Why ‘believe it and be it’ just does not work

Steve Moore’s April 18 “In the Bleachers” is indeed worth 1,000 words on this subject. But, I’ll add a few, so the cartoon doesn’t look so lonely on the page. Whether it’s Shirley MacLaine, Melody Beattie, or some other New Age guru telling you that you just need to visualize personal success and you will see it happen, or some New Age-intoxicated (pun highly intended) 12-Stepper reducing that already trivial “spirituality” to something like visualizing and praying for parking spaces, it just isn’t true.

That’s even more the case in the work world, whether it’s Og Mandino or Robert T. Kiyosaki amongst the famous, or your local management guru, claiming that with enough discipline (no duh), and enough visualization and positive thinking, you can be anything you want to be.

Two words: Michael Jordan.

And, no, those are not two words in support of New Agers of spiritual guruism, or New Age-lighters, or New Age-infused Christian gurus like the spiritual descendents of Norman Vincent Peale.

No, I’m not referencing Michael Jordan, the world’s greatest basketball player.

I’m referencing Michael Jorden, the Double-A baseball washout with the Birmingham Barons.

Whether he actually did visualization exercises every night, or even before every at bat or not, Michael Jordan had a huge desire to make the major leagues. Remember, he, along with us, was seeing the two-sport stardom of Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson.

But, no matter how big his dream and how much he visualized, Michael Jordan still couldn’t hit a Double-A curveball to save his life or his major-league dreams. Period. End of story.

All the basketball talent he had simply could not translate into the proper hand-eye coordination.

But, let’s go to the business world. Some of America’s richest people, including No. 1 Bill Gates and top 10 Warren Buffett, strongly oppose efforts to get rid of the federal estate tax. (Post “death tax” in comments on my blog and I’ll ban your IP.)

Why do they feel this way? Well, Gates has explicitly said that luck — pure, dumb luck — has had a lot to do with his success.

You know something? You won’t find “luck” in any New Age book, nor any management guru New Age-lite/New Christianity book.

That’s because luck means no God, no spirit, no life force, no karma, not even a doorknob, is in control.

Let’s go to the everyday world, though.

Want to be a musician but are tone-deaf or rhythm-numb? All the visualization and positive thinking in the world ain’t gonna change that.

Want to be a surgeon but have unsteady hands? Ditto.