AVALANCHE: The Lawyer Marketing Group

My Favorite Quotes

On this page, I present 218 of my favorite quotes. The quotes fall into one of three categories — they are one of three types:

1. Quotes that say who I am, or what I stand for.
2. Quotes that will strike a deep and resonant cord in some readers, readers who are struggling with a problem, need some inspiration to make it through a seemingly overwhelming day, or become a better person.
3. Quotes that stop people in their tracks: “Wow! I never saw it that way” or “Wow! That’ so true: I never thought of that.”

A few of the quotes are mine. They come from my book manuscripts, seminars, or my talk radio show.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can-t be done.
- Henry Ford

One doesn-t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- André Gide

What is now proved was once only imagin-d.
- William Blake

Without deviation, progress is not possible.
- Frank Zappa

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance-it is the illusion of knowledge.
- Daniel J. Boorstin

It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.
- Margaret Bonnano

When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.
- Alexander Graham Bell

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
- Henry Ford

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
- Somerset Maugham

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
- Abraham Lincoln

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far to go.
- T.S. Eliot

If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must expect to employ methods never before attempted.
- Francis Bacon

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need (people) who can dream of things that never were.
- John F. Kennedy

If you deliberately set out to be less than you are capable, you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life.
- Abraham Maslow

The way to fill your life with love is very simple: if you want more love, give more love.
- Deepak Chopra

I will act as if what I do makes a difference.
- William James

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
- Frank Tibolt

Whether you think you can or think you can-t, you are right.
- Henry Ford

You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
- Wayne Gretzky

Don't wait. The time will never be just right.
- Napoleon Hill

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
- Albert Einstein

In the end, the only people who fail are those who do not try.
- David Viscott

You must be the change you want to see in the world.
- Mohandas Gandhi

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

You can-t build a reputation on what you-re going to do.
- Henry Ford

You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.
- Sir Winston Churchill

Visionary is a self-fulfilling prophet. Don't predict the future. Create it.
- Leland Kaiser

Walking the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.
- Karl Wallenda

Nothing great will ever be achieved without great people, and you are great only if you stay determined to be so.
- Charles de Gaulle

Dost thou love life- Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
- Benjamin Franklin

Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time.
- Chinese proverb

Don't wait. The time will never be just right.
- Napoleon Hill

Don't let the start stop you from being successful. It's often the start that stops people.
- Kerry Randall

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it is the lightening that does the work.
- Mark Twain

If you deliberately set out to be less than you are capable, you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life.
- Abraham Maslow

Would you tell me please, which way ought to I go from here-
That depends a good deal on where you want to get.
I don't care much where.
Then it doesn't matter which way you go.
- Lewis Carroll (Through the Looking Glass)

Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.
- Jawaharial Nehru (1889-1964) Prime Minister, India 1947-1964

Visionary is a self-fulfilling prophet. Don't predict the future. Create it.
- Leland Kaiser

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
- Anais Nin

Nothing great will ever be achieved without great people, and you are great only if you stay determined to be so.
- Charles de Gaull

Walking the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.
- Karl Wallenda

One always has time enough if one will apply it well.
- Von Goethe

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
- Helen Keller

Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly.
- Robert F. Kennedy

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
- Stephen Covey

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas A. Edison 1847-1931, American Inventor, Entrepreneur, Founder of GE

When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.
- Alexander Graham Bell

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
- Abraham Lincoln

Nothing is either good or bad. It's the thinking that makes it so.
- Benjamin Franklin

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far to go.
- T.S. Eliot

If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must expect to employ methods never before attempted.
- Francis Bacon

The way to fill your life with love is very simple: if you want more love, give more love.
- Deepak Chopra

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
- William James

You must be the change you want to see in the world.
- Mohandas Gandhi

I am here to invent who I am and what my life is about.
-Kerry Randall

It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
- Chinese proverb

The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
- Vince Lombardi

Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles.
- Helen Keller

Whatever reality you find yourself in is capable of being altered by you at any time you want. It is not altered by changing what is outside of you; it's altered by changing how you choose to process your life.
- Wayne Dyer

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
- Longfellow

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.
- George Bernard Shaw,

Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.
- Mary Kay Ash {Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics}

Written in Chinese, the word crisis, is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
The most relentless and unforgiving enemy to learning is what you know.
- Kerry Randall

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire.
- William Butler Yeats

It is our duty to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the full light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way.
- Heraclitus

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life. - T.S. Eliot

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of determination.
- Vince Lombardi

The ideas that have lighted my way have been kindness, beauty and truth.
- Albert Einstein

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell-em, Certainly I can! and get busy and find out how to do it.
- Theodore Roosevelt

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
- Lao Tzu

Some people say they haven't yet found themselves. But the self is not something one finds; it is something one creates.
- Thomas Szasz 1920-, American Psychiatrist

Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.
- Norman Vincent Peale

It-s kind of fun to do the impossible.
- Walt Disney

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
- Confucius BC 551-479

Optimists are right. So are pessimists. It's up to you to choose which you will be.
- Harvey Mackay

Our life is what our thoughts make it.
- Marcus Aurelius Antonius

We don't stop playing because we grow older, we grow older because we stop playing.
- Nana (age 103)

Be who you are and say what you feel -cause people who mind don't matter, and people who matter don't mind.
- Dr. Seuss

My simple formula for success: Do not let what you do not have get in the way of using what you do have.
- Kerry Randall

You have brains is your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
- Dr. Seuss (Oh, the Places You'll Go!)

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist

Appreciation is a wonderful thing; it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
- Voltaire

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
- William Jennings Bryan

Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, hate less, love more; all good things will be yours.
- Swedish Proverb

He liked to like people, therefore people liked him.
- Mark Twain

There isn-t a person anywhere who isn't capable of doing more that he thinks he can
- Henry Ford

Change your thoughts and you change your world.
- Norman Vincent Peale

We don-t see the Andromeda galaxy in our telescopes. We see light and the reflection of two million years ago. What is—isn't, really.
If you want to know what people really want, ignore their words; watch what they do.
- Kerry Randall

For myself I am an optimist—it does not seem to be much use being anything else.
- Sir Winston Churchill

Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify.
- Henry David Thoreau

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
- Benjamin Spock, M.D.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.
- William James

I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.
- Picasso

ALL our dreams can come true — if we have the courage to pursue them.
- Walt Disney
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an art, but a habit.
- Aristotle

It's simple. Success comes from training harder, living better and digging deeper than the others.
- Lance Armstrong, (run July 25, 2004 after Lance wins record-breaking #6)

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.
- Helen Keller

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.
- Dale Carnegie

Are you in earnest- Seize this very minute. What you can do, or think you can, begin it.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.
- Dale Carnegie

Progress always involves risk; you can't steal second base and keep your foot on first.
- Frederick Wilcox

You can have anything you want - if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.
- Abraham Lincoln

The constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
- Benjamin Franklin

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas Edison

Live every act fully, as if it were your last.
- Buddha

Nothing will come of nothing. Dare mighty things.
- Shakespeare

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
- Albert Einstein

To move the world, we must first move ourselves.
- Socrates

The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.
- Moliere

Happy are those whose life is today.
- Ayi Kwei Armah

Successful people believe in themselves, especially when others do not.
- Kerry Randall

Life is not holding a good hand; Life is playing a poor hand well.
- Danish proverb

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson

To be thrown upon one's own resources, is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previously unsusceptible.
- Benjamin Franklin

If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.
- Thomas Watson, founder of IBM

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.
- John Dryden

Pessimism never won any battle.
- Dwight D Eisenhower

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden

The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination.
- Tommy Lasorda

We will either find a way, or make one.
- Hannibal

We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.
- Lee Iococca

I've had a few arguments with people, but I never carry a grudge. You know why? While you're carrying a grudge, they're out dancing.
- Buddy Hackett

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
- W Clement Stone

No matter your past, you have a spotless future.
- Kerry Randall

He who knows he has enough is rich.
- Lao-tzu, Tao-te Ching

You don't get in life what you want; you get in life what you are.
- Les Brown

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Behold the turtle: He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.
- James Bryant Conant

If you have a job without aggravations, you don't have a job.
- Malcolm Forbes

Life is never more fun than when you're the underdog competing against the giants.
- H Ross Perot

Tomorrow is only found in the calendar of fools.
- Og Mandino

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.
- St Francis of Assisi

Fall down seven times; stand up eight.
- Japanese Proverb

The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.
- Gustave Flaubert 1821-1880

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.
- Socrates

The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.
- Theodore Roosevelt

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
- Theodore Roosevelt

That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.
- Thomas Paine

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
- Thomas Paine

Seek first to understand and then to be understood.
- Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
You are what you are and you are where you are because of what has gone into your mind. You change what you are and you change where you are by changing what goes into your mind.
- Zig Ziglar

Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago- How did they work out- Didn't you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them- Didn't most of them turn out all right after all?
- Dale Carnegie

When we have done our best, we rest peacefully.
- Kerry Randall

Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly.
- St Francis De Sales

Accept the challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.
- General George S. Patton
Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.
- Henry Ford

When I can't handle events, I let them handle themselves.
- Henry Ford

Don't find fault, find a remedy.
- Henry Ford

Real courage is moving forward when the outcome is uncertain.
- Michael E. Angier

If you learn to appreciate more of what you already have, you will find yourself having more to appreciate.
- Michael E. Angier

Ideas are worthless. Intentions have no power. Plans are nothing... unless they are followed with action. Do it now!
- Michael E. Angier

It matters not what road we take but rather what we become on the journey.
- Ram Dass

It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
- W Somerset Maugham

Circumstances do not make the man, they merely reveal himself to himself.
- Epictetus

A wise man is he who does not grieve for the thing that he has not, but rejoices for those things he has.
- Epictetus

Men are disturbed not by things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.
- Epistetus

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it but what they become by it.
- John Ruskin

A problem clearly stated is a problem half solved.
- Charles Kettering, American industrialist

Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.
- Anthony Robbins

All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs.
- Anthony Robbins

It's not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.
- Anthony Robbins

A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided.
- Anthony Robbins

If you are unwilling to suffer the pain of discipline, you will suffer the pain of low self-esteem. Choose your pain. One can be transformed into pleasure; the other cannot.
- Kerry Randall

Contrary to popular opinion, life does not get better by chance, life gets better by change. And, this change always takes place inside; it is the change of thought that creates the better life.
- Kerry Randall

Be not simply good; be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
- George Bernard Shaw

All meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out. Imagination is more important than knowledge.
- Albert Einstein

In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.
- Albert Einstein

The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.
- Richard Bach

Argue for your limitations and they are yours.
- Richard Bach

Peace of mind comes from not wanting to change others.
- Gerald G Jampolsky

The wise learn many things from their enemies.
- Aristophanes

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Time is love: What you give your time to is what you love.
- Kerry Randall

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
- Winston Churchill

Never, never, never, never, never, never give up.
- Winston Churchill

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.
- Winston Churchill

The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist, the opportunity in every difficulty.
- Winston Churchill

Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools.
- Napoleon Bonaparte

Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
- Samuel Butler

When I hear somebody sigh that Life is hard, I am always tempted to ask, Compared to what-
- Sydney Harris

Whatever you can do, or dream you can begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
- Abraham Lincoln

All that we are is a result of what we have thought.
- Abraham Lincoln

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
- Aristotle

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas Alva Edison

Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have.
- Thomas Alva Edison

What you are will show in what you do.
- Thomas Alva Edison

Adventure is not outside; it is within.
- Kerry Randall

Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.
- Confucius

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.
- William James

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
- William James

An adventure is only an inconvenience, rightly considered.
- G K Chesterton

The fact that you are willing to say, I do not understand, and it is fine, is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.
- Dr. Wayne Dyer

Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.
- Dr. Wayne Dyer

Finish each day and be done with it...You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you should begin it well and serenely.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We become what we think about all day long.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.
- Lady Bird Johnson

Every adversity carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.
- Napoleon Hill

There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
- Napoleon Hill

The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does.
- Napoleon Hill

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.
- Peter Drucker

The best way to predict the future is to create it.
- Peter Drucker

The smallest deed is far greater than the biggest intention.
- Kerry Randall

Never Settle for Less
-Howard Spiva

My Introduction to Marketing

When and where did you learn about marketing?
- Name Withheld

I got hooked on marketing when I responded to a notice posted on the bulletin board at my junior high school: OPPORTUNITY TO EARN CHRISTMAS MONEY. I called the number and quickly signed up to sell candy bars door-to-door. I was going to raise money to go skiing with some classmates over the Christmas holiday.

This is the way it was to work: Each week, a driver / route supervisor would pick up half a dozen waiting students from the parking lot of a local shopping center, take us across town, and turn us loose in some unsuspecting neighborhood with boxes full of candy bars. We were to sell the candy bars for one dollar each. We would pocket twenty-five cents for every candy bar sold. At that time, the numbers seemed unbelievably promising. I figured after selling one-hundred candy bars, I would earn a whopping twenty-five dollars. In 1968, to a thirteen year old, twenty-five dollars was a fortune.

---

When I jumped out of the “candy van” on that first Saturday morning, I was jittery with excitement. I ran to the first door with an uncontrollable grin on my face. I felt like I was vibrating when I knocked on that first door. My entire future, right there in front of me. That morning, a lot of people were going to be buying candy bars from a soon-to-be millionaire.

And what a morning I had. In three and one-half hours of knocking on doors, I had sold two candy bars. I also suffered an unfortunate encounter with a sneaky and enthusiastic German shepherd. I had a huge rip in the seat of my best pants.

After picking me up at noon, the candy van continued through the neighborhood, and picked up the other kids for our lunch break. As the route supervisor was making the morning settlement, counting candy bars, collecting money, and restocking inventories, I discovered a hole in my pants’ pocket. I had lost four quarters of my two dollars of revenue. I owed the route supervisor a buck fifty for the two candy bars I’d sold to the German Shepard lady, and I had one dollar to my name. After a hellish morning’s work, I was fifty cents in the hole. In front of the other kids, I had to confess to the supervisor that I couldn’t pay for the candy bars.

All my fellow sellers, who I wanted to make a big impression on (by the way I was talking in the van that morning, you would have thought that I was already a millionaire), were now mighty impressed with Mr. Hole-in-His-Pants.

At lunchtime, I sat on a bench by myself, an outcast. The others munched their sandwiches and chips as they chattered away in a happy little group halfway across the park. In my excitement to get ready for my first day on the job, I hadn’t remembered to pack something for lunch. I was hungry and I felt utterly worthless. I would never go on that ski trip. My friends would laugh at me. My family did not even have money to buy me a new pair of good pants. Worse yet, I was sure I would pick up a stutter, go bald at seventeen, and never have a girlfriend. (Why I thought those things, I do not know. Thirteen-year-old minds are a mystery.)

After a while, the route supervisor came over to me. I was too humiliated to look up as he spoke. In a halting voice, with unbearably long pauses, he said, “Rita’s been selling bars for two years. . . . She sold sixty-seven one morning. . . . She said you could walk along with her this afternoon . . . if you want. . . . You could learn a few things from her . . . and get a fresh start tomorrow.”

“What? Learn from a girl? No way! Not me!” I silently ranted. “I’ll shrivel up and die first! Who does he think he’s talking to?” I just kept staring at the ground, figuring if he was so good at the pause thing, he could wait for my response. Finally he turned and left without a comment from me. But, before he did, he squatted in front of me, and with his unkempt, tobacco-stained fingers, gently balanced two quarters on my knee.

---

That afternoon, the supervisor dropped Rita and me at the first corner in the new neighborhood. As soon as the van disappeared around the corner, Rita set her box of candy bars down on the curb. She sat next to the box and pulled half of a peanut butter sandwich from her pocket. As she handed it to me, she looked away and said, “Tomorrow, bud, you’re bringing lunch for both of us.” Boy, was I ever grateful to know Rita.

While I ate Rita’s half sandwich, she started talking. She told me that selling candy bars was like playing a game. “The number of bars you sell is the score. There is no cheating and you never lose. Some days you win big; other days you win bigger.”

It suddenly dawned on me: That’s why she gave me the sandwich. I couldn’t talk while my mouth was full of peanut butter and she could give her vocal cords a good workout! “Some days you win big; other days you win bigger.” Oh yeah. And pigs fly. Was she blind? Couldn’t she see this rip in my pants? Didn’t she know my friends were probably sniggering already? Couldn’t she see I was going to go bald?

As I was swallowing the last bite of sandwich, Rita told me, “I feel lucky working with you. This afternoon, we are going to sell more candy bars than ever. Heck, we’re going to break my old record!”

She was a talker, all right. I thought my morning had been bad, but nothing compared with what I was going to have to put up with this afternoon. No skiing trip was worth this. I didn’t need to be a millionaire anymore. Pollyanna’s attitude was putting a strain on my mood. As we got up from the curb, Rita knocked the gravel from her palms, took a deep breath, and said, “Okay Sport, let’s go give ’em what they want!”

That was the final straw. That pronouncement proved she was a certifiable, over-the-edge wacko. Give ’em what they want! I am supposed to learn to sell candy bars from a crazy person! What did that nutty route driver think he was doing, putting me together with this cuckoo bird? I figured he was having a good laugh at my expense right about then.

Give ’em what they want! What about my ski trip? Give ’em what they want! What about this Grand Canyon hole in my pants? Give ’em what they want! I am here to sell candy bars! I’m here to make money. I figured with that give-’em-what-they-want attitude, Rita couldn’t sell a dollar candy bar for a nickel.

“Okay, let’s go give ’em what they want!”

---

In an unexpected way, what followed proved me right. Rita couldn’t sell candy bars. That afternoon, Rita never sold a single candy bar. As we went from door to door, Rita delivered to people what they wanted and, in the process, candy bars disappeared from her box and dollar bills went into her pocket.

True to her word, Rita transformed selling candy bars into a game. The game started at the very first house. First, Rita and I spent a few minutes helping a couple clear weeds from a flower garden. Rita chatted with the woman about her beautiful flowers and the unusually warm October weather. She did not say a word about candy bars . . . until the woman asked what we had in our box. A few minutes later, Rita was pocketing two dollars, and an extra fifty cents “for being so helpful.” The lady thanked us for “dropping by” and gave Rita a huge white blossom for her hair.

Rita had all kinds of ways to create people wanting candy bars. She would get them to open the wrapper and taste a bite. She would say she wanted to make sure they liked the candy before they bought it. Then, after they agreed the chocolate was good, she would suggest they buy a second candy bar “so somebody you really like could enjoy one too.” Rita loved getting people to buy more than one candy bar at a time. She called it a double. “Hey, what’d you think of that double?,” she would ask as soon as we were out of earshot.

Rita liked to play big. Sometimes she would say to folks, “Hey, if you were doing a television commercial for these candy bars, what would you say to everybody watching?” Folks would respond by saying something superlative about the candy and then, with that endorsement in hand, we would walk to the next house. Rita would glance at the name on the mailbox and announce, “Hi, Mrs. Smith. Your neighbor, Mrs. Brown, says this is the world’s tastiest chocolate” and you should buy two, or whatever it was Mrs. Brown said when she was “doing the commercial.”

At one house, we found a man washing his car. Rita went over and greeted him warmly, like he was her neighbor. She plucked a rag from his soap bucket and washed his tires while telling him how, when she was little, she loved helping her daddy wash the family’s car. Five minutes later, he bought four candy bars. Rita figured he bought one for each tire she washed. “Bet I could have got him to buy another one had I washed his spare,” she said, squinting up at the sun thoughtfully, like she owned the whole planet.

Rita taught me to hold the cardboard box to make the candy look more valuable, to create perceived value. She told me to experiment with different ways of holding the box and displaying the candy. “If those candy bars were worth one hundred dollars each, how would you be holding that box?,” she quipped.

At every house, Rita looked for a side door. If she found one, we would go right up the driveway and knock on that door. “When people are at their front doors, we are eight-eyed space monsters,” she said. “The front door is the hardest place for people to buy. The front door puts them and us on opposite sides of the game.” Occasionally, she would lead me around the house to the backyard. She always seemed to know when people were in their backyards. She instructed me, “People want to buy when they are in their backyards. They feel good there.”

Rita said, “The best time for people to buy is when they have company visiting. People want to show their friends how nice they are. People like to look good. Then, after they have agreed to buy a candy bar, you’ve got to ask the visitors to buy one. They want to look like they are nice, too.”

She taught me how to approach what she called “the old ones.” She said, “They love candy more than kids. But they always say they have no money. That is never true. They have more money than the president. You just have to show them our candy bars are worth more than their dollar bills. You’ve got to be careful too,” she warned. “They are dangerous. Never go into their houses because the old ladies will make you to listen to them all day.”

Rita instructed me, “Even though every candy bar is the same, every buyer is different. We are not selling candy bars. We are figuring out why these people like to buy stuff. Then, when we figure it out, we get them to buy our candy bars.”

She taught me other things, too. People who kept their yards spotless and their shades drawn were the hardest to sell. We would just walk right past those houses. She would say, “There are lots of games to play. Do not waste your time playing a game you are not going to win.” I couldn’t argue. Rita seemed to know everything, even how to handle overly protective dogs.

She taught me to have fun and enjoy what I was doing. Whenever I would get serious, she would say, “Hey Gumby, loosen up; this is a game. You’re turning green on me.”

Rita taught me things about people, and about buying, that would change my life. She taught me an important distinction that would be the foundation of my marketing career:

We do not sell; people buy. Confusing the two gets us into trouble. When we think sell, we are in our own heads. When we focus on buy, we are in the buyers’ heads, where the action takes place. A person can sell all day long and accomplish nothing. The scoreboard comes alive only when somebody buys. Knowing how to sell is narcissistic. Knowing what motivates people to buy is priceless.

That afternoon zoomed by incredibly quickly. At 3:45, we turned the corner of our last street. There were three lonely candy bars at the bottom of our box. People had bought ninety-seven candy bars from us, from Rita, that afternoon. She turned to me and said, “Pick three houses, Sport. I’m giving you three chances, and only three chances, to let people buy the last three candy bars.”

---

Fifteen minutes later, Rita and I were at the corner market. Our box was empty and she was buying a bag of Oreos and a couple sodas for us to celebrate. Rita told me she was going to keep the box forever. It was her good luck box.

Rita’s previous record was sixty-seven candy bars. We just set the new “world’s record.” Nobody had ever, ever, ever sold one-hundred candy bars in half a day. We sat on the bench in front of the store and toasted our triumphant day with grape Nehi’s and Oreos.

We chatted about all the great points we scored that day. She would tell me about a moment she was especially proud of. Then she would slap her knee and laugh out loud. I would rejoin with a story of my own, sometimes playacting, in a silly or exaggerated manner, Rita or our customer.

As we were finishing our sodas, I realized I was in love with Rita. I think Rita read my thoughts. We both got embarrassed. Our words got hijacked somewhere between our thoughts and our tongues. Though the silence was awkward on the way back in the van, neither of us said another thing until we got out at the shopping mall parking lot that evening.

At the parking lot, Rita offered me her hand for a handshake. She held my hand for what seemed like a long time. I thought she was going to cry. Instead, she turned and resolutely walked away. I turned, too. I was confused. I had never felt so adult. I had never been so aware of still being a child.

When I got to the far end of the empty parking lot, I turned to look. I wanted to get another glance at Rita. She was standing at the distant end of the lot under the lights, box in one hand hanging at her side, watching me, waiting. She waved a big, over-the-head wave. Then she stood there with her hand in the air. Awkwardly, like it was a gesture she was imitating for the first time, she moved her hand to her mouth, kissed her palm, and blew it my way. I just stood, confused, motionless, dumbfounded. She remained a moment longer, and then she turned on her heels and walked away.

When Rita was out of site, I was released from my paralysis. I ran all the way home. I was the happiest kid in the world. If I could have whistled, I would have.

---

The following morning, I wrapped two sandwiches, thick with peanut butter and grape jelly, in waxed paper. I tossed the sandwiches and lots of chips and Oreos, Rita’s favorite, into a paper bag.

I got to the mall early, eagerly. Finally, everybody was there but Rita. The van pulled up fifteen minutes late and the other kids piled in quickly. Rita still wasn’t there. I stood at the door to the van, looking to the far end of the parking lot. The supervisor said, “Hey Skip, hop on in. Daylight’s burning and you are going to sell another boxful.” I protested, “Wait! Rita’s not here.”

He looked at me with gentle, fatherly eyes, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, “Rita called last night. Looks like yesterday was her last day. She’s a foster kid . . . she’s moving to a new home.”

I was stunned. Rita was gone. She wasn’t coming back.

---

One by one, the supervisor started the other kids on their routes. I was hiding out in the backseat of the van as long as I could. I was still stunned and speechless when the supervisor pulled the van up to a curb to let me out. As he give me my box of candy bars, he told me that when Rita called, she had asked him to stop by her house on his way to the mall that morning. In his halting fashion, he said, “She gave me the box she took home yesterday… Told me to put your candy bars in it… Said it would bring you luck… Said she knew you would do well.”