No Dream Is Too High

• CHAPTER FIVE • WRITE YOUR OWN EPITAPH.

Some people have their epitaphs written about them after they die and some people do their epitaphs while they are living. By that I mean, they do something that matters; they refuse to take “no” for an answer and choose to focus on the opportunities in life rather than the obstacles. They pursue their passion rather than simply perform a function or do a job.

My passion has always been aviation. I grew up in an aviation family, and my father was an aviation pioneer. He learned to fly in 1919, and his first assignment was as an aide to General Billy Mitchell in the Philippines. Dad also knew the Wright brothers, and he even hitched a ride on the Hindenburg prior to its tragic accident. He met Marion Moon, the daughter of the Army Air Corps chaplain, and they soon fell in love and married. Following his stint in the Philippines, my father came home and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on the subject of spinning airplanes. He loved to fly and spent 38 years of his life in the Army Air Corps. Shortly before I was born, he took a job as aviation fuel manager for Standard Oil Company in New Jersey.

My father was a friend of Jimmy Doolittle, another MIT graduate and an outstanding aviator and gunnery instructor in World War I. Between the two World Wars, Doolittle’s fame grew even more when he continued performing aviation feats, and my father was a judge at many of those contests. During World War II, Doolittle led the first carrier-based bomber attack on mainland Japan on April 18, 1942, striking Tokyo and other strategic cities after taking off from the original Navy carrier, U.S.S. Hornet. A portion of his Medal of Honor citation, presented personally by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, reads: “With the apparent certainty of being forced to land in enemy territory or perish at sea, Colonel Doolittle personally led a squadron of Army bombers, manned by volunteer crews, in a highly destructive raid on the Japanese mainland.” But Doolittle did not perish. In fact, Doolittle later became my primary mentor, not merely in aviation, but in life.

My father won a Piper Cub airplane in a radio station contest—yes, he actually won an airplane. That sure beats winning a couple of tickets to a rock concert anytime! I was two years old when my father took me on my first airplane ride in a red-and-white plane dubbed the Eagle. That first flight made an indelible impression on me. I loved being airborne in the Eagle and could hardly wait to fly again. Ironically, years later, when Neil Armstrong and I landed on the Moon, the lunar module in which we landed was named the Eagle.

All of my accomplishments in the years ahead were tucked in that airplane seat along with me as a little boy, and it has been quite a journey as the dreams and goals I had as a child have come to fruition. I’m a lucky guy, because in many ways—some planned and some experienced while rolling with the punches—I have managed to fulfill my grandest dreams, and so much more. Along the way, I’ve interacted with some truly extraordinary people.

I enjoy noticing some of the unusual precursors to my future success, things such as my mother’s maiden name of Moon, and that my first airplane flight was in a plane dubbed the Eagle. Here’s another: While I was at West Point, I met a guy named Winston Markey who wanted to design rockets. Winston became the valedictorian of our class. Next to his photo in my copy of our yearbook, Winston wrote, “I’ll build them; you fly them!”

And he did. And I did. Winston went on to become a rocket engineer and later moved into government circles where he influenced the future of space exploration.

Coincidences? Maybe. Or maybe my course was set long before I realized. People today often think I am being modest or overly humble when I say that I was simply a guy who was at the right place at the right time, but it is true. A series of serendipitous events, many of them over which I had no control and some of them even tragic, catapulted me into position for advancement.

But even as a little boy, I loved building model airplanes and became enamored with comic books featuring fictional space travelers such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. I was extremely curious and everything about aviation fascinated me.

I was 11 years old in 1941 when the Japanese attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, so all through my early teens, I read newspapers and watched black-and-white newsreels of the various bombing campaigns in Europe and in the Pacific, studying with interest the Spitfire battles over Britain, the American planes engaged in battles against the Japanese Zeroes, and the deadly dive-bombers of the German Luftwaffe.

As an adolescent, I became interested in the mechanics of airplanes, how they functioned, and how we could make them better. When my father landed a P-38 at an airport near our home after the war, I noticed the little things; for instance, the rivets on the P-38 were not flush, as they are today on most planes. We need to improve that, I thought. Eventually, we did.

As I prepared to graduate from high school, I had several choices. My father preferred that I attend the Naval Academy, even though he had spent 38 years serving in the Army Air Corps, but I chose instead to attend West Point in 1947. I took an oath to serve my country, and that has been the guiding force in my life ever since. Not comfortable living, good-paying jobs, getting rich in the stock market, or living a life of luxury, but serving my country in the best way that I could—that has been my guiding principle.

I’ve had my share of setbacks and disappointments in life. When I returned from the Moon, I fell into a series of depressions and bouts with alcohol because I had great difficulty finding something meaningful to do. After you have done what no human beings have done in all of history and you know you are going to be dealing with a certain level of celebrity for the rest of your life, it is hard to get excited about a “normal” job or a mundane military career. So for a while, I experienced a roller coaster of emotions, and it wasn’t until I returned to what I was passionate about—space exploration—that I truly found my equilibrium again.

I’ve always considered myself to be rather self-motivated and, frankly, self-sufficient. I’ve worked hard and achieved my goals, and I have not depended on anyone else to cut me a break or pick up my slack. One of the keys to a successful life in any field is learning to take responsibility for ourselves, rather than waiting for someone else to do something for us.

Yet there have been times in my life when my best efforts simply weren’t enough, when I really needed someone to come to my aid. In those incidents, despite being a macho fighter pilot and astronaut, I learned that asking for help was not a sign of weakness, but of true strength.

One such incident came in the midst of the fabulous cross-country celebration of Apollo 11’s landing on the Moon. Culminating a busy day of exuberant congratulations following our return to Earth, including ticker tape parades and celebrations in New York and Chicago, Neil, Mike, and I boarded our plane for Los Angeles, where we were to be the honored guests at a special reception hosted by President Nixon, with several thousand people and dozens of highprofile celebrities in attendance.

I was excited about the gala, but I was worried because I knew I would have to make a speech. Worse yet, I assumed that we’d speak in the order of our rank, so Neil would be first, then Mike, and I would be the last Apollo 11 astronaut to stand behind the podium. I fretted that I’d have nothing to say after my buddies had spoken.

Yes, I was one of only two human beings since the beginning of time to have walked on another celestial body. But I needed help in explaining the experience to others.

Jules Bergman, science editor for ABC News, was on board our plane to California as part of the press corps. Jules was a brilliant science reporter—not just a talking head who could read a teleprompter, but a genuine student of science. He had written numerous articles about space, and to better help him understand the program, he had even participated in some training and simulations similar to what real astronauts experience. Jules knew his stuff, so I asked him to help me put together some ideas, some talking points, and he most generously and graciously complied. I sat on the dais next to Pat Collins, Mike’s wife, that evening, and I’m sure I was a terrible conversationalist, because I kept sneaking glances at the notes that Jules had written out for me to use in my speech. I’ve always been glad that I had the courage to ask for help, and even more grateful to Jules Bergman for helping me.

No matter who you are or how accomplished you may be, a time will come when you realize that you need help. Don’t be too proud or resistant to seeking help out of fear of embarrassment, reprisal, or other consequences. Some people want to give the impression that they never have a problem in the world, that everything is wonderful in their lives. If you ask them, “How are you doing?” their first response is usually, “Fine.” But oftentimes things aren’t fine, and you needn’t be embarrassed about finding someone who can assist you, whether the help you need is physical, financial, or emotional.

Seeking help when I was suffering with depression after returning from the Moon was a lifesaver for me—perhaps, literally. Several people in my family, including my own mother, had committed suicide, so I wondered if there was a genetic predisposition that might cause me to follow their examples. Fortunately, I found excellent doctors and friends who encouraged me and helped me to recognize that I was not trapped by the past, that I could be responsible for my own decisions, and that my emotional health was much more important than my career.

Sometimes, it is tough to admit that you need help, but it is an important step. I had always enjoyed alcohol, but when I came back from the Moon and experienced frustrations regarding the future of the space program, as well as my own future, I started drinking far too much and too often. Occasionally, I spent a few weeks in treatment centers, and although I found wonderful, short-term help, I continued a downward spiral.

For years, I struggled alone with my demons. But when I became involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, I found people who understood, who empathized, and who could also encourage me to take the necessary steps toward health and wholeness, including the willingness to keep me accountable. They helped me to discover meaning and significance and to focus on what I was good at doing. Because I was willing to ask for help, as you read these words, I have been sober for more than 36 years.

I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE just how important it is to discover and pursue a path about which you are truly excited, one that matters and is meaningful to you. If you are not sure what that is, ask yourself, “What gives me the greatest sense of joy, of meaning, of pleasure? What makes me happy and fulfilled?” Whatever it is, find out and go for it. Where will you go, what will you do, no matter what the costs? When you discover what that is, tell yourself over and over again, “I am so excited that I get to do this. I’m going to do this because I want to, not because I have to.”

Pick an amazing dream and go for it. Don’t merely make a living; make a life. Launch out farther than you’ve ever gone before. Today, you have a shot at forever. Somebody is going to do something big, so ask yourself, “Why not me?” Why not take a chance?

Many people have a fire burning within them, something they feel compelled to do, or an idea or a project they strongly feel they should develop. Yet too often, they push those dreams into a subconscious drawer and never really give them a chance to be fulfilled. Frequently, the reason we allow our dreams and desires to be tamped into a dark black hole is because somebody rejected us or said no to us.

But one of the keys to learning how to write your epitaph while you’re living is to look for opportunities, rather than obstacles, regardless of what other people say or do.

I’ve never had much appreciation for the word “no.” Instead, I prefer “perseverance” or “persistence.” Much more than talent or a pleasant personality, perseverance and persistence will open doors for you, if you simply keep working toward your goal and refuse to give up.

Although I am one of the best known astronauts in American history, believe it or not, I was not accepted the first time I applied to become a NASA astronaut, as I already mentioned.

At that time, NASA wanted test pilots, not scientists. I was a fighter pilot and an egghead, a scientist studying at MIT. Before leaving Germany, where I was flying practice bombing runs, I read that to become an astronaut, one had to train as a test pilot. Because I had chosen not to do that, I assumed there was little chance of me getting into the space program.

Nevertheless, I was convinced that I could be selected as an astronaut. Ed White had been accepted, and we had flown together in the Air Force during the cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States. I knew Ed was a good fighter pilot, and I was, too. “I can shoot gunnery as well as if not better than Ed can,” I said. “I’m going to apply to be an astronaut.”

But I was rejected. That could have been an insurmountable obstacle for me, or a barrier that detoured my entire life. But I was persistent. Sure, I was disappointed, but I didn’t give up.

I learned more about NASA’s Gemini program and talked with Gus Grissom, who was going to fly in that program; I also talked with the designer of the Gemini spacecraft.

I got into great physical shape, went to Houston, and applied again in 1963. This time I was accepted, along with a couple of other fighter pilots who, like me, had not been test pilots.

When the orders came out, I was again disappointed to discover that I was assigned to a backup crew, not a flight crew. I was not scheduled to fly during the entire Gemini program. Then one of those events over which I had no control but that would change the course of my life took place on February 28, 1966. While flying a routine flight from Houston to St. Louis, aboard a T-38 Talon, two of my astronaut friends, Charlie Bassett—my backdoor neighbor—and Elliot See, were killed when their plane missed the runway in foggy weather and crashed.

Their tragic deaths pushed Jim Lovell and me ahead on the list of astronauts, first as the backup crew for Gemini 9, and then as a flight crew, ready to fly on Gemini 12. Although I had nothing to do with it, and was deeply distraught over the deaths of my friends, had it not been for the freak accident, I would not have flown during the Gemini program. But because I went into space on Gemini 12, and even did a long space walk, those events set me in line for Apollo, and an eventual landing on the Moon.

That’s one of the reasons why I have always tried to remind people that I was simply a guy who was in the right place at the right time. Yes, I had a great, supportive family, a strong work ethic, and wonderful friends. Yes, I studied incessantly, worked hard, and prepared in my areas of expertise, but perhaps the key to any success in life is to be ready when the opportunity comes along.

Sometimes if you think too long about something you want to do or some risk you want to take, you talk yourself out of it. On the other hand, if you muster your courage and just boldly step out and do it, you find that doors open for you that other people say are impossible to go through.

In 2010, President Barack Obama planned to speak at the Kennedy Space Center and make some announcements about the space program. I was in Washington, D.C., at the time, so I called Christina in California and said, “I want to get on Air Force One.” I knew that because of post-9/11 security precautions, it was quite difficult to hitch a ride with the president, even for an astronaut, but I had confidence that it would work out.

Actually, I had flown aboard Air Force One previously when Neil, Mike, and I traveled around the world on behalf of President Richard Nixon on the goodwill tour following our landing on the Moon. Because the president was not along with us, the White House referred to the plane as Air Force Two, rather than Air Force One, but it was definitely the president’s plane.

On another occasion, when I was at the Reagan Presidential Library in California for a book signing, Christina and I crashed a tour of his retired Air Force One. The tour guide didn’t notice us at first, but when I asked a question, the guide recognized me. After all the other folks left, the tour guide gave us a personal tour, allowing me to compare the Reagan plane with the Nixon edition that I knew.

So as much as I understood that it would take some special circumstances to fall into place for me to get on President Obama’s version of Air Force One, I refused to give up.

Christina continued checking every option, and I went from one government official to another, asking for permission to accompany the president. Our friends in the White House said, “Tell Buzz to get himself to Florida, and we’ll have special VIP access for him once he arrives at Kennedy Space Center.” I appreciated that, but that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to fly on Air Force One so I could have a chance to talk with the president about my Mars Cycler. We were going to the same place, after all. What was so hard about giving me a ride? Of course, I was aware of security concerns, but I wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I just kept talking to people who might be able to help.

Everyone in the White House told Christina and me, “You’re not getting on Air Force One.” But we continued to pursue every contact we had.

Finally, Christina received an email from her White House contact, saying, “Tell Buzz to meet the shuttle to Air Force One at the West Wing of the White House.” Peter Marquez, former White House director of space policy, was able to join me. We were transported from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base, and the official car drove us right to the enormous jet’s staircase.

A short time later, I called Christina—from the president’s jet—and said, “Hi, Christina, I’m on Air Force One.”

The plane itself was very comfortable, with huge seats, as well as desks and chairs for working. The conference room aboard the aircraft is replete with video screens and teleconferencing capabilities. And, of course, there is free Wi-Fi aboard Air Force One!

The aircraft was impressive, but I was most taken with the gracious staff, all of whom had favorite Air Force One stories and were more than willing to share them if Peter and I would listen. We listened to a few, but I was too busy making phone calls to all my friends to focus on the attendants’ stories, especially since the flight from Andrews to the Kennedy Space Center was relatively short.

After a while, I said to Peter, “Do you want to go look around?”

“Sure thing,” Peter replied.

We started roaming around the president’s plane and made it all the way to the stairs that led to the upper section of the Boeing 747 when an attendant spotted us. At first I thought he was going to reprimand us for exploring or send us back to our seats, but instead, he asked, “Would you like to see the cockpit?”

I smiled like I’d just won the lottery. “Of course,” I replied. There were no security worries aboard Air Force One, so the attendant took us to the cockpit and I stuck my head inside the doorway. Not only had we made it onto Air Force One when all the naysayers said it was impossible, but I was now looking over the shoulders of the guys who were flying it.

Unlike flying commercially, it was not necessary to turn off my phone before landing. In fact, nobody even came on the intercom instructing us to sit down and buckle up. The pilots of the huge plane brought it down smooth as a feather right on the space shuttle runway at the Kennedy Space Center and then eased to a stop.

When we arrived, President Obama and I walked out to greet the crowd to whom he was going to speak. Even though we had very limited time together, I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to tell the president about my research and the Aldrin Mars Cycler, the method I had developed for going to Mars. As we were walking, I quickly explained my plans for the Cycler concept. I told the president that we needed to use Phobos, one of the two moons of Mars, as our staging point before we actually landed on Mars. He was planning to promise an increase in NASA’s funding by six billion dollars, and to orbit Mars within the next two decades. I was talking about landing on Mars.

The daughter of a friend of mine had made a papier-mâché model of Phobos that was so good I carried it with me wherever I traveled, so I could illustrate how the Mars Cycler works. As I was talking with President Obama, I remembered that I had the model in my briefcase. I pulled out the papier-mâché model, which looked similar to a large baked potato, and was using it to explain my concepts to the president.

The president took the model from my hands and began to walk away with it. “Well, thank you, Buzz,” he said, waving.

“No, no, no! That’s my Phobos!” I said. The president must have thought I intended him to have the model. I didn’t.

I had taken that model on so many trips and had shown it to so many people, my papier-mâché Phobos was beginning to fray and show cracks, so much so that the aluminum foil beneath the papier-mâché had begun to show. A few weeks later, we were having a “full moon” party at my home. As a joke, Christina placed the Phobos model in the middle of a table in my office and wrote out a warning: “Moon rock. Please don’t touch!”

Throughout the party, guests slipped into my office to view my many mementos, and there was the Phobos model. “Ohh, look, it’s a Moon rock!” a number of people gushed.

Really? I actually do have some Moon rocks but none of them are made from papier-mâché! And I don’t leave them sitting on my desk.

I had made a presentation in 2009 for the Augustine Commission, a committee of experts assigned with the task of reviewing the U.S. human spaceflight plans regarding recommendations for the future of the space program. In an effort to encourage further exploration and to avoid duplication of our efforts, I made the comment, “Why go back to the Moon again? Been there and done that.” I was saying it facetiously.

In 2010, President Obama picked up on parts of my presentation and repeated some of my recommendations practically verbatim in his speech at the Kennedy Space Center. But not in the way that I intended.

“Why do we need to go back to the Moon?” the president asked. “As Buzz says, ‘Been there, done that.’ ”

I learned a lesson through that experience. Be careful what you say, nowadays, because it might be repeated—maybe even by the president of the United States!

JUST BECAUSE I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT motivating people to explore Mars doesn’t mean that I think we should forget about developing projects on the Moon. I know we can enjoy numerous benefits by exploring and building an outpost of some sort on the Moon. My friend Stephen Hawking, the English physicist, feels the same way. Stephen had invited me to visit on several occasions, but it simply never worked out. Then on March 14, 2015, Albert Einstein’s birthday, I was speaking at Oxford and Cambridge universities in Great Britain, and some friends offered to take Christina, my family, and me to Hawking’s home in Cambridge, where we were able to spend an afternoon together. Stephen has stated publicly, “We have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years, but if we want to continue, our future is in space.” I am in complete agreement with him, so I was excited to learn more of his thoughts.

Stephen suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is wheelchair bound, and is unable to talk without the use of a specially adapted computer hooked to a speech-generating device that simulates a voice. It is difficult to have a conversation with him, however, because he has to answer by using the computer and it takes him a long time to reply. When we visited, I gave him a long monologue about my plans for the Mars Cycler. Stephen listened intently. After a while, I asked Stephen, “Well, what do you think?”

We waited a long time for Stephen’s response. Finally, he managed to say, “Why not the Moon first?”

I smiled and promised to send Stephen my book Mission to Mars and a digital version of my entire discourse on how we can successfully colonize Mars. Although I don’t want to ignore the Moon, I do want the next generation to go where no humans have previously traveled. There are entire vistas yet to be explored.

Granted, there are times when you have to change directions or try another method to achieve your goals. It takes courage to say something isn’t working, so let’s try something different. For instance, President Obama took a lot of heat when he canceled the Constellation program—a human spaceflight mission begun by NASA in 2005 but discontinued in 2010—but that was part of my recommendation. The program wasn’t working, and it never would work, so why keep pouring money into it? To me, it was not about politics. I am all in favor of support for space exploration, regardless of party affiliation. The president inherited a bad program when he came into office. Constellation had been regarded as the next big thing in space, but it wasn’t working, and NASA knew it and so did everybody else.

The problem was exacerbated, however, because President George W. Bush had already established the time line for the completion of the space shuttle program, after which the shuttles would be retired and used mainly as museum pieces. I encouraged both President Bush and President Obama to extend the shuttle program, which we could easily do by further stretching out the time between flights, and that would extend the program a little longer. Without the shuttle program, we had no readily available ability to get to the International Space Station (ISS)—which we had built but could no longer reach without reliance upon the Russians or the Chinese. When we completed the shuttle missions, we already had a deal in place with the Russians to transport our astronauts to the ISS, but at the whopping price of $55 million per American astronaut! As soon as the shuttle program ended, the Russians upped the price to $75 million per astronaut—quite a capitalistic move.

After the Constellation program was canceled, NASA toyed with another quirky idea, the Space Launch System (SLS) program, derisively called the “Senate Launch System” by critics, among whom I could be counted. I was asked to take part in a U.S. Senate subcommittee meeting in Washington, D.C., to present my thoughts about the program.

At one point during my comments, I didn’t use much tact. “Can you believe that they are using Heritage components to build the SLS?” I groused. “Do you know what that means? It’s old stuff. That’s not what America is all about!”

One of the staffers spoke up. “In full disclosure, sir, I’m the one who wrote that law.”

Oops! It was the old foot-in-mouth syndrome. I tried to say something positive, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was, “Well, it’s stupid!”

So much for my space ambassadorship!

But it was stupid to use old parts in a new space program. We need to be forward thinking!

The world was quite impressed in July 2015, when the New Horizons spacecraft flew past the planet Pluto, after being launched on January 19, 2006, on its journey venturing deeper into the mysterious Kuiper belt and beyond. Now that takes patience and perseverance. It was nearly ten years before New Horizons sent fascinating photographs of Pluto back to Earth. I was happy for the progress, but I was even more impressed when the European Space Agency’s Rosetta team caught up to and landed an unmanned satellite on a comet on November 12, 2014, and started sending photos back to Earth. Do you have any idea how difficult that was? Wow, talk about the ultimate rendezvous experience! I had been hoping that we could land on an asteroid, a much larger mountain of rock hurtling through space, but the Rosetta team did even better—landing on a speeding comet! The comet was much farther away from Earth than Mars ever is. Moreover, to control a landing on a moving, rotating comet, with communications transmissions limited to the speed of light, is incredibly impressive! That’s the kind of “never give up” spirit that I hope we can foster in the next group of U.S. space pioneers.

OF COURSE, I WELCOME EVERY OPPORTUNITY to keep space exploration in the news. For some reason, though, the Obama Administration had decided to ignore the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing in 2014. Christina and I bugged everyone we knew who had any political clout, saying, “Every U.S. president has met with the Apollo 11 astronauts to commemorate the anniversary of the initial Moon landing every five years. Surely you don’t want to be known as the first administration to eliminate that tradition. This is not merely American history; this is world history.”

Finally, the Obama White House conceded and agreed to have the president briefly meet with the Apollo 11 astronauts on the 45th anniversary of the first Moon landing. They refused, however, to allow our family members to attend the meeting, another departure from tradition. With every previous administration, regardless of political persuasion, the family members of Apollo 11 were always welcomed.

Christina, however, had learned an important lesson from the Air Force One incident. She refused to take no for an answer. She called another friend in the White House and requested that the family members be permitted to attend the meeting with the president.

“They are not going to let the family members in,” Christina’s White House contact reiterated. Nevertheless, Christina remained undaunted.

She called my family members and said, “You get on the vehicle transporting Carol Armstrong (Neil’s widow), Mike, and Buzz.”

She then called me and said, “When you are meeting with the president, casually mention that your family is outside in the White House reception area.”

When I greeted the president, I told him that my daughter, Jan, my grandson, Jeffry, and my son Andy were outside waiting on me. Sure enough, the president responded, “Oh, well, bring them inside.”

I smiled and said, “Why, thank you, Mr. President.”

Because of that persistence, Mike Collins’s daughter, Kate, was able to meet the president as well.

Sometimes you just have to be persistent, and you cannot take no for an answer. Don’t listen to the naysayers, the people who give you all the reasons why something cannot be done or tell you it’s never been done that way before. I love it when someone tells me something cannot be done, or that nobody has ever done it before. What a challenge! What an opportunity to go where nobody else has ever gone. When you are told no, do not stop and do not give up. Try again and find a new way.

What idea have you stuffed inside your drawer? What could you do to give birth or rebirth to that idea? Today is the day to get started. Don’t allow anything to deter you. You may not know everything you need to know, but you know enough to get started. Don’t wait for someone to write complimentary things about you after you are dead and gone. Do your epitaph while you are living!

Nothing is impossible, but you must have a passion for what you want to do and a plan for where you want to go if you ever hope to get there. It was “impossible” when President John F. Kennedy announced in 1961 that the United States was going to land on the Moon before the end of that decade. At the time, we had barely gotten our space program off the ground. But we did it. Nothing is impossible if you believe.

The “impossible” just takes a little longer.

Develop that inner perseverance, that attitude that says, I can do this; I will do this! No matter what the opposition says, I will find a way.

Remember: Can’t never could. No never will. Success comes in “cans.”