Bernard Malamud

"Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go."

— Bernard Malamud

American novelist

1914 - 1986

Who are your heroes?  Who are the people who inspire you?  We all need heroes.  Growing up my heroes were baseball players like Bob Gibson and Stan Musial.  In college my political heroes were Eugene McCarthy, Senator, and Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader.  The poets who were my heroes in those college years were T. S. Elliot, Arthur Rimbaud and Theodore Roethke.  When I got into business, my hero was Tom Peters.  I modeled my speaking style after his.  Harry S. Truman, 33rd President, is another of my heroes.  Who are your heroes?  Who has inspired you?  Heroes are important because they role-model what we want to be.  They push us to go farther than we think possible.

Helen Keller

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.  Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."

— Helen Keller

1980 - 1968

The first 35 years of my life I was more of a pessimist than an optimist.  I saw the glass as half empty, not half full.  I've had to learn optimism and the need to see the glass as half full.  It is something that I struggle with still today.  Often my first reaction is that something can not be done.  I have learned that I need to believe in myself before I can accomplish anything.  I seek to find hope in a negative world.



It is easy to find all the reasons something can not be done.  It is easy to be a pessimist.  Pessimists believe that they are the realists and that optimists have their heads in the clouds.  The truth is that it is much harder to believe something can be achieved.  It is much harder to be an optimist.  And research shows that optimists actually achieve more than pessimists.



As creative people, we need to have faith that what we create has value.  We need to believe in our ability to create something that can benefit others.