The Festival of Books welcomed all kinds of guests, including the Harvard Reject.

Trumpeter John Barnes attended to support a book-selling friend and ended up playing a few impromptu notes for Herb Alpert, the legendary musician and founder of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass who was there to support his wife, Lani Hall, the former lead singer of Brazil ’66 who recently published Emotional Memoirs & Short Stories. (see Reel Video)

“Man, it’s something I’ll never forget,” said Barnes.

Peter Bennett, author of Life Lessons of a Harvard Reject: Tear Down the Walls Holding Back Your Success, also shared the success principles of his popular book with young and old alike interested in learning new ways and methods for turning failure and rejection into transformative triumphs.

“The beauty of the Festival of the Books is that you’re immersed in a sea of people who treasure books and the exchange of ideas,” Bennett said. “There’s no forum like it anywhere.”

Asked to provide just one lesson from the book, Bennett replied, “Continue to perform while you transform. Continue to higher yourself when the world isn’t hiring.”

For those in the crowd who suffered from literary overload and the gauntlet of exhibitors, they could check out the Batmobile, courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment, stand in line in front of their favorite food truck or pose next to the statue of Tommy Trojan.

The Festival is becoming such a draw that no doubt some word-smithing entrepreneur will come along and make a book, if not a movie, out of it.

That’s the 68th anniversary of the most iconic photo ever taken in American history. That’s the day Joe Rosenthal snapped a photo of five Marines and a Navy corpsman planting a U.S. flag atop Mt. Suribachi on the tiny Pacific island of Iwo Jima, marking the costliest battle of the war, a battle that claimed the lives of 5,931 Marines — a third of all Marines killed during World II.

How did Joe get “the shot?” The short answer is, he got it because he was prepared and persistent, and when a break came his way, he knew exactly what to do with it.

Rosenthal was an unlikely hero. He was of one five sons of Russian immigrants. He stood 5-foot-5. By comparison, Lincoln was 6-foot-4 and Washington was 6-foot-2. After Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941), he tried to enlist, but his eyesight was too poor.

With one avenue closed he pursued another, hitching his faintly rising star with the Associated Press (AP). In 1944, the news service offered him a chance to take photographs — a fantastic assignment if you valued taking great action shots, not so great if you value living to a ripe old age. Subsequently, he covered U.S. invasions of Guadalcanal, New Guinea and Guam before arriving at Iwo Jima.

Of the horrific battle that followed his arrival on Iwo Jima, he said, “No man who survived that beach can tell you how he did it. It was like walking through rain and not getting wet.”

Rosenthal was always clicking away recording history — that was his job, after all — but when the first flag-raising on Mt. Suribachi occurred, he missed it. Disappointed at missing the photo, Rosenthal set out across the battlefield for a lesser memento — a simple, unadorned image of the stars and stripes flying over the island.

Scaling the 556-foot mountain, he learned that a commander on the shore had ordered the original flag be taken down and a second, much larger flag, be raised so that it could be seen across the island and from the sea.

After reaching the summit, he realized he was poorly positioned to get a full perspective of the new flag going up, so he scrambled back down the hill about 25 or 35 feet, perched himself on a pile of rocks and a Japanese sandbag to lift him high enough to get the angle he wanted. He then set the lens of his Speed Graphic camera at an f8 to f11 and the speed at 1/400th of a second and began shooting.

With the second raising already under way, he furiously clicked images of soldiers mounting into the ground a 20-foot length of pipe to which a 96-by-56-inch flag had been attached. After the planting of the flag, he asked the men to face him under the flag for a celebratory photo.

He sent his roll of film off to darkroom technicians in Guam for development, with the caption: Marines “hoist the Stars and Stripes, signaling the capture of this key position.”

Once the AP moved the photo to client newspapers, the image took on a life of its own. It appeared on postage stamps, posters, outdoor panels and cards that helped sell more than $200 million in U.S. war bonds with the slogan, “Now … All Together.” The self-effacing Rosenthal downplayed his role in capturing the Marines’ struggle and sacrifice that day.

“No photographer could have ever asked for a better break,” he recalled. “The sun was just right. The wind was right to flow the flag. The pipe — it must have weighed 100 pounds — was so heavy the guy holding it was struggling, typifying the struggle the Marines had in securing the island.”

Indeed, the shot was so perfect than many detractors later accused him of staging the shot.

In his defense, Rosenthal said that had the photograph been rigged, he would have used fewer men and had them face the camera so AP’s clients would be more inclined to use the picture in hometown newspapers.

“Had I posed the shot, I would, of course, have ruined it,” he said.

Rosenthal got the shot because, like the Marines, he didn’t give up. After missing the first flag-raising, he didn’t sulk back at the military base. He ventured out again, hopeful of catching something … anything. I guess he knew that you don’t get a second chance unless you seek a second chance.

He figured one more try was better than one more alibi.

***

There is a sad postscript to this story. When Rosenthal reached the summit that fateful day, Marine Sgt. William H. “Bill” Genaust was already shooting a color motion picture of the unfolding events. Indeed, one of the frames from his film is similar to Rosenthal’s famous photo. Nine days later, Genaust died in battle on Iwo Jima’s Hill 362.

Rosenthal, blessed with a long and hearty life, lived another 61 years after Iwo Jima. He died in 2006 at age 94.

Why God elects some of us to live long lives and others to live abbreviated ones is another of life’s mysteries. As human beings, we should ponder less and wander more. Wherever that path leads, we should never take our eyes off of the summit or give up trying to reach it.

Life is never fair, but that is hardly reason for despair.

My best,

Peter Bennett

Publisher, La Verne Online; Author, Life Lessons of a Harvard Reject

PS, People keep asking me what Life Lessons is all about. Every day, I have a new answer. It’s about tearing down every wall holding back your success; it’s about HIGHERING yourself when the world isn’t hiring; it’s about things known and unknown. It motivates you to ask more questions.

Here’s one: Most people know who lives at 10 Downing Street in London. The Prime Minister, right?

Well, who lives next door at 11 Downing Street. Shouldn’t we make his or her acquaintance, as well? Be curious!

What a turnout! What a reception. At my first book signing, I attracted only two people: One person wanted directions to the bathroom. The other wanted to buy the desk!

So, welcome!

You’re probably wondering why I’m standing here with a hard hat and a sledge hammer, Well, today’s talk is all about tearing down the walls holding back your success!

Indeed, it’s the theme of my book, Life Lessons of a Harvard Reject, which came out in October.
On the cover, you’ll see that my hands are literally trying to scale Harvard’s ivy covered walls. And those same hands are about to be stepped on and even crushed.

But when did that stop anybody?

To be successful in life — to be a successful author or a successful Realtor — you have to be ready to tear down walls holding back your success. You have to meet resistance with persistence until you break through.

Are you ready to get to work? Put on your hard hats, and let’s take a look some of the great men and women in our midst who knew a thing or two about overcoming the walls in their lives.

No. 1: Christopher Columbus – Wall of Enemies

Columbus showed us how to overcome the Wall of Enemies. He did it by heading in the opposite direction of the Wall, by sneaking through the back door.

In 1453, Europe was up against the wall. The Turks finally conquered Constantinople, or modern-day Istanbul, booting out the Christians. The eastern Roman Empire was no more. What did that mean? It meant that if you were a trader from Genoa or Venice and you wanted to sell your goods in Arabia, India or China, you had to pay a tax to the Turks to pass through their lands. So West Europeans, like Columbus, immediately started searching for a alternative route, a workaround. They knew the world was round. They just didn’t know how round. In 1492, 39 years after the fall of Constantinople, Columbus tore down that wall against free trade by heading west instead of east.

Columbus literally practiced reverse thinking. This is a great tactic.

No. 2: Henry Ford – Wall of Inefficiency

Ford was another practitioner of reverse thinking.

Plenty of people were making cars before Ford came along, but the process wasn’t all that efficient. Does anyone know how he came up with the assembly line to make his Model Ts? He observed a disassembly line at a meatpacking plant in Chicago. He figured if the process was good enough to disassemble or dismember an animal, he could reverse the process to assemble a motor car piece by piece.

No. 3: Isaac Newton – Wall of Ignorance

Sometimes, when your quest for knowledge hits a wall, the best way to break through this barrier is to step back from it. In the 1660s, Isaac Newton was another bright student attending Cambridge, but he wasn’t lighting the world on fire. He was stuck! There was a gap in his knowledge. But then the Great Plague struck London in 1665, followed by the Great London Fire of 1666. To survive, Newton fled London and lived on a farm for 18 months. Down on the farm, he invented calculus and discovered the universal laws of motion, optics and gravity, essentially redefining how we understood the universe.

No. 4: Samuel Clemens – Wall of Foreclosed Opportunities

All Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, ever wanted to be was a Mississippi River boat pilot. And he became one. He knew every shoal, sandbar and sunken ship on the river, At one time, he made more money than the vice president or Supreme Court justices of the United States. When the Civil War came, however, the North and South shut down the river to all but military traffic, throwing Twain out of a job. After about a week as a Confederate soldier, he headed west to find new fortune. He became a miner, then a newspaperman. He didn’t find metallic gold, he found literary gold.

TRANSITION

Are you seeing a pattern here? Whenever a wall is put up in front of you, you have to find your way around it. And when you do, the rewards can be limitless. So, welcome the walls and obstacles put in your path. Embrace them as opportunities. Don’t be a lemming lamenting how bad things are, be a roaring lion for creativity and change. Always be on the lookout to turn temporary misfortune into millions.

No. 5: Charles Darrow – Wall of Unemployment

We’re now just coming out of the Great Recession, so this story might hit home. In the Great Depression, Charles Darrow lost his job and faced a mounting wall of debt. Millions like him also lost their homes and livelihoods. So what does Darrow do? He has the audacity to invent a real estate board game called Monopoly and sells it to Parker Brothers for $1 million in 1936 at the height of the Depression.
Had there been no Depression, I doubt he ever would have invented Monopoly!

No. 6: Jan Scruggs – Wall of Shame

When Jan Scruggs came home from the Vietnam War in 1969, he faced a Wall of Shame. People booed him when he wore his military uniform in public. A decade later, after watching the film, “The Deer Hunter,” he told his wife that he was going to build a memorial wall to honor the service and sacrifice of all who served in the war. He took $2,800 of his own money and launched what would become the Vietnam War Memorial.

No. 7: Ray Bradbury – Wall of Limited Opportunity

After graduating from Los Angeles High School in the 1930, author Ray Bradbury sold newspapers at the corner of South Norton Avenue and Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. “When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

That regimen gave him the confidence to rent a typewriter in a study room at UCLA’s Powell Library and bang out “The Fireman,” a 25,000-word dystopian story about an American society that bans and burns books. He later expanded the story to 50,000 words under the new title, “Fahrenheit 451.”

No. 8: Howard Schultz – Wall of Poverty

In his autobiography, “Pour Your Heart Into It,” Starbucks coffee king Howard Schultz described his family’s grinding poverty. He grew up in the Brooklyn projects. In good times, his father drove a diaper delivery truck. In bad times, his dad lay on the couch with his broken leg in a cast. He had no income, health insurance or worker’s compensation.

Of that time, Schultz wrote: “Years later, that image of my father slumped on the family couch, his leg in a cast, unable to earn money, and ground down by the world, is still burned into my mind. The system had crushed him.”

Now that you know a little of Schultz’s family history, do you think he was deterred later when he went looking for Starbucks investors and hundreds turned him down. Not a chance!

No. 9: Marion Donovan – Wall of Inconvenience

We should all bow down when we hear this woman’s name. Unlike Schultz, she was a Yalie. As a young mother, she didn’t cotton to changing her youngest child’s soiled cloth diapers, clothing and bed sheets. She wanted to surmount this wall of great inconvenience. So, she sat down at her sewing machine with a shower curtain and, after several tries, fashioned a waterproof diaper cover. She perfected her invention by using nylon parachute cloth and replacing safety pins with fasteners. After obtaining a patent for the diaper cover in 1951, she sold it to the Keko Corporation for $1 million.

No. 10: John Shepherd Baron – Wall of Nuisance

In the late 1960s, Scotsman John Shepherd Barron’s bank had closed just before he arrived to withdraw some money. He was still stewing about his inability to access his own money when he was taking a hot bath later that night. That’s when it hit him: Why couldn’t a machine dispense money 24/7 the same way Britain’s beloved vending machines dispensed Cadbury chocolate bars. Two years later, he created the world’s first ATM.

No. 11: Mickey Owen – Wall of Notoriety

If you were a Dodger fan in 1941, there was nobody you despited more than Mickey Owen. The catcher had dropped the final strike of game 4 of the World Series. Had he held onto the ball, the Dodgers would have won the game against the Yankees and tied the Series at 2-2. It was one more reason the Dodgers were nicknamed the Bums.

For years, Owen used his ill fame to stay in the spotlight, including founding the Mickey Owen Baseball School in 1959 in Missouri. Notable alumni include Michael Jordan and Charlie Sheen.

What was Owen’s reaction to that fateful day when he literally dropped the ball: “I would have been completely forgotten if I hadn’t missed that pitch,” he replied.

He turned his whiff into a win.

No. 12: Beethoven – The Wall of Silence

Worse than losing a game is losing your hearing. Overcoming the wall of silence is a horrific wall to climb. At age 48, Beethoven was stone deaf. Yet he went on to compose five more symphonies. He thought them; he didn’t have to hear them.

No. 13 – The Wall of Negativity and Naysayers

Similarly, Edison was hard of hearing. He said deafness was his greatest blessing because it spared him the trouble of having to listen to all the negativity around him.

No. 14 – Laura Hillenbrand – The Wall of Infirmity and Ill Health

You might have read the other day where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie purchased the book rights to film Unbroken, the story of Louie Zamperini, a USC student, Olympian runner and World War II hero who was shot down over the Pacific and survived 47 days in shark-infested waters before he was taken prisoner for two years on Japan’s Execution Island.

Laura Hillenbrand, the author of the previous bestseller “Seabiscuit,” wrote the story despite rarely leaving her bed or ever meeting Zamperini, who is still alive and feisty at age 96. She suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome. How was she able to overcome this wall? By phone!

“When he was telling me his story, I wasn’t looking at a 90-year-old man,” Hillenbrand said. “I was thinking about a 17-year-old runner or a 26-year-old guy out on a life raft. I was able to visualize it I think a lot better because I wasn’t in the room with him.”

No. 15: DeWayne McKinney – Walls of Prison

Maybe in a few years, they’ll make a movie about DeWayne McKinney. McKinney served 19 years in prison for an Orange County murder that he didn’t commit. When released, he didn’t possess a driver’s license, social security card, change of clothes or even a toothbrush. The City of Orange, however, paid him $1.7 million for his wrongful incarceration, of which he was left about $1 million after his attorney’s fees.
What were the odds this high school dropout would have any money left a year or two later. Well, McKinney beat the odds. He made it over the wall.

He kept his money in the bank while he gathered information on different investment opportunities. He investigated stocks and bonds, computer start-ups, and real estate opportunities. He attended Fellowship of Christian Athlete meetings, where the mostly well-heeled participants discussed the potential of different investments. “The other guys were so successful, they weren’t really paying attention,” McKinney recalled.

But McKinney was. He heard an ad executive mention that banking deregulation had made it possible for individuals to buy and operate ATMs — a low-risk investment that required little capital, but had the potential for big returns. A month later, he met a man who sold ATMs to investors, who in turn found busy locations to install the machines and profit from the fees customers paid to withdraw cash. In 2002, ATMs cost about $5,000 each. McKinney bought 20. Working with an ex-car salesman and a parolee, he hit the streets looking for small business owners willing to place one of his cash dispensers in their shops. He paid his team $250 for any deal. Soon, his machines were generating about $10,000 a month in fees.

McKinney’s story didn’t end there. Ironically, he found Southern California too confining. “L.A. to me is like being in prison,” he said. So, he moved his operation to Hawaii, where there were lots of tourists and few ATMs. There, he again relied on his prison networking skills. But instead of swapping cigarettes to get his toilet fixed, he was cutting deals with storeowners, giving them a percentage of his ATM fees. Soon, he had secured the best ATM locations on the island. Every person he talked to — his insurance man, his auto detailer, the mail delivery guy — was a connection or a lead for identifying another prime ATM location. He even stocked the machines himself, traveling from site to site in shorts, sandals, and a tee shirt. His friends called him “Brudda,” the Hawaiian equivalent of “dude.” His real estate holdings were in the millions. “Everything I wanted, I worked for and saved for all my life,” said McKinney, who died in October 2008, not because he fell back in with the wrong crowd, but because of a moped accident.

No. 16: Leland Stanford – The Wall of Bereavement

How do you overcome the loss of a child? You don’t, but there are better ways to respond than just giving up. Leland Stanford, Sr., and his wife Jane were traveling with their only son, Leland Stanford, Jr. when he contracted typhus in Florence, Italy and died on March 13, 1884, two months shy of his 16th birthday. That day, the father said, “I know I resolved from that moment to build a university, and we both from that night resolved on this.”

Stanford University opened seven years later in 1891. Future President Herbert Hoover was in the first graduating class … but that’s another story.

No. 17: Taxpayers and Rate Payers Like You & Me — The Wall of Frustration (Department of Water and Power)

Not every wall we face is matter of life and death. Some are just there to vex us or piss us off.
Maybe a while back you read that the average Department of Water and Power parking lot attendant made $74,400, not including benefits. How many houses do you have to sell to equal that payout?
There’s no use in being bitter, just try to be better …. by taking your business to a new level! You don’t have to park your career. You can take it as far as you want to go!

No. 18: All of Us – Wall of Misinformation (Swedish Scientists)

How many of you grew up hearing that in shipwrecks, women and children are always the first to be lowered into lifeboats. Well, a couple of Swedish scientists decided to study 18 shipping disasters dating to the 1850s. What they found was the overall survival rate was 61 percent for crew members, 44 percent for captains, 37 percent for male passengers, 27 percent for women and 15 percent for children.

In truth, reality is far different from the myth. In fact, nowhere in maritime law does it require that captains go down with their ships or that their crew members sacrifice themselves.

So, ladies the next time you’re in a leaky boat, grab your own life preserver and fend for yourself. Don’t expect a man to lend you a hand.

No. 19: All of Us – Wall of Experts (William Mulholland)

In our day and age, we face wall to wall “experts.” I could point to literally hundreds of examples of where the experts failed, but I’ll mention just one. Since this is a real estate group, does the name William Mulholland ring a bell? In the early 1900s, he was in cahoots with a lot of movers and shakers including the Chandlers of the Los Angeles Times to build the great aqueduct that would carry water to Southern California from the Owens Valley in Northern California. In fact, that great event occurred exactly a century ago in 1913.

But after that great engineering marvel (or swindle of precious water resources), Mulholland continued to build more dams and reservoirs, including the St. Francis Dam. When completed in 1926 above the San Fernando Valley, the St. Francis was large enough to hold a year’s supply of water. Responding to reports of leaks, which had appeared on March 12, 1928, Mulholland and his chief assistant inspected the dam and declared it safe before returning to Los Angeles. A few hours later, when almost all of the Valley’s residents were asleep, the dam burst. “The water was a hundred feet high when it roared down San Francisquito Canyon and into the channel of the Santa Clara River, heading into the Pacific Ocean. The flood killed at least 450 people, wrecked 12,240 homes, and ruined 7,900 acres of farmland.”

No. 20: Elon Musk – The Wall of Failure

NASA’s Space Shuttle has been permanently mothballed so the business of space transportation has fallen into private hands, with mixed results. Not long ago, Space X, a company founded by Pay Pal co-founder Elon Musk, sent a rocket into space ferrying the ashes of astronaut Gordon Cooper and actor James Doohan, the beloved Scotty on “Star Trek.” The rocket blew up. Besides that high-profile embarrassment, Musk burned through about $100 million in cash.

But don’t feel sorry for Musk. He overcame that catastrophe. NASA recently awarded him a $1.6 billion contract.

No. 21: Stephen King – The Wall of Rejection

We’re all sales people here, so we know that it’s hard to escape the wall of rejection. But, no worries. Rejection can lead to election. Author Stephen King received so many rejection letters that he kept them in a journal he called a “Record of Failure.” King stuck each new rejection on a nail. “By the time I was 14,” King said, “the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. So I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.”

No. 22: Ernest Hemingway – The Wall of Perfection

Being perfect at what you do — producing that one masterpiece — is another almost impossible wall to overcome. But you can’t stop striving for perfection. Ernest Hemingway told the Paris Review that he revised A Farewell to Arms 39 times before he was satisfied. In fact, a new 2012 edition of his 1929 masterpiece reveals that he rewrote the ending 47 times.

No. 23: Peter Bennett – Wall of Discrimination

With my gray hair and advancing age, I’ve become more sensitive to age discrimination. I see and hear and feel it everywhere. In fact, I think it’s more prevalent in our society than just about any other kind of discrimination. Earlier this week, I was promoting my book along media row on the Miracle Mile outside NBC Universal and Oprah’s OWN Network on Wilshire Boulevard. The only people who would talk to me were other old people. My wife Colleen said, “Duuuuh.”

But even this very palpable wall of discrimination, which daily tries to lock us out of opportunities, can be overcome with persistence and planning.

Ely Callaway started his golf company in this 60s. Author Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65 when she published her first Little House on the Prairie. And, of course, there are hundreds of others who have succeeded in their silver and golden years.

Instead of massaging the gray out of your hair, massage more in. Your experience isn’t only golden; it can lead you to more gold!

SUMMATION
There will always be new walls popping up to test and challenge us. To have the greatest success in overcoming them, try to develop the following qualities:
1. Be adventurous. Be someone who likes challenges, chaos, upheaval and creative destruction.
2. Fight resistance with persistence.
3. Always be ready for one more try and one less alibi.
4. Be someone who cares more about your imagination than your image.
5. Be someone who sees results more than risks.
6. Be willing to jump off a cliff and build your wings on the way down.
7. See rejection and failure as emboldening, not embarrassing
8. Treat all stumbling blocks as stepping stones, all obstacles as opportunities, all problems as possibilities, all stop signs as guidelines and all terminations as transitions.
9. And by all means, stop hanging out with CAVE people. CAVE people are Citizens Against Virtually Everything.

With better decisions, better tools, better people around you, and a strong, unrelenting faith in yourself, you can tear down any wall holding back your success!

The First P: Prospecting

How many of you here today know who William Dawes is? I thought so!

On April 18, 1775, he jumped on his horse at midnight to warn his fellow colonists that the British were marching on Lexington and Concord, Mass. Yet, you’ve probably never heard of him.

However, you’ve most likely heard of that other guy, Paul Revere, immortalized in the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Why did Dawes fade from the pages of history when Revere became famous?

Revere was a prospector, networker and connector and Dawes was not. Revere was intensely social and gregarious, with an uncanny genius for being at the center of events. Besides being a silversmith, he was a fisherman, hunter, card player, theater-lover, frequenter of pubs and a businessman. When he knocked doors, people listened. When Dawes knocked doors, few answered because they didn’t know who he was.

So the lesson is, get out from behind your desk and get out there. Meet people, be with people, and build relationships.

Things always have a way of happening when you’re out among people.

Somebody who was always out there was Herbert Vogel, who was a postal clerk his whole life. He died this year at age 90. He never made more than $23,000 a year. His wife Dorothy was a reference librarian. But the couple somehow amassed a multimillion dollar art collection. How did they do it? They prospected. They befriended struggling artists, often asking to purchase a painting, drawing or sculpture despite their modest income. Sometimes, they’d exchange services like babysitting or pet-sitting for a keepsake or memento. More often than not, undiscovered artists, desperate for a sale and the emotional support, obliged. In more than 30 years, the couple crammed almost 5,000 works into their one-room, rent-controlled New York City apartment, never selling one. A few years back, they donated their treasures to the National Gallery of Art.

The point of prospecting is to get out there and make things happen. You may not always know where you’re going, but people – customers – will find you.

When the naturalist John Muir started out, he didn’t know he where he would end up.

In his early 20s, he walked from Louisville, Ky. to Cedar Key, Fla., about 1,000 miles, with the intent of catching a steamer to South America to explore the Amazon. By the way, before he left, when he had asked his father for a little money for his journey, his father replied, “No, depend entirely on yourself.”

When Muir got to Florida, he found that there were no steamers leaving for South America, so he caught one to California by way of Cuba and New York, and of course, after he arrived in the Golden State, he put Yosemite on the map and became the founder of the Sierra Club, etc.

So, the lesson is, don’t call it a day too early when things don’t always go your way. Keep looking and hunting.

You have to stay in the game, and keep working new angles and looking for new turf.

Mark Twain found new turf. When Mark Twain was a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi, he was making more money than the vice president of the United States. But when the Civil War came, the river was closed to all traffic, so he was out of work. He joined the Confederacy for about a week. After discovering he wasn’t cut out for soldiering, he headed west and struck a literary fortune.

Another 19th Century prospector was Alexander Graham Bell. In trying to invent a hearing device for his hearing-impaired wife, he inadvertently invented the telephone.

Do you see a pattern here? Prospectors don’t lay back. They keep covering ground.

In the 1950s, Ray Kroc was a guy who sold paper cups and malt mixers for a living. When he found out that some San Bernardino burger joint owned by Dick and Mac McDonald was buying more of his machines than any of his other customers, he paid the brothers a visit. Shortly, he was pitching them on the idea of franchising their restaurants.

When Howard Schultz saw that a little northwest coffee company was buying up all his coffee makers, he flew across the country to learn more about the coffee company with the funny name, Starbucks. The rest is history.

Therefore, talk to new people every day. While you’re searching for prospects, never forget that you are a prospect, too. So, look sharp, be sharp, wear your nametag and always be ready to let people know who you are and what you do.

The Second P: Preparation

Nobody prepared for a game like Kurt Warner, who led the Rams to a Super Bowl victory in 2000, and almost did it a second time with the Arizona Cardinals in 2008.

Once, he was asked how much time he thought he put into practice each week? After thinking for a spell, he said, “About 50 hours.”

He broke it down: “I watch film from last week’s game, then there’s film on our new opponent, then we get the playbook to study, then we start sequencing the plays we want to run, then we go out on the field and practice the plays, then we condition, so altogether about 50 hours a week.”

Thus, if a football game consists of four 15-minute quarters or an hour total, Warner’s practice-to-play ratio was 50-to-1. But then the interviewer realized that because Warner only played on offense, his real practice-to-play ratio was more like 100-to-1.

Warner was hugely compensated for the minutes he played each week. Asked what his best football memories were, he didn’t talk about the money he was paid but rather helping lead two down-on-their-luck football franchises back to greatness.

So, follow Warner’s Winning Ways:

Put:
• Mastery before money, and
• Relationships before revenues

In your business world, that means knowing all of your products and services inside and out, and the benefits they provide. And then like Warner, hit the practice field long and hard so that when you do come face to face with your clients for those few precious seconds and minutes, you’ll turn in a super performance.

Sometimes, the best way to prepare is to find a quiet place away from all the hustle. Sometimes, you have to literally step away from the fray.

The best example I can give on how this preparation technique works is to share how Sir Isaac Newton made all his great scientific discoveries in the 17th Century. He didn’t make them while he was a student at Cambridge. He made them in the quiet of the countryside.

He had to leave Cambridge for 18 months on account of the Black Plague that struck England in 1665 and the Great Fire that followed in 1666. He went to live on the family farm in Lincolnshire until the threat subsided. During that down time, he formulated many of his major contributions to science, including integral and differential calculus, many of the laws of optics, the universal laws of motion, and the law of gravitation.

So, find a quiet place to prepare. Soak in a hot tub, take a walk, turn off the radio on the way to work, etc. Find some peace.

Final point: The more successful you are and the more money you make, the more you should prepare. Darwin Smith, the former chief executive officer of Kimberly Clark, celebrated in Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, showed how this principle worked. Upon his retirement from Kimberly Clark, he said, “I never stopped trying to be qualified for the job.”

That’s the way you have to be. Riches don’t respond to wishes,” Napoleon Hill said. So plan and prepare how to obtain them.

The Third P: Presentation

This is what you live for and have been preparing for. When the lights go on, you have to perform. But don’t treat your performance as an audition when you sit down with your client. Simply be the prepared, polished, consistent performer you are.

Take your cue from Fred Rogers.

For more than 30 years, Mr. Rogers welcomed millions of viewers (customers) into his neighborhood because they knew precisely what they were getting — a familiar friend who wore a zippered cardigan sweater and tennis shoes. Indeed, he even kept his 143-pound weight the same, refusing to do anything that might make it fluctuate. He went to bed early and swam every morning and didn’t drink, smoke, or eat flesh of any kind.

He also made a point to behave naturally on camera rather than acting out a character. “One of the greatest gifts you can give anybody is the gift of your honest self,” he said.

He wasn’t flashy or a flip-flopper. There was no bait-and-switch. He just delivered the goods. He protected his brand (i.e., neighborhood or farming area) through honesty and constancy and authenticity. He was extremely effective because he was extremely selective.

You can do the same.

In your presentations, aim for precision and concision, a rule unfortunately I always seems to violate. Furthermore, aim to complete instead of compete, to connect instead of correct, to coach instead of criticize, to serve instead of sell.

Let current and potential customers know exactly what you can do for them. Don’t make claims that you can’t fulfill. If there are certain values you subscribe to, share them, display them, and live them. Be consistent. In other words, if you’re selling “green” homes, don’t drive your clients around town in a gas-guzzler.

The Fourth P: Persuasion

I think this is the toughest “P” to get your arms around. To be great in the persuasive arts, you have to be comfortable in your own skin. You also have to believe that what you believe is far more important than what anybody else believes or says about you. Therefore, you have to be extremely confident and self assured. That’s how you build Disneyland out of an orchard grove, even though everybody thinks you’re crazy.

Like Disney, you have to believe that no matter what is thrown at you — like a real estate deal that’s going to blow apart — you have what it takes to hold it together. You have to adopt a sales attitude like Brownie Wise of Tupperware fame, who said, “Remember the steam kettle; though up to its neck in hot water it continues to sing.”

You will continue to sing and sell if you maintain a calm, clear and optimistic outlook on what you want to achieve. At age 52, Ray Kroc suffered from diabetes and arthritis. He also had no gall bladder and was missing most of his thyroid. Reflecting back on that time when he was on the verge of building a hamburger empire, he said, “I was convinced that the best years were ahead of me.”

If you’re convinced that your best years are ahead of you, you’ll be convincing to others. If your vision and purpose are clear, you’ll be persuasive in any situation. There will be no objections you can’t handle.

You don’t have to resort to tricks or cut your commission. You simply have to say what you do and do what you say. When you’re reliable and the real deal, you become naturally persuasive and passionate.

To maintain your aura of authenticity and persuasion, simply take Will Rogers’ advice, “Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”

The Fifth P: Post-Sale

Fortune is in the follow-up. Disney knows that a 1 percent increase in repeat business translates into millions of dollars in extra revenue. In 2011, Ford converted its No. 1 loyalty rating from the Polk automotive survey into $20.2 billion profits, the second highest in its history.

It’s not enough to just stay in touch, however. Keep working to anticipate your customers’ needs. Give them what they want. Not what you want.

Mark Twain was probably the most conspicuous person on the planet in the early 20th Century. In trying to explain his popularity, he said his writing was like water, while other writers’ works were more like fine wine. “A lot more people drink water,” he joked.

CLOSE

If you stay true to the 5 Ps of Selling, you’ll be rewarded with two additional P’s. Productivity and Profit!

Good Selling!

Our 16th president was filled with darkness and light.

I am the author of Life Lessons of a Harvard Reject. It’s an encyclopedia on success – your success! I don’t care what situation you face or predicament you’re in, you can turn to the appropriate section in the book and begin reaping real answers and solutions to achieve the outcomes you desire.

It will help you aim higher than your current reach. It will help you tear down the walls holding back your success. It will help you HIGHER yourself when the world isn’t hiring. In the book, you’ll meet scores of teachers, everyone from Jesus Christ to J.C. Penney, to help you complete your particular journey in life.

Because Spielberg’s new movie, “Lincoln,” hits movie theaters today, I thought I’d share some lessons on Abraham Lincoln, one of the many teachers you’ll meet in Life Lessons.

We have another reason to honor and listen to Lincoln. As president, he declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, with the first one being celebrated on Nov. 26, 1863. Exactly one week before that first official Thanksgiving, Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.

You should also know that more books have been written about our 16th president than about any other American in history. As of November 12, 2012, the number of books on Lincoln (which includes biographies, autobiographies, histories, titles on specific topics, etc) stood at 2,515. The only other U.S. president that comes close to having that many books written about him is George Washington at 1,347.

So, if the two faced each other in an election, Lincoln would win 65% of the vote to Washington’s 35%.

Indeed, there has never been anyone quite like Abraham Lincoln.

Let me give you few quick facts about Lincoln.

He was our tallest president at 6-foot-4. He weighed about 180 pounds, wore a size 7 ¼-hat and size 12 to 14 shoes, depending on the shoe and shoemaker.

He was the first president to be born outside of the original 13 colonies.

About 130 photographs were taken of Lincoln in his lifetime, but there wasn’t one taken of him with his entire family. In fact, he was never photographed alone with his wife Mary.

Lincoln was the first president to have his image on a U.S. coin. The Lincoln penny, which came out in 1909, would have been Lincoln’s 100th birthday.

Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent. He invented a flotation device for the movement of boats in shallow water.

Abraham Lincoln’s salary as president was $25,000 a year.

One last thing, you should know about Lincoln, and this fact is by far the most important: Lincoln was an incorrigible and unapologetic jokester and storyteller who also experienced deep bouts of melancholy. He was Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, David Letterman and Jon Stewart rolled into one. His stories were the grease that lubricated his friendships and his rise to the highest office of the land. He loved to hear them and he loved even more to tell them. His laughter was his life-preserver as he faced the greatest crisis any president has ever known. His early law partner, Ward Hill Lamon, said thus, “Wit, with that illustrious man, was a jewel whose mirth-moving flashes he could no more repress than the diamond can extinguish its own brilliancy.”

He had legions of critics, who, unaccustomed to his prairie and backwoods humor, thought he was a clown or a buffoon. But it was his humor that was the glue that held together his sanity and the nation.
Now let’s get to some of Lincoln’s life lessons that we should all try to emulate if our goal is to achieve real success and significance in life. Imagine how much more success you can achieve if you begin applying some of Lincoln’s practices to your own life.

1.Give Back – The $250 Fee
Lincoln literally believed in giving back. He and his early law partner Ward Hill Lamon represented a client in a simple case that required little of their time. When Lincoln learned his partner had charged a set fee of $250, he protested. Lincoln said, “That is all wrong. Give him back half of it. When his partner explained that the client was totally satisfied with the bill and services rendered, Lincoln replied, “That may be, but I am not satisfied. This is positively wrong. Go, call him back and return him half the money at least, or I will not receive one cent of it for my share.”

Even the judge was upset by Lincoln’s modest fees. In rasping tones that could be heard all over the court room, the large 8th circuit judge bellowed, “’Lincoln, I have been watching you and Lamon. You are impoverishing this bar by your picayune charges of fees, and the lawyers have reason to complain of you. You are now almost as poor as Lazarus, and if you don’t make people pay you more for your services, you will die as poor as Job’s turkey.”

2. Don’t Be a Pig – The Human Hog
Lincoln was a prairie lawyer who served clients throughout Illinois’ 8th Circuit. Traveling constantly, he picked up lots of tales and spun several himself, including this yarn about a Cortlandt County farmer.
A farmer had raised a hog of such tremendous size that people came from miles around to see it. When one curious visitor asked to sneak a peek, the farmer said, “Sure, but I’ll have to charge you a dollar.” The stranger glared at the farmer for a minute, handed him the desired money, and started to walk away. “Hold on,” said the farmer, “Don’t you want to see the hog?” “No,” said the stranger. “Lookin’ at you, I’ve seen as big a hog as I ever want to see!”

3. Appreciate the Value of Money – The Boat
Don’t think for a second that Lincoln wasn’t a capitalist or didn’t appreciate the value of money. Indeed, in the White House, Lincoln recalled for Secretary of State William Seward how he earned his first dollar. He had built a boat, and two strangers wanted their bags ferried to a larger steam boat. After transporting them, they flung two half dollars at him. Lincoln said, “I could scarcely believe my eyes when I picked up the money. You may think this a little thing in these days, and it seems to me now like a trifle, but it was an important incident in my life. The world seemed wider and fairer before me. I was a hopeful boy from that time.”

4. Keep Only What Is Yours – The Poor Woman
In his early 20s, when Lincoln was a store clerk in New Salem, Illinois, a poor woman made a small purchase. After closing up and totaling the sales, he realized that he had overcharged the woman 6 cents. That same night, Lincoln walked three miles so as to return the money to the woman.

5. Be a Person of Vision – The Autograph
Other than his signature that appears on official documents, only one autograph of Lincoln has been preserved. It was written when he was 14 on the leaf of his school book. This is what it said:
“Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen, he will be good, but god knows when.”

6. Don’t Let ‘Em Know What You Don’t Know – The Drill Sergeant
People forget Lincoln trained as an Indian fighter. Indeed, Indians had killed his grandfather. When he was 23, he was named the captain of his Indian-fighting company. One day he was drilling his men who were marching side by side 20 abreast as they approached a gate. Having forgotten the command for assembling his men in single file so they could pass through the gate, he shouted, “This company is dismissed for 2 minutes, when it will fall in again on the other side of the gate.”

7. Set High Standards – As Your Father In Heaven Is Perfect, Be Ye Also Perfect
One of Lincoln’s favorite quotes was from scripture. It read, “As your Father in Heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect.” Lincoln, more than anybody, knew he was far from perfect, but this understanding didn’t prevent him from seeking excellence.

8. Don’t Give Up Too Early – Horse for the Course
“Don’t change horses in midstream.” It turns out that the popularity of the phrase comes from a speech Lincoln gave in 1864 to the National Union League, which wanted him to run under its political banner for a second term. In the speech, Lincoln said, “An old Dutch farmer remarked to a companion once that it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams.”

So, as business people, instead of abandoning ship at the first sight of trouble, review your plans and goals first. Perhaps, all that is needed is a tweak here or there and rededication to your purpose.

9. Know Your Audience – Good Listener, Bad Listener
Lincoln had an inexhaustible supply of stories; more important, he knew when and how to share them. Lincoln said, “There are two ways of relating a story. If you have an auditor who has the time, and is inclined to listen, lengthen it out, pour it out slowly as if from a jug. If you have a poor listener, hasten it, shorten it, shoot it out of a pop-gun.”

Apply these rules when you give your listing presentation. If you’re client is 80-years-old, don’t try to wow her with a slick Power Point Presentation. Always customize your presentation to your audience.

10. Celebrate Who You are and Where You Came From — Man of the People

If Lincoln had been born a blue blood, would he have been able to summon the haunting, hallowed words of the Gettysburg Address or the healing words –“with malice toward none and charity for all”– in his second inaugural address?

11. Turn Obstacles into Opportunities – A Case of the Uglies
Lincoln reached the White House despite losing eight elections, failing twice in business and suffering a nervous breakdown. But he won his two most important elections: in 1860, when he was elected president, and in 1864, when he was reelected.

He never let poverty or poor appearance or even depression, his or his wife’s, hold him back. Indeed, he used these detriments to his advantage.

Lincoln knew he didn’t have Brad Pitt’s good looks, but his homely appearance didn’t prevent him from charming people and winning their affections. His humor gave him humility.

Indeed, Lincoln told this joke about himself: “Once I met a woman riding horseback in the woods. As I stopped to let her pass, she also stopped, and, looking at me intently, said: ‘I do believe you are the ugliest man I ever saw.’ Said I, ‘Madam, you are probably right, but I can’t help it!’ ‘No,’ said she, ‘you can’t help it, but you might stay at home!’”

12. Never Be Afraid to Speak the Truth – The Hot Stove League
Lincoln’s first secretary of war was Simon Cameron, a man so corrupt that the only thing he wouldn’t steal, according to Lincoln, was a hot stove. Lincoln replaced him with Edwin Stanton.

13. Plant Seeds of Hope and Possibility – Thistles and Flowers
In February of 1865, the President granted the request of two Pennsylvania women to free men who had been arrested for resisting the draft. Turning to his friend, Joshua Speed, Lincoln said, “Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best that ‘I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would grow.’”

14. Don’t Hold a Grudge – Resentment Doesn’t Pay
When friends of Lincoln advised against appointing some of his main rivals to his cabinet, he replied, “You have more of a feeling of personal resentment than I have. Perhaps, I have too little of it, but I never thought it paid.” So business people, don’t automatically rule out people from joining your team just because they once did you a bad turn.

15. Don’t Be a Prisoner of the Past – The McCormick Harvesting Machine Co.
In 1855, Lincoln had been retained by the defense in a patent-infringement suit brought by the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. When the trial was switched from Chicago to Cincinnati, his clients decided to dump him in favor of Edwin Stanton, one of the nation’s preeminent legal minds. But they never informed Lincoln, and he didn’t hear the news until he appeared in Cincinnati prepared for the trial. Although professionally embarrassed, he didn’t sulk over the snub. Instead, he stayed to observe the trial. Seven years later, when Lincoln sought a new Secretary of War, he appointed Stanton, choosing to remember how impressed he had been by Stanton’s courtroom brilliance, not how he had once been slighted and ignored by the legal giant. His greater purpose and focus on assembling the best people for his cabinet supplanted any painful blows to his ego.

Interestingly, when Lincoln died at 7:22 a.m. on April 15, 1865, in a house owned by tailor William Petersen, across the street from Ford’s Theater, Stanton was by his side, whispering, “Now, he belongs to the ages.”

CONCLUSION
Maybe Lincoln was such a poor hater because he had experienced so much personal pain and loss. His grandfather Abe was killed by Indians. His mother died when he was just 9. When he was 19, his sister Sarah died while giving birth. Only one of his four sons lived to adulthood.This son was Robert Lincoln (1843-1926).

Strangely, near the end of the war at a train station in Jersey City, N.J., Robert fell off a platform while attempting to board a railcar. He was saved from possible death by Edwin Booth, the actor and brother of John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865), the man who would assassinate President Lincoln a few weeks later in Ford’s Theater. Booth was traveling with his friend, John T. Ford, owner of Ford’s Theatre in Washington, where Lincoln was assassinated. Amazing!

Although spared from death by Edwin Booth, Robert Lincoln was either present or nearby for three of the nation’s four presidential assassinations. Robert arrived at Ford’s Theater shortly after his father was shot on April 14, 1865. On July 2, 1881, he was at the Sixth Street Train Station in Washington, D.C., where he was an eyewitness to the shooting of President Garfield by Charles J. Guiteau. On September 6, 1901, at the invitation of President William McKinley, Lincoln attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., where McKinley was shot by Leon F. Czolgosz.

It wasn’t surprising that Robert started turning down invitations by his friends to attend their gatherings and social affairs. But he carried on and served the nation with distinction.

We all have a destiny. You have a destiny.

Being a Realtor or someone who works for himself requires Lincoln’s inner toughness. When you feel that toughness wavering, read a little more about him and like Lincoln, don’t take things so darn seriously. He faced insurmountable challenges, with humor and grace, and he overcame them.

And so can you!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Actor Bill Cobbs, now appearing in the ABC hit show, “Going On” starring Matthew Perry, is the newest fan of Life Lessons of a Harvard Reject.

The ubiquitous actor, who appears in the current ABC sitcom “Going On” with Matthew Perry, has been in Star Trek Enterprise, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, The Bodyguard, Bird, The Color of Money, The Cotton Club, Trading Places, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and scores of other popular movies and television shows.

It’s almost gotten to the point where one of the first questions Hollywood producers ask before going into production is, “Is Cobbs available.”

Cobbs, a Cleveland, Ohio, native who lives in the Inland Empire, is more than just a fine actor, he’s a patriot who served as a United States Air Force radar technician for eight years and animal lover who a couple of years back came to La Verne and volunteered his time to participate in Linda Blair’s (“The Exorcist) WorldHeat Foundation’s Craft Fair, organized by La Verne resident Becky Altringer, to raise money for abandoned and abused animals.

That’s when I first met Bill, and I’ve closely followed his great career ever since. He’s also the latest fan of the motivational and inspirational book Life Lessons of a Harvard Reject (www.HarvardReject.com), which among its many themes shares a multitude of stories, anecdotes and insights on the Black experience in America.

Bill, here’s to you, and the best of luck on your latest television series, “Going On.”

Because, if there’s anybody, who has it “Going On,” it’s you!

It’s good to know a couple of Trojans had my back while I was on the USC campus for the USC-Oregon showdown.

Well, this past weekend “in costume” I struck both the USC-Oregon game — which with 90,000-plus fans streaming into the Los Angeles Coliseum was crazy — and the Breeders’ Cup races in Arcadia, a slightly more subdued affair.

At the end of the day, it was one comment a woman made to me while we passed each other in a crosswalk on Baldwin Ave. in Arcadia that stuck with me. She said simply and with a straight and earnest face, “Congratulations on your graduation.”

The moment she said it, I realized that while I had taken my cap off and tucked my two signs under my arm, I was still wearing my graduation gown.

That immediately got me thinking.

I had worn a cap and gown only twice before until my current Harvard Reject book adventure and promotion tour, once when I graduated from high school and again after graduating from college.

Sure, I’ve been wearing my cap and gown as an advertising lark or branding gimmick, call it what you will, but perhaps there really was some real significance, if not symbolism, to be found in donning my black robe 35 years after my last official commencement into the real world.

After having written Life Lessons of a Harvard Reject, hadn’t I truly graduated to a higher place? It many ways, the book is like my PhD dissertation and took just as long to research and write. I took the writing seriously because I vowed to follow whatever I wrote down.

Indeed, the process of writing and publishing – and the introspection and solitude required to create a book, or in my case of code of conduct — has taught me to say “yes” more often, to be less fearful, to ask more probing questions, to focus more sharply, to show more discipline, to take more risks, to aim higher, to plan more, to dream bigger, to live with more purpose and vision, to love and give more deeply, to accept change more willingly, to strive for greater improvement and innovation, and to work to be a better husband, father and leader.

Writing and trying to get my arms around the success and leadership principles in the book have truly changed me. When you think deeply and start heading upriver like Marlow in the Heart of Darkness, you begin to see what’s been holding you back – things like following mindless routine and bureaucracy and living comfortably with complacency.

You realize that all the hoop-jumping you’ve been doing all your life – getting better grades, rising in your corporation, adding another rank – has just made you more accepting of the status quo. By going along all these years, you tell yourself, you’ve managed to get along.
But what do you really have at the end of the day – at the end of your life? Is acceptance what you want? Or do you want to move the needle in a new direction – put that dent in the universe that so obsessed Steve Jobs?

Sure it’s fun to Tweet and Facebook and parrot bumper-sticker quotes all day, but is that as good as it gets – getting a hundred people to like your last post?

I submit there’s something more, and it can’t always be expressed in 140 or fewer characters. I want solitude and intimate conversation, and you only get that heading up river past all the distractions and noise that compete for your attention and taking on real projects that can’t be completed in a day or even a year.

That is the only way to turn a heart of darkness into an elevated spirit of enlightenment.

So, yes, I have graduated again. And it feels good. Thank you, lady in the crosswalk, for bringing it to my attention.

Start writing your own code, and, more important, follow what you write. Then share it with your true friends. Ask for more than a “like” or a “comment.” Get some real feedback. Engage in deep discussion over a glass of wine or two.

Look forward to slipping on your cap and gown again. It’s a robe worth wearing more than once or twice in a lifetime.