Mastering The Art Of Success

(^) Ralph Ford
direction. Use that PC in your head to expand your parameters and
redefine and refurbish the arena of possibilities.
I knew someone who did just that, Dr. Joseph Panzarella of Long
Island, New York. He ran a rehabilitation center for victims of
accidents and crippling diseases. He taught at New York University
School of Medicine and visited twenty patients a day. He regarded
himself as a good doctor with a positive philosophy of life to share. His
outlook reflect ed h is “in-look.” In 1977, he won the Presidential Award
as the Handicapped American of the Year. Yet at sixty-one, Dr.
Panzarella had spent more than thirty-five years as a victim of multiple
sc lero sis. He had to be shaved, dressed, fed, and wheeled by someone
el se to teach and to consult with his patients. What we call a major
handicap, he considered an inconvenienc e. He s aw hope in everything.
Hope is very positive stuff.
We have to gather our p ositive emotions and give them a job. Make
th em work for you. There are enough interruptions in the world trying to
work against you. To be successful in any area of life, we must gather a
te am of desire, faith, love, enthusiasm, and hope and match it with a
powerful Super Bowl—our own mind. We parlay that combination into
a great idea, that idea into an action, that a ction into a habit, and that
habit into our destiny. Positive ideas become winning habits.
WRIGHT^
You seem to place a great deal of credit for all success on this positive
atti tude. I have seen people in stores or the workplace who have an
expression on their face that seems to indicate they have been weaned
on a pickle. Is this positive attitude something one just has or doesn’t
have?
FORD
Oh no! This is an exercise in self-talk and must be reinforced
re gularly. Art Linkletter told himself, “Things turn out best f or people
who make the best of the way things turn out.” Vincent Van Gogh
expressed it this way: “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot
paint’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” Earl