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OVERCOMING OBSTACLES 
by Mark Victor Hansen

SO MANY PEOPLE STRUGGLE WITH negative attitudes and self-
defeating behaviors because they fail to realize that what 
you think about comes about. If you don't discipline 
yourself to be positive by tuning in to positive messages 
and hanging out with positive people, then the world tends 
to suck the life-force out of you. Your output will always 
reflect your input. So if you have negative input, you are 
going to have negative results in your life. If you have 
positive input, you will have positive results.

When you felt down or sick as a child, your mother probably 
fed you chicken soup. One reason we wrote chicken Soup for 
the Soul was to give people hope be telling stories about 
individuals who've overcome great obstacles.

Some obstacles are bigger than others and take longer to 
overcome. You can't do it all over a weekend. But you are 
only one good idea away from being rich, one good idea away 
from being healthy - and you make the decision.

In a Third Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul, I have a 
masterful statement by Nelson Mandela. I wept when I heard 
it. He says, "Our deepest fear is not that we are 
inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond 
measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most 
frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, 
gorgeous, talented or famous?' Actually, who are you not to 
be. You are a child of God. Your playing small does not 
serve the world."

It often takes a "prison experience" to produce greatness. 
You have to be down to be up later. I have faced my own 
tough times in the past, including a bankruptcy, so I 
understand down. And I also know something about how to 
bounce back. The transition starts by getting into 
solitude, into silence. It is only in silence of the soul 
that you get to meet god face-to-face, so to speak. It is 
in that silence that you see who you are and what your 
purpose is in life.

You may succeed by yourself, on your own, but in the end it 
gets hollow. The fact is I am a spiritual being, and we 
live in a spiritual world where there is much that I can't 
understand. Just being alive is a miracle.

Role for a Master Mind

Still, to achieve great things, we all need a coach or 
mentor. Jack and I coach each other. One of us is the macro 
thinker, and one the micro thinker. You need both in a good 
partnership. You also need to commit to somebody that you 
are going to make it happen. It is not possible otherwise. 
A flashlight doesn't work with one battery, and none of us 
work very well alone.

I feel that it's better to eat "chicken soup" as a cure for 
what ails you than to be fueled by taunts of "being 
chicken." But different things work for different people. 
Some people climb Mount Everest because someone told them 
they couldn't. But the people who are motivated by dares 
are a very small minority among they great achievers. What 
I need are models, not critics.

After reading Chicken Soup for the Soul, you feel better 
about yourself because you see that others have faced major 
obstacles and prevailed. I get over 100 letters a day from 
people who say, "I didn't think I was good enough" or "I 
was going to commit suicide" or "I didn't think I had it in 
me, but the story turned me around."

Obstacles only make life more exciting. All of us like that 
right kind of opposition and competition - we thrive on it. 
So why fear it when it serves to make us stronger and 
better?

Jack and I believe that human potential is vastly 
Underestimated, and I believe that no one can succeed 
without overcoming real obstacles that stretch the soul. 
"Effort only fully releases its reward after a person 
refuses to quit," said Napoleon hill.

Recently, I traveled to Saskatchewan, Canada, to meet with 
an Indian tribe that has a high suicide rate. The chief 
urged me to share my stories with his people. It's 
universal. Everyone needs stories about overcoming 
obstacles to get them over the hard times.

Four Success Principles, Many Examples

When I speak to groups of people, I often share four basic 
principles of success: 1) you have to figure out what you 
want - not really, but ideally - in all areas of your life, 
including your health, happiness, relationships, and 
finances; 2) you've got to put it in writing - "I am going 
to be healthy by eating right and exercising 20 minutes a 
day"; 3) you've got to visualize it to realize it, see it 
before you can have it; and 4) you've got to have your team 
together to get your dream together, meaning you have to 
have your master mind (coach and mentor) and come together 
in harmony to create dynamic synergy.

Empowered people, working in cooperation, are what cause 
changes the world. America is a great country because those 
who succeed give other people a hand. Every millionaire in 
this country makes 11 more millionaires; and so the most 
unselfish thing you can do is become very successful.

B.C. Forbes noted, "History has demonstrated that the 
notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles 
before they triumphed. They won because the refused to 
become discouraged by their defeats."

In our books are many stories of people who overcome 
serious handicaps.
* After Fred Astaire's first screen test, the memo from the 
testing director of MGM, dated 1933, said, "Can't act! 
Slightly bald! Can dance a little!" Astaire kept that memo 
over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.
* An expert said of coach Vince Lombardi: "He possesses 
minimal football knowledge. Lacks motivation."
* The philosopher Socrates was called "an immoral corrupter 
of youth."
* Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Woman, was 
encouraged to find work as a servant or seamstress by her 
family.
* Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred 
playing his own compositions instead of improving his 
technique. His teacher called him hopeless.
* The parents of opera singer Enrico Caruso wanted him to 
be engineer. His teacher said he had no voice and couldn't 
sing.
* Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of 
ideas. Walt Disney also went bankrupt several times before 
be built Disneyland.
* Inventor Thomas Edison's teachers said he was too stupid 
to learn anything. When Edison invented the light bulb, he 
tried over 2,000 experiments. A younger reporter asked him 
how it felt to fail so many times. He said, "I never failed 
once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 
2,000 step process."
* Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old 
and didn't read until he was seven. His teacher described 
him as "mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his 
foolish dreams." He was expelled and was refused admittance 
to the Zurich polytechnic school.
* Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate 
studies and ranked 15th out of 22 in chemistry.
* 18 publishers turned down Richard Bach's 10,000-word 
story about a "soaring" seagull, Jonathan Livingston 
Seagull, before Macmillan finally published it in 1970. By 
1975, it had sold more than 7,000,000 copies.
* When Lucille Ball began studying to be an actress in 
1927, she was told by the head instructor of the John 
Murray Anderson Drama School, "Try any other profession."
* In 1952, Edmund Hillary attempted to climb Mount Everest, 
29,000 feet straight up. A few weeks after his failed 
attempt, he spoke to a group in England. Hillary walked to 
the stage, made a fist, and pointed at a picture of the 
mountain, saying, "Mount Everest, you beat me the first 
time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown 
all you are going to grow...but I'm still growing!" On May 
29, one year later, Edmund Hillary became the first man to 
climb Mount Everest.