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When my friend Mike Killebrew gave me Napoleon
Hill’sThe Master Key to Riches, the answer to my cour-
age prayer began to come to me. If I didn’t have the cour-
age inside of me, I would create it. And at that moment,
the process of self-motivation began in earnest.
I could cite you many examples of the fears I had,
but to illustrate how I overcame them, I’ll use an ex-
ample I referred to earlier—my fear of public speaking.
I’ve since learned that the fear of public speaking is not
unique to me. In fact, it’s considered the number-one
fear among our population today, even greater than the
fear of death.
To me, though, it was a painful manifestation of the
overall deep fear that constituted my entire personal-
ity. I laughed knowingly once when Woody Allen said
that he was “afraid of the dark and feared the light of
day.” That was me.
When I finally made myself join an acting class to
face my fear of speaking, I learned to my horror that I
was the only non-actor in the class. In our first session,
led by the hugely talented actress and coach Judy
Rollings, I listened as everyone in the class talked about
all the recent stage productions they had been in.
Judy gave us each a long monologue to learn and
recite in the next session. Mine was from Spoon River
Anthology and my character was a judge who had been
mocked as a young man, but rose to judge those in the
community who used to make fun of him. It was a chal-
lenging piece, and I was terrified.
I knew I had to do something harder than the re-
cital to prepare for the recital, so I set out to do it. I
memorized my part and began to perform it in front of
people. I asked whoever would listen to sit down and
watch me recite this piece. I did it in front of my actress
friend Judy LeBeau, who had gotten me into the class. I