On education (why to study constantly) & how to be successful & importance of books!

"Believe in yourself. Study the greats. And become greater."

Question: "What achievements in your life are you the most proud of?"

Michael Jackson: "One of my biggest dreams since I was really, really little... I think around 7 years old, I use to always buy the Guinness World Book of Records. [Giggles] You know what the answer's gonna be right? I said, "Hmmm, I love to dance and sing. Hopefully one day I can be in this book." And I believed that it was possible. So when Thriller became the biggest selling album of all time, and it was enlisted in the Guinness Book Of World Records, and, uh, there's so many other lists... You know, they've enlisted me in there like 7 different times now.* It was my happiest time of my life. I was so happy.

Question: "To what do you attribute that level of ambition and possibility you felt when you were a kid. You know, I think it's sometimes hard for people to feel... You know, you weren't, obviously, rich as a kid or from some kind of fancy background, but still somehow you were able to envision a life of success. What do you attribute that to?"

Michael Jackson: "I attribute that to my parents who always taught us to persevere and believe in yourself, have confidence, no matter what you do. Even if you're sweeping floors or painting ceilings, do it better than anybody in the world, no matter what it is that you do. Be the best at it, and have a respect for others, and be proud of yourself.. and to honor; be honorable, you know.

Online audion chat, October 26, 2001

"Your curiosity is your greatest gift. Use it to expand your scope. Ordinary people won't understand your insatiable thirst for excellence. They won't bother to keep striving because it's too onerous, too difficult." 

Michael Jackson to Kobe Bryant

Michael Jackson´s letter to himself:

Note to himself, which states his job, current income and his desired income in 45 days:

"To MJ - June 94

Present Job Title: is songwriter, entertainer, recording artist, actor, dancer, director
Present Weekly Income: A million a week
Job Title 45 weeks from now: Same...........
Weekly Income 45 weeks from now: 15 million a week

 

“The idea is to take it a step forward and to innovate or else why am I doing it? I’m just – I don’t wanna be just another can in the assembly line. You know, I want to create, do something that’s totally different and unusual.” 

Michael Jackson

"One of the things he always told me was, don't be afraid to be different. In other words, when you have that desire, that drive, people are going to try to pull you away from that, and pull you closer to the pack to be 'normal.' And he was saying, It's O.K. to be that driven; it's O.K. to be obsessed with what you want to do. That's perfectly fine. Don't be afraid to not deviate from that. One of the books that he gave me that helped him communicate with me was "Jonathan Livingston Seagull," which was about that.

Beyond the genius of what he was, he was just a genuinely, genuinely nice person. He got me hooked on movies that I would normally never watch. Fred Astaire movies. All the old classics. I would never, never watch those. I remember my fiancée and I telling him we were getting married, and him just being really excited and actually just offering up the ranch to have our wedding there, because privacy was going to be an issue. We wanted to get married in a church, so that's what we wound up doing. But he made the offer. He was just a genuinely nice person who was exceptionally bright, exceptionally bright, and driven and talented. You mix those things together, man, you have Michael Jackson

Kobe Bryant on Michael Jackson in a special commemorative edition of TIME

“A complicated and complex man…very real with a deep love and appreciation for art, someone who very much embodied the dreams he inspired in others.  Michael loved challenge…to think out of the box and run head-on into the most daunting challenges.  Everything in Michael’s world was a reflection and companion to the whole…conveying a message and evoking an emotion, stimulating thought.  He didn’t believe in the impossible.  The appreciation for detail, and for things in life so often taken for granted was part of his magic.  He had magic because he truly believed it.  He didn’t believe in can’t or won’t.  He was a master at hiring the right people for what he needed done, perhaps because he had an uncanny ability to sense the highest potential in others and draw the best out of them.  Nothing could stay the same for very long.  He just had an eye for things that could work with a little magic added to them.  Living with intention and meaning is what motivated Michael.  To say that Michael was a perfectionist was an understatement.  He absolutely lived for performing live.  He put so much into every performance because he wanted it to be THE ONE, THE ONLY, THE MOST AMAZING SHOW ON EARTH.  Out of respect for his fans, it had to be full out every time.  He was humble, but humility is not the antithesis of knowing the importance of commemorating milestones.  Michael took notice of everything.  To look like the real thing it had to be the real thing.  Michael was a muse, a riddler and a prankster, but most of all, an inventor who refused to believe anything was impossible.  Through him, we embraced the same limitless philosophy.  HOW FAR CAN WE TAKE THIS…His mind, like the sky, simply knew not the concept of boundaries or limits.  Limitations, I learned through him, are either self-imposed or predicated by the limited visions of others.  Performance was a life, not a job.”

Michael Bush, MJ stylist

Michael Jackson's MENTAL PROGRAM - THOUGHT OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS TO BECOME THE BEST:

Dream: Greatest Actor, Singer, Dancer of all time and Entertainer, The Best.
Confidence
Faith
Persistence
Belief
Study the great of your field and become Greater.
Know the secrets of your endeavor "The Method"
Mind Target: Control and Influence the subconscious
Best in your field
Be Scientist know. The Great's Method
Try out and then perfect it.
Move Mountains
True Training: A never ending persistence to equal or exceed the performance in your minds eye

Michael Jackson wrote this in the early 80's in his home in Encino California. This really defines how Michael wanted to become the greatest by not only working so hard but also conditioning his mind. First thing that comes to my mind after seeing this is I want to share this amazing writing to everyone especially to young MJ Lovers out there that like Michael, every dream is possible as long as you are willing to put your heart and soul into it. Passionate Michael became THE GREATEST because of he is willing to work so hard (no short cut), to sacrifice and also condition his mind. He fights for his dream. No wonder, everyone looks up to Michael and wanted to be like him. Michael will continue to inspire... It's up to us now how we will fight for our dream like Mike. Or it can never be done :)

"Michael Jackson thinks big; he had large visions. Give up fear, think above and beyond, and do not be afraid to let your light shine in its fullness."

Adele R. McDowell, Ph.D.

Keep The Faith with Lyrics

"I want to continue to grow. To me, the biggest sin of all sins, is to be given a gift, a talent, because it's actually a gift from God, to take that and not cultivate it and make it grow, that's the biggest sin in the world."

Michael Jackson, Ebony Magazine, October 1981

Wesley Snipes said that he once spent three hours speaking with Michael “about metaphysics, psychology, ‘how the black man is treated.´ 

...we met many times around the world. I met him once in South Africa, and we were sitting in this spacious place. He happened to be there and I happened to be there, and after we started talking we chatted about three hours. And he had a list of books lined up all along the floor. And I looked over and just said, „Mike, people are sending you stuff like that? And he said, „no, thats what I read.“ I mean he had everything, from the autobiography from Malcolm X, to Eat To Live, (Jiddu) Krishnamurty.... I mean, like these exotic books that you would never imagine Michael was down with. And we sat there for three hours man, choppin' it up about all of this, from metaphysics to psychology, about how the black man is treated … I'm telling you, it was a trip. People don't know about Mike on the real. Mike had a consciousness that could blow your mind. And he could recite things that would blow your mind as well... like the street corner stuff, straight up.

Wesley Snipes youtu.be/UPjkgTA2J8Q

"An education opens a person's minds to the entire world. And there is nothing ...more important than to make sure everyone has the opportunity for an education. To want to learn, to have the capacity to learn and not be able is a tragedy." 

From Michael Jackson´s speech in the occasion of receiving one of his honorary doctorates, the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (Latin: Litterarum humanarum doctor; D.H.L.; or L.H.D.) on March 10, 1988

 

 

... Contributions for philanthropy and the humanities, an academic discipline that includes not only the arts and science, but literature, history and philosophy as well.  Michael Jackson joined a long list of recipients which included:  Maya Angelou, Hunter S. Thompson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Booker T. Washington, Georgia O’Keefe, Prince Charles, Eudora Welty, Margaret Thatcher and the Rev. Billy Graham, to name a few.

 

~ the 44th Annual Event United Negro College Fund

 

Michael knew that an education was very important. It was widely known he owned over 10,000 books. To help others get a quality education, Michael Jackson established the Michael Jackson Scholarship fund with the United Negro College Fund. He donated $1.5 million #MJHumanitarian

— Michael Jackson (@michaeljackson) February 15, 2019

“I love to read. I wish I could advise more people to read. There’s a whole new world in books. If you can’t afford to travel, you travel mentally through reading. You can see anything and go any place you want to in reading.”

Michael Jackson

"I am just curious about all things, the simplest, things. About what is in a drop of water. I wanted to read about eyelashes one time and found out a whole colony of living things live in our eyelashes. To me that´s amazing. Everything to me is interesting, especially if you start studying the universe and all that. It is just a phenomenal amount of information and I am just astounded by it. It makes me feel ignorant about how much I don´t know The more I find out, the more ignorant I feel. I really do. I realize there is so much to learn. That´s why bookstores amaze me. I can spend hours and hours grabbing books and I come back with boxes of stuff. That´s one of the things I love about my mother. We used to go to the bookstore and spend hours and she let us get whatever we wanted. She let us have it, she never said no. We would read, read, read. I love that. It is just wonderful, isn´t it? I am very curious about everything. There is nothing I am not interested in."

Michael Jackson

"He especially loved books on Hollywood glamour from the 1930s, richly illustrated children's books, and coffee-table books on photography' 

 Todd Gray author of "Michael Jackson Before He Was King" who was the photographer of this Beautiful photo shoot of Michael as he reads at Encino:

"I remember those times he would read books out loud for me. He would always make sure I understood everything.. and the way he read it out loud and emphasized certain parts made it so much more interesting. Magic."

Omer Bhatti, Michael´s friend, shared this memory from his childhood on Tumblr

"I've always wanted to be able to tell stories, you know, stories that came from my soul. I'd like to sit by a fire and tell people stories—make them see pictures, make them cry and laugh, take them anywhere emotionally with something as deceptively simple as words. I'd like to tell tales to move their souls and transform them. I've always wanted to be able to do that. Imagine how the great writers must feel, knowing they have that power. I sometimes feel I could do it. It's something I'd like to develop. In a way, songwriting uses the same skills, creates the emotional highs and lows, but the story is a sketch. It's quicksilver. There are very few books written on the art of storytelling, how to grip listeners, how to get a group of people together and amuse them. No costumes, no makeup, no nothing, just you and your voice, and your powerful ability to take them anywhere, to transform their lives, if only for minutes."

Michael Jackson in his book Moonwalker

E.T. Storybook narrated by Michael Jackson:

Michael reading to his small children:

"What a lot of people don’t know about Michael is that he was always reading. He was an intelligent man. His favorite poet was Robert Burns and he was obsessed with the novels of Charles Dickens.

He would scour antique bookstores looking for first editions of his work.

He loved Shakespeare and got me into the plays too. He was also fascinated by English history, especially Henry VIII, and loved collecting costumes from that period." 

David Gest, music producer and Michael´s lifetime friend

“It was Rose who instilled in me a love of books ,and literature that sustains me today. I read everything I could get my hands on. New cities meant new places to shop. We loved to shop, especially in bookstores and department stores,” 

“She taught me the wonderful world of books and reading and I wouldn’t be the same person if it wasn’t for her.” 

Michael Jackson talking about his childhood tutor and motherly figure Rose Fine in MJ Tapes

“Few people know that my brother was a bookish nerd, always swotting up on some random subject to better his vocabulary, knowledge, or understanding of life. “I love reading. There is a wonderful world to be discovered in books,” he said. Michael’s early reading material concerned Fred Astaire or Elvis, or child stars Shirley Temple or Sammy Davis Junior. In later years, his reading extended from Steven Spielberg to Alfred Hitchcock, President Reagan to President Roosevelt, Malcolm X to Dr Martin Luther King, and Mussolini to Hitler. I doubt many people would have given him credit for the general knowledge he amassed. Except Rose [Fine.] She always taught us that we can learn from the best by following history’s lessons; that it has left the footprints for us to follow. That is why Michael’s autobiography, Moonwalk, starts with a quote from Thomas Edison:

“When I want to discover something, I begin by reading up everything that has been done along that line in the past – that’s what all these books in the library are for. I see what has been accomplished at great labor and expense in the past. I gather data of many thousands of experiments as a starting point, and then I make thousands more. “The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.”

That quote still stands as the truest reflection of Michael’s approach to his own mastery, and they were the words he actually posted in gold letters to the cloth, coffee brown walls of his sound studio at Hayvenhurst.”

Jermaine Jackson

“And there were places that he liked to sit, and you could see the books with his bookmarks in it, with notes and everything in it where he liked to sit and read. And I can tell you from talking to him that he had a very – especially for someone who was self-taught, as it were, and had his own reading list – he was very well-read. And I don’t want to say that I’m well-read, but I’ve certainly read a lot, let’s put it that way, and I enjoy philosophy and history and everything myself, and it was very nice to talk to him, because he was very intellectual, and he liked to talk about those things. But he didn’t flaunt it, and it was very seldom that he would initiate the conversation like that, but if you got into a conversation like that with him, he was there.”

Bob Sanger, a lawyer

"He was a bookworm. Whenever I saw him, he was usually in the company of a book (never with a magazine or tabloid, of course). He read about photography, history, travel, design, architecture... he was a voracious and well-informed reader."

Aileen Medalla, a teacher of Michael´s children

“On weekends in the city, we often went to the movies or comic book stores, and what I remember most fondly about those visits was that Michael introduced me to the joy of books. I was dyslexic and reading had always been tough for me, but when I complained that I didn’t like to read he said, ‘Well then, you will be dumb and ignorant for the rest of your life. Frank, you can do anything you want in this world, but if you don’t have knowledge, you are nothing. If I gave you a million dollars right now, would you take it? Or, would you want to have the knowledge of how to make that million on your own?’ I knew the correct answer to that question:  ‘I’ll take the knowledge.’  Michael said, ‘That’s right, because with knowledge you can make the first million into two.” 

Frank Cascio, Michael´s friend

"There is so much around us that we should be thankful for."

Michael Jackson

"I don't relax really. I don't sleep a lot… My mind never stops."

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson - On the line

Michael Jackson - History

"MJ would not stand for mediocrity. I only realized that I had adopted his work ethic a few years after I stopped working for him. Whenever I was tired and my heart was not into my work, I’d find myself thinking about how MJ pushed himself to maintain a high level of quality, and this made me not settle for “good enough” in my photo work. I always strove to achieve the best I was capable of producing, regardless of the circumstance or size of the job. I passed this onto my students over the years as motivation to achieve greater heights than they thought themselves capable. “Shoot for the stars, and if you don’t make it, at least you’ll land on the moon.”

Todd Gray

MJ: “I watch cartoons. I love cartoons. I play video games. Sometimes I read.”
Q: “You mean you read books?”
MJ: “Yeah. I love to read short stories and everything.”
Q: “Any in particular?”
MJ: “Somerset Maugham.. Whitman. Hemingway. Twain.”

"That’s how he filled all those hours by himself: books. He’d read anything and everything he could get his hands on. History. Science. Art. There were so many trips to Barnes & Noble. It was almost a weekly thing. He would go into bookstores and drop five thousand dollars like he was buying a pack of gum. At one point, he actually bought a bookstore—I’m talking about an entire bookstore. He paid cash for it."

Javon Beard in book Remember the time: protecting Michael Jackson in his final days

Some of Michael Jackson´s favourite books

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach:

MJ’s handwritten notes in his copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull: “For animation create a gull who is a student of Jonathan’s who admires Jonathan’s flying ability but grows jealous and leaves the train to return to the flock to conspire to kill Jonathan Seagull”. 

It´s prophetic. Both Robson and Safechuck considered themselves students of MJ. They admired him. But then they grew jealous, and their false "train of thought", and joined Chandler, Arviso and Francia to conspire against him and "kill" his legacy though those false allegations.

twitter.com/andjustice4some

48 LAWS OF POWER

Early 20th century illustrator Maxfield Parrish:

I Am My Brother by Peter Seymour:

I

The BHAGAVAD-GITA

"Weapons cannot cleave it, fire cannot burn it, water cannot wet it." - Bhagavad Gita
"You cannot cleave it, you cannot wet it, you cannot burn it." - In The Closet, MJ

“Curving back within myself I create again and again.” - Bhagavad Gita
“Curving back within yourself - Just create... just create“ - Are You Listening, MJ, Dancing The Dream

Chapter 13 of the Bhagavad Gita is entitled "The Knower And The Known"
"I become the Knower and the Known." - The Dance, MJ, Dancing The Dream

“There has never been a time when you and I have not existed, nor will there be a time when we will cease to exist." - Bhagavad Gita
"There never was a time When I was not Or you were not There never will be a time When we will cease to be" - Heaven Is here, MJ, Dancing The Dream

To a child, food is something special. It isn’t just a delicious taste or the vitamins that build a healthy body. Food is love and caring, security and hope — all the things that a food family can provide. Remember when you were little and your mother made a pie for you? When she cut a slice and put it on your plate, she was giving you a bit of herself, in the form of her love. She made your hunger go away, and when you were full and satisfied, everything seemed all right. Because that satisfied feeling was in the pie, you were nourished from a deep level. Food is something we all need physically, but so is love, the deeper nourishment, that turns into who we are.
Think about how necessary it is to nourish a child with a bit of yourself when you use this book. It is full of delicious things. Every recipe has an extra ingredient of caring, because the people who wrote them were thinking of the children. They were specially thinking of those who aren’t able to take nourishment for granted because they are poor, sick or disabled. These are the children who need food to heal. The theme of ‘Heal the World’, which has been close to my heart, is the central theme of this book, also. Here are recipes for the spirit. Please make them with that in mind. Your child is growing spirit that can be knit strong with love. When you break an egg and measure a cup of flour, you are magically mixing the gift of life. The food’s proteins and minerals will turn into bones and muscles, but your feeling as you cook will turn directly into a soul.
It makes me happy to think that the needs of children’s spirits are at last becoming important in this world. Children have no power to end wars directly or to mend age-old differences.
All they can do is be themselves, to shine with gratitude and joy when love is turned their way. Yet isn’t that ultimately the greatest power? In the eyes of a child you become the source of joy, which lifts you into the special category of caregiver and life-provider. You may think that your apple pie has only sugar and spice in it. A child is wiser — with the first bite, he knows that this special dish is the essence of your love.
Enjoy!
— Michael Jackson, 1993

 

 

Michael Jackson and To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee – 1960