First, a couple of quotes:<\/p>\n
\n\n“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get ahead in this world are the people who look for the circumstances they want. If they can’t find them \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 they make them.”
\n<\/em>– George Bernard Shaw<\/ul>\nThat is pretty apparent, isn’t it \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 we become what we think about? It stands to reason that a person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal will reach that goal and become what is thought about.<\/p>\n
Conversely, the person without a goal, who does not know where to go, and whose thoughts are those of confusion, anxiety, fear, and worry \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 also becomes what is thought about. This life becomes one of frustration, anxiety, fear, and worry. <\/p>\n
Remember, one who thinks about nothing \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 becomes nothing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That’s Earl Nightingale<\/a> from his classic text, “The Strangest Secret<\/a>.”<\/em> Nightingale recorded that on vinyl and, in 1956, was awarded the first Gold Record ever awarded for a spoken word record. It’s message is as valuable and valid today as when Earl first wrote it.<\/p>\n
Over the years, I’ve made reference to Earl as my “long-distance mentor.” There are a handful of people on this planet I can clearly point to who absolutely guided the course of my life, and he is one of them. It was Nightingale’s influence that directly lead to my deep interest and subsequent study of broadcasting, public speaking, and personal achievement (including books and seminars by people like Napoleon Hill, W. Clement Stone, Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, and others.)<\/p>\n
One of my earliest memories was the short, syndicated television program run each weekday morning called, “Our Changing World.”<\/em> It seemed every segment began the same: Earl would appear on camera perched on the edge of an office desk, look into the camera, and in a voice I assumed was modeled after God’s own, he’d start, “I was reading just the other day…”<\/em><\/p>\n
As a fan of reading myself, I figured he and I had at least something in common.<\/p>\n
Over the years I’d taken in his television programs, as well as the syndicated radio programs. Then I learned he owned a company that sold audio cassette programs that taught some of the concepts he discussed so often. Over the years, I’ve sent many, many dollars to Nightingale-Conant Corporation<\/a>, the company founded by Nightingale and business partner Lloyd Conant in 1960. With every purchase, I always felt I ended up on the better end of the deal.<\/p>\n
When Earl passed away in 1989 I was privileged to write an article for my public speaking coach, Dottie Walters<\/a>, who published it in her magazine for public speakers, “Sharing Ideas<\/a>.”<\/em> Dottie told me she gave a copy to Earl’s widow, who was pleased to have read it.<\/p>\n
Earl’s message in “The Strangest Secret” is found in the quote above. Over the years he presented it in various renderings. The message is simple, straight-forward, and — in my experience — axiomatic: you become what you think about most.<\/em><\/p>\n
That works not only in the grand scheme of things we call “life” but also in the short term. Our internal dialog is a powerful thing; you can use it for good or bad. The outcome depends entirely on the questions we ask it.<\/p>\n
Bandler and Grinder discussed this often in both print and workshops. Our brain is perfectly willing to answer any question we throw at it, regardless. If it doesn’t know the answer, it’ll just make something up. (Go ahead, laugh. It’s still true.)<\/p>\n
We become what we think about most.<\/p>\n
It follows that if our internal dialogs — the little conversations we have with ourself when we think — focus on negative things, negative things will manifest themselves in our external life. It’s axiomatic, too, that if we focus on the positive things, positive things will manifest themselves externally.<\/p>\n
How can negative thoughts affect our lives? Ever think about a potentially stressful event and give yourself chest pain?<\/p>\n
Louis Binstock<\/a>, who was a greatly loved rabbi of Temple Shalom in Chicago, wrote an outstanding book titled, “The Road to Successful Living.”<\/em> Binstock writes:<\/p>\n
The causes of failure lie within a wide and confusing area: the culture we live in, our definitions of the two words, success and failure, our personal psychological makeup. But often failure, and the approach of failure, take more common and obvious forms. We are not all scholars; we are not all godly; we are all not psychoanalysts: we must deal with the tworld as it presents itself to us.<\/p>\n
There are, in terms of our everyday reactions, ten common causes of failure. These ten are basic. Know them, conquer them — even a few of them — and you will have removed the most stubborn obstacles from the path of true success.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Rabbi Binstock goes on to discuss all ten. One of them, not surprisingly, is this: the ready tendency to blame oneself, in private anyway.<\/em> He states,<\/p>\n
Why was I such a fool? What an easy mark I am! Why do I always put my foot in it? Why do I always say the wrong thing? What a dope I was!<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
This is pernicious thinking and dangerous practice. It plants deep the feelings of inferiority and insecurity which will later spring up like weeds to dominate “the well-ordered garden of the mind.” Abraham Lincoln, who failed in many things but was far from being a failure, once said, “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”<\/em> This contentment is paralyzing. You may see yourself as happy in failure; and you will tend to fail everywhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
One of the most profound books in my library has to be Viktor Frankl’s<\/a>, “Man’s Search for Meaning: Experiences in the Concentration Camp<\/a>.”<\/em> If you have never actually read this book, I am certain I cannot possibly convey to you the solemn experience that lives between its covers.<\/p>\n
A few quotations from the book:<\/p>\n
“Everything can be taken from a man but … the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”<\/p>\n
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”<\/p>\n
“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the why<\/em> for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any how<\/em>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Viktor Frankl could have died, as did his beloved wife, in the Holocaust. He could have died while a prisoner in Auschwitz between 1942 and 1945. He could have succumbed to the pitiable situation he found himself in. (In each somber reading of this book I tell myself I could have, easily.) Instead, Frankl died September 2, 1997, living — living<\/em> — ninety-two years. In the course of his life, he wrote numerous books and changed the course of many, many lives — including mine — through both the telling of his story, but also examining and explaining how he survived.<\/p>\n
We become what we think about most.<\/em><\/p>\n
I know it’s fashionable to make fun of the “power of positive thinking” movement that really found its legs in 1960’s “Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude”<\/em> by W. Clement Stone<\/a> and Napoleon Hill<\/a> was (and remains) a classic text. I’d quickly put it next to Napoleon Hill’s<\/a>, “Think and Grow Rich,”<\/em> and Dale Carnegie’s, “How to Win Friends and Influnce People.”<\/em><\/p>\n
PMA on its own is not the solution. As Tony Robbins is fond of pointing out, while you’re spending your time saying, “There are no weeds in my garden! There are no weeds in my garden!”<\/em> — the weeds will take over your garden. It is the opposite cause of what Rabbi Binstock noted, but the end result is the same.<\/p>\n
Maxwell Maltz<\/a>, in his book, “Creative Living for Today,”<\/em> writes:<\/p>\n
Your self-image will sustain you in creative living if you learn to declare war on your negative feelings — and win the war in the battlefield of your mind.<\/p>\n
Your mind is a battlefield, never doubt this, and if you win, you will experience peace of mind during your fulfilling days.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So, how do you avoid negative feelings when you have to deal with this thing called life<\/em>? I’ve often said that life isn’t the stuff that happens to you; life is your reaction<\/em> to the stuff that happens to you. It sounds trite, I know, but the next time someone really torques you off, instead of getting angry, just stop. Regardless what the cause, say this out loud: <\/p>\n
“That’s inconvenient.”<\/em> <\/center><\/p>\n (Actually, that’s reframing<\/em>, but we’ll cover that some other day.)<\/p>\n
Even if you think the above is nothing but a bunch of new-age horsefeathers, ask yourself this: what if it really works only because you believe it works? And how can that be any different from how it really works anyway? (Doesn’t that sound familiar?)<\/p>\n
As strange as it may seem, the secret well may be that we become what we think about most.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First, a couple of quotes: “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get ahead in this world are the people who look for the circumstances they want. If they can’t find them \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 they make them.” – George Bernard Shaw That is pretty apparent, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.escamoteurettes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}