“Thoughts are Things. And powerful things, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire for their translation into riches or other material objects.”
~ Napoleon Hill
I love this morning’s sunrise … looks like an angel welcoming in the start of the weekend 🙂
Continuing on with Napoleon Hill’s classic “Think & Grow Rich”, to start chapter one, Hill lays out the story of a man – Edwin C. Barnes – who had a burning desire to become a business associate of the great Thomas Edison. When this desire or thought first flashed into Barne’s mind, he was in no position to act upon it. But the “inventor and tramp” persisted onward …
“What a different story people would tell if only they would adopt a definite purpose and stand by that purpose until it had time to become an all-consuming obsession.”
Often, when opportunity appears, it comes in a different form than we may have expected.
“One of the tricks of opportunity is that is has a sly habit of slipping in by the back door. And often opportunity comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.”
As evidence to this claim, Hill tells the story of a man who gave up on his dream of gold mining ….. A rich vein of gold had been struck, then disappeared. After a couple more futile attempts to relocate his riches, the man gave up and sold off his mining equipment.
Another man “knew enough to seek expert counsel before giving up.” It turns out the first owner of the plot “stopped three feet from gold” because he was not familiar with fault lines.
“More than 500 of the most success people this country has ever known told me that their greatest success came just one step beyond the point at which defeat had overtaken them. When defeat overtakes a person, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. That is exactly what the majority of people do.”
But for some, the lessons of defeat will teach them how to “keep on keeping on.”
They learn the art of conveying defeats into stepping-stones to opportunity.
What has contributed to my own success in life? Development of thoughts and ideas, backed up by Persistence. Just the other day, I was telling the story of my computer business, PC Paradise, to a new acquaintance. There were many, many times that defeat almost overtook me. But I had made a commitment to myself not to quit. I was burning with a desire not to be a failure to my clients and staff. As things got to their absolute worst, when I could no longer bare the pain of running that business, I sought out expert counsel. My counsel came in the unlikely form of an intuit. With her guidance and my restored faith, along came a buyer, just a week after I had literally thrown in the towel and had begun the process of shutting down the business.
Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought.
How about you? Do you too readily give up on your dreams when obstacles cross your path?
