What I Learned From Maya Angelou & Venus Williams

The power of positive thinking works. There is no doubt about it. I've seen it in the past few months in my own life. After reading The Secret, where it talked about how teachers, and great leaders in the past have long known this secret and use it to their advantage I've started to really pay attention.

I recently got several books on and about Maya Angelou from the library. The one that impressed me so much and helped me to see that this Phenomenal Woman uses the secret in her own life is Maya Angelou - The Poetry of Living. What impressed me so much was what others had to say about this woman and how she affected their lives. How she inspired them. Over and over people mentioned her wonderful spirit, her positive outlook, refusal to give into the negative, and her determination that she could achieve anything she put her mind to. All I could think is that I would like to be regarded this way.

Venus Williams recently won her fourth Wimbledon after many would have considered her to be out of the game. What motivated Venus to win and to play the best tennis of her career? Venus called a friend months earlier, after watching her sister Serena win an unlikely Australian Open title in January, and said simply, "I'm going to win Wimbledon." Just like that. In her mind she had already won it. Next she would sure that she did everything in her power to make that happen. And she did.

Don't think that positive thinking and envisioning your future works? Just ask Maya Angelou and Venus Williams.