II

Now that we know you and I will be spending some time together, I suggest we do it right here in my studio, the room that my kids call “Dad’s word factory.” I’ll sit where I’m always sitting when I’m in here, at my desk, and during your visits you can relax in that old wing chair facing me.

I’ll talk, for the most part, and you listen. Okay?

Remember Henry David Thoreau’s admonition in his great classic Walden? He told us that if we have built castles in the air, our work need not be lost, for that is where they should be. Then he urged us to put foundations under them.

I am going to share with you some powerful tools that you can use, not only to construct your castles, but also to erect their permanent substructure. You’re about to learn how to turn many of your dreams into reality. But … you must listen with an open mind and an open heart and then be prepared to act. All the noble thoughts, magnificent plans, and “secrets” of achievement in the world are of little value unless and until they are put into action. Our worth is always determined by our deeds, not by our good intentions, however noble.

Several years ago, while touring the nation to promote one of my books, I appeared on a television show in Houston. As soon as I had settled in my seat onstage and the audience applause had subsided, Steve Edwards, the show’s host, held up my latest book and asked, “Og, what will this new book of yours do for me?”

Fair question, but I was still taken aback by Steve’s straightforwardness. No one, on all the programs in all the cities, had hit me with that one. I hesitated for a moment, collected my thoughts, and finally replied, “Probably not very much, Steve. After all, it’s just a collection of pulp, ink, glue, and fiber, and if you take it home this evening, read it from cover to cover, and awake tomorrow morning expecting your life to be miraculously changed for the better, you will have wasted both your time and your money.”

Steve grinned and leaned back in his chair, almost as if he knew what was coming next. I then went on to explain, to Steve and to his audience, the three conditions necessary to get full value and benefit from any quality book written to teach, motivate, or inspire.

First, you must be willing to admit that there are one or more categories of your life—career, marriage, goals, finances, self-esteem, happiness, children, to name just a few—where things could certainly stand some improvement. This is not difficult. None of us have attained divine perfection. Even though we may fool others, we can never really hide the truth from ourselves. We know where we’re lacking.

Now, having made some sort of mental tally of the debits in your life, you have put yourself in the proper, receptive frame of mind necessary to extract full value from the self-help book you are reading, whether it was penned by Peale or Gibran or Maltz or Hill or Stone … or Mandino, perhaps. How? By accepting the possibility that the author just may have something valuable to share with you that perhaps he or she has acquired through many years of study, experience, and observation. And of course it doesn’t hurt your adviser’s credentials if there happen to be a few million satisfied readers as references.

One more condition. Grit your teeth, if you must, and admit to yourself that the path on which you have been traveling in your search for happiness, success, wealth, peace of mind, or whatever, doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere, while the pages of your life seem to be turning at a faster and faster clip. If you can willingly accept that synopsis of your affairs, if your way just has not been working, then ask yourself what you have to lose if you follow some ideas and suggestions from Og that might, just might, enable you to discover a better way to live for you and those you love.

I want a genuine commitment from you, a sincere promise that you will really work at the principles I’m going to share with you. No lip service … and no false pride. Remember that nobody makes it alone. All of us need help to grow, to achieve, or to recover from disaster. No man or woman is an island. There is absolutely no such person as a self-made man or woman, so, please, let me help you.

You might be too young to remember her, but Lillian Roth was a superb entertainer who, several decades ago, saw her career drown in a sea of booze. Years after her tragic downfall, the gripping story of Roth’s struggle with alcohol was graphically told in a powerful book and film entitled I’ll Cry Tomorrow. In many of her subsequent interviews she confessed, again and again, how absolutely powerless she had been in trying to overcome her problem until she was finally able to utter three little words: “I need help!”

We all need help! Nobody makes it alone, and I often recall in my speeches the partially apocryphal but poignant tale of Albert and Albrecht Durer that my late friend and mentor Louis Bin-stock, revered rabbi of Chicago’s Temple Shalom, shared with me many years ago.

Back in the fifteenth century, in a tiny village near Nuremberg, lived a family with eighteen children. Eighteen! In order merely to keep food on the table for this mob, the father and head of the household, a goldsmith by profession, worked almost eighteen hours a day at his trade and any other kind of paying chore he could find in the neighborhood. Despite their seemingly hopeless condition, two of Albrecht Dürer the Elder’s children had a dream. They both wanted to pursue their talent for art, but they knew full well that their father would never be financially able to send either of them to Nuremberg to study at the academy.

After many long discussions at night in their crowded bed, the two boys finally worked out a pact. They would toss a coin. The loser would go down into the nearby mines and, with his earnings, support his brother while he attended the academy. Then, when that brother who won the toss completed his studies, in four years, he would support the other brother at the academy, either with sales of his artwork or, if necessary, also by laboring in the mines.

They tossed a coin on a Sunday morning after church. Albrecht Durer won the toss and went off to Nuremberg. Albert went down into the dangerous mines and, for the next four years, financed his brother, whose work at the academy was almost an immediate sensation. Albrecht’s etchings, his woodcuts, and his oils were far better than those of most of his professors, and by the time he graduated, he was beginning to earn considerable fees for his commissioned works.

When the young artist returned to his village, the Durer family held a festive dinner on their lawn to celebrate Albrecht’s triumphant homecoming. After a long and memorable meal, punctuated with much music and laughter, Albrecht rose from his honored position at the head of the table to drink a toast to his beloved brother for the years of sacrifice that had enabled Albrecht to fulfill his ambition. His closing words were, “And now, Albert, blessed brother of mine, now it is your turn. Now you can go to Nuremberg to pursue your dream, and I will take care of you.”

All heads turned in eager expectation to the far end of the table where Albert sat, tears streaming down his pale face, shaking his lowered head from side to side while he sobbed and repeated, over and over, “No … no … no … no.”

Finally, Albert rose and wiped the tears from his cheeks. He glanced down the long table at the faces he loved, and then, holding his hands close to his right cheek, he said softly, “No, brother. I cannot go to Nuremberg. It is too late for me. Look … look what four years in the mines have done to my hands! The bones in every finger have been smashed at least once, and lately I have been suffering from arthritis so badly in my right hand that I cannot even hold a glass to return your toast, much less make delicate lines on parchment or canvas with a pen or brush. No, brother … for me it is too late.”

More than 450 years have passed. By now, Albrecht Dürer’s hundreds of masterful portraits, pen and silver-point sketches, watercolors, charcoals, woodcuts, and copper engravings hang in every great museum in the world, but the odds are great that you, like most people, are familiar with only one of Albrecht Durer’s works. More than merely being familiar with it, you very well may have a reproduction hanging in your home or office.

One day, to pay homage to Albert for all that he had sacrificed, Albrecht Dürer painstakingly drew his brother’s abused hands with palms together and thin fingers stretched skyward. He called his powerful drawing simply “Hands,” but the entire world almost immediately opened their hearts to his great masterpiece and renamed his tribute of love “The Praying Hands.”

The next time you see a copy of that touching creation, take a second look. Let it be your reminder, if you still need one, that no one—no one—ever makes it alone!

Of course, you don’t have to try to make it alone. Whether your faith is great or almost nonexistent, you still have your own set of praying hands. All you need do, whenever things get tough, is just touch your palms together, extend your fingers, raise your eyes, and say. “I need help.” I’ve done it at least a thousand times in my life. Results? You might be surprised when you discover how close help is if you just ask for it.

For now, it’s you and me. That other special help will always be there for you, believe me, but you’ve only got me for a little while … so let’s get on with this rewarding project of changing your life for the better.