joe had been a wino and a derelict, but he had found religion, as folks used to say. It was his sense of purpose—the belief that he had something to contribute to the world—that inspired him to rise up out of the gutter to become a success in his own terms. For him, that had nothing to do with finding out what job he was best suited for, or going out to make a bunch of money. He never did any of that. He wanted to be a person of substance—someone who was respected for his point of view and who had the ability to bring out the best in others. His thing was not to please people but to empower them.

As to how it was he ended up with such a large extended group of folks who knew and loved him, Uncle Joe was fond of saying, “It’s always best to make friends before you need friends.” Nowadays we call that networking! He was also big on the need for individual ownership—especially of businesses—and, in turn, creating opportunities for others.

Uncle Joe walked with a kind of a limp, more of a hop really, such that he couldn’t take a regular step at all. The explanation for Uncle Joe’s limp came from an astonishing story. Somewhere in the 1940s, when Joe decided that he needed an education in order to live up to his potential, he figured that the odds of attaining that goal would be much greater if he got as far away as possible from the racism and poverty of rural Mississippi; he thought if he headed north to Milwaukee where friends and family had settled, he would be able to find better access to night classes and employment. But how was Uncle Joe going to make that trip when he didn’t have a dime? He was going to start with what he had—his own two feet. Putting one foot in front of the other, he walked all the way from Mississippi to Wisconsin.

What had he done to make that impossibility possible? First, he accepted the truth of the wisdom of the words used by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “You may not see the entire staircase, but it is important that you take that first step.” Next, he didn’t give up, and he found ways to remind himself, no matter how slow going his progress was, to just keep at it. Baby steps got him there. They counted, too, because all that really mattered was that he was headed in the right direction.

This universal life lesson has never failed me. It’s kept me on task when I’ve applied it to something as vast as learning how to be a successful parent, an ongoing quest, and in breaking generational cycles of abandonment, poverty, and substance abuse. It has been relevant for launching my own company and even now as I’m expanding my dream to bring private investment to emerging economies here and around the world. Purpose compels me forward. Commitment and consistency get the job done.

It’s worth repeating to yourself whenever in doubt: As long as I go forward, baby steps count, too. You may be staggering across the finish line, but those stuttering, halting, inching baby steps count, any way you can make ‘em.

Of course, the idea that we all need a sense of purpose to keep us headed in the right direction may be so obvious that we forget how applicable and useful Uncle Joe’s example can be. That’s why I should add the advisory that this happens to be one of those lessons that is like deodorant—it only works if you use it!

Most of us would much rather race ahead and take those quantum leaps toward attaining our most sought-after goals. If you’ve ever tried to go on a diet or embarked on a fitness program, you know as I do that any product or approach that promises speedier results raises our interest. And that’s a multibillion-dollar industry that wants you to keep on buying their exclusive secrets, too. But do they work? Not in my experience. Nor do any of the get-rich-quick schemes guaranteed to banish your debt and make you a gazillionaire by the time you finish paying off what you’re going to owe for learning the scheme!

Maybe one of the main reasons that I resist these magic wand approaches to happyness that advertise overnight success and easy money is that they undermine the importance of purpose, struggle, sacrifice, planning, and discipline required for succeeding in most meaningful undertakings.

This is why whenever I’m asked advice about getting out of debt or starting a company or finding purpose, success, or happyness, I have steadfastly pointed out that there is no secret to making a pursuit a priority through the power of choice, or to crafting a plan for yourself and then sticking to it. The “sticking-to-it” part comes from the basics of this lesson.

One comment Uncle Joe Cook would have added is that when it comes to persistence, remember the greatness of your purpose. Don’t let the size of the smaller steps limit the possibilities for how great a distance you can travel or the possibilities for discoveries that can turn up at any point.

Uncle Joe might have put all of this in even simpler terms as he once did when explaining what it was that kept him going. Giving up was not an option, he said, especially because he was celebrating every step of the way.

LESSON 6

Stop Digging Your Potatoes

KEYWORD: Instigation

As any financial analyst will tell you, Wall Street generally prefers the status quo to the unpredictability of change. Frankly, I think many of us mere mortals feel the same way. At the same time, I have learned that change is necessary for growth, and that if we don’t instigate the change that we desire for ourselves, the status quo will eventually change on its own—in ways that can make adapting even tougher.

How do you know if you’re ready for change? This is an issue that is relevant to many would-be entrepreneurs and community activists who submit proposals to me for my advice. Their ideas are sound; some of them are inspiring and distinctive. Many have the means to get their projects off the ground. They even have websites and business plans that they can use to incorporate the C-5 complex (Lesson 1). But before they instigate action, they are waiting for a green light, apparently, to tell them that, yes, they’re on the right track and that they’re going to be successful. They want someone else’s validation that they’re ready. In truth, no one else can provide that.

Back in the day after I’d gotten a foothold in the financial world and had started moving up in the ranks of working at a top Wall Street institution, I immediately began to flirt with the idea of having my own firm one day. But I waited. Besides the fact that I felt I had more to learn before striking out on my own, I was convinced that market-wise and family-wise the timing wasn’t right at all. So I stayed the course. That was until I was fired, more or less, for being more entrepreneurial than my bosses wanted me to be. The blow of losing my job turned out to be a blessing that pushed me into action—ready or not. Sometimes we’re pushed by circumstances before we’re ready. Other times, our own choices, conscious or not, are what move us into action. Again, not necessarily at the most opportune moments. Rarely are any of us given a green light to signal we’ve stumbled onto a surefire opportunity and we’ve got to grab it now or never. In other words—it’s time to pop the clutch and roll!

Anyone who believes success comes to each of us with a start date or an expiration label has it wrong. It’s been a reminder that no matter how young or old you are, your best days truly are in front of you. Once you’ve embraced that philosophy, you’re primed to take your first step to changing the game and ultimately having the joy of playing it your way.

If there is a pursuit you have been postponing because you’re not ready or because you’re waiting for just the right timing, you may want to consider that there is never a better time than this very moment. If you have been hesitating, or needing permission, or a push, on the verge of whatever has been simmering up inside you for a while, you might want to ask yourself whether or not you’ve been digging your potatoes a little too long.

Now I don’t know about where you grew up but in the ‘hood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, there was a popular term for those of us who hung out on the sidelines when a bunch of us were outside jumping rope. Picking that perfect entry point when you’re jumping double dutch—with those two ropes swinging in opposite directions—is a practiced art form. For a lot of us rookies, the dance of hesitation we used to do, bouncing up onto the balls of our feet, and then balking before falling back onto our heels, was what we called “digging your potatoes.”

This is one of those life lessons that may just have your name on it if you happen to be standing on the sidelines of your dreams. If you don’t know whether you’re ready or not, it might be helpful to think back to a previous situation when you instigated action by saying to yourself—“No more excuses, it’s time to make a change.” Tap that same resolve for this moment so you can stop digging your potatoes. And jump.

LESSON 7

What Would the Champ Do?

KEYWORD: Inspiration

Whenever I’ve been asked for the name of an uplifting book that has been memorably inspirational to me, I usually start with the Bible and then go on to add that much of what I’ve read for inspiration over the years has been stories of compelling individuals, mainly from biographies but also from fiction. As a kid, I fell in love with tales of heroic adventure—from the Arthurian legends to Greek and Roman mythology, to classic novels by a range of authors, along with an assortment of memoirs and nonfiction accounts of people who were remarkable in some way or another. What has most empowered me has been reading about the courage and stamina of those who were able to rise above all manner of obstacles and ultimately triumph. I believe we all need the guidance and example of heroes.

One of the most transformational, inspirational moments of my life occurred when I finally had the chance to meet one of my most important heroes in person. It was back in the early 1990s, during a time in my career after I set up shop in Chicago and had bet the bank on my belief that I could change the game. In the long run, my strategy was a winning one and would eventually become the industry standard. But in the short run, I was stretched thin with a growing company and overhead, in addition to having two young children who needed me there for them at the same time. Just as everything was starting to roll, I hit a major snag when I lost one of my key employees to a competitor. Adding insult to injury, this was a relationship that I had carefully nurtured. My disappointment over losing a valued employee was further compounded by my fear that 30 to 40 percent of my company’s revenue could disappear. For reasons that may be obvious, the fear that I could lose a big chunk of business—when we were just taking off—rose to such a heightened level that I had to fight off visions of returning to homelessness.

In such a precarious state of mind, I headed off to New York to try to salvage the business relationships that appeared to be on the rocks. As much as I tried to tell myself not to let fear get the best of me, I couldn’t shake the heaviness that seemed to hang in the air everywhere I looked. Well, that was until I arrived at the airport, made my way through security, and started off for my departure gate, when I recognized Lonnie Ali—the beautiful wife of Muhammad Ali—on a pay phone. We exchanged looks as if she knew just what I was thinking—that if she was here in the airport, he wasn’t that far off.

Just thinking of Ali—THE GREATEST—was all it took for me to be ten years old again. In that instant I flashed on the time we brought home our first television, plugged it in, turned it on, and there on the screen the first person I ever saw was Cassius Clay, “I’m the greatest, I’m the prettiest!” It was as true then as it is now.

From that day forward, he had only risen in my estimation—when he became Muhammad Ali, when he fought discrimination, battled a war he believed was unjust, and sacrificed his career for what he believed in, and all the while he continued to be the Champ on every level. His greatness wasn’t just about the boxing; it was his courage and the humanity it took for him to say of his own feats, “All I did was to stand up for what I believed.” Now he was standing in the airport, in the early 1990s, with a cart holding his baggage, and, apparently, no one but me had recognized him.

Beside myself, I ran over and started blurting out greetings like a ten-year-old, “Hey, Champ, wow, how ya doing, what are you doing?” My questions poured out of me as I watched him try to calm his tremors. I was familiar with the symptoms of Parkinson’s from my time as a navy medic. As I knew, Parkinson’s affects the motor skills, though not necessarily the mind. Finally, I was able to ask a single, coherent question, “Where are you going, Champ?” In his low, raspy but audible voice, he answered, “I’m going to L.A.”

“Whatcha doing in L.A.?”

Not missing a beat, he declared in his familiar breathy voice, “I’m announcing my comeback!” Unbelievable! I wanted to laugh, but his humor was so poignant it was all I could do to keep from crying. What do you say to that? The two of us sat down for a minute and got a chance to talk. Before it was time to say good-bye, I could feel my earlier worries creeping back in and had to ask him for some wisdom. “Champ,” I began, “have you ever been scared?” Ali said, “Yeah.” He paused, then admitted, “I’m scared now. I’ve got a disease and there is no cure. But I’m still fightin’.” That was that.

With that, I flicked the gnat causing my panic off my shoulder and gave myself a tough lecture, that went something like—Hey, you know that thing you’re scared about in New York City? Get over it. It’s not threatening your life, not threatening your health, and if the Champ says, ‘I’m fighting something right now with no cure,’ you, Chris, can handle this crisis.

And I shook his hand, thanked him, got on the airplane, smiling all the way to New York and I lit that city up, retaining all my business and then some.

Whenever I’ve seen the needle on my fear monitor start to wave or when doubts have set in, I have applied this simple lesson right at the outset by allowing myself to be inspired by the Champ. Sometimes I even imagine having Muhammad Ali standing there in my corner, telling me that he can do it, and so can I.

If you don’t have an example in your life right now of your own champ, this lesson may come as an encouragement to ask yourself who inspires you.

LESSON 8

Say “Peace Be Still”

KEYWORD: Perspective

Though there is nothing new about crisis, judging by the number of letters that refer to feeling higher-than-ever levels of anxiety, it’s likely that many of us will continue to be in for some turbulence for a while in many areas of our lives.

Maybe you’ve been feeling overly anxious yourself or know others who seem to be having more than their share of a tough time. Or, like me, you may be picking up on a generalized atmosphere of uncertainty—perhaps from the extremes in the economy, a downturn in a particular industry, the upheaval of politics and war, or agitation about the weather and natural disasters.

In this jump-and-jive environment, I try to fend off feelings of anxiety that tend to go viral very quickly even when there isn’t a true crisis. For that reason, when I received a phone call from a longtime friend in the brokerage business who had gone from making half a million dollars a year working for one of the top investment banks to now being out of work—and willing to start for a fraction of that—I felt terrible for my friend, yet assumed this was an isolated case. But after many more calls exactly like that one, I knew that many of my former colleagues were unmistakably in a world of hurt.

My first advice to anyone who has played at the top of their game—in the employment of others—is to consider starting with the experience that you have in your hand and open up your own shop. In this economic climate, you’ll be at a profound advantage over the Titanics that are constantly sinking.

My second piece of advice to anyone in real crisis—job related or otherwise—is to find a place of calmness and stillness in the storm where you can gain some perspective. Only with a reasoned outlook can you find the solutions and empowerment that are already there for you but have been obscured by the crisis.

Whenever I talk to folks who’ve grown up in unstable households like mine and who had the need to stay on high alert, I hear stories about the importance of clearheadedness amid crisis. I’ve heard the same from professionals who work in such arenas as law enforcement, firefighting, and the medical field, in which they’re required to keep an even keel, at the same time that they make sure all their senses are sharp. Similarly, when people face loss or must cope with illness of their own or in the family, instead of being swallowed up by despair, they speak of maintaining perspective, and making their way to solid ground as a result.

Our natural survival skills give us the capacity to find our own state of calm in the midst of crisis, our own shelter in the storm. This was taught to me by watching my mother react to the possibility or threat of violence that could explode at any time from my stepfather. Instead of engaging, reacting, or exploding in return, Moms had the ability to become absolutely motionless, quieting her breath, her heartbeat, even involuntary movements it seemed; she attained a state of stillness on a physical, cellular level that I’ve never seen in any other human being. The ability to become that still saved her life and mine on more than a few occasions.

There are times when becoming immobile in the face of an onslaught is not enough to quiet the crisis. Sometimes we are talking about employing our fight-or-flight mechanisms. More often, I employ the get-up-and-go option, which is to consciously change the mental channel either by shifting my focus or by getting up out of my office chair and going for a brisk walk. By stepping outside of the crisis, even for ten minutes, perspective can usually be found.

You may have your own version of standing your ground or of getting up and changing the channel to create some distance between you and the offending concern. You might also choose to speak directly to the crisis with firm authority as is taught in the biblical passage from the New Testament—through the parable told in the books of Mark and Matthew—which recounts how Jesus and his disciples traveled in a small boat across the Sea of Galilee. While Jesus slept, a ferocious storm came up at night and his followers frantically went to wake him, certain that they were all about to die. When he was awakened, he rebuked the roaring winds and shouted to the waves, “Peace! Be still.” As it is written, suddenly the storm ceased, and the wind and the sea stopped their rage, all followed by a dead calm.

The disciples were in awe while Jesus reminded them not to allow their fears to overwhelm them. By demonstrating that Jesus was able to confront the storm by speaking directly to it and saying, “Peace! Be still,” the parable teaches us that we, too, have the option to respond similarly when storms of different kinds beset us.

And, one more thing—there is nothing passive about seeking peace. Nor is there anything negative about being prepared for different forms of crisis. Maybe you’ve heard the saying that it wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark. That’s yet another reminder that at whatever point we choose to solve the problems of the day, seek perspective first, and start there.

LESSON 9

Even Lewis and Clark Had a Map

KEYWORDS: Research and Development

Got a question for you—Are you crazy?

To be more specific—Has anyone ever said you were crazy for wanting to pursue a particularly ambitious idea?

Well, if you’ve ever had your aspirations dismissed out of hand in such a manner, I’ve got a few choice words (not suitable for publication) that you may opt to use the next time somebody makes a comment to that effect. But even better than wasting your energy being upset or offended, you can skip the drama and employ what I believe is one of the most practical life lessons that I can offer you—and one that has been used by humankind since the invention of that crazy thing called “the wheel.” The essence of this lesson is that for every pursuit you can dream up, there is a very high probability that somewhere in the world or in history, someone has been there and done that, or at least has tried—and can provide you with a very helpful overview of their struggles and discoveries, as well as their downfalls and triumphs. After all, the pioneers who traveled west to new frontiers did so only after explorers like Lewis and Clark had charted the “there” there. Not only that, but as this lesson reminds you—even Lewis and Clark had a map.

Ain’t no shame in starting with someone else’s map, blueprint, or guidelines. If you ask me, it’s crazy not to! I’ve always referred to this approach as asking questions and then testing out the answers for practical usage now and later. Others call this process R&D—research and development—a term that I’m also happy to borrow.

My mother never used that term, nor did she tell me that I was crazy for wanting to be my idol Miles Davis. Instead, she encouraged me to do the legwork to learn everything that Miles had to do to become the world-class jazz icon that he was. At great sacrifice, she bought me a trumpet, arranged for lessons, and, over a period of nine years, encouraged me to study, perform, even to play professionally during my high school years. That period of R&D was an intensive program of discovery that let me see it wasn’t his genius that gave him the power of mastery, but his own years of study combined with his boldness to push musical boundaries. When the day came for her revelation that I couldn’t be Miles Davis, because “Baby, there ain’t but one and he already got that job,” it wasn’t a shock at all. From my research I knew that at my age Miles was in New York playing with Quincy Jones and John Coltrane. I was still living at home, playing with some cats named Pookie and Ray Ray! The conclusion was that I was going to have to do the legwork of more R&D to find out what it meant to be Chris Gardner. But what I took from the model provided by Miles Davis was the burning passion to become world class at something one day—and the desire to develop the mastery to claim that title.

In my Wall Street career, I’ve come to highly value the business version of R&D—where research is seen as a commitment of resources toward increasing knowledge about what’s happening in the marketplace, and development is about turning that knowledge into products or activities for the company. Governments and organizations devote resources to R&D as well, as do global alliances and whole economies.

Think, if you will, of the times in your life when you naturally employed the resource of first doing research before you developed your game plan. Most of us do this all the time, with everything from asking around for the name of a reputable doctor or medical specialist that we might need, to locating an ace accountant around tax time. Think of how many times we do research using MapQuest for something as basic as driving directions. Most of us like to comparison shop before making significant purchases—another form of R&D. We also tend to weigh decisions that will require a commitment of time by finding out in advance what’s going to be involved.

Yet for all the things that we would never think of putting our energies toward without first doing the legwork of research, it’s surprising how many people I’ve encountered who aren’t sure how they ended up in their particular line of work or in a pursuit that occupies their time. Sometimes they say their profession was a given because their parents expected it. Sometimes it was just what came along. If you can relate, now is the best time to retool your plan with forethought.

That’s exactly what a woman named Meg decided when she came to a turning point in her life. We met at a publishing industry trade show that I attended a few years ago when I spotted an energetic, smiling petite lady in her early sixties walking the convention floor with several copies of her unpublished manuscript in her hands. After I asked her when her book was due to hit the stores, Meg explained that she didn’t have an agent or a publisher yet.

“Any takers?” I asked.

None, she admitted. But that wasn’t the point. Her goal for this venture was to ask questions, get advice, and make contacts. Yep, she was conducting her own R&D. When I asked what it was that put such a happy smile on her face, Meg told me about how she had spent much of her adult life as an office manager in the medical field. Even though she had enjoyed her work and it had helped her and her husband put three kids through college—one through med school and another through law school—her true dream had always been to write science fiction. As every year passed by, she saw her possibilities for doing that fading from her grasp. Then, not long before it was time to retire, she decided, finally, “that it was time to put up or shut up.” Meg’s family and co-workers were horrified. They called her crazy and begged her to reconsider. Financially, the time was all wrong, they reminded her, not to mention that her husband’s health had recently taken a bad turn. Meanwhile, Meg had begun to think that if she didn’t try her hand at writing the science fiction stories that had been cooped up in her imagination for all this time, she really would go crazy. So what tipped the scales in making her decision? Meg shrugged and answered concisely, “J. K. Rowling.” Meg had started with her own R&D by following the map of one of the most successful publishing examples in history.

Though I knew the books had been incredibly popular—later making them the top book series of all time, selling 400 million copies between 1997 and 2007—up until then, I had no idea what a phenomenon this truly was.

Of course, the part of this triumph that makes it so compelling is the personal story of how J. K. Rowling pursued happyness on her own terms—by starting where she was. That was in 1995 when this British single mom, living abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland, chose to pursue her dream of writing at a time when doing that and supporting her baby girl meant opting to take public assistance.

Although I knew the broad strokes of her classic success story, like much of the public, I had been fascinated to learn more of the specifics of what Rowling had accomplished and how she had done it. Not surprisingly, there was a crazy idea that set all the wheels into motion. It seems that five years earlier, while on a lengthy train ride, Jo (short for Joanne) Rowling had struck upon a vivid story line for a book. As she began to visualize her main character, a boy who attended a boarding school for wizards, she was flooded with all kinds of details, as if the story was telling itself to her.

As I learned, Jo Rowling had been writing continuously from the time she was six years old, was a university-educated scholar of French, and had worked, among many pursuits, as a researcher for Amnesty International. When she began writing what became the first Harry Potter book, not only did she have natural gifts and transferable skills from other areas, but there were many classic examples that could help give her a structure or map to follow for getting started. Besides such obvious influences as J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and T. H. White’s The Once and Future King (both of which include wizards), there were other sources of inspiration. These famously include Shakespeare’s Macbeth and many popular books for younger audiences that were set in English boarding schools.

Those literary predecessors gave her structures to follow. But after coming up with her plotline, it was not as simple as sitting down, using those maps, and churning out her masterpiece. There was a move to Portugal, marriage, a child, then divorce, single parenthood, and a serious bout of depression. During all of that, Jo wrote when and where she could, but it was in Edinburgh that she decided to commit to her pursuit as she never had before—“in a frenzy,” as she put it, pushing her baby in a stroller to a nearby café, where Jo wrote in every spare moment.

Rowling wasn’t overly focused on writing something that the publishing industry was dying to have. Her priority was to follow the inspiration of her literary heroes and tell an unforgettable tale. So instead of writing a commercial young adult novel that could have been merely entertaining, Rowling was bold enough to write about the estrangement, darkness, and fear also experienced in childhood, as well as the enchantment and the light. All of those feelings went onto the page.

As an aspiring writer, my acquaintance Meg was wise to do her R&D by taking a page out of J. K. Rowling’s playbook. No doubt what she learned from her research was that if any one of us ever thinks we can’t make time to do what we most want to do, the years between 1994 and 1997 for J. K. Rowling prove otherwise.

As a result of applying her version of the lesson that even Lewis and Clark had a map, Meg had said that she was not too far off J. K. Rowling’s pace for finding an agent. She’d been at it for nearly a year. But she wasn’t discouraged in the least. First, she explained, “I’ve completed two books on my own that I absolutely love. How many people can say that?” And, second, even though she was willing to consider self-publishing as a last resort, she was mindful of how many of the most famous authors in the world were rejected countless times before they finally were accepted. Before we said good-bye, Meg summed up her takeaway from all of her R&D with a smile and an always useful reminder that “it only takes one person to say yes.” Let me repeat, again, just for the record: maps are useful. If God didn’t want us to use them, he wouldn’t have put them in our glove compartments!

LESSON 10

Find Your Button

KEYWORD: Passion

There is no Plan B for passion. Do what you love and love what you do. Plan A has to come first. Besides, Plan B sucks!

Yes, it is true that many individuals are grappling with unprecedented financial challenges in their lives. I’ve been asked frequently if it isn’t foolish or irresponsible to put passion before practicality. My contention is that it’s erroneous to think that we have to stop dreaming because of an economic or other crisis. My belief is that you can be responsible to loved ones and yourself without betraying your dreams. Let me take that a step further by arguing that there is nothing more practical than harnessing the power of passion.

So let’s get to the billion-dollar question—definitely the number one most frequently asked of me and that I asked for many years above all others. It’s not the what, when, why, or how that may assist you in finding valuable answers. It’s the question of “where.” Where do you find that “something” you can strive to be world class at? Where do you locate the venue in which you can attain mastery?

By the time I left home in my late teens, I had eliminated what were then considered to be the few proven options for attaining greatness for someone from my background. The only ways to make it big in our ‘hood, as far as most of us were led to believe, was if you could sing, dance, or dunk balls. Since I was convinced that out of every young black male in America, I was the only one who couldn’t sing, dance, or shoot hoops well, that didn’t seem very promising to me.

The first major discovery as to where I might begin to look was to do everything within my power to search out individuals who were at the top of their game, no matter what it was, who could show me where they found what they were meant to do. In answer to my quest, I was blessed with an abundance of opportunities to learn from some of the best and brightest in their respective industries. Early on, starting in the navy, while serving as a medic in the armed services hospital at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, I was fortunate to have Lieutenant Commander Charlotte Gannon take me under her wing. Bold, forceful, enthusiastic, and no-nonsense all at the same time, her leadership style was one that I continue to borrow from today. In that same time period, I met and went to work for Dr. Robert Ellis—who took me on his journey to understand and improve conditions in which heart surgery and transplantation occur. He brought to his work a level of brilliance, precision, curiosity, imagination, and fanatical focus that was akin to Miles Davis on the trumpet and that I was determined to incorporate in whatever I did. Meanwhile, Rip Jackson, the man who trained me to set up and run the research lab, was an unlikely mentor. A good old boy from down south, he didn’t bother hiding some pretty racist views that could have made it difficult for me to learn from him. But I couldn’t help acknowledging his considerable abilities, especially his scrupulous attention to detail and to planning—leaving no stone unturned and nothing to error.

Each of these three was unique unto themselves, but they had one quality alike that was my biggest clue to finding my venue for mastery. Gannon, Ellis, and Jackson all had found and turned on their button for passion. Was this because they were born with special gifts and had found their callings? I didn’t think so. It seemed to me that they would have been able to use their button for whatever they chose.

The more I thought about this idea of a button that’s in all of us, the more I started to pay attention to how certain people had that energy and presence about them.

Does this sound like something you’ve witnessed or experienced? If you have found the button that engages your wow factor, but aren’t sure if it’s turned on all the way or whether or not you’re in the right venue, my next question is, “What are you waiting for?” I hear many reasons about why some say it’s impractical to think about changing their “whereabouts.” And I also hear folks rationalizing about how they’re satisfied enough to stick it out and hang on to the dependable salary. Sounds like dreams deferred to me. My honest to God feelings are that if your button isn’t engaged on the job, a paycheck isn’t enough. You can and you deserve to love what you’re doing so much that you’d do it for free, that you lose sleep because the sun can’t come up early enough in the morning for you to do your whatever it is.

Why not follow your bliss? After all, if you don’t feel it, you can’t fake the funk. Go look for it.

That was the message sent to me when I met my paternal grandmother for the first time. As a new father in my late twenties, I had made the trip to Louisiana with my baby boy to finally meet my biological father and the rest of the Turner family. It was emotional, challenging, and wonderful—most of all because of what I learned about myself from my eighty-two-year-old grandmother, Ora Turner. After taking her time to study me and make an assessment, she said knowingly, “Boy, your way is always going to be different from other folk; and every opportunity you get, you’ve got to run your race with a passion.” That sounded weighty and meaningful, but I didn’t fully grasp the implications until that next Sunday when I saw her wearing her high-top Converse sneakers to church so she could help “old people” to sit down! That’s passion. Pure and powerful. She accepted herself fully and completely as she was, wherever she was, and lived her passion to the hilt. She had found her button.

By no coincidence, a short time later in San Francisco I sat down for the first of a few cups of coffee with stockbroker Bob Bridges—who gave me my first introduction to the basics of Wall Street. The more I learned after that, the more interested and passionate I felt to learn more. Then came the moment of truth when I visited the stock exchange in San Francisco for the first time. The energy was spectacular. I’m standing there and the ticker tape is going, bodies are flying all over the place, tickets are getting stamped, traders are shouting out orders, furiously scribbling their trades down, with bells and whistles ringing madly. I had died and gone to heaven. Though I’d never seen anything like it and had no previous glimpse of a trading floor, I was at home. That’s when something inside of me clicked into place, and I recognized the flow, structure, and movement of Wall Street—just like music. This was where I was supposed to be. It wasn’t—Oh, yeah, I can do this. But—This is where I’m supposed to be. I had found my button.