Manuel and Jorge Fazú were two brothers, born just 18 months apart, and as close as twins. They grew up in a run-down flop house in an impoverished district of an anonymous city in Brazil. Seeing them as boys in their surroundings, no one would have thought anything would come of them.

But the Fazú brothers had a dream. They wanted to be musicians, and work their way out of the slums, and into the great world outside. Manuel learned to play guitar, and Jorge sang; they worked the busker circuits in their town, and eventually hitchhiked to Rio, where they reinvented themselves as the Fabulous Fazús. In no time, their logo, FF, could be seen spray painted all over town. It became the question of the hour: who or what was FF? It was an ingenious advertising gambit, and it worked wonders. The time came, carefully calculated, when they began to reveal who they were. There was only one problem.

They weren’t very good. In the first club they played, they didn’t even get through the first set before the manager threw them out, refusing to pay them. Worse, the scene was repeated in every first and second tier club in Rio, until the only gigs they could get were in the lowest dives on skid row, where patrons got a kick out of laughing at them, and throwing bottles.

Jorge grew discouraged, and wanted to quit, but Manuel talked him out of it. He was sure that, now that they were in the big city, there would be lots of opportunities to improve. He dragged Jorge to the clubs they were ejected from, where they sat and listened through the night to the bands who played there regularly. Afterwards, Manuel doggedly practiced, and Jorge did his best to maintain his spirits and practice along.

But it was no use. After a several months, Jorge confronted Manuel.

“Listen, we’re just no good. I’m quitting. I’ve got a chance of a job gardening for some rich family up town. I’m out of here.”

Manuel was devastated.

“You’re quitting now? Just when we’re starting to get somewhere?”

“We’re not starting anything. We’re no better than we were when we left home. We just don’t have any talent, bro, face it!”

“Talent?” said Manuel, “What’s talent? We got heart, man. And hard work. Come on, stop talking crazy, we got three new songs to learn before our gig tonight.”

‘Gig!” Jorge spat the word out, like rotten vegetables. “They only let us play there so people can make fun of us! And they don’t pay anything!”

“So what? We pass the hat, we do okay. That’s how all the great bands started, man.”

But it was no use; Jorge had had enough, and left that very day to take the gardening job.

But Manuel? Manuel had a dream, and he refused to let it go. One furious night, he went around to all the walls of the city and obliterated the second F from every place he found their logo. Then he realized he could simply call himself Fabulous Fazú without the plural, and went back and put it back in. Now it looked like F●F, which he thought was an improvement.

Anyway, he continued to work and dream, practicing until his fingers bled and his voice grew hoarse, playing the dives on his own, determined to prove to Jorge that he could make it.

Twenty years passed. Jorge was still working as a gardener. He had saved up his wages and started his own landscaping business, but, basically, he was still a gardener.

And Manuel? Manuel died of a heroin overdose in an alley behind one of the dives he played at.

Such is the power of positive thinking.