Focus begins with a good attitude. You have the ability to transform your life and soar like an eagle to new heights of success and fulfi llment. Whether your attitude is positive or negative or somewhere in between, the tools that are given to you in this book will allow you to move forward, no matter where you are in life or what position you are in presently. Always remember, there is light at the end of tunnel. This book will show you how to take control of your life, and unleash your incredible potential. It’s fi lled with inspiring stories and easy-to-understand success principles. Steven H. Lewis presents this book with sincerity, clarity, and impact in a way that will inspire you to develop your skills to their full potential and bring out the greatness that’s within you. You’ll begin to see new possibilities. You’ll take action to develop your unique talents, and you will achieve extraordinary results. Eighty-fi ve percent of anything that you do begins with a good attitude; it doesn’t matter what it is. Initially, this book was going to be centered on what it takes to become a professional athlete. After discussing this topic with my literary agent in a fi ve-hour phone conversation, playing battle of the wits, he won and gave me a new and better idea for writing this book. First of all, I want to thank Mark Pavlovich for giving me the vision to be able to reach everyone in the world. It doesn’t matter what your goals are, this book pertains to everyone. I feel sure that you will fi nd what is written here extremely powerful and intriguing. This book will give you an insight into and the motivation for selfdevelopment through personal improvement. Through the guidelines that are presented here, you will obtain your personal goals. This book will give the information essential to reach your ultimate goals. This book is not pertaining to becoming a professional athlete; the tools that you are given throughout 18 FOCUSING ON YOUR DREAMS the contents of this book will apply in anything you do in life. This book is about self-improvement and it will give you simple, clear guidelines on how to obtain your goals. This book includes three different personalities and three directions in life; the fi nal outcome will be the same. With determination, dedication, desire, and passion we got to where we are now. We lived through traumas and devastations. I have integrated into this book the importance of knowing where you have been in your life. Life appeals to everyone, and it matters how you handle it—how you start and how you fi nish. It doesn’t matter what your goals in life are. You have a starting point and a fi nish line. In order to complete each task, it is imperative to stay focused on your goal. Please don’t misinterpret this book as just being about professional athletes; we only are sharing our own personal experiences. I hated my past; however, I couldn’t allow my past to affect my future. It enhances what I am doing today because I am now able to refl ect on the many setbacks that I’d had to go through in my life. My past only gave me the opportunity to move on to the next level. Progress is not based on how people view you. Rather, it is based on how you see yourself as an example. When you are in the last place and your expectations are not very high, you can’t lose focus. But when you fi nish the season and you go to the fi nals and you do your best and have high expectations but lose anyway, then at least you know in your heart you did your best. This is what you call fulfi lling success. So again it doesn’t matter where you end up, what counts is that you gave it your all. Sometimes you have to give up things in order to pursue where you want be. You have to be creative when setting goals for yourself and see beyond your fi nger next to your nose; however, your fi nger is your vision, your creativity goes beyond what is in front of you. By being creative, you will be able to supersede what is directly in front of you. What’s in front of you only gives you the ability to see what’s ahead—SOS in other words. Use your fi nger as a chain saw and chop down the trees so you can see the forest. Being creative means expanding your mind. Without the proper mind-set, you can never see beyond your present situation. Being in the present simply means you’re at a standstill. It’s impossible to move forward unless you allow your mind to expand, and this is the most diffi cult thing about success, because expanding your mind means taking risks; but then without risks, you’ll never know how sweet life is. If you keep on holding back and avoiding risks, I promise you, you will settle for less the rest of your life.

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I was born in 1956. I lived in Los Angeles, California, for about fi ve years with both of my parents and my brother, Ritchie, and my sister Candice. We later moved to Central Avenue in Compton, California, where the riots began. My parents added a new member to the family about two years later, my little sister, Robin Lewis. We lived in Compton until I was thirteen years FOCUSING ON YOUR DREAMS 21 old. I was full of mischief while I was growing up. I always tried to beat the system, including my parents. But I did not limit myself to just their rules. I always wanted to fi nd a better way; it didn’t matter to what extent. If something was of interest to me, I would try and make it better. If I didn’t like something—like school, for instance—I would try and go against it. I had started trying to beat the school system at about the age of six. In 1973, we moved to Carson, California, where my mischief continued. When I was thirteen, I was introduced to marijuana at the bus stop while waiting for the school bus. I did some experimenting with drugs as I was growing up, starting at the age of thirteen until I was about twenty-one years old. There were a lot of drugs that I didn’t use again; one time was enough. I tried to continue my education in the eighth grade, but needless to say, I was failing badly. Not only in school, but in life itself. It didn’t matter to me as long as I was able to cover it up. That was always my goal. I didn’t set very good goals for myself at that time. I graduated from junior high after being forced to go to summer school for two years straight. Finally, I made it to high school. That’s when things got really hard for me. After my fi rst year in school, I was kicked out for ditching my classes and sent to continuation school to join the rest of the students that had problems in school. Unfortunately, this move didn’t help. I was kicked out of continuation for ditching school as well. I was kicked not only out of both schools, but out of the school district as well. So I moved to Baldwin Hills to live with my cousins Kimmie, Jan, Cindy, Lori, Dion Jr, Dion Sr, and Aunt Lydia. I tried to continue high school at Hamilton High in LA. I failed at that as well. I continued to ditch school and visited girls who also ditched school. These problems in my life continued to follow me throughout my school years. When I was sixteen, I decided to join the military, but fi rst I had to pass the examination for a Graduation Equivalency Diploma (GED) and get my parents’ consent. My parents tried everything with me. My dad thought the navy was the answer. Boy, was he wrong. After serving about eighteen months, I was kicked out of the navy with a general discharge under honorable conditions. I served during the Vietnam war until 1975. After my discharge, I moved back to Carson with my parents. At this time, I was nineteen, and I tried going back to school to get my high school diploma. Needless to say, I was not successful, so I started looking for work.