Today, I shed my old skin, which has too long suffered the bruises of failure and the wounds of mediocrity. Today, I am born anew, and my birthplace is a vineyard where fruit is available for all. Today, I will pluck grapes of wisdom from the tallest and fullest vines in this vineyard, for these were planted by the wisest of my profession, generation upon generation. Today, I will savor the taste of grapes from these vines, and verily, I will swallow the seed of success buried in each, so that new life will sprout within me.
The career I have chosen is laden with opportunity, yet it is fraught with heartbreak and despair. The bodies of those who have failed, were they piled one atop another, would cast a shadow over all the pyramids of the earth. Yet I will not fail, as others have, for in my hands I now hold the charts that will guide me through perilous waters to shores that only yesterday seemed but a dream. Failure will no longer be my payment for struggle. Just as nature made no provision for my body to tolerate pain, neither has it made any provision for my life to suffer failure. Failure, like pain, is alien to my life.
In the past, I accepted failure as I accepted pain; now I reject it. I am prepared for the wisdom and principles that will guide me out of the shadows into the sunlight of wealth, position, and happiness far beyond my most extravagant dreams, until even the golden apples in the Garden of Hesperides will seem no more than my just reward.
Time teaches all things to him who lives forever, but I do not have the luxury of eternity. Yet within my allotted time, I must practice the art of patience, for nature acts never in haste. To create the olive, king of all trees, a hundred years is required. An onion plant is old in nine weeks. I have lived as an onion plant, and it has not pleased me. Now I would become the greatest of olive trees and, in truth, the greatest of salesmen.
