Chicken Soup for the Soul 20th Anniversary Edition

by Jack Canfield

  My heart sank. Those four ads would have made the house payment. Then I thought, I will try to speak with Mr. Ahlman one more time. Everyone loves and respects him. Surely he will listen. Every time I had tried to approach him in the past, he had refused to see me. He was always “out” or unavailable. I knew that if he advertised with me, the other merchants in town would follow his lead.

  This time, as I walked into the Rexall drugstore, he was there at the prescription counter in the back. I smiled my best smile and held up my precious “Shoppers Column” carefully marked in my children’s green Crayola. I said, “Everyone respects your opinion, Mr. Ahlman. Would you just look at my work for a moment so that I can tell the other merchants what you think?”

  His mouth turned into in an upside down U. Without saying a word he emphatically shook his head, “NO!”

  Suddenly all of my enthusiasm left me. I made it as far as the beautiful old soda fountain at the front of the drugstore, feeling that I didn’t have the strength to drive home. I didn’t want to sit at the soda fountain without buying something, so I pulled out my last dime and ordered a cherry Coke. I wondered desperately what to do. Would my babies lose their home as I had so many times when I was growing up? Was my journalism teacher wrong? Maybe that talent she talked about was just a dud. My eyes filled with tears.

  A soft voice beside me on the next soda fountain stool said, “What is the matter, dear?” I looked up into the sympathetic face of a lovely gray-haired lady. I poured out my story to her, ending it with, “But Mr. Ahlman, who everyone respects so much, will not look at my work.”

  “Let me see that Shoppers Column,” she said. She took my marked issue of the newspaper in her hands and carefully read it all the way through. Then she spun around on the stool, stood up, looked back at the prescription counter and in a commanding voice that could be heard down the block, said, “Ruben Ahlman, come here!” The lady was Mrs. Ahlman!

  She told Ruben to buy the advertising from me. His mouth turned up the other way in a big grin. Then she asked me for the names of the four merchants who had turned me down. She went to the phone and called each one. She gave me a hug and told me they were waiting for me and to go back and pick up their ads.

  Ruben and Vivian Ahlman became our dear friends, as well as steady advertising customers. I learned that Ruben was a darling man who bought from everyone. He had promised Vivian not to buy any more advertising. He was just trying to keep his word to her. If I had only asked others in town, I might have learned that I should have been talking to Mrs. Ahlman from the beginning. That conversation on the stools of the soda fountain was the turning point. My advertising business prospered and grew into four offices, with 285 employees serving 4,000 continuous-contract advertising accounts.

  Later when Mr. Ahlman modernized the old drugstore and removed the soda fountain, my sweet husband Bob bought it and installed it in my office. If you were here in California, we would sit on the soda fountain stools together. I’d pour you a cherry Coke and remind you to never give up, to remember that help is always closer than we know.

  Then I would tell you that if you can’t communicate with a key person, search for more information. Try another path around. Look for someone who can communicate for you in a third person endorsement. And, finally, I would serve you these sparkling, refreshing words of Bill Marriott of the Marriott Hotels:

  Failure? I never encountered it.

  All I ever met were temporary setbacks.

  ~Dottie Walters

  For Me to Be More Creative, I Am Waiting for...

  We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.

  ~Frank Tibolt

  1. Inspiration

  2. Permission

  3. Reassurance

  4. The coffee to be ready

  5. My turn

  6. Someone to smooth the way

  7. The rest of the rules

  8. Someone to change

  9. Wider fairways

  10. Revenge

  11. The stakes to be lower

  12. More time

  13. A significant relationship to:

  (a) improve

  (b) terminate

  (c) happen

  14. The right person

  15. A disaster

  16. Time to almost run out

  17. An obvious scapegoat

  18. The kids to leave home

  19. A Dow-Jones of 1500

  20. The lion to lie down with the lamb

  21. Mutual consent

  22. A better time

  23. A more favorable horoscope

  24. My youth to return

  25. The two-minute warning

  26. The legal profession to reform

  27. Richard Nixon to be re-elected

  28. Age to grant me the right of eccentricity

  29. Tomorrow

  30. Jacks or better

  31. My annual checkup

  32. A better circle of friends

  33. The stakes to be higher

  34. The semester to start

  35. My way to be clear

  36. The cat to stop clawing the sofa

  37. An absence of risk

  38. The barking dog next door to leave town

  39. My uncle to come home from the service

  40. Someone to discover me.

  41. More adequate safeguards

  42. A lower capital gains rate

  43. The statue of limitations to run out

  44. My parents to die (Joke!)

  45. A cure for herpes/AIDS

  46. The things that I do not understand or approve of to go away

  47. Wars to end

  48. My love to rekindle

  49. Someone to be watching

  50. A clearly written set of instructions

  51. Better birth control

  52. The ERA to pass

  53. An end to poverty, injustice, cruelty, deceit, incompetence, pestilence, crime and offensive suggestions

  54. A competing patent to expire

  55. Chicken Little to return

  56. My subordinates to mature

  57. My ego to improve

  58. The pot to boil

  59. The new credit card

  60. The piano tuner

  61. This meeting to be over

  62. My receivables to clear

  63. The unemployment checks to run out

  64. Spring

  65. My suit to come back from the cleaners

  66. My self-esteem to be restored

  67. A signal from Heaven

  68. The alimony payments to stop

  69. The gems of brilliance buried within my first bumbling efforts to be recognized, applauded and substantially rewarded so that I can work on the second draft in comfort

  70. A reinterpretation of Robert’s Rules of Order

  71. Various aches and pains to subside

  72. Shorter lines at the bank

  73. The wind to be freshen

  74. My children to be thoughtful, neat, obedient and self-supporting

  75. Next season

  76. Someone else to screw up

  77. My current life to be declared a dress rehearsal with some script changes permitted before opening night

  78. Logic to prevail

  79. The next time around

  80. You to stand out of my light

  81. My ship to come in

  82. A better deodorant

  83. My dissertation to be finished

  84. A sharp pencil

  85. The check to clear

  86. My wife, film or boomerang to come back

  87. My doctor’s approval, my father’s permission, my minister’s blessing or my lawyer’s okay

  88. Morning

  89. California to fall into the ocean

  90. A less turbulent time

  91. The Iceman to Cometh

  92. An opportunity to call collect

>   93. A better write-off

  94. My smoking urges to subside

  95. The rates to go down

  96. The rates to go up

  97. The rates to stabilize

  98. My grandfather’s estate to be settled

  99. Weekend rates

  100. A cue card

  101. You to go first

  ~David B. Campbell

  Everybody Can Do Something

  The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse.

  ~Don Juan

  Roger Crawford had everything he needed to play tennis — except two hands and a leg. When Roger’s parents saw their son for the first time, they saw a baby with a thumb-like projection extended directly out of his right forearm and a thumb and one finger stuck out of his left forearm. He had no palms. The baby’s arms and legs were shortened, and he had only three toes on his shrunken right foot and a withered left leg, which would later be amputated.

  The doctor said Roger suffered from ectrodactylism, a rare birth defect affecting only one out of 90,000 children born in the United States. The doctor said Roger would probably never walk or care for himself.

  Fortunately Roger’s parents didn’t believe the doctor.

  “My parents always taught me that I was only as handicapped as I wanted to be,” said Roger. “They never allowed me to feel sorry for myself or take advantage of people because of my handicap. Once I got into trouble because my school papers were continually late,” explained Roger, who had to hold his pencil with both “hands” to write slowly. “I asked Dad to write a note to my teachers, asking for a two-day extension on my assignments. Instead Dad made me start writing my paper two days early!”

  Roger’s father always encouraged him to get involved in sports, teaching Roger to catch and throw a volleyball, and play backyard football after school. At age 12, Roger managed to win a spot on the school football team.

  Before every game, Roger would visualize his dream of scoring a touchdown. Then one day he got his chance. The ball landed in his arms and off he ran as fast as he could on his artificial leg toward the goal line, his coach and teammates cheering wildly. But at the 10-yard line, a guy from the other team caught up with Roger, grabbing his left ankle. Roger tried to pull his artificial leg free, but instead it ended up being pulled off.

  “I was still standing up,” recalls Roger. “I didn’t know what else to do so I started hopping towards the goal line. The referee ran over and threw his hands into the air. Touchdown! You know, even better than the six points was the look on the face of the other kid who was holding my artificial leg.”

  Roger’s love of sports grew and so did his self-confidence. But not every obstacle gave way to Roger’s determination. Eating in the lunchroom with the other kids watching him fumble with his food proved very painful to Roger, as did his repeated failure in typing class. “I learned a very good lesson from typing class,” said Roger. “You can’t do everything — it’s better to concentrate on what you can do.”

  One thing Roger could do was swing a tennis racket. Unfortunately, when he swung it hard, his weak grip usually launched it into space. By luck, Roger stumbled upon an odd-looking tennis racket in a sports shop and accidentally wedged his finger between its double-barred handle when he picked it up. The snug fit made it possible for Roger to swing, serve and volley like an able-bodied player. He practiced every day and was soon playing — and losing — matches.

  But Roger persisted. He practiced and practiced and played and played. Surgery on the two fingers of his left hand enabled Roger to grip his special racket better, greatly improving his game. Although he had no role models to guide him, Roger became obsessed with tennis and in time he started to win.

  Roger went on to play college tennis, finishing his tennis career with 22 wins and 11 losses. He later became the first physically handicapped tennis player to be certified as a teaching professional by the United States Professional Tennis Association. Roger now tours the country, speaking to groups about what it takes to be a winner, no matter who you are.

  “The only difference between you and me is that you can see my handicap, but I can’t see yours. We all have them. When people ask me how I’ve been able to overcome my physical handicaps, I tell them that I haven’t overcome anything. I’ve simply learned what I can’t do — such as play the piano or eat with chopsticks — but more importantly, I’ve learned what I can do. Then I do what I can with all my heart and soul.”

  ~Jack Canfield

  Yes, You Can

  Experience is not what happens to a man.

  It is what a man does with what happens to him.

  ~Aldous Huxley

  What if at age 46 you were burned beyond recognition in a terrible motorcycle accident, and then four years later were paralyzed from the waist down in an airplane crash? Then, can you imagine yourself becoming a millionaire, a respected public speaker, a happy newlywed and a successful businessperson? Can you see yourself going whitewater rafting? Skydiving? Running for political office?

  W. Mitchell has done all these things and more after two horrible accidents left his face a quilt of multicolored skin grafts, his hands fingerless and his legs thin and motionless in a wheelchair.

  The 16 surgeries Mitchell endured after the motorcycle accident burned more than 65 percent of his body left him unable to pick up a fork, dial a telephone or go to the bathroom without help. But Mitchell, a former Marine, never believed he was defeated. “I am in charge of my own spaceship,” he said. “It’s my up, my down. I could choose to see this situation as a setback or a starting point.” Six months later he was piloting a plane again.

  Mitchell bought himself a Victorian home in Colorado, some real estate, a plane and a bar. Later he teamed up with two friends and co-founded a wood-burning stove company that grew to be Vermont’s second largest private employer.

  Then four years after the motorcycle accident, the plane Mitchell was piloting crashed back onto the runway during takeoff, crushing Mitchell’s 12 thoracic vertebrae and permanently paralyzing him from the waist down. “I wondered what the hell was happening to me. What did I do to deserve this?”

  Undaunted, Mitchell worked day and night to regain as much independence as possible. He was elected Mayor of Crested Butte, Colorado, to save the town from mineral mining that would ruin its beauty and environment. Mitchell later ran for Congress, turning his odd appearance into an asset with slogans such as, “Not just another pretty face.”

  Despite his initially shocking looks and physical challenges, Mitchell began whitewater rafting, fell in love and married, earned a master’s degree in public administration and continued flying, environmental activism and public speaking.

  Mitchell’s unshakable Positive Mental Attitude has earned him appearances on the Today Show and Good Morning America as well as feature articles in Parade, Time, The New York Times and other publications.

  “Before I was paralyzed, there were 10,000 things I could do,” Mitchell says. “Now there are 9,000. I can either dwell on the 1,000 I lost or focus on the 9,000 I have left. I tell people that I have had two big bumps in my life. If I have chosen not to use them as an excuse to quit, then maybe some of the experiences you are having which are pulling you back can be put into a new perspective. You can step back, take a wider view and have a chance to say, ‘Maybe that isn’t such a big deal after all.’”

  Remember: “It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do about it.”

  ~Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

  Run, Patti, Run

  Follow your passion, and success will follow you.

  ~Terri Guillemets

  At a young and tender age, Patti Wilson was told by her doctor that she was an epileptic. Her father, Jim Wilson, is a morning jogger. One day she smiled through her teenage braces and said, “Daddy what I’d really love to do is run with you
every day, but I’m afraid I’ll have a seizure.”

  Her father told her, “If you do, I know how to handle it so let’s start running!”

  That’s just what they did every day. It was a wonderful experience for them to share and there were no seizures at all while she was running. After a few weeks, she told her father, “Daddy, what I’d really love to do is break the world’s long-distance running record for women.”

  Her father checked the Guinness Book of World Records and found that the farthest any woman had run was 80 miles. As a freshman in high school, Patti announced, “I’m going to run from Orange County up to San Francisco.” (A distance of 400 miles.) “As a sophomore,” she went on, “I’m going to run to Portland, Oregon.” (Over 1,500 miles.) “As a junior I’ll run to St. Louis. (About 2,000 miles.) “As a senior I’ll run to the White House.” (More than 3,000 miles away.)

  In view of her handicap, Patti was as ambitious as she was enthusiastic, but she said she looked at the handicap of being an epileptic as simply “an inconvenience.” She focused not on what she had lost, but on what she had left. That year she completed her run to San Francisco wearing a T-shirt that read “I Love Epileptics.” Her dad ran every mile at her side, and her mom, a nurse, followed in a motor home behind them in case anything went wrong. In her sophomore year Patti’s classmates got behind her. They built a giant poster that read, “Run, Patti, Run!” (This has since become her motto and the title of a book she has written.) On her second marathon, en route to Portland, she fractured a bone in her foot. A doctor told her she had to stop her run. He said, “I’ve got to put a cast on your ankle so that you don’t sustain permanent damage.”

  “Doc, you don’t understand,” she said. “This isn’t just a whim of mine, it’s a magnificent obsession! I’m not just doing it for me, I’m doing it to break the chains on the brains that limit so many others. Isn’t there a way I can keep running?” He gave her one option. He could wrap it in adhesive instead of putting it in a cast. He warned her that it would be incredibly painful, and he told her, “It will blister.” She told the doctor to wrap it up.