Chicken Soup for the Soul: All Your Favorite Original Stories

by Jack Canfield

It takes courage to ask for what you want. Courage is not the absence of fear. It’s doing what it takes despite one’s fear. And, as Markita has discovered, the more you ask, the easier (and more fun) it gets.

  Once, on live TV, the producer decided to give Markita her toughest selling challenge. Markita was asked to sell Girl Scout cookies to another guest on the show. “Would you like to invest in one dozen or two dozen boxes of Girl Scout cookies?” she asked.

  “Girl Scout cookies? I don’t buy any Girl Scout cookies!” he replied. “I’m a Federal Penitentiary warden. I put 2,000 rapists, robbers, criminals, muggers and child abusers to bed every night.”

  Unruffled, Markita quickly countered, “Mister, if you take some of these cookies, maybe you won’t be so mean and angry and evil. And, Mister, I think it would be a good idea for you to take some of these cookies back for every one of your 2,000 prisoners, too.”

  The warden wrote a check.

  ~Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

  Did the Earth Move for You?

  Know, then, whatever cheerful and serene

  Supports the mind supports the body too.

  ~John Armstrong

  Eleven-year-old Angela was stricken with a debilitating disease involving her nervous system. She was unable to walk and her movement was restricted in other ways as well. The doctors did not hold out much hope of her ever recovering from this illness. They predicted she’d spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. They said that few, if any, were able to come back to normal after contracting this disease. The little girl was undaunted. There, lying in her hospital bed, she would vow to anyone who’d listen that she was definitely going to be walking again someday.

  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

  Tommy’s Bumper Sticker

  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

  If You Don’t Ask, You Don’t Get —But If You Do, You Do

  Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.

  ~Robert Schuller

  My 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?”

  Next I called the Holiday Inn Downtown Miami and asked, “Where is your headquarters?” They told me it was in Memphis, Tennessee, so I called Tennessee and they patched me through to the person I needed to talk to. It was a guy in San Francisco. He controlled all of the Holiday Inns in California. I then explained to him that we had obtained our plane tickets through the airlines and asked if there were some way he could help us with the lodging for the three days. He asked if it would be okay if he put us up in their new hotel in downtown San Diego as his guest. I said, “Yes, that would be fine.”

  He then said, “Wait a minute. I need to caution you that the hotel is about a 35-mile drive from the campus where the conference is being held and you’ll have to find out how to get there.”

  I said, “I’ll figure it out if I need to buy a horse.” I thanked him and I said to Linda, “Well, honey, we’ve got the admission, we’ve got the plane tickets and we’ve got a place to stay. What we need now is a way to get back and forth from the hotel to the campus twice a day.” Next I called National Car Rental, told them the story and asked if they could help me out. They said, “Would a new Olds 88 be okay?”

  I said it would be.

  In one day we had put the whole thing together.

  We did wind up buying our own meals for part of the time but before the conference was over, I stood up, told this story at one of the general assemblies and said, “Anyone who wants to volunteer to take us to lunch now and again would be graciously thanked.” About 50 people jumped up and volunteered so we wound up having some of the meals thrown in as well.

  We had a marvelous time, learned a lot and connected with people like Jack Canfield, who is still on our advisory board. When we returned, we launched the program and it’s been growing about 100 percent a year. This last June we graduated our 2,250th family from the Little Acorn training. We’ve also held two major conferences for educators called Making The World Safe For Children, to which we’ve invited people from all over the world. Thousands of educators have come to get ideas on how to do self-esteem training in their classrooms while they’re still teaching the three Rs.

  The last time we sponsored the conference we invited educators from 81 nations to come. Seventeen nations sent representatives including some ministers of education. Out of that has grown invitations for us to take our program to the following places: Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Gelaruth, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Taiwan, the Cook Islands and New Zealand.

  So you see you can get anything you want if you just ask enough people.

  ~Rick Gelinas

  Rick Little’s Quest

  Difficult things take a long time, impossible things a little longer.

  ~André A. Jackson

  At 5 A.M. Rick Little fell asleep at the wheel of his car, hurtled over a 10-foot embankment and crashed into a tree. He spent the next six months in traction with a broken back. Rick found himself with a lot of time to think deeply about his life — something for which the 13 years of his education had not prepared him. Only two weeks after he was dismissed from the hospital, he returned home one afternoon to find his mother lying semiconscious on the floor from an overdose of sleeping pills. Rick confronted once again the inadequacy of his formal education in preparing him to deal with the social and emotional issues of his life.

  During the following months Rick began to formulate an idea — the development of a course that would equip students with high self-esteem, relationship skills and conflict management skills. As Rick began to research what such a course should contain, he ran across a study by the National Institute of Education in which 1,000 30-year-olds had been asked if they felt their high school education had equipped them with the skills they needed for the real world. Over 80 percent responded, “Absolutely not.”

  These 30-year-olds were also asked what skills they now wish they had been taught. The top answers were relationship skills: How to get along better with the people you live with. How to find and keep a job. How to handle conflict. How to be a good parent. How to understand the normal development of a child. How to handle financial management. And how to intuit the meaning of life.

  Inspired by his vision of creating a class that might teach these things, Rick dropped out of college and set across the country to interview high school students. In his quest for information on what should be included in the course, he asked over 2,000 students in 120 high schools the same two questions:

  1. If you were to develop a program for your high school to help you cope with what you’re meeting now and what you think you’ll be meeting in the future, what would that program include?

  2. List the top 10 problems in your life that you wish were dealt with better at home and in school.

  Whether the students were from wealthy private schools or inner city ghettos, rural or suburban, the answers were
surprisingly the same. Loneliness and not liking themselves topped the list of problems. In addition, they had the same list of skills they wished they were taught as the ones compiled by the 30-year-olds.

  Rick slept in his car for two months, living on a total of $60. Most days he ate peanut butter on crackers. Some days he didn’t eat at all. Rick had few resources but he was committed to his dream.

  His next step was to make a list of the nation’s top educators and leaders in counseling and psychology. He set out to visit everyone on his list to ask for their expertise and support. While they were impressed with his approach — asking students directly what they wanted to learn — they offered little help. “You’re too young. Go back to college. Get your degree. Go to graduate school, then you can pursue this.” They were less than encouraging.

  Yet Rick persisted. By the time he turned 20, he had sold his car, his clothes, had borrowed from friends and was $32,000 in debt. Someone suggested he go to a foundation and ask for money.

  His first appointment at a local foundation was a huge disappointment. As he walked into the office, Rick was literally shaking with fear. The vice president of the foundation was a huge dark-haired man with a cold stern face. For a half hour he sat without uttering a word while Rick poured his heart out about his mother, the two thousand kids and plans for a new kind of course for high school kids.

  When he was through, the vice president pushed up a stack of folders. “Son,” he said, “I’ve been here nearly 20 years. We’ve funded all these education programs. And they all failed. Yours will, too. The reasons? They’re obvious. You’re 20 years old, you have no experience, no money, no college degree. Nothing!”

  As he left the foundation office, Rick vowed to prove this man wrong. Rick began a study of which foundations were interested in funding projects for teenagers. He then spent months writing grant proposals — working from early morning until late at night. Rick worked for over a year laboriously writing grant proposals, each one carefully tailored to the interests and requirements of the individual foundations. Each one went out with high hopes and each one came back — rejected.