Earl Nightingale narration :
I will tell you about the strangest secret in the world.
Some years ago, the late Noble Prize Winner, doctor Albert Schweitzer have been interviewed in London and a reporter asked him:
“Doctor, what’s wrong with men today ?”. The late doctor was silent for a moment and then he said : “Men simply don’t think !”. It’s about this that I want to talk with you.
We live today in a Golden Age. This an era that man has looked forward to dream and worked towards, for thousands of years. But since it’s here we pretty are taking it for granted. We in America are particularly fortunate. There is and never was a richer land on the face of the Earth in the entire human history. Our land with abundant opportunity for everyone. But you know what happens ?
Let’s take 100 men who start even at the age of 25. Do you have any idea what will happens to those men by the time they are 65 ? these 100 who all start even at the age of 25 believe they gonna be successful. If you ask anyone of these men if he wanna be a success he will tell you that he did. And you’ll notice he will have some kind of sparkle in his eyes and a sort of courage and life seemed like a pretty interesting adventure to him. But by the time they are 65, 1 will be rich. 4 will be financially independent. 5 will still be working. 54 will be broke. Now think a moment. How that from 100 only 5 make the grade ? Now why do so many fail ? What has happened to this sparkle which was there when they were 25 ? What becomes to the dreams, the hopes, the plans. And why there is a large discrepancy between these men intended to do and what they actually accomplished. When we say about 5 % achieved success, we have to define success. And here’s the best definition I’ve ever been able to find:
SUCCESS IS THE PROGRESSIVE REALIZATION OF A WORTHY IDEAL.
If a man is working toward a predetermined goal and knows where he’s going that man is a success. If it is not doing that he is a failure. Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. Rolo May wrote a wonderful book called : “Man’s Search for Himself”. And in this book he says:
THE OPPOSITE OF COURAGE IN OUR SOCIETY IS NOT COWARDESS. IT IS CONFORMITY.
And there you have the trouble today it’s conformity. People like be like everyone else without knowing why, without knowing where they are going. Now think of it : In America right now there are over 18 millions people 65 years of age and older. And most of them are broke. They are dependent on someone else for life necessities. Now we learn to read by the time we are 7. We learn to make our living by the time we’re 25 usually when we can support a family. And yet but the time we are 65, we haven’t learned how to become financially independent in a richest land that has ever been known. Why ?
We conform. And the trouble is that we’re acting like the wrong percentage group, the 95 that don’t succeed. Now why do these people conform ? Well, they really don’t know. These people believe that their lives are shaped by circumstances, by things that happens to them by exterior forces. They are out of record people. A survey was made one time to that covered a lot of working men and these men were asked : “ Why do you work ? Why do you wake up in the morning ?”
19 out of 20 had no idea. If you ask him he will say : “Well, everyone goes to work in the morning!”. And that’s the reason they do it because everyone else is doing it. Now let’s get back to our definition of success, who succeeds ?
THE ONLY PERSON WHO SUCCEEDS IS THE PERSON WHO PROGRESSIVELY REALIZING A WORTHY IDEAL. Is the person who says: I’m gonna become this and then begins toward that goal. I’ll tell you that successful people are. A success schoolteacher is teaching school because that is he or she wants to do. A success is a woman who is a wife and mother because she wanted to become a wife and mother and is doing a good job of it. The success is the man who runs a corner gas station because that was his dream, that’s he wanted to do. The success is the successful salesman who wants to become the top notch salesman and grow and build his own organization. A success is anyone who is doing deliberately a predetermined job because that’s what he decided to do deliberately. But one percent do that. That’s why today there is a really competition and that’s why we’re making for ourselves. Instead of competing all we have to do is create. In over 20 years I worked for the key which would determine what would happen to a human being. Was there a key I wanted to know which will make the future a promise that we can foretell to allow and extend ? Was there a key that will guarantee a person becoming successful and only knew about it ? And about to use it. Well, there is such a key. And I found it.
Have you ever wondered why so many men and women work so hard and honestly without ever achieving anything in particular? And others do not seem to work hard at all and yet get everything? They seem to have that magic touch or pure luck. We often say, “Everything they touch turns to gold. Have you ever noticed that a man who becomes successful tends to continue to become successful ? Or on the other hand, how a person who fails seems to continually fail?
Well, is because of goals ! Some of them have goals, some don’t. People with goals succeed because they know where they are going. Is that simple ?
Think of a ship leaving a harbor. And think about a complete voyage and mapped guided plan that captain an crew know exactly where it’s going and how long it will take. IT HA A DEFINITE GOAL. The 9999 times out of 10000 it will get to where it started out to get. Now let’s take another ship. Just like the first, only that not put a crew on it or a captain to handle it. Let’s give it no aiming point, no goal, no destination, we just start the engines and let it go. I think that you agree with me that it will not get out of harbor at all. It will sink or finish deserted on some beach. It can’t go any place because it has no destination and no guidance. It is the same as the human being. Take the salesman for example. There is no other person in the world today with the future of a good salesman. Salesman is the world’s highest paid profession. If we’re good at it and we were we’re going. Every company needs top-notch salesmen. And sky is the limit for them. But how many you can find ? Someone once said that human race is fixed not to prevent the strong from winning but to prevent the weak to loosing.
The American economy today can be like into a convoy in time of a war. The entire economy is slow down to protect it’s weakest link. Just as the convoy have to go at the speed permitted by the slowest vessel from the formation. That’s why it’s so easy to make our living today. It takes no particular brain or talent to make a living and support a family today. So we have a plateau of so called security if this is what a person is looking for. But we do have to decide how high above this plateau we want to situate. Now let’s get back to the strangest secret in the world, the story that I want to tell you today.
Why do men with goals succeed in life an men without them fail ?
Let me tell you something what if you really understand, it will alter your life immediately. If you understand completely what I want to tell you from this moment on your life will never be the same again. You will suddenly find that good luck seems to be attractive to you. The things you want just seem to fall in line. And for now on you will not have the problems, the worries that annoying lamp of anxiety that you experienced before: Doubt, Fear, or other things from the past. Here’s the key to success and the key to failure:
WE BECOME WHAT WE THINK ABOUT. Now let me say you that again. We become what we think about. Through our all history the great wise men and teacher, philosophers and prophets have disagreed one another on many different things. It’s only on this one point that they were in complete and unanimous agreement.
Marcus Aurelius the great Roman Emperor said :
“ A MAN’S LIFE IS WHAT HIS THOUGHTS MAKE OF IT ! “
Disraeli said this: “Everything comes if a man will only wait… I brought myself by long meditation to the conviction of a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson said this: “A man is what he thinks about all day long.”
William James said: “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering there attitudes of mind.” He also said: “We need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real, and it will become infallibly real by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterize belief.”
He also said, “If you only care enough for a result you will almost certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you’ll be rich. If you wish to be learned, you’ll be learned. If you wish to be good, you’ll be good. Only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.”
In the Bible, you’ll read Mark 9:23: “If thou can believe, all things are possible, to him that believes.”
My old friend Dr. Norman Vincent Peale put it this way: “This is one of the greatest laws in the Universe. Fervently I wish I had discovered it as a very young man. It dawned upon me much later in life and I found it be one of the greatest if not my greatest discovery outside my relationship to God. The great law briefly and simply stated is that ‘If you think in negative terms, you will get negative results. If you think in positive terms, you will achieve positive results.’ That is the simple fact” he would go on to say which is at the basis of an astonishing law of prosperity and success. In three words: Believe and Succeed.
William Shakespeare put it this way. “I doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we ought might win by fearing to attempt.”
George Bernard Shaw said: “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”
Well, it’s pretty apparent, isn’t it? And every person who discovered this for a while believed they were the first to work it out. We become what we think about. Now it stands to reason a person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going to reach it, because that’s what he’s thinking about. And we become what we think about. Conversely, the man who has no goal, who doesn’t know where he’s going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety, fear, and worry becomes what he thinks about. His life will become a life of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing … he becomes nothing.
Now how does it work? Why do we become what we think about? Well I’ll tell you how it works as far as we know. Now to do this I want to tell you about a situation that parallels the human mind.
Suppose a farmer has some land and its good fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice. He may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn’t care. It’s up to the farmer to make the decision. Now remember we are comparing the human mind with the land, because the mind, like the land, doesn’t care what you plant in it. It will return what you plant, but it doesn’t care what you plant.
Now let’s say the farmer plants two seeds in his hand – one a seed of corn, the other nightshade, a deadly poison. He digs two holes in the earth and plants both seeds: one corn and the other nightshade. He covers up the holes, waters and takes care of the land and what will happen?
Invariably, the land will return what’s planted. As it’s written in the Bible -”As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Remember, the land doesn’t care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants – one corn, one poison.
The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way. It doesn’t care what we plant…success…or failure. A concrete, worthwhile goal…or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety, and so on. But what we plant it must return to us.
You see the human mind is the last great unexplored continent on Earth. It contains riches beyond our wildest dreams. It will return anything we want to plant. Now you might say: Well, if that’s true, why don’t people use their minds more? Well I think they figured out an answer to that one too.
Our mind comes as standard equipment at birth. It’s free. And things that are given to us for nothing, we place little value on. Things that we pay money for, we value.
The paradox is that exactly the reverse is true. Everything that’s really worthwhile in life came to us free – our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our intelligence, our love or family and children and friends and country. All these priceless possessions are free.
But the things that cost us money are actually very cheap and can be replaced at any time. A good man can be completely wiped out and make another fortune. He can do that several times. Even if our home burns down, we can rebuild it. But the things we got for nothing, we can never replace. The human mind isn’t used because we take it for granted. Familiarity, breeds, contempt, it can do any job we assign to it. But generally speaking we use it for little jobs instead of big and important ones.
Universities have proved that most of us are operating to 10 % or less from our abilities. So decide now: What is that you want ? Plant your goal in your mind. Is the most important decision you ever make in your entire life. What is that you want ? you want to be an outstanding salesman ? A better worker with a particular job in your company, in your community ? You want to get rich ? All you got to do is plant that seed in your mind, care for it, work steadly toward your goal and it will become a reality. It will not only will, there’s no way that it can not. That’s a law like the laws of Sir Isaac Newton, the laws of Gravity. If you gonna on top of a building and jump off you’ll always go down, you’ll never go up and it’s the same with all the other laws of nature. They always work. They are inflexible. Think about your goal in a relaxed positive way. Picture yourself in your mind’s eyes that you already achieved this goal. See yourself, doing the things you will be doing when you reach that goal.
Everyone of us it’s the SUM TOTAL OF ITS OWN THOUGHTS. He is where he is because that’s exactly where he really wants to be where he admit that or not. Each of us must live of the fruit of these thoughts in the future because what you think today, next month and next year will mold your life and will determine your future. You are guided by your mind.
I remember one time I was driving to Eastern Arizona and I saw one of those giant earth moving machines rolling around the road at about 35 miles an hour with 30 tons of dirt in it, a tremendous, incredible machine. And there was a little man on top with the wheel on his hands guiding it. And as I drove along I was struck by the similarity of that machine and the human mind. Just suppose you are sitting at the controls of such a vast source of energy. Are you gonna sit back and forward your arms and let it run itself into a ditch ? Or you gonna keep both hand firmly on the wheel and control and direct this power to a specific worth wile purpose ? It’s up to you. You are in the driver seat.
We must control our thinking. The same rule which can lead a man to a life of success, wealth, happiness and all other things that he dreamed for himself or his family. That very same law can lead him into the darkness. Is about he is using it: for good or for bad. This is the strangest secret in the world. Now why do I say it’s strange, and why do I call it a secret ? Actually it isn’t a secret at all. It was first told by some of the earliest wise men and appears again and again throughout the Bible but very few people have learned it, understand it. That’s why it’s strange. And life is unequally strange and it is virtually remain a secret. I believe that you could go out in the Main Street of your town and ask one man after another what the secret of success is. And you probably you’ll find a one man in a month who could tell you. This information is enormous valuable to us if really understand it and apply it. It is valuable not only for our own life but the lives of all around us, our families, employees, associates and friends. Life should be an exciting adventure. It should never be a bore. A man should live fully, be alive he should be glad to get out of bed in the morning. He should be doing a job he likes to do because he does it well.
One time I heard Petterson, the late editor and chief and he concluded his speech and he said something I never forgotten. He said : “My years in a newspaper business have convinced me of several things. Among them that people are basically good. And we came from some place and we are going some place. So we should make our time here an exciting adventure. The architect of the Universe didn’t build us to stay away living nowhere.”
And the greatest teachers of all, the carpenter from the planes of Galilee gave us the secret time and time again. “As you believe so shall it be done.” And to you.
I’ve explained the strangest secret in the world and how it works. Now on this side I want to explain how you can prove to yourself the enormous returns possible in your own life by putting the secret to a practical test. I want you to make a test that will last 30 days. It isn’t going to be easy but if you’ll give it a good try, it will completely change your life for the better.
Now back in the 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton, the English mathematician and natural philosopher gave us the natural laws of physics which applies much to you to the human beings as they do to the movement of the bodies in the Universe. In one of these laws is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Simply stated, that it applies to you and me, it means that we can achieve nothing without paying the price.
The resource of 30 day Experiment will be in direct proportion to the effort you put forth. To be a doctor you must pay the price of long years of difficult study. To be successful in selling and remember that each of us succeeds to the extend of his ability to sell. Selling education in schools, selling our children on the advantage of living a good and honest life. Selling our associates and employees on the importance of being exceptional people.
But to be successful in selling our way of a good life we must willing to pay the price. And what is that price ? Well, it’s many things.
First is understanding emotionally as well as intellectually that we literally become what we think about. That we must control our thoughts that will control our life. It’s understanding fully that : “AS YE SEW, YE SHALL RIP”.
Second, it’s cutting away all feathers from the mind and permitting it to soar as it was divinely designed to do. It’s the realization that your limitations are self imposed. And the opportunities for you today are enormous beyond belief. It’s rising above narrow minded pettiness and prejudice.
And third, it’s using all your courage to force yourself to think positively on your own problem. To set a definite and with carefully defined goal for yourself. To let your marvelous mind think about your goal from all possible angles. To let your imagination speculate freely upon many different possible solutions. To refuse to believe that there are any circumstances sufficiently strong to defeat you in the accomplishment of your purpose. To act promptly and decisively when your course is clear and to keep constantly aware to the fact that you are at this moment standing in the middle of you own “ACRES OF DIAMONDS”, as Russell Conwell used to point out.
And forth, save at least 10 % of every dollar you earn. Is also remembering that no matters what your present job is, it has enormous possibilities, if you are willing to pay the price.
- You will become what you think about.
- Remember the word imagination and let your mind begin to soar.
- Courage. Concentrate on your goal every day.
- Save 10 % of what you earn.
- Action. Ideas are worthless unless we act on them.
Now I will try to outline the 30 day test I want you to make and keep in mind that you have nothing to loose by making this test at everything you could possibly want.
The Game
There are two things that may be said for everyone: each of us wants something and each of us is afraid of something. I want you to write on a card what you want more than anything else. It may be more money, probably to double your income and make a specific amount of money. It may be a beautiful home. It may be success at your job. It may be a particular position in life. It could be a more harmonious family. Each of us wants something. Now write down on your card specifically what you want. Make sure it’s a single goal and clearly defined. You needn’t to show at everyone but carry it with you so that you can look at several times a day. Think about it in a cheerful, relaxed, positive way each morning when you get up. And immediately you have something to wake for, something to get out of bed for, something to live for. Look at it every chance you get during the day and just before getting to bed at night. As you look at it, remember that you must become what you think about and since you are thinking about your goal, you realize that soon it will be yours. In fact, it is yours really the moment you write it down and begin to think about it.
Look at the abundance all around you as you go by your daily business. You have as much right to this abundance as any other living creature. Is yours for the asking.
Now we came to the difficult part. Difficult because it means the formation of what is probably a brand new habit. And you have some of them already formed. Once formed however they will follow you for the rest of your life.
STOP THINKING ABOUT WHAT IT IS YOU FEAR. EACH TIME A FEARFUL, A NEGATIVE THOUGHT COMES INTO YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS REPLACE IT WITH A MEDAL PICTURE OF YOUR POSITIVE AND WORTHWHILE GOAL. Every time you feel to give up remember that it is easier for a human being to think negatively than positively. That’s why only 5 % are successful. You must begin now to place yourself in that group. For 30 days you must take control of your mind. It will think about only to what you will permit it to think about. Each day for this 30 day test do more than you have to do. In addition to maintain your cheerful positive outlook give of yourself more than you ever done before. Do this knowing that your returns in life must be in direct proportion to what you give. The moment you decide on a goal to work toward, you’re immediately a successful person. You are then in that rare and successful category of people who know where they are going. Out of 100 people you belong to the top 5. Don’t concern yourself too much with how you are going to achieve your goal. Leave that completely to a power greater that yourself. All you have to do is where you are going. The answers will come to you of their own accord and at the right time.
Remember these words. And remember them well. Keep them constantly before you this month of your test:
Ask, and it will shall be given you.
Seek and you shall find.
Knock, and it shall be opened to you.
It is marvelous and as simple as that. In fact is so simple that in our seemingly, complicated world is difficult for an adult to understand it. ALL YOU NEED IS A PURPOSE AND FAITH. For 30 days do your very best.
No matter what you job is do it as you never did it before for 30 days. And if you have kept your goal before you every day you’ll wonder and marvel at that new life you found.
Dorothea Brande, the outstanding editor and writer discovered for himself and tells about is in a fine book called “Wake up and live”. Our entire philosophy is reduced to the words: “ACT AS THOUGH IT WERE IMPOSSIBLE TO FAIL !” She made her own test with sincerity and faith and her entire life was changed in one of overwhelming success. Now, you make your test for 30 full days. Don’t starch your test and remain with it until you finished it. You see, by being persistent you are demonstrating faith. Persistence is just another word for faith. If you didn’t have faith you have never persist. If you fail during your first 30 days, by that I means that you find yourself overwhelmed by negative thoughts you get to start over again from that point and go 30 more days. Gradually your new habit will form and you’ll find yourself one of that wonderful minority for whom nothing is impossible. And don’t forget the card. It is vitally important as you begin this new way of living: on one side of the card write your goal whatever it may be. On the other side write the words recorded previously:
- Ask, and it should be given to you.
- Seek, and you shall find.
- Knock, and it shall be opened to you.
Nothing great was ever accomplished without inspiration. See that during that 30 crucial days you only inspiration is kept to the peak. And above all, don’t worry. Worry brings fear and fear is crippling. The only thing that can cause you to worry during your test is trying to do it all yourself. Know that all you have to do is hold your goal before you. Everything else it will take care of itself. Remember also to KEEP CALM and CHEERFUL. Don’t let pity things to annoy you and get you out of course. Since making this test is difficult some will say: why should I bother ? Well, look at the alternative. No one wants to be a failure, no one wants to be a mediocre individual, no one wants a life constantly filled with worries and fear and frustration. Therefore remember that you must rip that with your soul. If your soul is filled with negative thoughts, your life it will be filled with negative things. If your soul has positive thoughts, your life will be cheerful, successful and positive.
Now, gradually you have the tendency to forget what you have learned here. But keep it close and read it every time you feel that you forgot something.
Gather your family around at regular intervals and listen what have been said here. The modest man will tell you that he wants to make money without understanding the law. The only people who make money work in a meant. The rest of us earn money. This is what cause others to keep looking for something for nothing or free ride to fail in life. The only way to earn money is by providing people with services or products which are needed and useful. We exchange our time and our product or service with the other men’s money. Therefore, the law is that our financially turn will be in direct proportion to our service. The success is not the result of making money. Making money is the result of success. And success is in direct proportion to our service.
Most people take this law backwards. They believe that you’re successful if you earn a lot of money. The truth is that you can only earn money after you are successful. Is like the story of the man who stayed in front of the fire and said: Give me heat and then I led the wood. How many men take the same attitude toward life ? There are millions. We’ve got to put the fuel in before we can expect heat. Likewise we have to have the service first before we can expect money. Don’t concern yourself with the money. Do your service, bill, work, dream, create. Do this and you’ll find that there is no limit to the prosperity and abundance will come to you. Prosperity you know is found upon law of mutual exchange. Any person who contributes to prosperity must prosper in turn himself. Sometimes the return will not come from where you served. But it must come to you from some place. Because that’s the law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Here are five steps that will help you realize success:
- Establish a deffinite goal.
- Stop running yourself down.
- Do not think of all the reasons why you cannot be successful – instead think of all the reasons why you can achieve success.
- Trace your attitude back to your childhood — discover where you first got the negative idea you would not be successful — face your fears.
- Renew your self-image by writing a description of the person you want to become
- Act the part of the successful person you have decided to become — You are that person!
…multe multe altele.