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The Strangest Secret By Earl Nightingale
I’d like to tell you about the Strangest Secret in the world. Some years ago, the late Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Albert Schweitzer was being interviewed in London and a reporter asked him, Doctor, what’s wrong with men today? And the good doctor was silent 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 is an area that man has looked forward to dream of and work toward for thousands of years. But since it’s a we pretty well taken for granted, we in America are particularly fortunate to live in the richest land that ever existed on the face of the earth, a land of 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 happen to those men by the time they’re 65? These 100 men who all start even at the age of 25 believe they’re going to be successful. If you ask any one of these men if he wanted to be a success, he said he did. And you notice that he was eager toward life that there was a certain sparkle to his eye and he recognized to his carriage and life seemed like a pretty interesting adventure to him. But by the time they’re 65, one will be rich. Four will be financially independent, five will still be working 54 will be broke, I think a moment out of the 100 only five makes the grade. Now why do so many fail? What has happened to these sparkles that were there when they were 25? what’s become of the dreams, the hopes, the plans? And why is there such a large disparity between what these men intended to do and what they actually accomplished? When we say about 5% achieve 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 the success. If he’s not doing that. He’s a failure.
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. Rollo May the distinguished psychiatrist 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 cowardice. It is conformity. And there you have the trouble today is conformity, people acting like everyone else without knowing why without knowing where they’re going. I think of it. In America right now there are over 18 million people 65 years of age and older, and most of them are broke. They’re dependent on someone else for life’s necessities that we learn to read. By the time we’re seven, we’re going to make a living by the time we’re 25. Usually, by that time, we’re not only making a living, we’re supporting a family. And yet, by the time we’re 65, we haven’t learned how to become financially independent in the richest land that has ever been known. Why we can form and the trouble is that we’re acting like the wrong percentage group.
The 95 who 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 happen to them by exterior forces, their outer-directed people, as ma was made one time that covered a lot of men working men, and these men were asked, Why do you work? Why do you get up in the morning? 19 out of 20 had no idea. If you ask them, they’ll 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 is progressively realizing a worthy ideal is the person who says, I’m going to become this and then begins to work toward that goal. I have to tell you, successful people are as successful as the school teachers teaching school because that’s what he or she wants to do. that success is the woman 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 A man who runs the corner gas station because that was his dream. That’s what he wanted to do. that success is a successful salesman. He wants to become a top-notch salesman and grow and build with his organization. His successes, anyone who is doing deliberately a predetermined job, because that’s what he decided to do deliberately, but only one out of 20. That’s there. That’s why today there isn’t really any competition unless we make it for ourselves, instead of competing, or we have to do is create, you know, for 20 years I look for the key which would determine what would happen to a human being was the key I wanted to know which would make the future of promise that we could foretell to a large extent, was there a key that would guarantee a person’s becoming successful if he only knew about it, and knew how to use it? Well, there is such a key, and I found it and ever wondered why so many men work so hard and honestly without ever achieving anything in particular, and others don’t seem to work hard and yet seem to get everything. They seem to have the magic touch you Do say that about someone everything he touches turns to gold. And have you ever noticed that a man who becomes successful tends to continue to become successful? And on the other hand, have you noticed how a man is a failure tends to continue to fail? Well, it’s because of goals. Some of us have goals, some don’t. People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going. It’s that simple. Think of a ship leaving a harbor and think of it with a complete voyage mapped out and planned, the captain and crew know exactly where it’s going and how long it’ll take. It has a definite goal, and 9999 times out of 10,000 it will get to where it started out to get that must take another ship just like the first only that’s not put a crew on it or a captain at the helm. Let’s give it no aiming point, no goal, no destination, we just start the engines and let it go. I think you’ll agree with me that if it gets out of the harbor at all, it will either sink or wind up on some deserted beach a derelict. It can’t go anyplace because it has no destination and no guidance. And it’s the same with a human Take the salesman for example. There’s no other person in the world today with the future of a good salesman. Selling is the world’s highest-paid profession if we’re good at it, and if we know where we’re going, every company needs top-notch salesmen, and they reward those men, the sky’s the limit for them. But how many can you find? Someone wants to have the human race is fixed, not to prevent the strong from winning, but to prevent the weak from losing. The American economy today can be likened to a convoy in time of war, the entire economy is slowed down to protect its weakest link, just as the convoy had to go at the speed that would permit the slowest vessel to remain informed. That’s why it’s so easy to make a living today, it takes no particular brains or talent to make a living and support a family today. So we haven’t plateaued. Oh, call security if that’s what a Verizon is looking for. But we do have to decide how high above this plateau we want to aim. Now let’s get back to the Strangest Secret in the world. The story that I wanted to tell you today Why do men with goals succeed in life and men without them fail? Well, let me tell you something which if you really understand it will alter your life immediately. If you understand completely what I’m going to tell you from this moment on your life will never be the same again, you will suddenly find it. Good luck. There seems to be attracted to the things you want just seem to fall in line. And from now on, you won’t have the problems the worries that knowing a lump of anxiety that perhaps you’ve experienced before, doubt, fear. Well, there’ll be things of the past is the key to success and the key to failure.
We become what we think about.
Now, let me say that again, we become what we think about.
Throughout our history, the Greek Wiseman and teachers, philosophers and prophets have disagreed with one another on many different things. It’s only on this one point, that they are incomplete and unanimous agreement. Let us know what Marcus Aurelius the great Roman Emperor said, a man’s life is what his thoughts make of it. Disraeli said this, everything comes with a man will only wait. I 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 stay 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 their attitudes of mind that 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 Nick with habit and emotion that are interested in it will be those which characterize belief. The author said, 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 then really wish these things and wish them exclusively and not wish at the same time 100 other incompatible things just as strongly.
In the Bible you read in Mark 923 is thou canst believe all things are possible to him that believe it. My old friend, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale put it this way. This is one of the greatest laws in the universe. fervently do I wish I 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 terms, you will achieve positive results. That is the simple fact he went on to say, which is the basis of an astonishing law of prosperity and success in three words below.
Believe and succeed.
William Shakespeare put it this way, I doubt that traders and make us lose the good we often 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 that people will get on in this world, other people get up and look for the circumstances they want. And if they can’t find them, make them bad. It’s pretty apparent, isn’t it? And every person who discovered this for a while believe that he was the first one to work it out, we become what we think about. Now, it stands to reason that a person who’s 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 and anxiety and fear and worry, becomes what he thinks about his life becomes one of frustration and fear and 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? What I’ll tell you how it works as far as we know how to do this, I want to tell you about a situation that parallels the human mind. Suppose the farmer has some land and it’s good for the land, and other land gives the farmer a choice. He may plant in that land, whatever he chooses, the land doesn’t care is up to the farmer to make the decision. Now, remember, we’re comparing the human mind with the land because the mind right 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 that the farmer has two seeds in his hand. One is the seed of corn, the other is Nightshade, a deadly poison. he digs two little holes in the earth and he plants both seeds, one corn, 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 you sow, so shall you reap. Remember, the land doesn’t care. It’ll return poison in just as wonderful abundance as a little coin. So upcoming the two places One corn, one poison. Now 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, failure, a concrete worthwhile goal or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety and so on. But what we planned it must return to us is 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? When I think they figured out an answer to that one to my mind comes standard equipment at birth, it’s free and things that are given to us for nothing. We placed little value on things that we pay money for we value. The paradox is that exactly the reverse is true. Everything that 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 with 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 kind of job we assigned to it. But generally speaking, we use it for little jobs instead of big important things. Universities have proved that most of us are operating on about 10% or less about abilities. So decide now, what is it you want? plant your goal in your mind. It’s the most important decision you ever make in your entire life. What is it you want? You want to be an outstanding salesman, a better worker at your particular job. You want to go to places in your company in your community. Do you want to get rich? On you’ve got to do as planned. That seed in your mind cared for it work steadily toward your goal and it will become a reality. It not only will, there’s no way that it cannot, is a that’s a law like the laws of Sir Isaac Newton, the laws of gravity. If you get on top of a building and jump off, you’ll always go down you will never go up and it’s the same with all the other laws of nature. They always work. They’re inflexible. Think about your goal in a relaxed, positive way. Picture yourself in your mind’s eye is having already achieved this goal. see yourself doing the things you will be doing when you’ve reached your goal. As has been called the senior Barbie doll age, the age of posters and nervous breakdowns and 10 colleges at a time and medical researchers raised us to a new plateau of good health and longevity far too many of us worry ourselves into an early grave trying to cope with things in our own little personal ways, without learning a few great laws that will take care of everything for us. These things we bring on ourselves through our habitual way of thinking everyone One of us is the sum total of his own thoughts. He is hilarious because that’s exactly where he really wants to be, whether he’ll admit that or not. Each of us must live off the fruit of his thoughts in the future. Because what you think today and tomorrow next month and next year, will mold your life and determine your future. You’re guided by your mind. I remember one time I was driving through Eastern Arizona and I saw one of those giant earthmoving machines roaring along the road at about 35 miles an hour with like 30 tons of dirt in it a tremendous, Incredible Machine. And there was a little man perched way up on top, with the wheel in his hands guiding it. And as I drove along, I was struck by the similarity of that machine to the human mind. Just suppose you’re sitting at the controls of such a vast source of energy? Are you going to sit back and fold your arms and let it run itself into a ditch? Or are you going to keep both hands firmly on the wheel and control and direct this power to a specific worthwhile purpose?
It’s up to you. You’re in the driver’s seat
and see the very law that gives us success as a two-edged sword, we must control our thinking, the same rule that can lead a man to a life of success, wealth, happiness, and all the things he ever dreamed of for himself and his family. That very same law can lead him into the gutter. It’s all in how he uses 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 go to the secret? Actually, it isn’t a secret at all. It was first promoted by some of the earliest wise men, and it appears again and again throughout the Bible, but very few people have learned it understand it. That’s why it’s strange, and why there’s an equally strange reason it virtually remains a secret. I believe that you could go out and walk down the main street in your town and ask one man after another what the secret of success is. And you probably wouldn’t run into one man in a month who could tell you this information is enormously valuable to us. If we really understand it and apply it. It’s valuable to us not only For our own lives, but the lives of those around us, our families, employees, associates and friends, life should be an exciting adventure. It should never be a bore. A man should 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 Grove Patterson, the great late editor in chief of the Toledo daily blade, make a speech. And as he concluded his speech, he said something I’ve never forgotten. He said, my years in the newspaper business have convinced me of several things, among them, that people are basically good, and that we came from someplace, and we’re going someplace. So we should make our time here an exciting adventure. The architect of the universe didn’t build a stairway leading nowhere. And the greatest teacher of all, the carpenter from the plains of Galilee, he gave us the secret time and time again, as you believe, so shall it be done. Under you, I’ve explained the Strangest Secret in the world and how it works. Now on this site, I want to explain how you can prove to yourself enormous repair is possible in your own life. By putting the secret to a practical test, I want you to take 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. Back in the 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton, the English mathematician and natural philosopher he gave us the natural laws of physics which apply as much to human beings as they do to the movement of bodies in the universe. And one of these laws is that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Simply stated as it applies to you and me, it means we can achieve nothing without paying the price. The results of your 30-day experiment will be in direct proportion to the effort you put forth. To be a doctor you must pay the price along years of difficult study, to be successful in selling and remember that each of us succeeds to the extent of his ability to sell selling our family. On our ideas, selling education in schools, selling our children on the advantages of living a good and honest life, selling our associates and employees on the importance of being exceptional people, to, of course, the professional selling itself. But to be successful in selling our way to a good life, we must be willing to pay the price. And what is that price? Well, it’s many things. First, it’s understanding emotionally as well as intellectually, that we literally become what we think about that we must control our thoughts in order to control our lives. It’s understanding fully that as you sow, so shall you reap. Second is 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 that the opportunities for you today are enormous beyond belief. It’s rising above narrow-minded pettiness and prejudice. And third, is using all your courage to force yourself to think positively on your own problem to set a definite
Jim Carrey define the goal for yourself and let your marvelous mind think about your goals from all possible angles. To let your imagination speculate free me up on 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 courses clear, and they keep constantly aware of the fact that you are at this moment, standing in the middle of your own acres of diamonds as Russell Conwell used to find out and forth say that at least 10% of every dollar you earn. It’s also remembering that no matter what your present job it has enormous possibilities if you’re willing to pay the price. Now let’s just go over the important points and the price Each of us must pay to achieve the wonderful life again BRS. It is, of course, worth any press. One, you will become what you think about to remember the word imagination and let your mind begin to soar. Three, courage, concentrate on your goal every day. To save 10% of what you were in, and five actions, ideas are worthless, unless we act on them. I’ll try to outline the 30-day test I want you to make it keep in mind that you have nothing to lose by making this test and everything you could possibly want to gain. There are two things that may be said of everyone. Each of us wants something. And each of us is afraid of something. I want you to write on a card what it is you want more than anything else. It may be more money, perhaps you’d like to double your income or make a specific amount of money. It may be a beautiful home, it may be a success at your job. It may be a particular position in life, it could be a more harmonious family. Each of us wants something I write down on your card, specifically what it is you want. Make sure it’s a single goal and clearly defined. You need to show it to anyone but carry it with you so that you can look at it 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 work for something to get out of bed for us. something to live for. Look at it every chance you get during the day and just before going to bed at night. And as you look at it, remember that you must become what you think about. And since you’re thinking about your goal, you realize that soon it will be yours. In fact, it’s yours really, the moment you write it down and begin to think about it. Look at the abundance all around you as you go about your daily business. You have as much right to this abundance as any other living creature is yours for the asking. Now we come to the difficult part difficult because it means the formation of what is probably a brand new habit, the new habits, and ideas we formed. Once formed, however, it will follow you for the rest of your life. Stop thinking about what it is you fear. Each time a fearful or negative thought comes into your consciousness, replace it with a mental picture of your positive and worthwhile goal. And there come times when you feel like giving up. It’s easier for a human being to think negatively than positively. That’s why only 5% of successful you must begin how to place yourself in that group for 30 days.
You must take control of your mind, it will think about only what you permit it to think about each day for this 30 day test, do more than you have to do. In addition to maintaining a cheerful positive outlook, give yourself more than you’ve 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’re going. out of every hundred people, you belong to the top five. Don’t concern yourself too much with how you’re going to achieve your goal. Leave that completely to a power greater than yourself. All you have to do is know where you’re going. The answers will come to you of their own accord and at the right time. Remember these words from the Sermon on the Mount and remember them well. Keep them constantly before you this month of your test. Ask and it shall be given you seek and you shall find knock and it shall be Open under you, for everyone that asked you receive it, and even seek it, find it, and am that knocketh it shall be opened. It says marvelous and as simple as that. In fact, it’s so simple that in our seemingly complicated world, it’s difficult for an adult to understand that only needs is a purpose and faith for 30 days. do your very best. If you’re a salesman go out as you’ve never done before, and not in a hectic fashion but with a calm, cheerful assurance that time well spent will give you the abundance and return you deserve and what if you’re a homemaker, devote your 30-day test to completely giving of yourself without thinking about receiving anything in return. And you’ll be amazed at the difference it makes in your life. No matter what your job, do it as you’ve never done it before, for 30 days. And if you’ve kept your goal before you every day, you will wonder and marvel at this new life you found. Dorothea brand, the outstanding editor and writer discovered it for herself and tell us about entering fine books 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 in her entire life was changed to one of overwhelming success. Now, you make your test for 30 full days, don’t spend your test until you’ve made up your mind to stick with it. See, by being persistent, you’re demonstrating faith. Persistence is simply another word for faith. If you didn’t have faith, you’d never persist. If you should fail during your first 30 days. By that, I mean suddenly find yourself overwhelmed by negative thoughts. You’ve got to start over again from that point and go 30 more days. Gradually, your new habit was formed until you find yourself one of that wonderful minority to whom virtually nothing is impossible. And don’t forget the card. It’s 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, right, the words we’ve quoted from the Sermon on the Mount asked And it shall be given you seek, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Nothing great was ever accomplished without inspiration. See that during these crucial first 30 days your own 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 gold before you everything else will take care of itself. Remember also to keep calm and cheerful. Don’t let petty things annoy you and get you off course. That since making this test is difficult, someone says, Why should I bother? Well, look at the alternative. No one wants to be a failure. No one really wants to be a mediocre individual. No one wants to live constantly filled with worry and fear and frustration. Therefore remember that you must reap that what you sow, if you’re so negative, that your life will be filled with negative things. If you’re so positive that your life will be cheerful, successful and positive.
Gradually, you will tend to forget what you’ve heard on this recording, pay it off and keep reminding yourself of what you must do to form this new habit. Gather your whole family around at regular intervals and listen to what’s been said here. You know, most men will tell you that they want to make money without understanding a lot. The only people who make money working on a mint, the rest of us must earn money. This is what causes those who keep looking for something for nothing or a free ride to failing right. 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 for the other man’s money. Therefore the law is that our financial return will be in direct proportion to our service. Now 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 have this law backward. They believe that you’re successful if you earn a lot of money. The truth is that you can only earn money after your success. So it’s like the story of the man who sat in front of the stove and said, do it, give me heat. And then I read the word. How many men and women do you know are you suppose there are today you take the same attitude toward life. There are millions. We’ve got to put the fuel in before we can expect heat. Likewise, we’ve got to be of service first, before we can expect money. Don’t concern yourself with the money, be of service, build, work, dream, create. Do this and you’ll find there’s no limit to the prosperity and abundance will come to you. prosperity you know is founded upon a law of mutual exchange. Any person who contributes to prosperity must prosper in turn himself. Sometimes return will not come from those you serve, but it must come to you from someplace because that’s the law. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. As you go daily through your 30 day test period, remember that your success will always be measured by the quality and quantity of service you render and more An easy yardstick for measuring this service. No man can get rich himself unless he enriches others. And there are no exceptions to a law. You can drive down any street in America and from your car estimate the service that’s being rendered by the people living on that street.
Have you ever thought of this yardstick before? It’s interesting. Some like ministers and priests and other devoted people measure their returns in the realm of the spiritual, but again, their returns are equal to the service. Once this was fully understood, any thinking person can tell his own fortune. If he wants more, he must be of more service to those to whom he receives the return. And he wants to ask he has only to reduce the service. This is the price you must pay for what you want. If you believe you can enrich yourself by diluting others, you can end only by diluting yourself. It may take some time, but just as surely as you breathe, you will get back what you put out. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking you can avert this it’s impossible to predict In the streets with a lonely Walker filled with people who tried to make new laws just for themselves, we may avoid the laws of man for a while. But there are greater laws that cannot be broken. And outstanding medical doctor recently pointed out six steps that will help you realize success. One set yourself a definite goal to Quit running yourself down. Three, stop thinking of all the reasons why you cannot be successful. And instead, think of all the reasons why you can trace your attitudes back through your childhood and try to discover when you first got the idea you couldn’t be successful. If that’s the way you’ve been thinking, five, change the image you have of yourself by writing out a description of the person you would like to be. And six act the part of the successful person you have decided to become. The doctor who wrote those words as a noted West Coast psychiatrist, Dr. David Harrell think to do what the experts since the dawn of recorded history, I’ve told you you must do pay the price by becoming the person you want to become nearly as difficult as living unsuccessfully, make your 30-day test, then repeat it, then repeat it again. And each time it will become more a part of you until you wonder how you could ever have lived any other way. Live this new way and the floodgates of abundance will open and pour over you more riches than you may have dreamed existed. Money is a lot of it. But what’s more important, you’ll have peace. You’ll be in that wonderful minority who lead come cheer for successful lives. Start today. You have nothing to lose, but you have a whole life to win. deserve Nightingale and thank you
