Josh Billings, the nineteenth-century humorist, once said, “It isn’t what a man knows that hurts him; it’s what he knows that isn’t true.”
The easiest way to succeed greatly is to find someone else who has already achieved what you want to achieve and then do the same things this person did, over and over, until you get the same results.
Just as you become what you think about most of the time, you become what you say to yourself most of the time as well. The majority of your emotions are determined by the way you talk to yourself throughout the day.
Destructive criticism is the single biggest enemy of human potential. One could argue that its effects are even worse than those of cancer or heart disease. While those diseases affect the physical body and sometimes can lead to the deterioration and death of the individual, destructive criticism kills the soul of the person early on but leaves the body walking around.
It is amazing how many people are unwilling to let go of a negative event that happened to them in the past. They feel that they have earned the pain and paid for it with time, money, and personal suffering. They feel entitled to their pain. In their heart of hearts, they are not willing to let it go.
The most powerful all-purpose way to stop the expression of negative emotions is to repeat, “I am responsible!” every time an event occurs that would normally trigger a negative reaction from you.
In Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If—,” he says, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you . . . you’ll be a Man, my son!”
The very best words that you can say to yourself, over and over, are “I like myself!” “I can do it!” and “I am responsible!” It is impossible to repeat these affirmations and feel negative or guilty at the same time.
The greatest gifts you can give another person are those of unconditional love and acceptance. This means that you never criticize her for anything that she does or doesn’t do. You praise, approve, or at the very least remain silent.
Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person. Forgiveness has only to do with you. It is a perfectly selfish act. By forgiving the other person, you do not set him free; you set yourself free.
You can think only one thought at a time. When you deliberately think a positive thought, all negative thoughts stop instantly. If you keep thinking positive thoughts, though it may be difficult at the beginning, by the law of habit, it soon becomes automatic and easy.
Your parents did the very best they could with you, with who they were and what they had. They were products of their own childhood and upbringing. Their parents were in turn products of their upbringing by their own parents. In each case, they could not have done other than what they did. They could not have raised their children differently. They simply did not know how.
Ephesians 6:13, ESV, that says, “Having done all, stand firm.”
The only thing constant in life today is change. Change is the law of growth and growth is the law of life. It is amazing how many people want things to get better but stay the same. This is simply not possible.
One of the great rules for success is: You are only as free as your well-developed options.
The more options you have, the greater freedom you have. The more options you develop, by upgrading your skills, broadening your product or service lines, and anticipating the worst things that could happen, the greater control you have over your personal and business destiny.
The mark of the superior person and the true professional in any field is preparation. Top people do their homework and are thoroughly prepared for whatever might happen.
The time to take a first-aid course is well before the accident. The time to develop a new skill is before you need it. It is too late to begin thinking about preparing or developing a new skill after you have been bowled over by the unexpected wave of change.
Whatever changes you are likely to experience in the months and years ahead, the more thoroughly you prepare, the calmer and more effective you will be. Your stress levels will be greatly reduced and your levels of optimism and happiness will be greatly increased.
You have heard the saying “I do not love you for who you are, but for how you make me feel about myself when I am with you.” When people feel valuable and respected in your presence, you become a persuasive and influential person.
When you like and accept people as they are, you appeal to one of the deepest emotions in human nature: the desire for unconditional acceptance by other people. And how do you express acceptance? Simple. You just smile.
There’s an old saying that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. When you smile at another person, you simultaneously acknowledge her value, approve of her appearance, and express your enjoyment at being in her company. When you smile at another person, she feels more valuable and important, and her self-esteem goes up.
In the Bible it says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” In other words, what this means is that you get more personal pleasure and satisfaction out of giving of yourself and accepting others than they receive.
Goethe said, “Everything is hard before it’s easy.”
In order to be purposeful in your achievements and your life, you must have a purpose. In order to be focused and channeled, you must have a direction. Keep asking yourself, “If I had no limitations on what I could be, have, or do, what would be my vision, mission, and purpose in life?”
Everyone in the top 20 percent of their field started off in the bottom 20 percent. Everyone who is doing well today, in any field, was once doing poorly. Everyone who is at the front of the line of life started at the back of the line.
I discovered that all business skills are learnable. All technical skills are learnable. All career skills are learnable. As with reading, writing, and arithmetic, no one starts off with these skills; everyone has to learn them over time.
All business skills are learnable. All sales skills are learnable. All money-making skills are learnable, as well. And anything that hundreds of thousands, even millions of other people have learned, you can learn as well. No one is better than you and no one is smarter than you.
This revelation changed my life. From that moment onward I became a dedicated student of personal and professional development. I read every book and article I could find that would help me to improve my performance. I listened to audio programs while walking around and in my car. I attended every seminar and workshop I could find. I later took thousands of hours of university courses to upgrade my knowledge and skills so that I could achieve my goals faster and more predictably.
The only way that you can truly enjoy high levels of sustained self-esteem and self-confidence is when you know, deep in your heart, that you are very good at what you have chosen to do. And once you have that, no one can ever take it away from you.
It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from; all that really matters is where you’re going.
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