The Best Advice I Ever Got (10 page)

Ken Chenault

Chairman and CEO of American Express

Face History and Make History

My father, Dr. Hortenius Chenault, passed the New York State dental licensing exam in 1939 with the highest score recorded to date. Soon after, with the onset of World War II, he wanted to serve his country by enlisting in the U.S. Army Dental Corps but was turned away. He was black, and the Army Dental Corps was segregated.

This was hardly enough to stop my father. He met and befriended some foreign officers, made a few inquiries, learned to speak French, and then joined the more accommodating European-based Allied Forces Dental Society.

Years later, he would tell me and my brothers and sister, “No one was going to tell me what I could do.” He believed that deeply, and he made sure that his children believed it, too. That’s why after the war, on Long Island, where we grew up, my father fought to fully integrate the school system. He would not settle for schools where African-American students were automatically put into vocational programs and kept off the academic track.

Nobody was going to tell us what we could do. What we could aspire to. What we could accomplish.

At the dinner table, my brothers and sister would ask my father what we needed to do to make a difference. He would say that progress could be slow and frustrating. And, of course, that could make you angry. But his basic view was that we needed to fight for our rights and concentrate on the things we could control. And what you can control, he would tell us, is your own performance.

As my father taught me, work hard, don’t ever let anyone stop you or keep you down, focus on what you can control, and you can accomplish an extraordinary amount.

Matthew McConaughey

Actor, Director, and Creator of the j.k. livin Foundation

You Were Just Having Trouble

Growing up, my dad got mad at me for only two reasons: if I told a lie or if I said “I can’t.” It was easy to understand the “lying” part, but the “can’t” bit took a little longer to figure out.

It was a Saturday morning in the summer of 1981, and I was twelve years old. I was up early to mow the yard so that I could have the afternoon free to play. I got the Snapper lawn mower out of the shed and tried to crank it up. I pulled and pulled the cord, but the lawn mower wasn’t turning over. I checked the gas, set the choke, everything I could think of, but I still couldn’t get it started. I was exhausted. I was frustrated. I cussed at the mower and at the fresh blister that had formed on my palm from pulling the cord so many times.

My dad came around from the front of the house. I’m not sure how long he was there or if he’d seen me trying to start that damn lawn mower. What I do remember is our conversation. I remember it verbatim. He said, “What’s the problem, little man?”

I said, “Dad, I can’t get this thing started.”

I will never forget the look on his face as he slowly gritted his teeth and said, “You what?”

“I can’t get this darn mower started, Dad!”

He looked at me and evenly but sternly said, “No, son, you’re having trouble getting that lawn mower started.”

I said, “Right, I can’t get it—”

“No,” he interrupted. “You’re
having trouble.
”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “What’s the difference?”

He said, “Look, son, don’t ever say you can’t do something. That means there’s absolutely no way to do it. If you can’t do something, how are you ever gonna fix something? How are you gonna figure the problem out? How are you gonna ask for help? You’re gonna have trouble doing a lot of things in life, but they
can
be done. If you say ‘I can’t,’ that means there’s no solution, you’ve given up, you’ve quit. But if you’re ‘having trouble,’ that means that even though you may not know at the time how to solve the problem, you know there’s a way—you’re just having trouble. Let’s figure it out.”

As he knelt down over the lawn mower, he found a loose gas line that was disconnected and wasn’t allowing gas to flow to the carburetor. We reconnected it, and after a few pulls the lawn mower started. We shook hands with a smile as I said, “Thanks.”

“Sure, little man,” he said. “You were just having trouble.”

This lesson has stayed with me to this day, and is one I’m passing on to my children. It has helped me work harder, solve problems, and not feel helpless in unfortunate situations. It’s given me patience with others and with myself, and, most of all, it leaves the problem open to being solved. Which, of course, always leads to a solution.

Morgan Freeman

Academy Award-Winning Actor

You Quit, You Fail

If I’ve learned one life-serving lesson, it is that dogged determination pays off. The surest way to lose at any endeavor is to quit.

Once, while sailing in the Windward Islands, I put into Marigot Bay, St. Lucia, needing to replace the water-pump impeller on my diesel engine. After putting ashore by dinghy, I went to the marine store in Rodney Bay, certain of success but not having any. I scoured the town of Castries, canvassing every store and shop that looked as if it might carry an impeller for the Perkins 4-108 diesel engine. I took jitneys and walked most of the day, to no avail. Finally, in late afternoon, tired, sweaty, hungry, and thoroughly discouraged, I sat on a retaining wall and pondered the proverbial end-of-the-rope question: Now what? Then my eyes settled on a large fishing boat tied up in an estuary not fifty yards off the road. I walked over and told the guy on the boat my problem.

“Come on,” he said. “I think I know who can help you.”

We walked along a dirt path for a short distance, stepped through a chain-link fence, and wound up in someone’s yard. Engine parts were everywhere. This was the home of a “shade tree mechanic.”

“Perkins 4-108? I believe I do have a couple you can have.”

And so he did. Cost: EC$25, about $8.25.

The lesson was clear to me: Don’t give up. Fatigue, discomfort, discouragement are merely symptoms of effort. I was on the verge of giving up when salvation was staring me right in the face. Had I not taken that one last walk across the road, I would have failed. There are a lot of incidents like that in my life, but that one was so resonant that I’ve never forgotten the lesson. You quit, you fail.

Raúl de Molina

Television Personality

Against Apparent Odds, Never Give Up

I arrived in the United States at the tender age of sixteen, searching, as so many before me, for the American dream. But the first thing I noticed about my destination—Miami—was how similar it felt to Madrid, where I had lived as a teenager, and Havana, where I was born. Everyone spoke Spanish. Once I’d settled in Miami, my interests proved to be very different from those of your typical Cuban-American teenager. I went from loving soccer and bullfighting to following NASCAR and pro wrestling. Men like Dusty Rhodes, also known as “The American Dream,” Abdullah the Butcher, Richard Petty, and Jackie Stewart were my heroes.

In high school, I swiftly became the school’s yearbook and newspaper photographer. Later on, after graduating from college, I became a professional photographer. It was during this time that my boss, Phil Sandlin, the photo editor at the Associated Press in Miami, taught me to never give up or take no for an answer. I covered every riot, trial, coup, and other major news event in Miami and Latin America during the 1980s and early 1990s. Never a dull moment. Then came
Miami Vice
, with Don Johnson, and so began an American obsession with celebrity. My focus shifted from news to starlets—I became a celebrity photographer. My photos graced the covers of every major publication, from
The National Enquirer
,
The Sun
(London), and
The News of the World
to
France Dimanche
and
Hello!
magazine.

I was invited to the set of Joan Rivers’s show on numerous occasions to discuss my famous photographs, among them shots of Princess Diana, Princess Caroline of Monaco, Prince Charles, George Michael, Delta Burke, Jane Fonda, Madonna, and many others.

On one of these occasions, a Univision executive happened to see me and, not long afterward, I received an offer to join the network. It was my first foray into Spanish television—a world that was totally foreign to me.

For the past twenty years, I have hosted or co-hosted the most important Hispanic entertainment events in the States: the red carpet for the Latin Grammys, the popular music awards show
Premio lo Nuestro
, and Univision’s annual New Year’s Eve Show, live from Times Square. For the past twelve years, I have hosted the number-one entertainment news show on Spanish television with Lili Estefan,
El Gordo y la Flaca
, live every day at 4
P.M
. Now the celebrity photographers follow me.

Who would have thought all this was possible for a guy who weighs close to three hundred pounds? Since I was a kid, I’ve always been on the heavy side. By the time I turned seven I was a chubby little boy, but that didn’t stop me from playing sports or feeling good about myself. Later, during my high school years, I tipped the scales at over two hundred pounds, but thanks to my gig as yearbook photographer I was extremely popular with the cheerleaders. When I became a news photographer, I ran all over the place without any problems, but I always knew that television would be the ultimate test.

In a world that so often values physical attributes above talent, my weight has posed no problems. Quite the opposite, in fact, perhaps because I never paid much attention to it. The one and only time I have ever felt discriminated against was during my first trip to Hawaii. I took a helicopter tour and was charged double. I got over it.

People en Español
named me one of its fifty most beautiful people in America. On another occasion, I made its Best Dressed list, in the excellent company of George Clooney and Ricky Martin. A couple of years ago, I wrote a diet book called
La Dieta del Gordo
(The Fat Guy’s Diet), and it became an instant bestseller in the Spanish market. Not bad for a guy most people know as El Gordo.