Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Strangest Secret

Back in 1950's there was a motivational speaker called Earl Nightingale. He was working in the radio industry. He had an insurance company and gave motivational talks. In 1956 he gave his most famous talk. It was recorded on vinyl and won a gold record for 1 million copies sold. It was called "The Strangest Secret".  
It's only a 30 minute recording but carries a lot of good ideas. He talks about the reasons some people have success and some fail. He states out of 100 people only 5 will be financially independent. With people living in a country of abundant opportunity, why is there so much failure? 
 
He says what is the definition of success? It's the "Progressive realization of a worthy ideal". Men fail and they do not know why. They even don't know why they go to work everyday. That by their own choice they conform to what everybody else is doing. There is no success in showing up for a job. A true success is "Doing the job you choose to do deliberately". If you chose a job and educate yourself, you are a success. 
 
He says we live today in a world with a plateau of security. Most everything is available to us, we just have to show up to get it. Just having a job is not success. We have no goals and we don't use are minds and think. 
 
He says the key to success is that "We become what we think". You are what your thoughts are. If you think negatively, you will be negative. If you think good you will be good. You have to believe you will succeed then you will. If you can't find the right circumstances then make them. If you think about frustration, fear and anxiety that's what you will become. If you think about nothing you will have nothing. 
 
The trouble with today's economy is it moves at the speed of it's weakest link. It all up to each individual. We have to use are minds and think. 
 
He states that our minds are the most powerful tool we have. What we put in it is what our lives will become. Our minds are like fertile ground. Our minds like the ground doesn't care what we put in it. It will only return what we put in it. Like the ground, if we plant corn we will get an abundance of corn. If we plant a poisonous plant we will get an abundance of poison. Our minds are the same. He says it a law that we cannot change. 
 
We are the sum total of our thoughts. We have a choice, we can put good things in our mind and live successfully or put bad things in our mind and live in the gutter. 
 
I like a lot of what he has to say. It's interesting that these motivational speakers go back this far and the talks are recorded. I found this on YouTube. 
 
He calls this way of living "The Strangest Secret" because it's been known for thousands of years but very few put it into practice. 
 
I can see if you focus on what your doing and have good goals you will be successful. The most interesting item I thought was when he said if you can't find the right circumstances to succeed then make them. That is very important because we blame the circumstances when we fail at something. We blame other people, place and things. Then we quit and are perfectly happy to say we tried. How many times have you heard that or said that yourself. I have done that myself. Did it occur to anyone to go and make their own circumstances. 
 
Earl Nightingale was a famous motivational speaker in his day and probably helped many people. I'm glad I came across his recordings. He made me think in a different way. Maybe that is the way successful people think. If you ever hear successful people who have built large companies from scratch, this is the way they talk. It's different from the rest of 
us. Earl Nightingale says "You have to act like failure doesn't exist". 








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