The following article was
written by Napoleon Hill and is intended to boost you in your efforts for
both personal and financial success.
You will never find peace of mind by allowing other people
to live your life for you.
The most profound fact concerning humanity is this: The Creator gave us the complete,
unchallengeable right of prerogative over one thing, and only one thing—our own
mind. It must have been the Creator’s purpose to encourage us to live our
own lives, to think our own thoughts, without interference from others.
Otherwise we would not have been provided with such a clear dominion over our
minds.
Simply by exercising this profound prerogative over your own
mind and life, you may lift yourself to great heights of achievement in any field
of endeavor you choose. Exercising this prerogative is the only real approach to
genius. A genius is simply one who has taken full possession of his own mind
and directed it toward objectives of his own choosing, without permitting
outside influences to discourage or mislead him.
We all know stories about famous people who turned adversity
into advantage, who overcame great obstacles to become rich and famous. They
are the successful people who converted stumbling blocks into steppingstones.
They become the geniuses of industry, the Henry Fords, the Thomas Edisons, the
Andrew Carnagies, and the Wilbur and Orville Wrights.
But there is a far greater number of lesser-known mortals
who refuse to accept defeat. They simply refuse to become one of the vast
majority who do little more than eke out a living and experience mostly misery,
disappointment and failure.
Many years ago, a young army veteran came to see me about a
job. He told me he was disillusioned and discouraged; all he wanted from life
was a meal ticket, a place to sleep, and enough to eat.
He had a look in his eyes—a sort of glassy stare—that told
me thought hope was dead. Here was a perfectly capable youg man who was willing
to settle for practically nothing when I knew very well that if he changed his
attitude he could earn a fortune.
There was something about him about him, an almost hidden
spark that prompted me to ask, “How would you like to become a
multimillionaire? Why settle for a meager existence when you can just as easily
settle for millions?”
“Don’t joke with me,” he replied. “I’m hungry and I need a
job.”
“I’m not making fun,” I replied. “I am dead serious. You can
earn millions if you are only to use the assets you now have.”
“What do you mean, assets?” he exclaimed. “I have nothing
but the clothes on my back!”
Gradually, over the course of our conversation, I learned
that this young man had been a Fuller Brush salesman before he went into the
army: While in the service he had done considerable K.P. duty, and had learned
to cook rather well. In other words, beside the natural attributes of a healthy
body and a potentially positive mind, his total assets consisted of the fact
that he could cook and he could sell.
Generally, of course, neither selling nor cooking will
propel a person into the ranks of multimillionaires, but this veteran took
himself out of the ordinary walks of life. He was introduced to his own mind
and the possibilities that excited when he took control of it.
In the two hours I spent with this young man. I watched him change
from a person lost in a sea despair into a possibility thinker. He did it all
with the strength of one idea. “Why don’t you use your selling ability to persuade
housewives to invite their neighbors over for a home-cooked dinner, then sell
them all cookware?”
I advanced him enough money to buy some clothes, and the
first outfit of cooking utensils, then turned him loose. During his first week,
he cleared nearly $100 selling aluminum cookware. The next week he doubled that
amount. Then he began to train other salespeople who worked for him selling the
same cookware.
At the end of four years, he was earning more than a million
dollars a year and set in motion a new selling plan that has since evolved into
an industry in its own right. When the ties that bind a human mind are broken
and a man is introduced to himself—the real self that has no limitations—I fancy
the gates of hell shake with fear and the bells of heaven ring with joy!
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