Introduction

What we offer you to read and think over are chapters and excerpts from the book "Being the Best" by Denis Waitley, America's most distinguished motivational speaker who, for more than thirty years, has been studying, learning and teaching the principles of how to be a successful human being to literally millions of people.

What kind of a book is "Being the Best"?

It is "a MUST for anyone wanting to find success within themselves".

It is "a must for every person whose desire is not just to reach I he top by available means, but to serve with integrity and personal satisfaction on whatever level of the success ladder".

It is "perfect reading for anyone interested in finding realistic success, not some phony, materialistic, ego-stroking substitute".

It is "a refresher course of the good things your parents told you about self-discipline, good habits, and finding your natural gifts".

It "clearly shows the way toward Being the Best. Reading it does three things for you:

1. inspires you to be and to do better;

2. makes you believe you can not only be better, but that you can be your best;

3. shows you the pathway".

This book is "a collection of thoughts and principles, some new and some not so new, presented in a way that makes sense. The action-getting, and keeping, style of Waitley's writing allows readers to actually see parallels to their own lives and how they, too, can be the best – no matter who they are or what they do!"

(Among the authors of the references are J. David Schmidt, Author and Marketing Consultant; Earl Nightingale, Author and Radio Commentator; Mary Kay Ash, Chairman of the Board, Mary Kay Cosmetics; Nanci Mason, Former National Vice President, Future Farmers of America, and others).

What kind of a man is Denis Waitley and what moral standards does he want us to accept? You will get a better idea when you are through with reading, but already what D. Waitley has to say of himself in the Prologue, is suggestive enough.

Denis Waitley

Being the best

From the prologue

You might say I had a mythical childhood. What few fantasies radio didn't inspire, storybook characters from my weekly binge at the public library did. When I look back at the 1930s and early 1950s, I realize that my dog-eared orange library card was more valuable to me then than my slick orange-and-gold MasterCard is to me now. It didn't matter if the books were fiction or non-fiction. All of them were passports to faraway places and wonderful adventures.

All my life I have been fascinated by the mysterious relation­ship between myth and truth. As children, we regularly mix myths and truths. This is of no real concern unless we carry forward and cling to the myths in the arena of real living. For many of us, the myths slip in as facts, and before we know it, we have been sold a bill of goods that leads us down a worthless, frustrating dead-end road.

Like that of most kids of my generation, my fantasy world cen­tered on the radio, the library and, of course, Saturdays at the Roxy Theatre. When I could earn the dime for a ticket and the extra two nickels for popcorn and a soft drink, the silver screen became a prime spawning ground for my imagination. I did a lot of pretending when I was growing up. My comic book collection helped me pretend I was the "Green Lantern", "Hawkman", and "The Blue Beetle" all rolled into one undersized kid. I pretended my father didn't have to go to war. I pretended my parents got along better and they didn't always have financial problems.

I was born and raised in San Diego, California, during the post-depression and World War II years. Like many of my friends, I recall cutting out pieces of cardboard and slipping them inside my shoes each morning so I wouldn't wear holes through my socks. What a pair of shoes mine were! They were my school shoes, gym shoes, and Sunday shoes all in one pair, and I took good care of them knowing that they had to last at least a year or until my feet outgrew them.

We had little money, but my mom was good at making us seem rich. She packed my lunch, usually a sandwich and an apple, as if it were a delicacy. I remember the morning I asked her what the sandwich-of-the-day was, expecting her usual answer "of peanut butter and something". She answered, with a twinkle in her eye, "Why, today you're getting a delicious chicken sandwich ... without the chicken!"

And so I did. My chicken sandwich without the chicken was two pieces of bread with margarine, lettuce, salt, pepper, and mayonnaise between them. My mom could even make poverty fun!

My dad also had a keen imagination, and we would often play a little goodnight game that became our special ritual. He would come into my room to talk to me and listen to the triumphs and tragedies of my day. As he was leaving, Dad had a way of leaning back against the switch by my door and rubbing against it to "magically" blow out my light like the birthday candles on a cake.

As he did his little routine, Dad would say: "I'm blowing out your light now, and it will be dark all over the world because the only world you ever know is the one you see through your own eyes. So remember, Son, keep your light bright. The world is yours to see that way. I love you, Son. Good night!"

When I was young, I used to lie there in bed after Dad left and try to understand what he meant. It was confusing to think that the whole world was dark when I was asleep and that the only world I would ever know was the one I would see through my own eyes. What Dad was trying to tell me was that when I went to sleep at night, as far as I was concerned, the world came to a stop. When I woke up in the morning, I could choose to see a fresh new world through my own eyes – if I kept my light bright. In other words, if I woke up happy, the world was happy. If I woke up not feeling well, the world was not as well off.

What my Dad was trying to teach me with his little light show was this: "Denis, everything depends on how you want to look at what happens in life. It doesn't make any difference what is going on "out there" – what makes a difference is how you take it". Instead of teaching me "my glass was half-empty", my father taught me "my glass was more than half-full". He taught me to view life as something that was continually opening and expanding with new opportunities and events to enjoy.

Those good-night rituals with my father taught me that it didn't make any difference what the other kids said, what the other kids wore, or what they did. Their opinion of me wasn't that important. What was important was the way I handled what they might do and say.

Because I was so busy enjoying library books, favorite radio programs, the Saturday matinee plus school, sports, friends, and especially my family, I don't ever remember wishing we were rich and famous. I know my older sister, Diane, and my younger brother, Damon, felt the same way.

...How I loved my grandma! She taught me that no matter how cruel kids were to me, I should always treat everybody in the way I most wanted to be treated.

And so I always have!

I recorded the audiocassette program "The Psychology of Winning" in 1978 and it has become the best-selling personal growth program of its kind in the world. The success of this program has provided opportunities for me beyond my greatest expectations. From the halls of Congress to Carnegie Hall, from the opera house in Sidney, Australia, to parliament houses in Europe, from the board rooms of corporate executives to the locker rooms of Olympic athletes, from the classrooms of primary and secondary schools to the living rooms of middle-class Americans, my mission has always been the same: to shatter the myths of cheap success and teach the eternal truths about what it really takes to make the most out of life.

Please, note I said "make the most", not "take the most". There is a big difference, and that difference is what this book is all about.

This book can help you, your family, your fellow workers, and your friends explore two critical questions:

Are you takers who hope life will be good to you if you are smart enough, tough enough, ambitious enough, and lucky enough?

OR Are you makers who get the most out of life by giving the best you have and being the best you can be?

One question embodies myth; the other frames lasting truth. The key is always to be able to tell the myth from the truth in the game of life where the clock is always running and there are no time-outs.