Earl Nightingale

https://youtu.be/IeaBfM3TdHQ

Take 100 men all starting even at the age of 25 and any one man would want success with an interest in adventure. But by the time they are 65, one will be rich, four will be financially independent, five will still be working, fifty-four will be broke. Out of the 100, only five make the grade. Why do so many fail? Why is there such a large disparity between what the men intended to do and what they actually accomplished?

• If we want to achieve success, we must first be able to define success ○ Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal
• Success is anybody who is doing deliberately a predetermined job because that's what he decided to do deliberately

In society, the opposite of courage is not cowardice, it's conformity. People conform by things that happen to them, by exterior forces, their outer directed people

Instead of competing, all we have to do is create

It takes no particular brains or talent to make a living today. So we have a plateau or so called security. It now depends on how far above this plateau I want to aim

Why do men with goals succeed in life and men without them fail?

We become what we think about

• Marcus Aurelius said "A man's life is what his thoughts make of it"
• Disraeli said "Everything comes if a man will only wait, I've brought myself by long meditation to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it and that nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment"
• Ralph Waldo Emerson said "A man is what he thinks about all day long"
• William James said "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human being can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. 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 interest in it will be those which characterize belief. If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich. If you wish to be learned, you will be learned. If you wish to be good, you will be good. Only you must really wish these things and wish them exclusively and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly."
• Bible Mark 9:23 "If thou canst believe all things are possible to him that believeth"
• Dr. Norman Vincent Peale said "This is one of the greatest laws in the universe, fervently do I wish I had discovered it as a very young man. It dawned upon me much later in life and I found it to be one of the greatest, if not my greatest, discovery outside of my relationship with 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 results, you will achieve positive results. That is the simple fact which is at the basis of an astonishing law of prosperity and success. In three words: Believe and succeed.
• William Shakespeare said "Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft 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."

Our mind comes as standard equipment at birth, it's free. Things that have been 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 of 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

Familiarity breeds contempt.

Every one of us is the sum total of his own thoughts. He is where he is because that's exactly where he wants to be whether he'll admit that or not.

• Each of us must live off the fruit of our thoughts in the future
• What I think today and tomorrow, next month, next year will mold my life and determine my future
• I'm guided by my mind

Putting the secret to a practical test

• Make a test that will last 30 days
  • 2 things that may be said of everyone: Each of us wants something and each of us is afraid of something
  • Write on a card what it is that I want more than anything else. As I look at it, remember that I must become what I think about and since I'm thinking about my goal, I realize that soon it will be mine
  • For each day, do more than I have to. Give a cheerful, positive outlook knowing that my returns in life must be in direct proportion to what I give
  • Do my hardest work in a calm, relaxed, positive way without expecting anything in return for 30 days and with my goals aligned and focused on, I will wonder in marvel at this new life that I found
  • Don't worry. Worry brings fear and fear is crippling Ask and it shall be give you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth. And he that seeketh findeth and them that knocketh it shall be opened onto you.
• Pay the price
  • I understand emotionally and intellectually that I will literally become what I think about. I control my thoughts to control my life. As I sow, so shall I reap
• Cutting away all fetters from the mind and permitting it to soar as it was divinely designed to do
  • Realizing that my limitations are self-imposed and that the opportunities for me today are enormous beyond belief. Rising above narrow-minded pettiness and prejudice
• Using all my courage to think positively on my own problem
  • Set a definite and clearly defined goal for myself. Let my marvelous mind think about my goal from all possible angles. To let my imagination speculate freely upon many different possible solutions. To refuse to believe that there are any circumstances sufficiently strong to defeat me in the accomplishment of my purpose. To act promptly and decisively when my course is clear. To keep constantly aware of the fact that I am, at this moment, standing in the middle of my own acres of diamonds
• Save at least 10% of every dollar I earn
  • No matter what my present job is, it has enormous possibilities if I am willing to pay the price
  • The price that I must pay to achieve the wonderful life that can be mine i. I will become what I think ii. Remember the word "imagination" and let my mind begin to soar iii. Courage, concentrate on my goal every day iv. Save 10% of what I earn v. Action, ideas are worthless unless I act on them

Success is not the result of making money. Making money is the result of success. And success is in direct proportion to my service

• Don't concern myself with the money. Be of service, build, work, dream, create. Do this and prosperity and abundance will follow
• No man can get rich himself unless he enriches others

Six steps to help me realize success

1. Set myself a definite goal
2. Quit running myself down
3. Stop thinking of all the reasons why I cannot be successful and instead think of all the reasons why I can
4. Trace my attitudes back to my childhood and try to think back to when I first got the idea that I couldn't be successful if that's the way I've been thinking
5. Change the image I have of myself by writing out a description of the person that I would like to be
6. Act the part of the successful person I have decided to become