"How long did it take you to prepare that sermon?" asked someone of the great minister Dr. Lyman Beecher.

His prompt reply: "Forty years."

When asked how long it would take to learn the violin, the virtuoso violinist Felice Giardini replied, "Twelve hours a day for twenty years."

And that was coming from a child prodigy on the instrument.

After the great Polish pianist Paderewski played before Queen Victoria, the queen exclaimed, "Mr. Paderewski, you are a genius!"

"Ah, Your Majesty," he said, "perhaps; but before I was a genius I was a drudge."

Masters make their work look deceptively easy. Amateurs gaze up at their pedestals with stars in their eyes, dreaming of fame and fortune, anxiously searching for shortcuts.

Everyone wants the glamour and glory. But incredibly few are willing to do the arduous, prolonged, behind-the-scenes work required for public success.

There are no shortcuts to success. We must dig in boring trenches before we can plant our illustrious flag on the mountain.

When we watch the movie Gandhi, we see a magnificent leader conquering a powerful empire. What we don't see are...