Prosperity: The Choice Is Yours
August 22, 2003
Seabiscuit, Charles Howard, & Alexa
I hope you enjoyed the article last week on Seabiscuit.
It was a lot of fun to write. We went to see the movie
two weeks ago, thus the inspiration for the article.
If you missed it, it's online here:
http://choosetoprosper.com/aug15_03_seabiscuit.html
Today, I thought you'd really like looking in to the
history behind Charles Howard, the owner of Seabiscuit.
The movie Seabiscuit was simply an incredible movie.
I highly recommend you take the family out to see it
when you get a chance.
It not only has many valuable life lessons, it was a fun to
watch story, and a story that was heartwarming and
inspirational.....and at times, very emotional. I really
got wrapped up into the different characters and
everything they went through in order to have the
story turn out as it did.
This is pretty cool, when Seabiscuit raced War Admiral
in the movie, all the people in the movie theater stood
up and clapped when the race scene was over. I've
never seen that happen in a movie theater before.
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I'm going to ask you to do me a favor....a favor
which will give you a really good increase in your Web
page rankings....and not cost you a cent.
Go over to Alexa: http://www.alexa.com
Download their toolbar. It doesn't cost anything.
If you use it when surfing over your own site, Alexa
will then index your pages and thus give you higher rankings.
This will relfect in a higher ranking with google for you.
Really it's like submitting to a search engine, only you
just surf on each of your web pages with the toolbar
open, instead of sending in a link to them.
And, would you also type in the Alexa search on the toolbar
our web site and surf over to it for me. Since I told you about
this nice traffic producing tool, it would be really nice of
you to return the favor and help our rankings out also.
Please type in:
www.choosetoprosper.com
& also our pet site: www.
.net
The Alexa toolbar will also give you a ranking for your
web pages, along with links to it from other sites.
Appreciate your doing this for us,
Dave
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Go West Young Man, Go West
By: Dave Cole
In 1903, a young army veteran quit his job as a bicycle
repairman and headed west to try his luck. Arriving
in San Francisco with two dimes and a penny in his
pocket, he set up a bicycle repair shop downtown.
The automobile was new and rare, but even rarer was
the presence of garages that had mechanics able to
fix the new fangled contraptions. Our young man was in
luck. While the bicycle business didn't do very well,
he found his talents in being able to repair this
new thing on the market, the horseless carriage.
Tinkering with these Charles Howard became fascinated
with the new technology, foresaw a revolution and headed
to Detroit. There, he introduced himself to Will Durant,
chief of Buick automobiles and future founder of General Motors.
Howard walked away with the Buick franchise for all of
San Francisco. It was 1905, and he was not yet 30 years old.
Howard returned to San Francisco but met with instant
failure. Automobiles were banned in the city's tourist
areas, there were no local gas stations, and the
contraptions were outlandishly expensive costing about
twice the annual salary of most workers.
His turn of luck came in hideous guise. On April 18,
1906, the earth beneath San Francisco heaved inward
and within a couple of minutes a large portion of the
city was destroyed and on fire from the earthquake.
The city was in dire need of fast transport for water,
fireman, the injured and the homeless which was about
half the population. Horse's were the main source of
transportation and soon wearied from the work load.
Howard volunteered his cars to the effort and along
with a few others soon became the lifeline that was
needed. But, as the fires raged out of control, fire
fighters used dynamite to blow up buildings to prevent
them from catching fire. Howard's shop was one of
those blown up.
Howard, like virtually everyone else, lost everything.
But as San Francisco started over, Howard took the
opportunity to awaken the city into the automotive age.
The earthquake had proven the automobile's superiority
to the horse. Howard set out to prove its durability.
He tested his Buicks in speed races, hill climbs and
"stamina" runs, in which contestants raced up and down
a local road until their automobiles either burst into
flames or shed their wheels, the last one rolling
was the winner.
Charles Howard was a salesman who knew how to make
people believe in his product. He told folks that
the day of the horse was over....and said, "I wouldn't
give five dollars for the best horse in this country."
By 1920 Charles Howard had managed to build the
largest automobile dealership in the world.
With his money he built a hospital which provided
free care to children with tuberculosis. Yet tragedy hit
his life when his young son was killed in an automobile
accident. Soon after, his wife divorced him. Business
sunk to all time lows as the Great Depression left
little or no money for luxuries such as new cars.
Yet, Charles Howard was not a man who knew the
meaning of defeat. He had been down before. he
had overcame resistance and obstacles that most
men never face. He was a man who looked to the
future and what the future could bring.
In 1932 Howard remarried and the couple took up
a new venture, horse racing....a pastime that was
enjoying explosive growth across America, so much
so that it was rapidly becoming the most heavily
attended sport in America.
Betting on horse racing in California was illegal, but
to boost revenues the California legislature legalized
it. Hoping that horse racing in California would soon
catch up with the rest of America, the Howard's invested
heavily in the founding of the lavish Santa Anita
Racecourse.
Next they needed a horse. A horse that would win.
They found their horse in a neurotic, yet explosive
horse named Seabiscuit...a horse that had more flaws
than anything else, yet it was horse that had
virtually the same character traits as Charles Howard,
a never give up, never say die spirit.
That horse, like it's owner Charles Howard, saw it's
share of disappointments and troubles. In 1903 no
one ever thought our young bicycle repairman would
ever amount to much of anything in life. In 1936 no
one ever thought Seabiscuit would ever amount to
much of a race horse.
Charles Howard and Seabiscuit both were able to find
and develop that spirit within them that propelled them
on to become all that they could be.
We all have a choice in life. We can choose to be all
that we can be, or we can choose not to.
Charles Howard had a choice, he could have chosen to
rebuild his bicycle shop and remain a bicycle repairman.
But instead, he chose to look to the future and do
something about it.
Today you have a choice.
You can choose to remain where you are and as you are,
you can choose to look to the future and do something
that will give you the future you really want.
That same spirit that propelled Charles Howard onward
dwells in you today. Only you know what you want, only
you can say yes and go for what you want in life.
It's your future, it's your life. What is it that you
choose to do with it.
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"You may get skinned knees and elbows, but it's worth it if you score a spectacular goal."
~ Mia Hamm ~
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Now Is The Only Time You Have
"Always, always, always, always, always do what you
are afraid to do."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~~
Is there something you need to do, but are afraid to do?
Join the club. Everyone fears something.
As Shakespeare said, "Madmen have no fears."
But as leadership trainer Dale Carnegie so eloquently put it,
"Fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind."
Do the thing you fear. A new venture? A bold gesture?
A big change? The risks you do not take haunt more than the risks you do.
"Do what you fear and fear disappears." advised David
Joseph Schwartz. Of course, the advice is easier said than
done when fear paralyzes action.
Here are some practical steps to overcoming fear:
Ask yourself, "Why am I afraid?" Your answer will help you make
the emotion concrete. Find out the source of your
fear and think of actions and emotions that will counteract
the fear.
"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way," said
the great Babe Ruth, known for his strike outs AND home runs.
"Discovering fearlessness," taught Tibetian Chog-yam Trungpa Rinpoche,
"comes from working with the softness of the human heart."
© 2001 - Leialoha Barlett
© 1999 - 2003 - http://www.coolpup.com/
and http://www.dailycelebrations.com/
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"I think we are drawn to dogs because they are the uninhibited creatures we might be if we weren't certain
we knew better."
~ George Bird Evans ~
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Leave You With a Laugh.....
One day God was looking down at Earth and saw the entire
moral decline that was going on. He decided to send an angel
down to Earth to check it out.
So He called one of His angels and sent the angel to Earth
for a time. When she returned, she told God, "Yes it is bad
on Earth, 95% are misbehaving and 5% are not."
He thought for a moment and said, "Maybe I had better send
down a second angel to get another opinion." So God called
another angel and sent him to Earth for a time too.
When the angel returned, he went to God and said, "Yes, the
Earth is in decline; 95% are misbehaving and 5% are good."
God was not pleased. So he decided to E-mail the 5%
that were good because He wanted to encourage them, give
them a little something to help them keep going.
Do you know what the E-mail said?
Oh, You didn't get one either?
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