Think Big: Overcoming Obstacles with Optimism - Couverture rigide

Think Big CHAPTER ONE

TRY

“Just try to be the best you can be; never cease trying to be the best you can be. That’s in your power.”

—John Wooden


PULL YOURSELF UP

Jen

The merry-go-round looked like a brightly lit castle with a parade of sparkling animals running around it. We had been exploring the grounds of the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee, all day, but nothing captivated me like this particular ride. I spotted a massive white horse, looking gallant with its golden bridle and glittering saddle, and just knew I had to ride it.

There was just one little catch: the cast on my leg that weighed twenty pounds and went from my hip to my toes.

As an eight-year-old, I didn’t see how I could even get up on any of the horses on the carousel, much less hold on to it as it went round and round. But I desperately wanted to ride it. I don’t think I’d ever wanted to climb on top of anything more in my life than this fixed creature on the merry-go-round.

“I never get to ride anything fun,” I said in my best attempt at playing the sympathy card. Dad simply smiled, refusing to listen to any of my complaining.

“Why don’t we just try it out?” he suggested.

Of course, it’s natural for parents to encourage their child by helping to push them along and give them confidence. But both of us knew I wasn’t an ordinary child. Typical children don’t have ten surgeries by the time they reach eight years old. Many things looked different from my vantage point. Especially since I had to look up at the rest of the world most of the time. We never viewed my stature as a disability. Sometimes, however, as in moments like this, I had to carry a little extra baggage.

I was coming off my tenth surgery. When school had finished that May, I had been admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital and went through a procedure called an osteotomy. Even though I was only eight, I knew the drill.

The surgery would attempt to correct the abnormal curvature of my left leg and normally took between four and six hours to perform. An incision was made on the outer side of my leg, and soft tissue and muscle were moved to the side to expose the bone. The surgeon would use a saw to cut the bone in half, remove a small angular piece of bone, and then rejoin the two halves. Normally, a plate and screws or large stainless-steel staples would fix the bone in place. At the end of the procedure, my leg was wrapped in a plaster cast to immobilize the limb for a period of up to three months while it healed.

Since I’d started visiting hospitals and having surgeries at the ripe old age of two, our family had the whole process down by this point. My mom would pack our suitcase and make the fifteen-hour trek to Baltimore. After arriving at the hospital, we would try to find the doctor’s office. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Hopkins was a huge place. They had used color-coding to help people find their way, but I’m pretty sure it was just more confusing. We would meet the doctor, review the plan of action, and then try to relax until the surgery the following day.

I would be one of the fortunate souls to have Dr. Steven Kopits as my surgeon. He would go on to become my lifelong orthopedist and friend. Of course, as a child, all I knew was that surgery always ended up putting my life on pause. That’s why our visits to the hospital were always planned out well in advance.

Bones heal over time, not overnight. And so my mom and dad often thought it best to have my surgeries in the summer whenever possible in order to avoid any negative impact to my scholastic progress. At the time I wondered why I wasn’t free to roam the beach, playing with friends and collecting seashells in the sand during the summers. Of course, looking back now, I see my parents were definitely looking out for my best interests.

At the time, though, I still longed to simply be like any other kid. To be able to sprint into the warm waters of the ocean or to spring up onto an elegantly decorated horse ready to begin its steady march on the merry-go-round. And when I couldn’t, it made me ask the question:

Why can’t I just do what everyone else does?

This was the case at that World’s Fair in 1982. I stood staring at the gleaming carousel in front of me, knowing I couldn’t spring up onto anything. I would have to watch the ride, just like I had been doing all day.

“Come on, let’s give it a try,” my father said.

My parents always tried to encourage me to try different things, even when it seemed like the road ahead was impossible. Their encouragement gave me the courage to try new things. Sports, for instance. I tried playing baseball and soccer, and I discovered I was terrible at both. But I also began to play the piano and ended up loving it. Without my parents’ encouragement, I know I would have missed out on a lot of things. This was just one of the many times I needed to be pushed a bit.

My parents had known that visiting the World’s Fair that summer would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, something this scholastic overachiever would appreciate, even if I was only eight. As Mom pushed my brother, David, in a stroller, I sat on a rented wheelchair, since I had the cast and would have been too cumbersome to carry around for too long.

We had walked around the fairgrounds, taking in the attractions gathered around a man-made lake. One of them had been a giant gold sunsphere tower. Some of the other highlights of the fair included new inventions, such as Cherry Coke and the touchscreen display. Of course, the most popular items at the fair were the arcade games such as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, and the brand-new Rubik’s Cube. We had an Atari at our house, but I was more into schoolwork than video games, and I was more interested in the amusement park rides.

Eventually we wound up in front of that glorious merry-go-round. All I could see was how impossible it would be for me, yet my dad assured me I could do it.

“How do you know if you can’t do it unless you try?” he said, sizing up the ride. “We can do this. We just need to do it a little creatively.”

He wasn’t going to force me to do anything. Hearing his encouragement, however, was enough for me. I would go ahead and try to ride it. As we joined the line, my fears began to heighten, yet I knew my dad was at my side and wouldn’t let anything happen. I continued to look for the pretty white-and-gold horse as it circled by me.

Once it was our turn to go on the ride, my dad lifted me out of the wheelchair and carried me onto the merry-go-round. We found my perfect horse and he sat me down in the saddle to assess the situation.

“You’re going to need something to secure your leg,” he told me.

“I don’t want to get off,” I said.

Dad has always been a quick thinker, and this time he didn’t disappoint. He took off his belt and wrapped it around my leg, and then around the pole in front of the horse’s saddle. With my leg suspended on the side of the horse, my dad stepped back and gave me a chance to go for a ride. Of course, he wasn’t too far away in case something went wrong. The carousel began to move and so did my horse. I held on to the pole and turned around to see my father standing there with a grin on his face.

Yes, it was just a simple ride at an amusement park. But for me, it stood for something far greater than that. It was another time my parents urged me to go ahead and give something a shot. To give it a try even if it seemed too difficult and scary. They could have understood my reluctance and held me back, or they could have stood there holding both of my arms. Yet they said it was possible, and then they gave me the courage to go ahead and try it out.

I would eventually have to get off that ride and climb back in that wheelchair, yet the encouragement my parents gave me that day still stands out to me as one time they helped me understand that I could give anything a shot, no matter how daunting it appeared to be.
GET BACK UP AFTER YOU FALL DOWN

Bill

But it’s not enough to just try something out for the first time. Sometimes—many times, in fact—you have to be tenacious. You have to decide that you’re really going to do this thing and go for it, regardless of the outcome. You have to tell yourself that no matter what happens today, there will be a tomorrow and you will try even harder. This can apply to a forty-year-old in his career, or it can apply to a five-year-old learning how to ride a bike.

Let me tell you about that first bike of mine.

On my fifth Christmas, I got my first set of wheels. She was metallic blue with spoke rims and white tires. She was gorgeous, and it was truly love at first sight for me. It was a unique little bicycle, to boot. It had a very comfortable tan leather seat, a single hand brake for the front wheel, reflectors galore, and it even came with an air pump for the impromptu roadside repair. And best of all, in the middle of the frame was a large white wing nut that, when removed, would allow the bicycle to fold completely in half for easy storage and transport.

The bike cost over $100, which was a lot of money to spend on a kid’s bicycle back then. But it was worth every penny in my opinion.

She was custom made, just for me. A one-off that my grandfather (on my mom’s side) and my father had had made for me. It was no small task, getting a bike for a kid that stood about twenty-eight inches tall with an eight-and-a-half-inch inseam. Toys R Us didn’t stock them, nor did any of the bike shops close to my house, and anything anywhere close to my size was for babies anyway. And for a kid who stood just less than three feet tall, I had the mouth of someone three times my size. My parents knew a “baby bike” wouldn’t do. I needed something similar (or better) than what everyone else was riding. It took them a long time to find one, but they would have one made in Italy and shipped to New York City the summer of ’78. I would discover it months later sitting beside the Christmas tree.

That morning, I ran down the stairs as quickly as my little feet could carry me. I peered around the corner at the tree. My eyes grew huge as the package too big to fit under the tree came into view. The wrapping paper was draped over it in such a way that I couldn’t quite tell what it was. Of course, back in the old days, we had rules about opening gifts before our parents woke up. It was a big no-no, so of course I immediately ran back upstairs and woke my parents. They slowly stumbled down the stairs, wrangled my little two-year-old brother Tom, and sat on the good couch in the living room next to the tree. Permission granted, I dove into the paper. I clawed and tore like some sort of monster or large house cat, and the gift began to appear.

Santa had done it again. I couldn’t wait to ride my two-wheeler down the block. Thankfully, this two-wheeler had training wheels so I could learn how to balance on this beast before cruising into the sunset. Of course, winters in New York were rather unforgiving. Snow and ice were piled up along the sidewalks. I imagined zooming up and down the street, showing everyone on the block how fast I could go. But as soon as I led my bike out to the garage to try it out, I saw that icy sidewalks and puddles of unforgiving slush meant that my days of practicing would have to wait until spring.

When springtime eventually came, Dad helped me to the edge of the driveway. This would be my launch pad, and where I would often crash in a feeble, sometimes miraculous, and always breathtaking (for Mom) attempt to arrive home. He held the bike steady while I climbed onto the crossbar and finally lowered my butt onto the seat. Grasping the little white handlebar grips as tight as could be, Dad instructed me to take my feet off the crossbar.

“Okay, now put your feet on the pedals,” Dad said.

I tried, and realized I couldn’t reach them.

When I had done this sitting in the living room, I could reach both pedals, since the crank had been parallel to the floor. But in the real world, your foot needs to be on the pedal the whole time to make revolutions, and my legs fell a bit short. As luck would have it, even this custom-made bicycle was too big for me.

Day one on my bike was a failure.

A complete failure.

With a pouting face and a head hung low, I climbed down from my bicycle and went back into the house.

Sure, I could have given up, but come on. I just had to ride that bike. Nothing was going to stop me from doing it. The following weekend, Dad rolled the bike out into the driveway. This time around, there was a new addition to my new bicycle—pedal extensions. These were the first of what would be a lifelong companion for me in any vehicle I would drive. These extensions weren’t much more than a piece of wood strapped to each side of the pedal, held together by a rather large rubber band.

“Let’s try this again,” Dad said as I climbed onto the bicycle seat again. I placed my feet on each of the pedals, and Dad continued to firmly hold the bicycle in place. I began to start pedaling and couldn’t believe when the wheels began to turn. My feet actually stayed on the pedals. I’d finally done it.

For a moment, I thought I had overcome the hardest part. How naïve a five-year-old can be.

For a few weeks we’d repeat the same routine of Dad holding the bicycle upright while I pedaled along. Sometimes Dad would get distracted, but the training wheels were there to back both of us up. We’d go up and down the sidewalk and eventually head back up the driveway with my dad pushing me faster by gripping the handlebars. But both of us eventually grew bored with this routine. I wanted to be able to ride a two-wheeler, and my dad wanted to go back inside.

It turns out that learning to ride a bike for the first time is quite a lot harder than it looks. I was pedaling on my own, but I hadn’t figured out how to balance the bicycle. The training wheels were great at keeping me from landing on my face, but they weren’t instilling any confidence in my ability to ride without them. So my father and I continued to practice with the training wheels on, seemingly with no end in sight. There was no sign of when they would be replaced by balance and skill.

Summer arrived, and school was out. Most of my friends were also still learning how to ride bicycles. But the friend closest to me, geographically and socially, was my best friend and neighbor, Andria. She was ten months older than I was (and still is today). That meant she was a grade above me, and better than me in nearly everything we did together. But Andria was definitely one of my very best friends and still is to this day.

Andria lived two houses down from me and had an older brother, Chris. She had long brown hair, brown eyes, and a medium complexion. She was a cutie for sure. But because she was also the younger sibling, and most of her friends were boys, she tended to be more of a tomboy than a girly girl. That was all right by me. We used to get into trouble together, raid each other’s fridges together. In fact, if we were not at school it was more than likely that we were together.

One of the things she and I had discussed at length was our dream of freedom. That is, freedom to ride our bicycles around the neighborhood without our parents and away from our siblings. But this dream would only be recognized on two wheels, and neither of us had mastered that skill as yet. But we kn...

Bestselling authors of Life is Short (No Pun Intended) and stars of TLC’s The Little Couple return with an inspirational book that encourages readers to reach for their dreams, no matter what obstacles they may face.

Jennifer Arnold and Bill Klein have faced some big challenges in their lives. On the way to becoming a preeminent neonatologist and a successful entrepreneur—as well as parents and television stars—these two have faced prejudice, medical scares, and the uncertainty of life with special needs children. And even though they have dealt with fear, depression, hopelessness, and the urge to give up, they have found a way to persevere. Now they share their wisdom and encouragement for everyone who is facing their own challenges.

Drawn from their most popular speaking presentation, Think Big is the inspirational guide for dreaming big, setting goals, and the steps you need to take to get there. Each section includes heartwarming anecdotes full of grace, humor, and wit plus a never-before-seen look inside their personal and professional lives. They have plenty of stories to tell and their unique approach to encountering life’s greatest difficulties will inspire a call to action in all of us.