WHEN IT COMES TO COLD CALLING THERE'S REALLY JUST ONE ICON.

In 1972, BILL GATES along with his business partner, PAUL ALLEN, started a company called Traf-O-Data that specialized in monitoring and analyzing traffic statistics in cities and countries. After a few years their company was going no where and in 1975 they decided to take a different course of action, guess what happened next? MICROSOFT CORPORATION WAS FOUNDED!

When LUCILE BALL (star of "I LOVE LUCY") began studying to be an actress in 1927, she was told by the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School, "Try any other profession. Any other."

Do you think that you would have given up? After one of his first casting calls this is what an MGM exec had to say about FRED ASTAIRE: "Can't sing. Balding. Can dance a little."

Less than one percent off all high school athletes make it to the professional level. Can you imagine how much endurance (both mental and physical) it took for former one handed baseball pitcher JIM ABBOTT to play in major league baseball?

JULIO IGLESIAS was a remarkable athlete who sparkled among his teammates in the Real Madrid soccer team as goalkeeper. His dream one day was to play professional soccer. But on the night of Sept 22nd, 1963, when he was 20 years old something happened to him that would change his life forever!

While he was driving from Majadahonda to Madrid at around 2 a.m. with some friends: Enrique Clemente Criado, Toto Arroyo & Pedro Luis Iglesias; a tragic auto accident left him semi-paralyzed for a year and a half. There was no hope that he would walk again. At night, in Madrid's Eloy Gonzalo Hospital, Julio would listen to the radio and write poems - sad, romantic verses of poems that questioned man's mission in life. Eladio Magdaleno, the young male nurse who took care of him, gave him a guitar. Julio chose not to give up and look at him now.

Can you guess which U.S. President this was? The value of persistence is well illustrated in the following life story. Consider the following…

Failed in business...age 22

Defeated for legislature...age 23

Again failed in business...age 24

Elected to legislature...age 25

Sweetheart died...age 26

Had nervous breakdown...age 27

Defeated for Speaker...age 29

Defeated for Elector...age 31

Defeated for Congress...age 34

Defeated for Senate...age 46

Defeated for Vice President...age 47

Defeated for Senate...age 49

Elected President...age 51

This man was ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

In 1899, HENRY FORD (along with other investors) formed Detroit Automobile Company (later the Henry Ford Company). A few years later the company went bankrupt. Ford persisted and in 1903 with 11 investors and $100,000, he became chief engineer at his newly incorporated Ford Motor Company.

For years, the 4-minute mile was considered not merely unreachable but, according to physiologists of the time, dangerous to the health of any athlete who attempted to reach it. On May 6, 1954, ROGER BANNISTER broke through a psychoogical barrier by crossing the finish line with a time of 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.

When she was nineteen months old an illness left her deaf, blind, and mute. She did not let these obstacles stand in her way. In 1900, at the age of twenty, she enrolled at Radcliffe College where she graduated cum laude in 1904 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Fifty years later, in 1954, Radcliffe granted her its Alumnae Achievement Award. She received honorary degrees from both Harvard, in 1955, and the University of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1932. She also received honorary degrees from the University of Delhi, in India, and from universities in Berlin, Germany, and Witwaterstrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Should I keep going?

She visited with every President who held office in the 1880's and 1890's and with President Eisenhower in 1954, and President Kennedy in 1961. Other notables include Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1955, Prime Minister Nehru in 1955, and George Bernard Shaw in 1932. Throughout her lifetime Helen Keller received the following rewards:

• Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, America's highest civilian award.
• Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor in 1952
• Order of the Southern Cross from Brazil
• Order of the Sacred Treasure from Japan
• Order of the Golden Heart from the Philippines
• America's Award for Inter-American Unity
• National Humanitarian Award from Variety Clubs International
  

This remarkable lady was HELEN KELLER.