17‑ The Secret of Success

Hannibal

We have walked a few steps together along our path. I sincerely hope that I have challenged you to courageously face your great dream, to embrace the opportunities and possibilities of your life, and to set the highest standards for your personal success. Don’t forget: you have only this one life! Everything you postpone in this life is lost forever. All dreams, wishes, and goals for which you do not commit yourself today are lost forever—for you, for your friends, your life partner, your children, and for humanity. Therefore, postpone nothing; live your dream!

“Every risk is the key to a hidden treasure.”

Do not hesitate to take a risk now and then. If you never marry, you never risk choosing the wrong partner. If you never approach another person, you can never be rejected. If you never apply for a good job, you will not be turned down. If you never start a business, you will not go bankrupt. If you do not participate in a sporting competition, you cannot come in last. Yet at the same time, you miss out on life. You cannot win by doing nothing! If thoughts of safety keep you from acting, then security becomes a blockade to growth and prosperity. If you stay in place in our time, you will belong to the past tomorrow. Embrace the uncertainty of the future and become its shaper! Invent your own tomorrow and thus create an overwhelming present. Someone who does not embrace the adventure of life has already lost before the adventure even begins. Embrace the adventure! Take your life into your own hands instead of entrusting it to a fickle, unpredictable fate.

Success is not a matter of luck, but of your own attitude.

Do not always follow others or the herd. Stand for your individuality—in a world that tries daily to make you like everyone else. Do not let yourself be stamped as part of the mass. Adapt no more than necessary. The great explorers, inventors, stars, heroes, and entrepreneurs were people who believed in something others thought impossible. They were crazy dreamers and visionaries until their visions became reality.

When Richard Fosbury first tried a new high‑jump technique in the mid‑1960s, many so‑called experts laughed and disparagingly called it the “flop.” How embarrassed they must have been when the twenty‑two‑year‑old Fosbury “flopped” over 2.24 m at the 1968 Olympics, setting a new Olympic record! Incidentally, since then no one has won who did not use that technique.

Hannibal was determined to avenge Carthage’s humiliating defeat. His people had ceded large territories and paid 105,000 kilograms of silver, and lost control of the seas. Hannibal made his son swear a solemn oath that he would not rest until he had avenged this shame and won a great victory over the enemy. At age 26, the young man took command of the Carthaginian forces in Spain. The overwhelming Roman opponent demanded his surrender, so swift action was required. The young general hatched a daring plan that completely surprised the enemy. In only a few weeks, Hannibal achieved the impossible: he marched across the Alps into Italy with 20,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and 38 war elephants, united with the Gauls in the Po Valley, and won two great battles against Publius Cornelius Scipio and Tiberius Sempronius Longus.

One thing remains impossible only until someone does it!

If you want to succeed, you should from now on consider carefully what you choose to believe—and what not. Banish the word “impossible” from your vocabulary! Everything is possible!

The wing area of a bumblebee is 0.7 square centimeters with a body weight of 1.2 grams. According to known principles of aerodynamics, flight at that ratio is impossible. The bumblebee does not know that. It simply flies.

Do not simply adopt other people’s opinions without reflection. Examine closely whether their opinions apply to you. Others’ needs need not be your needs! Do not be infected by the frantic pace of others. Live your life; awaken your dream.

“Those who are reasonable adapt themselves to the world; those who are unreasonable persist in trying to adapt the world to themselves. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable.”

George Bernard Shaw

Try new things; put yourself in the perspective of an ant and view the world and your problems from its vantage point. From today on, you determine the vantage point from which you view this world. You decide whether the glass is half full or half empty, whether your upcoming tasks are insurmountable or small. Do not fear large tasks. When you live in alignment with your life’s dream, you enter states that allow you, even after a twelve‑hour workday, to still do something to realise your dream. Energy will carry you when you set about seeing things through. You then live your life as if in a flowing river. You are so immersed in the work that you do not notice the effort or the time invested. When you live your dream, it is as if you are reborn each day. You take a small step forward every day and will soon realise you have grown into a giant. With each new experience you change a little, yet at the core of your identity you remain the same. You were born to bring your visions to life in happiness and love. With each day and each conquered obstacle, that becomes clearer and clearer. Be prepared to set sail to new shores and cast old things overboard. Summon all your courage and throw every ounce of your strength onto the scales as you dare the new. If you have a great dream, do as Caesar did when he conquered Britain: burn the ships behind you once you have landed. Close off every retreat, and then fight as if your very life depends on it. Forget the old bonds in your mind, the voices with their paralyzing programming from your past. Break down old boundaries to win new freedom.

“To make the possible possible, the impossible must always be attempted.”

Hermann Hesse

In 1899, Charles Duell, director of the US Patent Office, said, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” At that time there were no vitamin pills, no refrigerators, no radios, no traffic lights, no fluorescent tubes, no nuclear power, no copiers, no laser technology, no television, no Walk‑Man, no McDonald’s, no fax machines, no barcodes, and no Windows. Duell was gravely mistaken. Incredible discoveries and inventions were made in the twentieth century. Do you really think that today we have discovered everything there is to discover? No—we are far from the end. Yet even in our time there are people who consider too much impossible; one wonders if they even noticed this century’s developments. On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers made the first successful powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Okay, that flight succeeded—but surely it would be impossible to cross the Atlantic solo. I admit: it was not easy—but impossible? Sixteen years after that first flight, another “crazy person” aimed to take the next step. He had a special monoplane built with a light yet powerful engine. After much effort the aircraft was ready, and Charles Lindbergh named it the Spirit of St. Louis. At 7:52 a.m. on May 20, 1927, despite fog and rain, he took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island. He had no parachute, no radio, no charts. Alone, he made his way through fog, hailstorms, and fierce winds across the Atlantic, landing 33.5 hours later at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, where a cheering crowd celebrated him after the 6,000 km journey.

But can such impressive achievements ignite hope in a doubter that maybe not everything is impossible that has not yet been invented? Hardly—one would never succeed in sending a manned flight to the moon. One would never be able to photograph Mars’s surface up close. Never, never, never.

After reading this book, you hopefully disagree. You have read about too many extraordinary achievements and experienced yourself in too fantastic states to still doubt what seems impossible at first glance. You know the fundamental laws of perception and understand: even if our instruments show no life on Mars, that does not mean there is none! Our instruments are built and conceived by us and can only pick up signals from forms of life we can imagine. But what if Martian life were based on a completely different chemistry? We could not recognise it! What we cannot imagine, we cannot perceive. The same applies in your life:

What you cannot imagine, you cannot achieve.

The world and happiness are boundless. Thanks to your ability to dream, you can not only dive for a few hours into a fantasized reality but also create the foundation for that life in reality. Dreams make you the creator and architect of your life. Through them you can continually reprogram your life. Consider how crazy it was when people began cutting a canal through Panama to connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Or when in the 13th century the seventeen‑year‑old Marco Polo set off from Venice to China and, after three and a half years across Asia, arrived at the court of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. In January 1960 Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh descended 10,917 m in a deep‑sea submersible nearly to the bottom of the Challenger Deep.

“But where are the visionaries, the dreamers, the true movers? The most successful people in history were not realists, not people who continuously improved small things. They were crazy visionaries and dreamers. Otherwise, how would you label Charles Lindbergh, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Bill Gates and all the others?”

Jürgen Höller

Take full responsibility for your life. Become the captain of your ship. Take the wheel, steer full speed ahead, and navigate your vessel through every storm of life into the harbor of joy. The best day to do something was not and will not be tomorrow. It is today. If you fail to do something for your dream today, you will not do it tomorrow either. Therefore, today is the best day of your life to work on your dream. Begin today!

“You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, though.”

Richard Bach

Never give up on your dream. Become a winner who does not throw in the towel even in hopeless situations. An old fable illustrates this well:

Two frogs fall into a pot of cream. One frog resigns himself to his fate and drowns. The other acts, paddling for hours with his legs to stay afloat. The next morning he’s still paddling—when suddenly a miracle happens: the cream turns into solid butter. The frog gains a foothold and leaps out of the pot, exhausted but alive.

When will you begin to realize your dream? When will you awaken from your Sleeping Beauty slumber? When will you finally demand the quality of life you deserve? Countless people have shown the way before you—with less education, less money, fewer friends, and fewer opportunities than you… yet they acted! Now it’s your turn. This is not the end but a new beginning. My best wishes go with you.

Guard well this day, for it is the life—the very life of life.

In its brief course lie all the realities

and truths of existence,

the glory of action,

the splendour of power.

For yesterday is but a dream

and tomorrow is only a vision. But today, if lived well,

makes every yesterday a dream of happiness

and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Therefore, guard well this day.