Why Are We Happy… Or Not?

Psychologist Dan Gilbert challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our “psychological immune system” lets us feel real, enduring happiness, he says, even when things don’t go as planned. He calls this kind of happiness “synthetic happiness,” and he says it’s “every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for.”

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50 Things I’ve Learned In 50 Years

Great article by Eric Zorn over at the Chicago Tribune -> I’m turning 50 next week. So I thought I’d take the opportunity here to list 50 things I’ve learned in 50 years—truths gleaned from experience and the words of others that guide, inspire and sometimes haunt me:

1. It’s better to sing off key than not to sing at all.

2. Promptness shows respect.

3. You can’t avoid offending people from time to time. When you don’t mean it, apologize. When you do mean it, accept the consequences.

4. The first person to use the expression “Get a life!” in any dispute is the loser.

5. The medium is not the message. Those who issue blanket condemnations of any form of communication—be it TV, tabloids, text messages or blogs—simply aren’t paying attention.

6. The most valuable thing to have is a good reputation, and it’s neither hard nor expensive to acquire one: Be fair. Be honest. Be trustworthy. Be generous. Respect others.

7. Prejudice and bigotry is hard-wired into us. You can’t overcome it until you acknowledge it.

8. Don’t be bothered when people don’t share your tastes in music, sports, literature, food and fashion. Be glad. You’d never get tickets to anything otherwise.

9. Cough syrup doesn’t work.

10. Empathy is the greatest virtue. From it, all virtues flow. Without it, all virtues are an act.

11. The Golden Rule is the greatest moral truth. If you don’t believe in it, at least try to fake it.

12. Keeping perspective is the greatest key to happiness. From a distance, even a bumpy road looks smooth.

13. You can’t win arguing with police officers or referees, but every so often you can fight City Hall.

14. It’s not “political correctness” that dictates that we try not to insult others’ beliefs and identities. It’s common decency.

15. It may not feel like it, but it’s good luck when you have people at home and at work who aren’t afraid to tell you when you’re wrong.

16. It’s 10 times easier to fall in love than to stay in love. And no matter what the sad songs say about romance, broken hearts do mend.

17. Don’t waste your breath proclaiming what’s really important to you. How you spend your time says it all.

18. Keeping an open mind is as big a challenge as you get older as keeping a consistent waistline.

19. It’s never a shame when you admit you don’t know something, and often a shame when you assume that you do.

20. Wounds heal faster under bandages than they do in the open air.

21. Fear of failure is a ticket to mediocrity. If you’re not failing from time to time, you’re not pushing yourself. And if you’re not pushing yourself, you’re coasting.

22. Anyone who judges you by the kind of car you drive or shoes you wear isn’t someone worth impressing.

23. Grudges are poison. The only antidote is to let them go.

24. If you’re in a conversation and you’re not asking questions, then it’s not a conversation, it’s a monologue.

25. In everyday life, most “talent” is simply hard work in disguise.

26. Great parents can have rotten kids and rotten parents can have great kids. But even though biology plays a huge role in destiny, that’s no excuse to give up or stop trying.

27. Four things that most people think are lame but really are a lot of fun: barn dancing, charades, volleyball and sing-alongs.

28. Two cheap, easy self-improvement projects: Develop a strong handshake and start smiling when you answer the phone.

29. When something that costs less than $200 breaks and it’s not under warranty and you can’t fix it yourself in half an hour, it’s almost certainly more cost-effective to throw it out.

30. Most folk remedies are nonsense, but zinc really does zap colds.

31. Physical attraction is nice, but shared values and a shared sense of humor are the real keys to lasting love.

32. To keep dental visits regular, schedule your next appointment on your way out from your last appointment.

33. The 10-minute jump start is the best way to get going on a big task you’ve been avoiding. Set a timer and begin, promising yourself that you’ll quit after 10 minutes and do something else. The momentum will carry you forward.

34. Laundry day is much easier when all your socks are the same and you don’t have to sort them.

35. Candor is overrated. It’s hard to unsay what you’ve said in anger and almost impossible to take back what you’ve written.

36. Goals that you keep to yourself are just castles on the beach. If you’re determined to achieve something, tell people about it and ask them to help you stick with it.

37. Mental illness is as real as diabetes, arthritis or any other disease, and no more disgraceful. It’s the stigma that’s disgraceful.

38. In crisis or conflict, always think and act strategically. Take time to figure out what the “winning” outcome is for you, then work toward it.

39. All the stuff you have lying around that you’ll never want, need, wear or look at again? It just makes it harder to find what you do want, need or intend to wear. File it, donate it or throw it out.

40. Exercise does not take time. Exercise creates time.

41. Almost no one stretches, flosses or gives compliments often enough.

42. It pays to keep handy a list that includes a trusted plumber, electrician, locksmith, appliance repair specialist and heating contractor. When you really need one is no time to start looking.

43. The store-brand jelly, cereal, paper goods, baking supplies and pharmacy products are good enough.

44. When you mess up, ’fess up. It’s the fastest way, if there is one, to forgiveness.

45. When you’re not the worst-dressed person at a social event, you have nothing to worry about.

46. Be truthful or be quiet. Lies are hard to keep track of.

47. Your education isn’t complete until you’ve learned to take a hint.

48. There’s a good reason to be secretive about your age. People tend to assume things when they know how old you are. “Oh, he’s turning 50,” they might say, for example, “probably full of cranky self-lacerating aphorisms that he thinks qualify as wisdom.” (See “Bored, Tubby, Mild,” an animated editorial cartoon along these lines)

49. Whatever your passion, pursue it as though your days were numbered. Because they are.

50. Readers love lists. You got to the bottom of this one, didn’t you?

About Eric Zorn

Wire Your Brain For Positive Life Choices

Do You Seem to Get Caught Up in the Same Old Reactions? Have you ever blown up at your spouse only to realize-after the smoke cleared-that you might have over-reacted just a tad? Maybe you learn that you haven’t been invited to your uncle’s friend’s sister’s birthday party and you behave as if it’s the slight of the century.

Sometimes even the most minor snafu can send us storming out of the room, slamming down a phone, or just shutting down entirely. It’s like we just can’t help it-the reaction is as automatic as a mallet to the knee.

Science Reveals It May Not Be Your Fault

New research indicates that these habitual, knee-jerk responses go way back to our childhood. As youngsters, we learned to adapt to our families’ idiosyncrasies as a way of survival. Psychologists used to refer to these coping mechanisms as our baggage-but what science has now shown us is that these responses are actually hard-wired into our brains. And because our responses are so ingrained, they have become our filtering system for future incidents. In other words, if something happens today that the brain reads as being similar to something that happened in the past, it will respond as if it were the first time, even though you may be in your 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and beyond.

For example, let’s say a child comes from a home where the parents fight frequently. That child is going to associate yelling with bad feelings. In later years, if his spouse raises her voice, he’s likely to shut down like when he was a kid-metaphorically running to his room, closing the door, and essentially blocking out the noise.

Does this mean if you come from a family of yellers you’re doomed to hide under your bed every time someone raises a voice? Luckily, recent research indicates that the brain continues to grow throughout our lives-and old patterns can be released as new ones are formed in your boomer years..

Help Is On the Way

The way to managing your anger and knee jerk reactions is to establish new connections by refocusing your attention to a different outcome or possibility. But, before you can foster these new connections in your brain, you have to be aware of the old brain triggers.

When I try and distinguish whether someone’s reaction is a past association, I look to see if their reaction to the situation is automatic and intense. Additionally, when I try and offer an alternative to why they’re behaving that way, the person is resistant and reluctant to consider any other view or interpretation of the situation-other than their own.

In my practice, I work extensively with clients to help them rewire and rewrite their lives. Here is an easy exercise to get you started on rewiring your brain to control your anger and over-reactions that will bring about positive changes in your life-today!

1. Thinking of Alternatives:

a. When you’re projecting your past experience onto a present one, try and imagine alternative ways to handle the situation. For example, let’s say you have lunch plans with a friend-who cancels at the last minute. Immediately, you feel an overwhelming sense of hurt and rejection. Which is how you always feel in similar situations-indicating-voila-a past pattern! Be conscious of this and take a step back to recognize it.

b. Then, approach the situation from an entirely different perspective. Maybe you use humor to deflect the bad feelings, thinking to yourself, “Gee, I guess it’s my deodorant.” Or, you choose the direct approach and ask your friend if you’ve done something to upset her. Or, you take the practical route and figure your friend just overbooked, overextended, or over-promised-and give her a get-out-of-jail-free card. (Hint: If you have difficulty coming up with alternative ways to handle the situation, think about how someone else - your mother, a childhood friend, an admired acquaintance - might handle the same situation.)

2. Plugging in New Choices:

a. Now, replay the actual situation as vividly as possible-the phone ringing, the sound of your friend’s voice, the awkward goodbyes-and imagine yourself carrying out one of your new solutions. Maybe you decide that being understanding of your friend’s busy schedule is the best choice.

b. Replay the phone call and plug in your new behavior, the understanding you, rather than playing out your old behavior of feeling rejected and hurt.

Making it Last

Before long, you will begin to see a slight shift in how you feel. By doing this exercise again and again, you will refocus your attention on a new outcome. This will rewire your brain and make a new neural connection-a connection to positive change!

Finally, a psychologist who goes that extra mile and cares about the people she helps. Whether Karen Sherman, Ph.D. is giving a speech, offering a teleseminar, or offering a workshop - she’s helping people become aware of their choices and connect to their full potential. Let Karen help you learn to make positive life choices both personally and in your relationships by signing up for her free newsletter at http://www.drkarensherman.com/newsletter.htm.

The Smithsonian Life List

Great article over at the The Smithsonian. “We are all of us resigned to death: it’s life we aren’t resigned to,” novelist Graham Greene once wrote. A growing number of Americans of all ages are embracing that idea by renewing a resolve to live life to its fullest.

Exhibit A is the recent popularity of “life lists”—itineraries of things to do and places to go before taking the ultimate trip to the Great Beyond. Bookstores brim with titles such as 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die and—for the high-minded—Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die. A cottage industry of Web sites has also popped up, enabling life list enthusiasts to exchange ideas ranging from learning Japanese to getting a tattoo. Now even Hollywood has gotten into the act, with the release this month of the film The Bucket List, in which two cancer patients, played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, break out of their medical ward and embark on a life list road trip that includes dining on expensive caviar and gambling in Monte Carlo.

Read More Here….

Give Yourself A Chance

It’s amazing how often I hear otherwise brilliant leaders make counterproductive, stereotypical comments about themselves.

The good news is that almost all the leaders I meet have quit making stereotypical comments about race, sex, or ethnic origin. The bad news is that we still make these self-limiting comments about ourselves.

You’ve surely heard them. Maybe you’ve used them to describe yourself:

* “I’m impatient!”
* “I’m always behind.”
* “I always put things off!”

We often talk about ourselves as if we have permanent genetic flaws that can never be altered.

Our personal stereotyping may originate from stories about us that have been repeated for years–often from as far back as childhood. These stories may have no basis in fact. But they can set low expectations that produce self-fulfilling prophecies, which seem to prove that our negative expectations were correct.

I’m a good example of this. I was brought up in a small town. Growing up in Valley Station, Kentucky, I might naturally have become involved in cars, tools, and mechanical things. My dad had a two-pump gas station. Many of my friends liked to work on cars and race them at the drag strip.

As a child, however, I gained a different set of expectations from my mom. Almost from birth, I was told, “Marshall, you are extremely smart. In fact, you are the smartest little boy in Valley Station.” She told me that I wasn’t just going to go to college–I could go to graduate school! She also said, “Marshall, you have no mechanical skills, and you will never have any mechanical skills for the rest of your life!” (I don’t think she wanted me to pump gas and change tires at the service station.)

How did these expectations affect my development? I was never encouraged to work on cars or be around tools. (As a teenager in the 1960s, I thought a universal joint was something that hippies smoked.) Not only did my parents know that I had no mechanical skills, my friends knew it. When I was 18 years old, I took the U.S. Army’s Mechanical Aptitude Test. My scores were in the bottom second percentile of the entire nation. In other words, I was soundly defeated by random chance.

Six years later, however, I was at UCLA, working on my PhD. One of my professors, Bob Tannenbaum, asked me to write down things I did well and things I couldn’t do. On the positive side, I jotted down, “research,” “writing,” “analysis,” and “speaking.” (In other words, I wrote, “I am smart.”) On the negative side, I wrote, “I have no mechanical skills. I will never have any mechanical skills.”

Bob asked me how I knew I had no mechanical skills. I explained my life history and told him about my dismal showing on the Army test. “How are your mathematical skills?” he asked. I proudly replied that I had scored a perfect 800 on the SAT math 1 achievement test. Bob then asked, “Why is it that you can solve complex mathematical problems, but you can’t solve simple mechanical problems?” Then he asked, “How is your hand-eye coordination?” I said that I was good at pinball and had helped pay for my college expenses by shooting pool, so I guessed that it was fine. Bob asked, “Why is it that you can shoot pool, but you can’t hammer nails?”

Suddenly, I realized that I did not suffer from some sort of genetic defect. I was just living out expectations that I had chosen to believe. At that point, it wasn’t just my family and friends who had been reinforcing my belief that I was mechanically hopeless. And it wasn’t just the Army test, either. I was the one who kept telling myself, “You can’t do this!” I realized that as long as I kept saying that, it was going to remain true.

The next time you hear yourself say, “I’m just no good at . . .” ask yourself why not. The next time you’re coaching someone, and he or she says, “I’m just no good at . . .” ask them why not.

If we don’t treat ourselves–and the people around us–as if we have incurable genetic defects, we can get better at almost anything we choose. Why not?

Marshall Goldsmith (marshall@A4SL.com) is corporate America’s preeminent executive coach and founding director of the Alliance for Strategic Leadership.

Daniel Tammet meets Kim Peek

Daniel Paul Tammet (born January 31, 1979) is a British autistic savant (though he has learned how to manage social interaction) gifted with a facility for mathematics problems, sequence memory, and natural language learning. He was born with congenital childhood epilepsy.

Experiencing numbers as colors or sensations is a well-documented form of synesthesia, but Tammet is unique in how specific and detailed his mental imagery of numbers is. He claims that in his mind each number, up to 10,000, has its own unique shape and feel, and he can “sense” whether a number is prime or composite and “see” results of calculations as landscapes in his mind.

Tammet holds the European record for remembering and recounting pi, recounting it to its 22,514th digit in just over 5 hours. This sponsored charity challenge was held in aid of the National Society for Epilepsy (NSE) on 14 March 2004 (Pi Day) at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, UK. The NSE was chosen to benefit from this event because Daniel experienced several seizures as a young child.

Professor Allan Snyder at the Australian National University said of Tammet: “savants can’t usually tell us how they do what they do. It just comes to them. Daniel can. He describes what he sees in his head. That’s why he’s exciting. He could be the Rosetta Stone.”

He can speak at least English, French, Finnish, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Estonian, Icelandic, and Esperanto. He likes Estonian very much because it is rich in vowels. He has even changed his second name to Estonian-based word Tammet, which comes from the Estonian word Tamm meaning oak. Tammet is making a new language called Mänti. Mänti has many features related to Finnish and Estonian. In addition, some sources cite Uusisuom and Lapsi as two more languages Tammet has created.

He was the subject of a documentary in the UK titled The Boy With The Incredible Brain that was broadcast on Five on May 24, 2005 (also broadcast under the title “Brainman”). It showed highlights of his feat of recalling pi as well as his meeting with Kim Peek, another individual who is famous for having savant skills. In one emotional moment of the show, Peek hugged Tammet and told him “Some day you will be as great as I am.”

Tammet claims he can learn a new language within a week. For the documentary film about him, Tammet was challenged to learn Icelandic. Seven days later he appeared on Icelandic television to be interviewed. One of the interviewers said on camera that Tammet responded to questions, however this was not shown in the documentary, so it is not clear whether Tammet’s speech in Icelandic were prepared responses or actual responses to questions.

Kim Peek

Kim Peek (born November 11, 1951, a Sunday) is an individual diagnosed with Savant Syndrome with a photographic or eidetic memory and developmental disabilities, resulting from congenital brain abnormalities. He was the inspiration for the character of Raymond Babbit, played by Dustin Hoffman, in the movie Rain Man.

Kim Peek was born with macrocephaly, damage to the cerebellum, and, most importantly, agenesis of the corpus callosum, a condition in which the bundle of nerves that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is missing; in Peek’s case, secondary connectors such as the anterior commissure are also missing. There is speculation that his neurons make other connections in the absence of a corpus callosum, which results in an increased memory capacity.

According to Peek’s father, Fran, Peek was able to memorize things from the age of 16-20 months. He read books, memorized them, and then placed them upside down on the shelf to show that he had finished reading them, a practice he still maintains. He reads a page of text in about 10 seconds (about a book per hour) and, apparently, remembers everything he has read, memorizing vast amounts of information in subjects ranging from history and literature, geography, and numbers, to sports, music, and dates. He can recall some 12,000 books from memory. Peek can also do formidable calculations in his head, a skill that serves him well in his day job, where he prepares payroll worksheets. He has worked at a day workshop for adults with disabilities since 1969.

Peek did not walk until the age of four and still walks in a sidelong manner. He cannot button up his shirt and has difficulty with other ordinary motor skills, presumably due to his damaged cerebellum, which normally coordinates motor activities. In psychological testing, Peek has scored well below average on general IQ tests; however he has scored very highly in some subtests. The mixed results have led to the conclusion that such tests are not an adequate yardstick to measure Peek’s abilities.

In 1984, script writer Barry Morrow met Peek in Arlington, Texas; the result of the meeting was the 1988 movie Rain Man. The character of Raymond Babbit, although inspired by Peek, was portrayed as having autism. Dustin Hoffman, who played Babbit, met Peek and other savants to get an understanding of their nature and to play the role with accuracy. The movie caused a number of requests for appearances, which has increased Peek’s self-confidence. Barry Morrow has given Kim his Oscar to carry with him and show at these appearances. He enjoys approaching strangers and showing them his talent for calendar calculations by telling them on which day of the week they were born. Peek has also appeared on television. He travels with his father, who takes care of him and performs many motor tasks that Peek finds difficult.

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Never, Ever, Ever Give Up

Winston Churchill was famous for saying “Never, Never, Never Give Up! I guess he would know since he helped save a whole nation…this, from someone who failed sixth grade. He was also defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at the age of 62. In any event, here are some other more notable examples in history to help us put one foot in front of the other and keep on keeping on.

As a young man, Abraham Lincoln went to war a captain and returned a private. Afterwards, he was a failure as a businessman. As a lawyer in Springfield, he was too impractical and temperamental to be a success. He turned to politics and was defeated in his first try for the legislature, again defeated in his first attempt to be nominated for congress, defeated in his application to be commissioner of the General Land Office, defeated in the senatorial election of 1854, defeated in his efforts for the vice-presidency in 1856, and defeated in the senatorial election of 1858. At about that time, he wrote in a letter to a friend, “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.”

Socrates was called “an immoral corrupter of youth” and continued to corrupt even after a sentence of death was imposed on him. He drank the hemlock and died corrupting.

Sigmund Freud was booed from the podium when he first presented his ideas to the scientific community of Europe. He returned to his office and kept on writing.

Robert Sternberg received a C in his first college introductory-psychology class. His teacher commented that “there was a famous Sternberg in psychology and it was obvious there would not be another.” Three years later Sternberg graduated with honors from Stanford University with exceptional distinction in psychology, summa cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa. In 2002, he became President of the American Psychological Association.

Charles Darwin gave up a medical career and was told by his father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat catching.” In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, “I was considered by all my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.” Clearly, he evolved.

Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive.” As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4-years-old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was “sub-normal,” and one of his teachers described him as “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.” He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. He did eventually learn to speak and read. Even to do a little math.

Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and ranked 15th out of 22 students in chemistry.

Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded.

R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York City caught on.

F. W. Woolworth was not allowed to wait on customers when he worked in a dry goods store because, his boss said, “he didn’t have enough sense.”

When Bell telephone was struggling to get started, its owners offered all their rights to Western Union for $100,000. The offer was disdainfully rejected with the pronouncement, “What use could this company make of an electrical toy.”

John Garcia, who eventually was honored for his fundamental psychological discoveries, was once told by a reviewer of his often-rejected manuscripts that one is no more likely to find the phenomenon he discovered than to find bird droppings in a cuckoo clock. (sort of a cute critique actually)

Rocket scientist Robert Goddard found his ideas bitterly rejected by his scientific peers on the grounds that rocket propulsion would not work in the rarefied atmosphere of outer space.

Daniel Boone was once asked by a reporter if he had ever been lost in the wilderness. Boone thought for a moment and replied, “No, but I was once bewildered for about three days.”

An expert said of Vince Lombardi: “He possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation.” Lombardi would later write, “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get back up.”

Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their high school basketball teams. Jordan once observed, “I’ve failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed.”

Babe Ruth is famous for his past home run record, but for decades he also held the record for strikeouts. He hit 714 home runs and struck out 1,330 times in his career (about which he said, “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”). And didn’t Mark McGwire break that strikeout record? (John Wooden once explained that winners make the most errors.)

Hank Aaron went 0 for 5 his first time at bat with the Milwaukee Braves.

Stan Smith was rejected as a ball boy for a Davis Cup tennis match because he was “too awkward and clumsy.” He went on to clumsily win Wimbledon and the U. S. Open. And eight Davis Cups.

Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, Bill Walsh, and Jimmy Johnson accounted for 11 of the 19 Super Bowl victories from 1974 to 1993. They also share the distinction of having the worst records of first-season head coaches in NFL history - they didn’t win a single game.

Johnny Unitas’s first pass in the NFL was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Joe Montana’s first pass was also intercepted. And while we’re on quarterbacks, during his first season Troy Aikman threw twice as many interceptions (18) as touchdowns (9) . . . oh, and he didn’t win a single game. You think there’s a lesson here?

After Carl Lewis won the gold medal for the long jump in the 1996 Olympic games, he was asked to what he attributed his longevity, having competed for almost 20 years. He said, “Remembering that you have both wins and losses along the way. I don’t take either one too seriously.”

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.

Charles Schultz had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Oh, and Walt Disney wouldn’t hire him.

After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, read, “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.” He kept that memo over the fire place in his Beverly Hills home. Astaire once observed that “when you’re experimenting, you have to try so many things before you choose what you want, that you may go days getting nothing but exhaustion.” And here is the reward for perseverance: “The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it’s considered to be your style.”

After his first audition, Sidney Poitier was told by the casting director, “Why don’t you stop wasting people’s time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?” It was at that moment, recalls Poitier, that he decided to devote his life to acting.

When Lucille Ball began studying to be actress in 1927, she was told by the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School, “Try any other profession.”

The first time Jerry Seinfeld walked on-stage at a comedy club as a professional comic, he looked out at the audience, froze, and forgot the English language. He stumbled through “a minute-and a half” of material and was jeered offstage. He returned the following night and closed his set to wild applause.

In 1944, Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Modeling Agency, told modeling hopeful Norma Jean Baker, “You’d better learn secretarial work or else get married.” I’m sure you know that Norma Jean was Marilyn Monroe. Now . . . who was Emmeline Snively?

At the age of 21, French acting legend Jeanne Moreau was told by a casting director that her head was too crooked, she wasn’t beautiful enough, and she wasn’t photogenic enough to make it in films. She took a deep breath and said to herself, “Alright, then, I guess I will have to make it my own way.” After making nearly 100 films her own way, in 1997 she received the European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.

After Harrison Ford’s first performance as a hotel bellhop in the film Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, the studio vice-president called him in to his office. “Sit down kid,” the studio head said, “I want to tell you a story. The first time Tony Curtis was ever in a movie he delivered a bag of groceries. We took one look at him and knew he was a movie star.” Ford replied, “I thought you were spossed to think that he was a grocery delivery boy.” The vice president dismissed Ford with “You ain’t got it kid , you ain’t got it … now get out of here.”

Michael Caine’s headmaster told him, “You will be a laborer all your life.”

Charlie Chaplin was initially rejected by Hollywood studio chiefs because his pantomime was considered “nonsense.”

Enrico Caruso’s music teacher said he had no voice at all and could not sing. His parents wanted him to become an engineer.

Decca Records turned down a recording contract with the Beatles with the unprophetic evaluation, “We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way out.” After Decca rejected the Beatles, Columbia records followed suit.

In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”

Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him “hopeless as a composer.” And, of course, you know that he wrote five of his greatest symphonies while completely deaf.

The Impressionists had to arrange their own art exhibitions because their works were routinely rejected by the Paris Salon. How many of you have heard of the Paris Salon?

A Paris art dealer refused Picasso shelter when he asked if he could bring in his paintings from out of the rain. One hopes that there is justice in this world and that the art dealer eventually went broke.

Van Gogh sold only one painting during his life. And this to the sister of one of his friends for 400 francs (approximately $50). This didn’t stop him from completing over 800 paintings.

John Constable’s luminous painting Watermeadows at Salisbury was dismissed in 1830 by a judge at the Royal Academy as “a nasty green thing.” Name of the judge, anyone? Anyone?

Rodin’s father once said, “I have an idiot for a son.” Described as the worst pupil in the school, he was rejected three times admittance to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. His uncle called him uneducable. Perhaps this gave him food for thought.

Stravinsky was run out of town by an enraged audience and critics after the first performance of the Rite of Spring.

When Pablo Casals reached 95, a young reporter asked him “Mr. Casals, you are 95 and the greatest cellist that ever lived. Why do you still practice six hours a day?” Mr. Casals answered, “Because I think I’m making progress.”

Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college. He was described as both “unable and unwilling to learn.” No doubt a slow developer.

Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, was encouraged to find work as a servant by her family.

Emily Dickinson had only seven poems published in her lifetime.

15 publishers rejected a manuscript by e. e. cummings. When he finally got it published by his mother, the dedication, printed in uppercase letters, read WITH NO THANKS TO . . . followed by the list of publishers who had rejected his prized offering. Nice going Eddie. Thanks for illustrating that nobody loses all the time.

18 publishers turned down Richard Bach’s story about a “soaring eagle.” Macmillan finally published Jonathan Livingston Seagull in 1970. By 1975 it had sold more than 7 million copies in the U.S. alone.

21 publishers rejected Richard Hooker’s humorous war novel, M*A*S*H. He had worked on it for seven years.

22 publishers rejected James Joyce’s The Dubliners.

27 publishers rejected Dr. Seuss’s first book, To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

Jack London received six hundred rejection slips before he sold his first story.

English crime novelist John Creasey got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books.

William Saroyan accumulated more than a thousand rejections before he had his first literary piece published. Way to not take a hint, Bill!

Gertrude Stein submitted poems to editors for nearly 20 years before one was finally accepted. See . . . a rose is a rose.

I bet you didn’t know that John Milton wrote Paradise Lost 16 years after losing his eyesight

One of Professor Pajares’s first research efforts came back with a review that began, “There are so many things I don’t like about this article I just don’t know where to begin.”

There is a professor at MIT who offers a course on failure. He does that, he says, because failure is a far more common experience than success. An interviewer once asked him if anybody ever failed the course on failure. He thought a moment and replied, “No, but there were two incomplete s.”

Follow Your Bliss

Bill Moyers once asked Joseph Campbell, the famous teacher, author and philosopher, “Do you ever have the sense of… being helped by hidden hands?” Campbell responded, “All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time - namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

So you have to ask yourself, are you following your bliss? Some people don’t know what that is, and they’re still searching and reaching and crying for guidance to figure out why they’re here and for what purpose.

“People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life,” Campbell wrote. “I don’t think that’s what we are really seeking… I think what we are seeking is an experience of being alive.”

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