In 1920, Stanford University embarked on a study of 1,440 genius-level youngsters, following them throughout their lives. When the man who initially did the research retired, they simply passed it on to his associates in the department. Here’s what they discovered: Those who became outstanding successes were not successful because of their genius; they were successful because they were able to focus on what was important andpersisted until they reached it. You don’t have to be a genius to do that!
Lots of people have individual goals, but very few have goalsprograms. Several years ago, I was speaking up in the Pacific Northwest, not far from Portland, Oregon. I was presenting to the Northwestern Lumbermen’s Association. Now, as my granddaughter would say, this was in the “olden days.” You can likely imagine what the lumberjacks looked like—they were big dudes! They all looked like they could have been playing defensive end for the Cowboys.
The man in charge said, “Zig, these people like to hear a lot of stories and jokes, so be sure to keep their attention.”
With that in mind, I went off full-speed ahead. After a few minutes, I was interrupted by a great big dude about six feet four, weighing about 275 pounds. He stood up, towering above me, and said, “Zig! I got a story I wanna tell you!”
Now, let me back up for a minute: I have a standard policy. Whenever anybody the size of a linebacker stands up and wants to tell me a story, I let ‘em! So I said, “Go ahead, pardner!”
“I wanna tell you about my buddy Bill. Stand up, Bill!” A little dude about five feet two inches tall stood up. In stark comparison to his gigantic friend, Bill couldn’t have weighed over 120 pounds soaking wet.
Lumberjack the linebacker continued, “This is my buddy, Bill Carlotta. Now, ol’ Bill came into camp here a few weeks ago and walked up to me and said, ‘Shake hands with your new tree-topper.’ I looked at him and said, ‘Bill! A tree-topper! That’s a dude that climbs all the way to the top of the tree and cuts the top off, and then you gotta hang on for dear life. That’s a job for a man, and you’re just
