Chicken Soup for the Soul 20th Anniversary Edition (30 page)

She was transferred to a specialized rehabilitation hospital in the San Francisco Bay area. Whatever therapies could be applied to her case were used. The therapists were charmed by her undefeatable spirit. They taught her about imaging — about seeing herself walking. If it would do nothing else, it would at least give her hope and something positive to do in the long waking hours in her bed. Angela would work as hard as possible in physical therapy, in whirlpools and in exercise sessions. But she worked just as hard lying there faithfully doing her imaging, visualizing herself moving, moving, moving!

One day, as she was straining with all her might to imagine her legs moving again, it seemed as though a miracle happened: The bed moved! It began to move around the room! She screamed out, “Look what I’m doing! Look! Look! I can do it! I moved, I moved!”

Of course, at this very moment everyone else in the hospital was screaming, too, and running for cover. People were screaming, equipment was falling and glass was breaking. You see, it was an earthquake. But don’t tell that to Angela. She’s convinced that she did it. And now only a few years later, she’s back in school. On her own two legs. No crutches, no wheelchair. You see, anyone who can shake the earth between San Francisco and Oakland can conquer a piddling little disease, can’t they?

~Hanoch McCarty

Action is the foundational key to all success.

~Pablo Picasso

A
little kid down at our church in Huntington Beach came up to me after he heard me talk about the Children’s Bank. He shook my hand and said, “My name is Tommy Tighe, I’m six years old and I want to borrow money from your Children’s Bank.”

I said, “Tommy, that’s one of my goals, to loan money to kids. And so far all the kids have paid it back. What do you want to do?”

He said, “Ever since I was four I had a vision that I could cause peace in the world. I want to make a bumper sticker that says, ‘PEACE, PLEASE! DO IT FOR US KIDS,’ and sign it ‘Tommy’.”

“I can get behind that,” I said. He needed $454 to produce 1,000 bumper stickers. The Mark Victor Hansen Children’s Free Enterprise Fund wrote a check to the printer that was printing the bumper stickers.

Tommy’s dad whispered in my ear, “If he doesn’t pay the loan back, are you going to foreclose on his bicycle?”

I said, “No, knock on wood, every kid is born with honesty, morality and ethics. They have to be taught something else. I believe he’ll pay us back.” If you have children, let them work for money for someone honest, moral and ethical so they learn the principle early.

We gave Tommy a copy of all of my tapes and he listened to them 21 times each and took ownership of the material. Tommy said, “It says ‘Always start selling at the top.’” Tommy convinced his dad to drive him up to Ronald Reagan’s home. Tommy rang the bell and the gatekeeper came out. Tommy gave a two-minute, irresistible sales presentation on his bumper sticker. The gatekeeper reached in his pocket, gave Tommy $1.50 and said, “Here, I want one of those. Hold on and I’ll get the former President.”

I asked, “Why did you ask him to buy?”

He said, “You said in the tapes to ask everyone to buy.” I said, “I did. I did. I’m guilty.”

He sent a bumper sticker to Mikhail Gorbachev with a bill for $1.50 in U.S. funds. Gorbachev sent him back $1.50 and a picture that said, “Go for peace, Tommy,” and signed it, “Mikhail Gorbachev, President.”

Since I collect autographs, I told Tommy, “I’ll give you $500 for Gorbachev’s autograph.”

He said, “No thanks, Mark.”

I said, “Tommy, I own several companies. When you get older, I’d like to hire you.”

“Are you kidding?” he answered. “When I get older, I’m going to hire you.”

The Sunday edition of the
Orange County Register
did a feature section on Tommy’s story, the Children’s Free Enterprise Bank and me. Marty Shaw, the journalist, interviewed Tommy for six hours and wrote a phenomenal interview. Marty asked Tommy what he thought his impact would be on world peace. Tommy said, “I don’t think I am old enough yet; I think you have to be eight or nine to stop all the wars in the world.”

Marty asked, “Who are your heroes?”

He said, “My dad, George Burns, Wally Joyner and Mark Victor Hansen.” Tommy has good taste in role models.

Three days later, I got a call from Hallmark. A Hallmark franchisee had faxed a copy of the
Register
article. They were having a convention in San Francisco and wanted Tommy to speak. After all, they saw that Tommy had nine goals for himself:

1. Call about cost (baseball card collateral).

2. Have bumper sticker printed.

3. Make a plan for a loan.

4. Find out how to tell people.

5. Get address of leaders.

6. Write a letter to all of the presidents and leaders of other countries and send them all a free bumper sticker.

7. Talk to everyone about peace.

8. Call the newspaper stand and talk about my business.

9. Have a talk with school.

Hallmark wanted my company to book Tommy to speak. While the talk did not happen because the two-week lead time was too short, the negotiation between Hallmark, myself and Tommy was fun, uplifting and powerful.

Joan Rivers called Tommy Tighe to be on her syndicated television show. Someone had also faxed her a copy of the
Register
interview on Tommy.

“Tommy,” Joan said, “this is Joan Rivers and I want you on my TV show which is viewed by millions.”

“Great!” said Tommy. He didn’t know her from a bottle of Vicks. “I’ll pay you $300,” said Joan.

“Great!” said Tommy. Having listened repeatedly to and mastered my
Sell Yourself Rich
tapes, Tommy continued selling Joan by saying: “I am only eight years old, so I can’t come alone. You can afford to pay for my mom, too, can’t you, Joan?”

“Yes!” Joan replied.

“By the way, I just watched a
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
show and it said to stay at the Trump Plaza when you’re in New York. You can make that happen, can’t you, Joan?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“The show also said when in New York, you ought to visit the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. You can get us tickets, can’t you?”

“Yes...”

“Great. Did I tell you my mom doesn’t drive? So we can use your limo, can’t we?”

“Sure,” said Joan.

Tommy went on
The Joan Rivers Show
and wowed Joan, the camera crew, the live and television audiences. He was so handsome, interesting, authentic and such a great self-starter. He told such captivating and persuasive stories that the audience was found pulling money out of their wallets to buy a bumper sticker on the spot.

At the end of the show, Joan leaned in and asked, “Tommy, do you really think your bumper sticker will cause peace in the world?” Tommy, enthusiastically and with a radiant smile, said, “So far I’ve had it out two years and got the Berlin Wall down. I’m doing pretty good, don’t you think?”

~Mark Victor Hansen

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.

~Robert Schuller

M
y wife Linda and I live in Miami, Florida. When we had just started our self-esteem training program called Little Acorns to teach children how to say no to drugs, sexual promiscuity and other self-destructive behavior, we received a brochure for an educational conference in San Diego. As we read the brochure and realized that everybody who is anybody was going to be there, we realized we had to go. But we didn’t see how. We were just getting started, we were working out of our home and we had just about exhausted our personal savings with the early stages of the work. There was no way we could afford the airline tickets or any of the other expenses. But we knew we had to be there, so we started asking.

The first thing I did was to call the conference coordinators in San Diego, explain why we just had to be there and ask them if they would give us two complimentary admissions to the conference. When I explained our situation, what we were doing and why we had to be there, they said yes. So now we had the tickets.

I told Linda we had the tickets and we could get into the conference. She said, “Great! But we’re in Miami and the conference is in San Diego. What do we do next?”

So I said, “We’ve got to get transportation.” I called an airline I knew was doing well at the time, Northeast Airlines. The woman who answered happened to be the secretary to the president so I told her what I needed. She put me directly through to the president, Steve Quinto. I explained to him that I had just talked to the conference people in San Diego, they had given us free tickets to the conference but we were stuck on how to get there and would he please donate two round trip tickets from Miami to San Diego. He said, “Of course I will,” just like that. It was that fast and the next thing he said really floored me. He said, “Thank you for asking.”

I said, “Pardon me?”

He said, “I don’t often have the opportunity to do the best thing that I can for the world unless someone asks me to. The best thing I can ever do is to give of myself and you’ve asked me to do that. That’s a nice opportunity and I want to thank you for that opportunity.” I was blown away, but I thanked him and hung up the phone. I looked at my wife and said, “Honey, we got the plane tickets.” She said, “Great! Where do we stay?”