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Change
Your
World for Good
The Monthly
Newsletter
Designed To
Help You Change Your World for the Better
March 2004 - Volume 1, Issue 3
Contents
Valuing
World Change, by Courtney A. Huntington
Creating
a New Positive Belief System, by Mark Victor Hansen
Lessons
from
Old Masters—This Month: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thoughts of
the Month, from the Napoleon Hill Foundation
PASSAGE
for
Success: Attitude, by Bobby Lawrence, Jr.
Change
Your
World™ Monthly Challenge™: Decide for Yourself
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Valuing World Change
By Courtney A.
Huntington
One question we are
confronted with throughout our lives is this: What does it cost? John Childers of
the John
Childers Wealth Academy suggests that those who "strike it rich" aren't
like the rest of the world. The people who "make it big" think about
what they're doing in completely different terms. The truly successful
and wealthy people don't ask the question, "What does it cost?"
Instead, he says, they ask, "What is it worth?" If
everyone began to think about the value
of things instead of the cost of things, we would be able
to work together better
and see amazing
prosperity in a multitude of ways.
Much like how most people
think about their money, when it comes to changing
the world, we often think about the cost
instead of the value
or reward.
Just like those wealthy people, we need to think instead in
terms of what changing our world is going to be worth. For example,
ask yourself this question, "What is it worth to start by changing
myself?" According to John
Maxwell, changing yourself is the only way to reach your goals. Maxwell
is a leadership guru, with such titles available as The 21 Indispensible Qualities of a Leader,
The 21 Irrefutable Laws
of Leadership, and Leadership
101. In his book Developing
the Leader Within You, Maxwell says, "Everything rises and falls
on leadership. . . . The effectiveness of your work will never rise
above your ability to lead and influence others. You cannot produce
consistently on a level higher than you leadership. . . . Your
leadership skills determine the level of your success—and the success
of
those who work around you" (p. x). Wow! Strong language about the
importance of leadership. But leadership is not the focus of my
article. Change is.
Keep in mind your
question: "What is it worth to start by changing myself?" Maxwell says
that the
higher the level of success you want to achieve, the higher your level
of leadership must be. So what does leadership have to do with changing
the world? Think of it this way: You and I want to create massive
positive change in the world, right? With that in mind, let's rewrite
the first sentence of this paragraph, replacing the word "success" with
the word "change." The higher the level of change you want to achieve,
the higher your level of leadership must be. We don't want change that
flops; we want change that succeeds. That means that we must become
leaders in the area of change. We want successful change at the highest levels. That means we must
become outstanding leaders
of change.
Becoming leaders of change
requires us to focus on the priorities of change first. We need to
choose the most important aspects of change and do them first. This is
the principle that Stephen Covey captures with his one of his highly
effective habits: First Things First.
We
must find the things that ought to be first and make sure they are first. We must do first things
first. The poet Goethe said it this way, "The things that matter most
should never be at the mercy of the things that matter least."
A related concept is the
concept of leverage. We need to leverage our efforts toward change. If
we only get a 1:1 return on our change investment, then we're not
getting enough. How do we make sure that we're going to get
the highest return? First things first. Doing first things first will
always get a higher return than doing them last or next to last or in
the middle—or even doing them second!
Putting first things first
allows us to get a higher return because of something called the Pareto
Principle. The Pareto Principle says that you will get 80% of your
results from 20% of your priorities. For example, 20% of your time will
get you 80% of your value. 20% of your products will get you 80% of
your sales. 20% of your organization's staff will get you 80% of the
productivity. When we properly organize our time, our productivity
increases. When we fail to properly organize your time—guess what!—our
productivity decreases. Robert G. Allen, author of Multiple Streams of Income, calls
his list based on the Pareto Principle a "Power List." Proper
prioritization provides power.
I have personal experience
in this department, and I can tell you first-hand that failure to
properly prioritize leads to decreased productivity. I was in charge of
company startup and we had little capital to work with. Not knowing
much about business, I tried to learn everything I could; I also tried
to do everything myself—huge mistake!
Instead of focusing my energies on the most important 20%, I scattered
my energies by trying to do too much. We have to learn to set
priorities and then keep our priorities.
In order to put first
things first, we must understand the value of the various tasks or
opportunities at hand. So let's go back to your question: "What is it worth to start by changing
myself?" If we really want to change the world, the only way to do it
is by changing ourselves first. So that has to be our priority, right?
If we don't change ourselves positively, we will not be able to change
the world positively, either. We've already agreed that we want to be
instruments of positive change. We've also agreed that we want to be
leaders of positive change, because "everything rises and falls on
leadership."
Here's what Maxwell says
about the importance of changing the leader first: "The first order of
things to be changed is me, the leader. After I consider how hard it is
to change myself, then I will understand the challenge of trying to
change others. This is the ultimate test of leadership." Ultimately, we
can't change others; we can only show them the way to change and lead
by example. Remember that even if you don't want to be a great leader,
if you want to have massive success in changing your world, you must
improve your leadership skills.
Changing ourselves first
is very hard. But it is worth all the time, energy, and effort it
takes. If we want to change the world, it must start with us. So if we
really want to change the world, the value of starting with ourselves
far outways the cost.
There's more, though, to
changing the world than starting with ourselves. Change has to start
with me, but it better not end with me. Now it's time to get specific.
How do you decide what comes first? What aspect of your life do you
change first?
It's important to remember
that different people will have different needs. Obviously, developing
leadership skills is something we all need to do. But we will all need
to develop our leadership at different levels and in different areas.
If you own your own company, you have different leadership requirements
than someone who is one of your supervisors. And vice versa. A coach
needs different leadership skills than his starting quarterback. It's
up to you to determine what your strengths are, what your weakensses
are, what your positions are, and therefore what your needs are.
Leadership is only one
aspect of life. There are many other skills or virtues that we need to
cultivate. One of the determining factors in choosing what you will
change first is your goal. What is your overall goal for the next year?
five years? ten years? What other goals do you have planned? Another
factor is your talents: What are you good at? And what do you need to
get good at? If you're going to reach your goals, you will need certain
talents that are specific to your goals.
Whatever changes you
choose, they must begin, as Napoleon Hill said, with the "small,
unimportant circumstances of one's daily life." The Bible says, "He who
is faithful in little will be faithful in much." Make a list of the
small things in your life that you would like to change—the seemingly
petty things that we like to overlook. Are you punctual? Do you arrive
to events on time or even early? Do you make your payments on time?
These are skills that I am currently improving myself. What about your
attitude? Do you work on it daily to keep it positive? Or do you allow
the circumstances of life to weigh you down unnecessarily? Do you get
angry or irritated with other drivers or with your loved ones? Are you
mastering yourself, or are you letting the circumstances of life
dictate whether you're happy? Happiness doesn't come from the outside.
Anyone can change the
world. You don't have to think you're great to do it; you simply have
to do it and keep doing it. What's it worth? Though we often think in
terms of
what it's going to do for me, or how it's
going to benefit me, I'd like to suggest that we look at changing our
world the another angle. Think long-term. Look for solutions that will
last. And instead of figuring out how much we can get
from world change, let's figure out how much we can give to world change.
It's worth it, isn't it?
If you
would like
to hear about upcoming events and seminars, email info@howtochangeyourworld.com,
and write "upcoming
events and seminars" in the subject line. At an upcoming retreat, we will be
providing a unique opportunity
for you to tell us your suggestions for changing the world.
Space for this event is very limited. If you would like more
information, email us at info@howtochangeyourworld.com,
and write "special event" in the subject line.
If you would
like to receive the test version of a prioritizer we're developing,
contact us at info@howtochangeyourworld.com
and put the words "Beta Daily Time Tracker" in the subject line.
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Creating a New Positive
Belief System
By Mark Victor Hansen
Dear Friends:
Prosperity is a thriving state of well-being, and can be found in every
area of our lives. It is more than material things – it’s having a
successful family life, enjoying a healthy body and positive belief
system, working with great people who love and respect you,
experiencing joy every day, etc.
The way to begin to live a life of prosperity is by examining your
beliefs and your mental self-talk. You must understand that all the
wealth of the Universe is at your fingertips for you to command,
control and use. To prosper greatly you must be a dynamic thinker who
knows how to control your own thinking by ingesting all things that
will lead to prosperity and excluding all things that will NOT!
We must discipline our minds to exclusively think of prosperity.
Thinking of success will make you successful. Thinking of poverty will
make you poor. The bottom line is - you have to think it before you can
achieve it. Prosperity is a state of mind. Change your beliefs and
you’ll change your life.
THIS WEEK’S LESSON:
Creating a New
Positive Belief System
It is because of your belief system that you are where you are in life
right now. You have created your success or failure with the beliefs
that you have established within yourself.
Most people would be astounded to know how many of their beliefs are
based on lack, limitation, and shortage - and that these thoughts
reproduce themselves directly into their life experiences.
You owe it to yourself to think only of unlimited prosperity, because
abundance IS reality. There is no lack, no shortage. There are no
limits except for those we impose on ourselves. Prosperity doesn’t
start with someone or something outside of you.
Get the picture yet? Your success or failure begins and ends with you.
Wow! Think about that for a minute. What you think and what you believe
determines your success or failure.
Your conscious mind is a powerful thing. What you concentrate on comes
back to you—multiplied. Your mind is a source of unlimited,
overflowing abundance—and its manifestation into the physical world
depends on your thoughts and beliefs. Your belief in the possibility or
impossibility of a situation determines the outcome. If you don’t
believe in the possibility of success, it’s just not going to be
possible.
So, how do you replace your old, self-defeating belief system with a
new, prosperity-focused belief system? Start from within. Delete any
“can’t-do” beliefs you may have lurking deep inside, and start
believing that you CAN.
But simply eliminating old beliefs is not enough. You have to replace
them with new positive ones, because something must occupy that empty
space. Remember, the Universe abhors a vacuum, so choose something
positive to take its place.
The second step is to stay away from the “can’t do” people in your
life. If you can’t avoid them totally, then don’t get infected with
their negativity. Give yourself a “prosperity booster shot” by
remembering that the beliefs and opinions of other people do not have
to become your reality. Someone is always going to try to tell you it’s
not possible. You have to train your mind to block out these negative
words.
Every time you hear a “you can’t—it’s not possible”—say “NEXT!” to
yourself and flip back to your new way of thinking. Tell them that you
have moved forward, and that old, negative way of thinking has no place
in your life. If they can’t accept the new you simply stop discussing
your goals with them. Stay focused in your new mindset and become a
joyful example of what happens when you believe in yourself and what’s
possible. Think big and prosperous and you’ll get big, prosperous
results. Think small and lacking and you’ll achieve just that. The
choice is yours.
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“Our inner
image of ourselves and what we want to accomplish in life makes us
become what we were meant to be.”
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THIS WEEK’S
ACTION STEP
Replacing your belief system is like breaking bad habits. And when it
comes to bad habits “eliminate and replace” should be your motto. I’m
not saying this is going to be easy—but it can be done in faster
order than you probably think.
It takes 21 days to firmly eliminate a bad habit and incorporate a
positive habit or belief into your life. But hey, this is your future
we’re talking about! What’s 21 days when the result will be you getting
everything you’ve ever wanted?
So, where do you start? First, you need to examine your core belief
system as it applies to success. Take out your journal or a notebook
and write these core beliefs down. These are the concepts you will need
to change, so they need to be written down.
Start asking yourself questions. Do I deserve success and prosperity?
What would happen if I achieved success? Am I good enough for the
man/woman in my life? Would my success take success away from those
around me? Do I think I have to work hard to earn a lot of money? Do I
deserve to be happy? Are the people I surround myself with positive or
negative influences in my life? Why do I associate with people who
bring me down?
These are just a few of the questions you can begin to ask yourself.
You will find that the answers to these questions will create other
questions. For instance, if you surround yourself with negative people
in your life . . . why do you do this? Is it because you feel that
you’re not
worthy of positive people in your life? If so, that is a limiting
belief that needs to be replaced with a prosperous belief. You don’t
have room for negative people anymore. Replace that old belief with “I
am worthy of abundance and prosperity, and only attract positive,
supportive people.” You’ll be surprised at how quickly those “can’t do”
people will change their tunes or drop out of your life completely.
Do this with ALL of your old beliefs and watch as prosperity manifests
itself into your life.
This
article was originally published in Rich
Rewards, the free newsletter available from Mark Victor Hansen.
It is published here
by permission. Subscribe to the
free Rich Rewards Newsletter at www.MarkVictorHansen.com.
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Lessons from Old Masters
This Month: Ralph
Waldo Emerson
his essay "Compensation"
COMPENSATION
The wings of Time are black and
white,
Pied with
morning and with night.
Mountain tall
and ocean deep
Trembling
balance duly keep.
In changing
moon, in tidal wave,
Glows the feud
of Want and Have.
Gauge of more
and less through space
Electric star
and pencil plays.
The lonely Earth
amid the balls
That hurry
through the eternal halls,
A makeweight
flying to the void,
Supplemental
asteroid,
Or compensatory
spark,
Shoots across
the neutral Dark.
Man’s the elm,
and Wealth the vine,
Stanch and
strong the tendrils twine:
Though the frail
ringlets thee deceive,
None from its
stock that vine can reave.
Fear not, then,
thou child infirm,
There’s no god
dare wrong a worm.
Laurel crowns
cleave to deserts
And power to him
who power exerts;
Hast not thy
share? On winged feet,
Lo! it rushes
thee to meet;
And all that
Nature made thy own,
Floating in air
or pent in stone,
Will rive the
hills and swim the sea
And, like thy
shadow, follow thee.
I shall attempt to record some facts that indicate the path of the law
of Compensation; happy beyond my expectation if I shall truly draw the
smallest arc of this circle.
The universe is alive. All things are moral. That soul which within us
is
a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there
in history we can see its fatal strength. “It is in the world, and the
world was made by it.” Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity
adjusts its balance in all parts of life. The dice of God are always
loaded. The world looks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical
equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. Take what
figure you will, its exact value—neither more nor less—still returns to
you. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue
rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty. What we call
retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole appears
wherever a part appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. If you
see a hand or a limb, you know that the trunk to which it belongs is
there behind.
Every act rewards itself—or in other words, integrates itself—in a
twofold manner: first in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly in
the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance the
retribution. The causal retribution is in the thing and is seen by the
soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the understanding;
it is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread over a long time
and so does not become distinct until after many years. The specific
stripes may follow late after the offence, but they follow because they
accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out of one stem.
Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the
pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and
fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause,
the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.
Whilst thus the world will be whole and refuses to be disparted, we
seek to act partially, to sunder, to appropriate; for example, to
gratify the senses we sever the pleasure of the senses from the needs
of the character. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the
solution of one problem: how to detach the sensual sweet, the sensual
strong, the sensual bright, etc., from the moral sweet, the moral deep,
the moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean off this upper
surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a one end, without an
other end. The soul says, "Eat," and the body would feast. The soul
says, "The man and woman shall be one flesh and one soul;" the body
would
join the flesh only. The soul says, "Have dominion over all things to
the ends of virtue;" the body would have the power over things to its
own ends.
The soul strives amain to live and work through all things. It would be
the only fact. All things shall be added unto it—power, pleasure,
knowledge, beauty. The particular man aims to be somebody; to set up
for himself; to truck and higgle for a private good; and, in
particulars, to ride that he may ride; to dress that he may be dressed;
to eat that he may eat; and to govern, that he may be seen. Men seek to
be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and fame. They think
that to be great is to possess one side of nature—the sweet—without
the other side, the bitter.
Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek
to dodge, which one and another brags that he does not know, that they
do not touch him—but the brag is on his lips, the conditions are in
his soul. If he escapes them in one part they attack him in another
more vital part. If he has escaped them in form and in the appearance,
it is because he has resisted his life and fled from himself, and the
retribution is so much death. “How secret art thou who dwellest in the
highest heavens in silence, O thou only great God, sprinkling with an
unwearied providence certain penal blindnesses upon such as have
unbridled desires!” (St. Augustine, Confessions,
Bk. I).
A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his
will he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word.
Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. You cannot do wrong without
suffering wrong. "No man had ever a point
of pride that was not injurious to him," said Burke. All infractions of
love and equity in our social relations are speedily
punished. They are punished by fear. Whilst I stand in simple
relations to my fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We
meet as water meets water, or as two currents of air mix, with perfect
diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as there is
any departure from simplicity, and attempt at halfness, or good for me
that is not good for him, my neighbor feels the wrong; he shrinks from
me as far as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek mine;
there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me.
All the old abuses in society, all unjust accumulations of property and
power, are avenged in the same manner. Fear is an instructor of great
sagacity and the herald of all revolutions. One thing he teaches, that
there is rottenness where he appears. Our
property is timid, our laws are timid, our cultivated classes are
timid. Fear for ages has boded and mowed and gibbered over government
and property. Fear indicates
great wrongs which must be revised.
Experienced men of the world know very well that it is best to pay scot
and lot as they go along, and that a man often pays dear for a small
frugality. The borrower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained any
thing who has received a hundred favors and rendered none? Has he
gained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning, his neighbor’s
wares, or horses, or money? There arises on the deed the instant
acknowledgment of benefit on the one part and of debt on the other;
that is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in the
memory of himself and his neighbor; and every new transaction alters
according to its nature their relation to each other. He may soon come
to see that he had better have broken his own bones than to have ridden
in his neighbor’s coach, and that "the highest price he can pay for a
thing is to ask for it."
A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that
it is the part of prudence to face every claimant and pay every just
demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay; for first
or last you must pay your entire debt. Persons and events may stand for
a time between you and justice, but it is only a postponement. You must
pay at last your own debt. If you are wise you will dread a prosperity
which only loads you with more. Benefit is the end of nature. But for
every benefit which you receive, a tax is levied. He is great who
confers the most benefits. He is base to receive favors and render
none. In the order of
nature, we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them,
or
only seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line
for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody. Beware of too much
good staying in your hand. It will fast corrupt and worm worms. Pay it
away quickly in some sort.
Labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. Cheapest, say the
prudent, is the dearest labor. What we buy in a broom, a mat, a wagon,
a knife, is some application of good sense to a common want. It is best
to pay in your land a skilful gardener, or to buy good sense applied to
gardening; in your sailor, good sense applied to navigation; in the
house, good sense applied to cooking, sewing, serving; in your agent,
good sense applied to accounts and affairs. So do you multiply your
presence, or spread yourself throughout your estate. But because of the
dual constitution of things, in labor as in life there can be no
cheating. The thief steals from himself. The swindler swindles himself.
For the real price of labor is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and
credit are signs. These signs, like paper money, may be counterfeited
or stolen, but that which they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue,
cannot be counterfeited or stolen. These ends of labor cannot be
answered but by real exertions of the mind, and in obedience to pure
motives. The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the
knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains
yield to the operative. The law of nature is, "Do the thing, and you
shall have the Power; but they who do not the thing have not the power."
Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to
the construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of
the perfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give
and Take, the doctrine that every thing has its price—and if that
price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and
that it is impossible to get any thing without its price—is not less
sublime in the columns of a leger than in the budgets of states, in the
laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of nature. I
cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees implicated in those
processes with which he is conversant—the stern ethics which sparkle
on his chisel-edge, which are measured out by his plumb and foot-rule,
which stand as manifest in the footing of the shop-bill as in the
history of a state—do recommend to him his trade, and though seldom
named, exalt his business to his imagination.
The league between virtue and nature engages all things to assume a
hostile front to vice. The beautiful laws and substances of the world
persecute and whip the traitor. He finds that things are arranged for
truth and benefit, but there is no den in the wide world to hide a
rogue. Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime,
and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals
in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and
mole. You cannot recall the spoken word, you cannot wipe out the
foot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet or
clew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and
substances of natur—water, snow, wind, gravitation—become penalties
to the thief.
On the other hand the law holds with equal sureness for all right
action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just,
as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. The good man has
absolute good, which like fire turns every thing to its own nature, so
that you cannot do him any harm; but as the royal armies sent against
Napoleon, when he approached, cast down their colors and from enemies
became friends, so disasters of all kinds—as sickness, offence,
poverty—prove benefactors.
The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had ever
a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had ever a
defect that was not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in the fable
admired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the hunter came, his
feet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the thicket, his horns
destroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults. As
no man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against
it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrances or
talents of men until he has suffered from the one and seen the triumph
of the other over his own want of the same. Has he a defect of temper
that unfits him to live in society? Thereby he is driven to entertain
himself alone and acquire habits of self-help; and thus, like the
wounded oyster, he mends his shell with pearl.
Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms
itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and
stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be
little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to
sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn
something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained
facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has
got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side
of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find
his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead
skin and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable.
Blame is safer than praise. As soon as honeyed words of praise are
spoken for me I
feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every
evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich
Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills
passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptation we
resist.
The same guards which protect us from disaster, defect, and enmity,
defend us, if we will, from selfishness and fraud. Bolts and bars are
not the best of our institutions, nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of
wisdom. Men suffer all their life long under the foolish superstition
that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be
cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at
the same time. There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The
nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the
fulfilment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to
loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in
your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer The payment is
withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound
interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.
We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, because the
criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy and does not come to a
crisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature. There is no stunning
confutation of his nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore
outwitted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie
with him he so far deceases from nature. In some manner there will be a
demonstration of the wrong to the understanding also; but, should we
not see it, this deadly deduction makes square the eternal account.
Neither can it be said, on the other hand, that the gain of rectitude
must be bought by any loss. There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty
to wisdom; they are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action I
properly am; in a virtuous act I add to the world; I plant into deserts
conquered from Chaos and Nothing and see the darkness receding on the
limits of the horizon. There can be no excess to love, none to
knowledge, none to beauty, when these attributes are considered in the
purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always affirms an Optimism,
never a Pessimism.
There is no tax on the good of virtue. Material good has its tax, and
if it came without
desert or sweat, it has no root in me, and the next wind will blow it
away. But all the good of nature is the soul’s, and may be had if paid
for in nature’s lawful coin, that is, by labor which the heart and the
head allow. I no longer wish to meet a good I do not earn, for example
to find a pot of buried gold, knowing that it brings with it new
burdens. I do not wish more external goods—neither possessions, nor
honors, nor powers, nor persons. The gain is apparent; the tax is
certain. But there is no tax on the knowledge that the compensation
exists and that it is not desirable to dig up treasure. Herein I
rejoice with a serene eternal peace. I contract the boundaries of
possible mischief. I learn the wisdom of St. Bernard: "Nothing can work
me damage except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me,
and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault."
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Thoughts of the Month
From the
Napoleon Hill
Foundation
TRYING TO GET WITHOUT FIRST GIVING IS AS
FRUITLESS AS TRYING
TO REAP WITHOUT HAVING SOWN.
The Bible
states that we
reap what we sow. The most fertile soil in the
world is barren unless seeds have been properly planted, cultivated,
and nurtured. The relationship between giving and getting is constant
in everything you do. To succeed in any endeavor, you must first invest
a generous portion of your time and talents if you expect ever to earn
a return on your investment. You have to give before you get. It's all
a matter of attitude. You may occasionally be disappointed if you are
not rewarded for your efforts, but if you demand payment for your
services before you render them, you can expect a lifetime of
disappointment and frustration. If you cheerfully do your best before
asking for any compensation, you can expect a bountiful harvest of the
greatest rewards life has to offer.
KEEP
YOUR MIND FIXED ON WHAT YOU
WANT IN LIFE, NOT ON WHAT YOU DON'T WANT.
We have
just begun to explore the inner workings of the mind, but we
have long been aware of the effects of our thoughts. When you focus on
not missing the target instead of on hitting the bull's-eye, the
results are often disastrous, for it is impossible to think negative
thoughts in a positive way. Ask any golfer who has tried not to miss a
putt or a bowler who has struggled not to miss a strike. Make sure your
goals are specific and precise. "Making a lot of money" or "earning
regular promotions" are wishes, not goals. State exactly how much money
you expect to earn and when, and the specific promotion you want, how
you plan to earn it, and when you expect to do so. As Carlson Companies
chairman Curt Carlson once noted, "Obstacles are those frightening
things you see when you take your eye off the target."
COUNT
THAT DAY LOST WHOSE DESCENDING
SUN FINDS YOU WITH NO GOOD DEEDS DONE.
It is well
known among those who make it a practice to help others that doing a
service for another benefits the giver as much as—if not more than—the
receiver. When you do a good deed for someone else, you become a better
person. The positive effect that your good deed has upon you will
endure long after it is forgotten by the recipient. Good deeds need not
be large or costly. The greatest gifts are gifts of your time and
yourself. A kind word or small courtesy will be remembered and
appreciated.
These
positive
messages come courtesy of the
Napoleon Hill Foundation and are used by permission. Visit the Napoleon
Hill Foundation at www.naphill.org.
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PASSAGE
for Success: Attitude
By Bobby
Lawrence, Jr.
Having a
positive mental attitude is a necessity. We must be optimistic in our
daily sales activity and in our daily lives. Napoleon Hill and W.
Clement Stone say that having a positive mental attitude is the
backbone of all success. Here are their words, from Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude:
To achieve anything worthwhile in life,
it is imperative that you apply PMA [positive mental attitude],
regardless of what other success principles you employ. PMA is the
catalyst which makes any combination of success principles work to
attain a worthwhile end. (p. 18)
If you are in sales, making sales calls with an attitude that you will
leave with an order is much better than going on the same sales call
thinking you are going to get turned down. When you sell, you will not
get the order one hundred percent of the time. But going to all
prospects with a positive and confident attitude will always, and we
mean always, get you in more doors and provide more opportunities. When
you get more opportunities, you can get more orders and more business.
If you tend to struggle to maintain a positive attitude, then we
encourage you to find a mentor, sales associate, friend, or pastor who
will help you maintain a positive mental attitude. Finding someone to
who has a positive attitude will give you a relationship that will help
you keep your attitude in check. Be in constant contact with this
person to share sales accomplishments, business accomplishments,
professional accomplishments, and personal accomplishments.
Encouragement always helps to develop and maintain that positive mental
attitude.
In return for the help your mentor gives you, you should look for
opportunities to help him or her. This is living the golden rule—doing
unto others as we would have them do unto us. If you look for ways that
you can help in return, you will find ways to help. “Seek and ye shall
find,” the Bible says, and it applies in this area just as it does in
any other.
Maintaining your positive mental attitude will be easier if you use the
HPO2™ Formula: Be Happy, Positive, Optimistic, Obedient to
God. When
your outlook on yourself and the world is Happy, Positive, Optimistic,
and Obedient to God, you will see your problems and challenges more
clearly. And your attitude in approaching them will be much better, too.
In my career, I am fortunate to have a agent friends and sales managers
who have helped me in this area. In return, I encourage them to be the
best they can be. I strive to promote a good attitude in them, just as
they have done for me.
We all need mentors—not only in developing and maintaining a positive
outlook, but in all areas of life. We need to surround ourselves with
people who can teach us how to improve in various areas, people who are
already beyond where we are. Mentors help us to go where they’ve
already gone. We get to follow their steps down the path of success.
Remember that success is measured in many different ways, and each
person will have his or her own goals to achieve that will create
success. It’s important to find mentors in all the areas that we desire
success.
In their book, The One Minute
Millionaire, Robert G. Allen and Mark Victor Hansen give three
reasons for finding and working with mentors. First, perspective:
mentors have experience and wisdom that comes from living and doing.
Because they are further down the road, they can help us to keep things
in their proper proportion. Second, proficiency: our mentors have made
many mistakes, and they can help us to avoid holes that they fell into.
Third, patience: “In learning any new skill, there is a learning curve.
A mentor can teach us patience as we struggle through failure to
achieve mastery” (p. 128).
As someone once told me, “It’s the attitude that comes from what you
think between your own two ears: think positive and it will be so.”
Being around “positive” people helps us be more positive ourselves. We
are who we associate with most of the time. One way that we can help
others is simply by associating positively with them: Have a good
attitude—Happy, Positive, Optimistic, and Obedient to God—and it will
influence those around us. We must do it selflessly. We must do it
because we want to help others. We must do it for their sake, not for
our own sake. In the end, when we put others first, we will find life
more rewarding for us, too.
Maintaining your own attitude—and helping others maintain theirs—often
requires careful attention on your part. You need to study yourself in
every respect: Your attitudes, desires, tendencies, relationships, and
associations. This will help you see what you do well and what you do
poorly. You also need to study others, so that you can know how to best
help them.
Here are some practical suggestions for improving and maintaining your
attitude. First, talk to yourself. Zig Ziglar says there’s nothing
wrong with talking to yourself, as long as you don’t find yourself say,
“Huh?” Tell yourself the things you want to hear. One of the keys to
learning is repetition. Every repetition reinforces whatever you’re
repeating. So stop repeating what you don’t want to reinforce. Do you
want to be positive? Then take it! It’s yours! You can take ownership,
starting right now. Start reinforcing what you want. Tell yourself that
you have a positive mental attitude. And believe it. At the moment you
tell yourself, you are being positive. Tell yourself often how positive
you are, until you begin to do it out of habit.
Second, plan your positive attitude. If you know you have a difficult
circumstance to face, take responsibility for yourself and your
actions. If you did something wrong or made a mistake, then admit it to
yourself. And admit it to others, if you wronged them in some way. If
you didn’t do anything wrong but still anticipate a difficult
situation, take that opportunity—at the moment you think of it—to tell
yourself to be positive and then relax and picture the positive outcome
you desire. Plan to control your attitude, no matter what
happens.Decide to keep your mind positive at all times.
Third, decide now to practice keeping your mind positive. Practice by
talking to yourself and by planning positive outcomes. In addition,
practice when you’re feeling good or when you’ve done something well.
Remember what it feels like. Recall that moment when you begin to feel
down. Bring to mind your successes, and be honest enough to call them
successes, when they really are. Study yourself so that you know when
you succeed.
In addition to studying yourself and others, you must study your work.
And that brings us to the next step in our P.A.S.S.A.G.E.
Let Bobby
Lawrence, Jr. bring his
message of encouragement and success to you! Ask about speaking
engagements, seminars, books and tapes, and other products. Learn more
by emailing PASSAGE for Success at
info@passageforsuccess.com.
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Change Your World™ Monthly
Challenge™
This Month:
Decide for
Yourself
We
all have faced tough situations that challenge us deeply. These are
great opportunities to practice making good decisions. Seek out the
best advice you can find. Ask questions. Evaluate the advice. Make the
best decision you can. And be willing to make adjustments if you have
to. Ask yourself, “Can I decide for myself? Will I decide for myself?
Am I deciding for myself?”
Our challenge to
you this
month is to spend the next 30 days
improving yourself
in this area. Use this Change Your World™ Idea™ for the next 30 days
and see what
remarkable changes you will see. At the end of 30 days, contact us to
let us know
how you did. If you do, you'll receive a FREE gift as a reward for
completing the
challenge. This offer is available only until the 30th of April,
2004: So start
now!
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