Excerpts from The Essence of Success

Last week was good to me. First I was granted a possibility to listen to Rich Schefren, who’s guiding people today to find the way from frustration to freedom. Also I got to know more about Earl Nightingale. Though Earl Nightingale’s candle was forever extinguished on March 25, 1989, it continues to light the candle of others.

Earl Nightingale was in many ways a “river person,” a term he often used to describe other great men. River people, he believed, recognize their life’s purpose early on. “They are born to spend their lives in great rivers of the most absorbing interest, and they throw themselves into those rivers wholly,” he said. He used Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Leonardo da Vinci as examples of river people.

Nightingale’s destiny, the river that swept him to great heights, was to convey the principles of success to millions of listeners in a style that was uniquely his own.

Nightingale believed that we are not all born river people. It takes some of us longer to find our river—our own specific, individual purpose in life. We must somehow set about discovering what it is within ourselves, Nightingale wrote, “with the patience and assiduity of a paleontologist on an important dig”.

The following story may help you better understand yourself as you attempt to find your own river. You will know you have found it when your purpose in life demands fulfillment. Your river will become your burning desire in life and it will fill you with energy and enthusiasm. You find your strengths, your own specific, individual purpose in life.

The Strangest Secret

By Earl Nightingale

When we say “nearly five percent of men and women achieve success” then we have to define success. The following is the best definition we’ve found: “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”

If a person is working toward a predetermined goal and knows where to go, then that person is successful. If a person does not know which direction they want to go in life, then that person is a failure.

“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”

Therefore, who succeeds?

The only person who succeeds is the person who is progressively realizing a worthy ideal. The person who says, “I’m going to become this”… and then begins to work toward becoming it.

Have you ever wondered why so many men and women work so hard and honestly without ever achieving anything in particular? Why others do not seem to work hard at all and yet get everything? We sometimes think it is the magic touch or pure luck. We often say, “Everything they touch turns to gold.” Have you ever noticed that a person who becomes successful tends to continue this pattern of success? Or on the other hand, how a person who fails seems to continually fail?

Well, the answer is simple — those who succeed have established personal goals.

Success is not the result of making money; making money is the result of success and success is in direct proportion to our service.

Here are five steps that will help you realize success:

1. Establish a definite goal.
2. Stop running yourself down.
3. Do not think of all the reasons why you cannot be successful — instead think of all the reasons why you can achieve success.
4. Trace your emotions back to childhood — discover where you first got the negative idea you would not be successful — face your fears.
5. Renew your self-image by writing a description of the person you want to become — Act the part — You are that person!

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.”

Well, that is pretty apparent, isn’t it? And every person who discovered this believed – for a while – 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 is 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.

So decide now. What is it you want? Plant your goal in your mind. It’s the most important decision you’ll ever make in your entire life. All you’ve got to do is plant that seed in your mind, care for it, and work steadily toward your goal, and it will become a reality.

How do you begin?

First: It is understanding emotionally as well as intellectually that we literally become what we think about; that we must control our thoughts if we’re to control our lives. It’s understanding fully that…”as ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

Second: It’s cutting away all fetters 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.

Third: It’s using all your courage to force yourself to think positively on your own problems, to set a definite and clearly defined goal for yourself. To let your marvelous mind think about your goal from all possible angles; to let your imagination speculate freely upon 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 course is clear. And to keep constantly aware of the fact that you are, at this moment, standing in the middle of your own “acres of diamonds.”

And fourth: Save at least 10 percent of every dollar you earn.

Tags: inborn talent, river people, river person, strenght