He was a broke young comedian with holes in his shoes and a family that had once lived out of a van. He believed he was going to be a star. The trouble was, nobody else did yet.

One night, alone, he drove to the top of a hill overlooking the city that kept saying no. He took out his checkbook and wrote himself a check for ten million dollars — dated for Thanksgiving several years in the future, with a note in the memo line: "for acting services rendered." Then he folded it into his wallet, and he told no one.

He carried that worn check through rejection after rejection. And then, right around the date he'd written on it, his life changed in a way that made the number look almost modest.

But this isn't really a story about money, or fame, or positive thinking. It's a story about a father and a son, about belief handed down like a ...