By Wally Amos

Being In Control Positive

Why is it that human beings have such a fascination with being in control and having every aspect of their lives be perfect; creating great strategies and long term plans on how we think our life should be. Since I give so many lectures I get the opportunity to review my life often and I can clearly see that the times when I was in total control of my life’s decisions, my life was completely out of control. The major life changing decisions in my life have not been planned. Instead, they were those wonderful serendipitous experiences that always lead to something better than I had in mind.

Who would of thought that twenty-seven years after my mother and father divorced that I would make my mark selling chocolate chip cookies. That’s exactly what happened when I moved to New York to live with Aunt Della at the tender age of 12. How could I have envisioned that dropping out of high school would position me to become a spokesman for G.E.D many years later. Well it did.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend who is one of the most respected Heart Surgeons in the World and I asked him why he became a doctor. He said the only way he could get out of going to the college his family wanted him to attend, which specialized in engineers, was to become a doctor and attend the school a friend had attended and major in pre-med. That single unplanned decision altered the entire course of his life, and the lives of many others.

The following poem, The Road To Success, received via the Internet, does a good job of describing how life works. “The Road to Success is not straight. There is a curve called failure, a loop called confusion, speed bumps called friends, caution lights called family,
and you will have flats called jobs. But, if you have a spare called determination, an engine called perseverance, insurance called faith, you will make it to a place called success.” Add to that preparation, discipline, focus and enthusiasm and you have a recipe for success.

Wally Amos lives in Lanikai. Amos is best known as the creator of the “Famous Amos” brand of chocolate chip cookie. In Kailua, Wally and Christine Amos have opened a retail store for “Chip & Cookie,” the literacy dolls, home-made cookies and family reading programs they created. Visit www.chipandcookie.com.

>