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One of the most important qualities you can have to succeed in your life is not intelligence, money, or education.  What you need is actually free, and you can have it today and every day for the rest of your life.

You must simply believe that you will prevail.

I know it sounds too simple to be true, but if you believe you will prevail I guarantee that you will succeed in your life.  Please remember that success is not prevailing at once.  It is prevailing at last.

Lorelei has been a good friend of mine for more than forty years.  She is smart, attractive, and has earned both college and graduate degrees.  But Lorelei worries—all of the time.

At lunch three days ago I asked Lorelei to think about her entire life and tell me at what point in time she knew she would prevail.  There was a pause.

“I don’t think . . . ever.”

“What about high school?  I remember that you played hooky from school, smoked, and were rebellious.  You must have known that you would ‘get away’ with it.”

“No.  Not really.  Basically I was just angry.  And I did pay a penalty.”

“Okay.  How about your son Loki?  As a child he needed special help in school and you fought hard to get him what he needed—for many years.  And you got it.”

“Yes.  I knew I would fight for my son forever.  But I didn’t know if I would ever prevail.”

I was surprised, as I often am when someone is different from me in an important way.  We continued our conversation talking about less substantial matters like cabbages and kings. At the same time my subconscious was working on an idea. 

At the end of our lunch I said, “I have a homework assignment for you.”  I was afraid that she would tell me that I was out of my mind for trying to give her—a grown woman—homework. But she seemed open to it, so I continued.

“Tomorrow morning, when you wake up, think of something on which you can prevail.  Plant a seed, write a paragraph, read one page on the internet.  It doesn’t matter what you choose.  The seed doesn’t have to grow into anything. 

The paragraph can be one short sentence with misspelled words.  The internet page can be a Google map.  Tomorrow morning just choose an act that you will do, and then know that you will prevail.  In other words, begin to form a new habit.”

To my delight, she said, “I’ll do it.”

Yesterday at lunch I remembered Lorelei’s assignment. With slight misgivings about how she might reply, I texted her.

This morning I texted back.

Two years ago I weighed 278 pounds.  Two years ago I hadn’t ever published a short story, let alone a book.  By the end of this month I will have had two books published, and I’m working a third.  I’ve written this blog every week without fail for more than a year.  If my life were a slot machine with five rows, all would be displaying a “7” and I would be winning a huge jackpot.  But I don’t need to go to Las Vegas to win.  I win because I have the habit of believing that I will prevail.

What are you going to prevail on today?

I know you will.

Alan 

I just returned from my father’s 100^th birthday celebration at the Sheraton Universal City.  In 1914 Dad was born into a working class family near New York City.  When he was in high school the Great Depression hit, so he learned to play the French Horn, practicing more than three hours a day, to escape from poverty and earn a decent living.

In a recent video interview with Dad, my son Craig noted that Dad is one of the best brass instrument teachers in the world.  (His book, Essentials of Brass Playing, was published in 1982 and is still sold on Amazon.)

“No!” said Dad.  “I am the best.” 

Very few of my father’s hundreds, or thousands, of students over the past seventy years would dispute that claim.  When the Fred Fox University of Arizona Graduate Wind Quintet rehearsed at his home yesterday I asked Dad if he would please not take over the rehearsal.

“Certainly,” he said.

I arrived forty minutes after they began.  My father, from his chair, had taken over the rehearsal.

“They were all asleep,” he said.  “Now they’re awake.  They’re playing well.” 

Dad always recommends, in no uncertain terms, that everyone pay attention and perform at his or her best all of the time, to squeeze the most out of life.  I suspect that these five outstanding young musicians will tell their tale of yesterday’s lesson with Fred Fox to their friends and students fifty years from now.

One student from 1952 spoke at the party and said, “I had one lesson with Fred.  It changed my life.” 

Another student, who is still enjoying a long and successful career, flew in all the way from New Zealand to attend the party and participate in a short concert for Dad.

A third student, who retired twenty-three years ago after playing with a major symphony orchestra “took his lips out of mothballs” to perform today.

I always look for lessons in each experience, to improve my own life and to share with others. Lessons from today?

1. Keep your mind active.  Each time I visit Dad he is happy to impart his views on everything.  After the party ended I overheard Dad giving a short French Horn lesson to one of the guests.
2. Do your very best.  Always.  In my family this notion is seldom mentioned, just assumed.
3. Keep moving forward.  Dad told me a few years ago that he had figured out a new French Horn technique by listening to a CD of an Austrian French Horn player.  “I wish I had known that when I was playing,” he said.
4. Tame your negative emotions.  On Saturday Dad drove for an hour and a half to find a hotel to see his ninety-six year old sister.  The hotel was difficult to find, so he returned home—as fresh and happy as when he started.
5. Be Feisty.  When he was ninety-five Dad underwent open heart surgery.  He was out of intensive care three or four days before the average sixty-year-old.  At the heart rehab facility one week later, compelled to use a walker, Dad strolled the corridors holding the walker high above his head. They sent him home early.
6. It pays to have good genes.  I asked my dad to mark March 5, 2040 on his calendar because I expected him to attend my own 100^th birthday on that date.

My personal philosophy, which permeates everything I write, is this:  We only have today.  It’s up to each of us to make the most of it.

Thanks, Dad.

Alan