Today I shed my old skin which hath, too long, suffered the bruises
of failure and the wounds of mediority.
Today I am born anew and my birthplace is a vineyard where there is
fruit for all.
Today I will pluck grapes of wisdom from the tallest and fullest vines
in the vineyard,for these were planted by the wisest of my profession
who have come before me,generation upon generation.
Today I will savor the taste of grapes from these vines and verily I
will swallow the seed of success buried in each and new life will sprout
within me.
The career I have chosen is laden with opportunity yet it is fraught
with heartbreak and despair and the bodies of those who have failed,
were they piled one atop another, would cast a shadow down upon all
the pyramids of the earth.
Yet I will not fail, as the others, for in my hands I now hold
the charts which will guide
through perilous waters to shores which only yesterday seemed but a dream.
Failure no longer will be my payment for struggle. Just as nature made no
provision for my body to tolerate pain neither has it made any provision
for my life to suffer failure. Failure, like pain, is alien to my life.
In the past I accepted it as I accepted pain. Now I reject it and I am prepared
for wisdom and principles which will guide me out of the shadows into the sunlight
of wealth, position, and happiness far beyond my most extravagant dreams until even
the golden apples in the Garden of Hesperides will seem no more than my just reward.
Time teaches all things to him who lives forever but I have not the luxury of eternity.
Yet within my allotted time I must practice the art of patience for nature acts never
in haste. To create the olive, king of all trees, a hundred years is required. An onion
plant is old in nine weeks. I have lived as an onion plant. It has not pleased me. Now
I wouldst become the greatest of olive trees and, in truth, the greatest of salesman.