Storytime: The Heist

When you can’t afford to play tennis, go racing

Standing in the small office next to the gymnasium, I knew no one could see me. No matter, I was anxious. Even a bit sweaty. I was about to pull off the heist of the century. I looked over my shoulder. I peeked around the corner of the doorway and down the long hallway. Nothing but lockers and the linoleum floor polished by hundreds of Junior High School kids’ shuffling feet. It was eerily quiet. Was I being watched?

Time to move. On the desk was my target. Two of them.

I grabbed them both and stuffed them into my two-tone, brown and beige Adidas gym bag, zipping it closed. My hands shook. I knew I was going to get caught. I just knew it. I slipped out the door and down the hallway to my locker. 35-10-26. Why I can remember that lock combination to this day, I have no idea. Perhaps it was part of the imprinting in my mind that comes during stress, like when you know you’re going to spend the next two years in prison for grand larceny.

The gym bag tossed in the bottom of the locker, I grab a red binder and quietly close the door. I latch the handle in place and put the combo lock back on. I’m halfway there. I’ve got the loot. If only I had a getaway car!

Uh-oh. School Counselor. “Umm, I’m just grabbing my notes, Mr. Murphy. I have study right now. I needed a different binder. Yeah, going to the library.”

Okay, not only am I a thief, but I’m a liar, too. I quickly walk to the library, find a chair in the back, sit down, and open the red binder. I try to read my Physics notes, but all I can think about is the crime I’ve just committed, and the five years I’m going to spend in prison. That’s the only thing in my head for the remainder of the day until I take my Adidas gym bag out of my locker and begin walking home. The theft is still in my head, but now I’m back in the act of it – the actual getaway. I walk as quickly as I can without looking like a crook. Down the hall and out the school’s side door, I angle across the edge of the field and head for the alleyway that leads to the back of my house. There are kids standing next to the field, smoking. Others are walking, heading to the street that runs in front of my house. Still others are lining up for the bus. I try to blend in, but I know they know. They can tell that I’m guilty. I am guilty. Twenty years locked away behind bars.

As I pass the second house on the left, I know I’m going to be passing “The Rock.” It’s on the left amongst the birch trees, a granite stone about the size of a small bear, and it’s the place that kids would meet to either have a fight, smoke, or do some other damage. The “bad” kids hung out there. I thought I should stop there, being a bona fide crook and all. I kept walking.

Only about the length of a football field to go. I can see my house. My Adidas gym bag hanging from my arm, brushing my leg with each step, the loot inside, covered by my sweat-stinking shorts and t-shirt. And my runners. Oh yeah, the sweet smell of my runners! I had hoped that if – I mean, when – the cops stop me, they will begin to search my Adidas gym bag, only to jump back from the stink the moment they unzip it. Along with out-running the cops, that’s my backup plan to avoid being locked up for thirty years.

Across the back lawn, jump up onto the back porch in one leap, turn the door handle, and… it’s locked! Okay, gotta go around to the front door. But that means visibility. Do I leave the bag on the back porch, go around the house, in the front door, through to the back door, grab the Adidas gym bag, and sneak in the house? If Mom sees me do that, she’ll know something’s up. But if I carry the Adidas gym bag around to the front with me, and the cops are sitting out front, I’m a goner. Life in prison.

I take a chance. The Adidas gym bag comes with me. My reason? Mom is tougher and more eagle-eyed than any cop will ever be.

As casually as I can, I walk in the front door, say hi to Mom in the kitchen, and head straight for my bedroom. Closing the door, I place my Adidas gym bag on my bed, unzip it, and with the delicacy of a cat burglar, I reach in for the jewels. Under my runners, under my t-shirt, under my shorts, I grab hold of two Athletic Journal magazines – the booty. Each one had an article about “visualization,” the way athletes could close their eyes and imagine performing whatever sport they did. As a skinny kid with average natural athletic ability, I thought I could use every advantage I could get. I was going to learn to visualize. But first, I needed to visualize not getting caught and thrown in jail for the rest of my life. Without parole.

What I learned from those two magazine articles about how athletes in all sorts of sports were using a technique called visualization changed my life. For the better. First, I visualized not getting caught for stealing these magazines from my Phys Ed teacher’s office. That was a good thing, as I never did get thrown in jail for my heinous crime (and as far as I can recall, I’ve never stolen anything else in my life). But, as importantly, I also applied the visualization lessons to everything else in my life.

At the time that I avoided being tracked down by the RCMP, the FBI, and every major police force on the continent, I was heavily into tennis. So heavily that I put my nightly dreams of winning the Indy 500, Le Mans, and the Formula One World Championship on hold long enough to very deliberately picture myself on any and all tennis courts (including Wimbledon), hitting shots that up until that time I could not physically make. But something began to change in my game over the next few months to a year: I got better. I even got to the point where I considered hitting balls for a living.

Because my life of crime never amounted to much, I couldn’t afford to have the same level of coaching and practice time that most of my fellow Junior competitors had. So, I did what seemed perfectly logical at the time: I quit tennis and went racing.

Yup, I couldn’t afford to play tennis, so I took up one of, if not the most expensive sport in the world. I laugh when I think about that now, but really, I was simply justifying what I really wanted to do with my life: race cars.

So, what I learned about the use of visualization (and what I’ve learned since then is that it’s really mental imagery, since we use more senses than just vision) for tennis applied equally to racing. In fact, because racing is so much more expensive, and track time is more elusive than time on the local tennis courts, mental imagery was critically important. It became a daily ritual, and way of life for me.

Of course, I’ve used mental imagery for even more than racing. Prior to a keynote speech, a media interview, a business meeting, and even what my business strategy, goals and plans are for a year have all been played out in my mind well before they happen.

Sure, mentally imaging something happening in the future exactly like I want it to play out is not always easy, but even if I’ve run the basics of it through in my mind beforehand, I feel prepared. That preparedness mindset can make all the difference.

Still, every now and then, as I’m walking along a street or through an airport, I turn my head and quickly check behind me to see if the cops are about to rush me, slap handcuffs around my wrists, and haul me away for my criminal behavior back when I was in my mid-teens. The death penalty for stealing two Athletic Journal magazines.