18 Parables of Success

18 Parables Of Success
By Saleem Rana
18 True Stories That Teach You
How To Be Successful
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: A Change of Mind ………………………………………… 7
CHAPTER 2: Quest for Freedom ................……………………………... 16
CHAPTER 3: The First Space Strike ....................…………………………... 23
CHAPTER 4: The Lucky Lease ……………………………………………… 31
CHAPTER 5: The Restless Boy.................... ………………………………. 37
CHAPTER 6: The 2nd Day Of Creation.......... ………………………………. 44
CHAPTER 7: Victory over the “African Bug”………………………………… 53
CHAPTER 8: Around the world on $80......... ……………………………... 60
CHAPTER 9: The Automatic Champion........... …………………………... 65
CHAPTER 10: The High Flyers.. ……………………………………………… 71
CHAPTER 11: The Millionth Pebble........... ………………………………. 81
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CHAPTER 12: The Right Bid....... ………………………………………… 88
CHAPTER 13: The Stunning Failure........................ ……………………………... 95
CHAPTER 14: One Took the High Road........... …………………………... 101
CHAPTER 15: The Bridgehouse ……………………………………………… 107
CHAPTER 16: The Inspired Boy.................. ………………………………. 115
CHAPTER 17: The Proud Chemist.............. ………………………………. 121
CHAPTER 18: The Royal Road.................... ………………………………. 131
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Chapter 1
A Change Of Mind
Napoleon Hill, the famous inspirational writer, once met a
reader who became a millionaire after reading one of his
books. The book, Think and Grow Rich, transformed Bill
McCall of Australia from rags to riches.
When Bill was 19 years old, he sold hides and skins. He
failed miserably. Two years later, he ran for Federal
Congress. Again, he failed. In desperation, Bill went to
the library to read about success principles. There, he
found Hill’s book.
Although he read the book three times, he failed to see how
to use the success principles. Then, during the fourth
reading, something shifted within him, a flash of
inspiration, and his life changed.
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Years later, after meeting the author, Bill McCall, now the
Honorable William V. McCall, now a director of 22 family-
owned businesses, and now a man as rich as the people whom
he had once read about, narrated the moment his life fell
into place.
“I was reading Think and Grow Rich for the fourth time
while walking leisurely along a business street in Sydney.
And then it happened! It happened suddenly. I stopped in
front of a meat market and glanced up. And in that
fraction of a second I had a flash of inspiration.
“You see, I was reading Chapter Four entitled
‘Autosuggestion.’ The subheading was ‘The Medium for
Influencing the Subconscious Mind.’ Now I remember that
when I was a boy my father read aloud from Emile Coue’s
little book Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion.”
“It was you,” Bill said to Napoleon Hill, “who pointed out
in your book that if Emile Coue was successful in helping
individuals avoid sickness and in bringing the sick back to
good health, through conscious autosuggestion,
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autosuggestion could also be used to acquire riches or
anything else one might desire. ‘Get rich through
autosuggestion’: that was my great discovery. It was a
new concept to me.
“You know: conscious autosuggestion is the agency of
control through which an individual may voluntarily feed
his subconscious mind on thoughts of a creative nature, or,
by neglect, permit thoughts of a destructive nature to find
their way into the rich garden of his mind.
“When you read aloud twice daily the written statement of
your desire for money with emotion and concentrated
attention, and you see and feel yourself already in
possession of the money, you communicate the object of your
desire directly to your subconscious mind. Through
repetition of this procedure, you voluntarily create
thought habits which are favorable to your efforts to
transmute desire into its monetary equivalent.
“Let me say again: It is most important that when you read
aloud the statement of your desire through which you are
endeavoring to develop a money consciousness, you read with
emotion and strong feeling.
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“Your ability to use the principles of autosuggestion will
depend very largely upon your capacity to concentrate upon
a given desire until that desire becomes a burning desire.
“When I arrived home, out of breath for running, I
immediately set down at the dining room table and wrote:
‘My definite major aim is to be a millionaire by 1960.’”
The Honorable William V. McCall, the youngest person to be
a member of the house of parliament, achieved his definite
major aim to be a millionaire four days before his
deadline.
The Success Principle
Use the power of autosuggestion to create your destiny.
The Principles At Work
In the parable, Bill McCall failed at running his own
business. He also failed at at his bid for Federal
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Congress. But, instead of feeling crushed and incompetent,
he chose to research success principles.
Now, once again, his mettle was tested. Although, he read
the book three times, he could not figure out how any of it
applied to his own life. Most people would not have read
the book more than once, assuming they even got as far as
finishing it in the first place. McCall read it three
times. Then, on the fourth reading, in the midst of it, he
had his moment of inspiration.
The point to note here is that the information in the books
was circulating in his mind from the very first reading; he
was, in a sense, continually priming the pump. Upon the
fourth reading, then, the moment he needed happened...the
moment of inspiration, when insight and emotion all
commingled in one thrilling flash of recognition.
He framed his moment of inspiration into a document which
governed his future. The document was a contract. It was
a promise to himself. It declared that by the year 1960,
he would be a millionaire. He stated the exact amount that
he desired and the exact year he intended to have the
money. He was clear and unequivocal.
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He read this contract out loud, with passion and
conviction, twice a day. He envisioned himself as already
having achieved his dream. His subconscious went to work
in manifesting that dream into a reality.
In your own life, you can follow the same steps. You can
prime your subconscious to tell you what you really want in
your life. Read books that will stimulate your thinking
about your desire. Then, when you have your moment of
inspiration, which will occur because of your focussed
attention, you can write out a contract to yourself. State
your major definite aim and the time you expect to acquire
it. Now read your statement to yourself–twice a day, out
loud, with passion and conviction.
This procedure will activate your mind to come up with
answers and it will motivate you to take action.
Although this process is easy to understand and simple to
apply—don’t underestimate it. When you awaken your
subconscious mind, you awaken powerful thoughts and
feelings that will propel you to the future you desire.
You will be able to change any limiting situations. You
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will be able to transform your life. Life is too short to
be miserable, too short to deny yourself the life of your
dreams.
Here are a few questions you could ask yourself to plan
this amazing journey.
1. Questions about your interests. What do you enjoy
doing? What things do you do well? Can you isolate one of
these things that you enjoy and do well and make it into a
definite major purpose? What is your magnificent
obessession? What gifts do you bring to this planet? How
would you like to be remembered?
2. Questions about meaning. Why do you want to do this?
How will it bring out the best in you? How will it benefit
others? How will it sustain you? Can you make money at
it?
3. Questions about resources. What resources do you
need? How much time and money do you need to start? What
do you need to learn? Do you need to go back to school?
Do you need to join an organization? Do you need to
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purchase special equipment? Do you need to move to another
city to find the best opportunity?
4. Questions about support. Who can help you? Who is an
expert in this field? Do you need to learn from their
books? Do you need to attend a class they are offering?
Do you need to spend time with them in person?
5. Questions about persistence. How can you stay true to
your mission? How will you motivate yourself when things
go wrong? How much endurance do you have? How will you
resist the temptation to give up when obstacles arise?
6. Questions about completion. When will you achieve
this goal? What steps might be involved? How long do
these steps take? How will you know when you’ve finally
achieved your dream?
7. Questions about models. Who else has done this? How
did they do it? How long did it take? Did they have more
or less opportunity than you when they first started?
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The Bottom Line
When you map out what you want, you let go of the trivial
tasks that clutter up your thoughts. When you focus on
achieving a definite major purpose, your life will assume
an energy and unity that will be exhilerating. Self-
discipline will appear spontaneously.
You can keep this energy of vital purpose alive by reading
your self-promise to yourself upon arising and before going
to bed.
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Chapter 2
Quest for Freedom
The Nazis stormed into the house of Stanislavsky Lech, who
was Jewish, herded the entire family out at gunpoint,
packed them into an overcrowded train, filled with the
stench of death and despair, and sent them to Krakow.
Then, before his eyes, Lech saw his entire family shot.
Somehow, he managed to live from one day to the next, in a
numb, oblivious, zombie-like state. Impatiently, he
awaited his own death. But one day, he realized, that his
own death was not an unavoidable truth. He could, in fact,
do something about it: he could make an attempt to escape.
Once he had made his decision, he didn’t know how to
execute it. He only knew one simple thing: his decision
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was irrevocable, and, somehow, he had to find a way to act
on it.
As the weeks passed into months, he interrogated his fellow
prisoners. “How can we escape?” he would ask. He became a
nuisance, an irritation. “It’s hopeless,” they would echo.
“Stop hurting yourself,” they would plead. Some would
abuse him openly; others would turn away in silence.
In turn, he rejected their answers, their silences, their
overbearing despair. There has to be a way, he told
himself, and I will find it. This is my revenge: by
surviving I will prove that the Nazis aren’t invincible and
that they don’t have complete control of our wills and that
they can’t do what they like with us.
Each day he would run a dialogue through his head. “Today
I choose to escape from this nightmare. I will not
continue to be a victim. I will not accept these
conditions. I am a man, with rights and dignity, and I
will, so help me God, find a way to let the whole world
know about what is going on here. I will escape. There is
no doubt in my mind. How can I escape today, perhaps right
now? There is a weakness in their security.
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They cannot watch us every minute. There is something I
need to find, and I will find it today, something that I
have overlooked, something that will bring me freedom.
There is a weak link here, somewhere. I will find it.”
The urgency of his question pounded on his heart and mind
every waking moment, and it followed him into his dreams.
Then, one day, as dismal as any other, he saw what had been
before him all along. The Nazis would let the corpses of
naked men, women and children, shot because they were too
weak to work in the labor camp, pile up on the ground
before a truck would come and haul them away. With typical
efficiency, the truck would only come when there were
enough bodies to fill it up.
Hiding behind a bush, he stripped off all his clothes, then
dived into the mound of corpses. He lay still, pretending
to be dead, the nauseating odor of death all around him.
He lay there for a day. More corpses were thrown on top of
him. He did not flinch. Finally, the truck came. Rough
hands pushed his inert body into the truck.
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In the truck, many more hours of horror passed. Finally,
his body was dumped into an open grave.
He waited until nightfall before climbing out.
The sweet smell of night, the fresh breeze, filled his
lungs as he ran twenty-five miles to freedom.
Insist on your question and an answer will emerge.
The Principle At Work
In the parable, Lech thought the unthinkable—how to escape
from a maximum security death camp—and endured the
unendurable—lying for hours with fetid corpses. In an
extreme situation, he pushed his level of tolerance to an
extreme. His only other choice was to waste away and
finally get shot or gassed when he was too weak to work.
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He survived for only one reason: he made a decision to
survive and he stayed with that decision. The decision
forced him to ask how. How can I escape? How can I escape
today? How can I escape now? He asked an absolute
question. He did not ask a relative question: Is it
possible to escape?
His question forced him to expand his perception and to
expand his belief in what was possible. It also forced him
to act, with courage, with immediacy.
He asked himself a absolute question, a quality question,
and he expected an answer from his creative mind. This
quality question paved his way to freedom. It was a
question that empowered his perception, his creativity, his
courage. He did not ask why questions. He did not ask
speculative, discursive, vague questions. He asked how,
and in asking how, he found what would work.
In your own life, you will never be pushed to such an
extreme situation, but your own pressing needs, your long-
standing frustrations, would benefit tremendously if you
asked an absolute question, a high-quality how question.
If you were to follow up this question with absolute
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committment, patience, and discipline your perception would
expand to allow more information into your mind. You will
find a way to stretch your belief-system to allow more
possibilities. You will find creative answers. And, of
course, you will find the courage and conviction to follow
through with your insights.
The right question will solve your problem. You are always
asking questions and answering them; this is part of your
internal dialogue, casually referred to as thinking.
But real thinking is asking a quality question and
expecting an answer. It is sticking with the question
until the right answer appears in consciousness.
To ask is to receive. One creates the other. If you ask
good questions, you’ll receive good answers. If, for
example, financial pressure is one of your issues, you
might be tempted to ask, why am I so poor? The problem
with this question is that you’ll find reasons to justify
your poverty. If, instead, you ask, how can I become rich?
you’ll look for ways to increase your skill, you’ll dig
deep to find your talents, or you’ll learn ways to manage
your money.
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Above all, remind yourself of the famous words of
playwright George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as
they are and say ‘why?’ I dream of things that never were
and say ‘why not?’”
The Bottom Line
“Questions,” noted Success Coach Anthony Robbins, “set off
a processional effect that has an impact beyond our
imaginations.”
When we question our limitations, we see how they’re only
assumed limitations. When we question the nature of
things, we birth science or art. And when we ask absolute,
high-quality questions, we break down personal and
collective barriers to comprehension, and we open up
avenues to progressive action and fundamental change.
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Chapter 3
The First Space Strike
On Apollo 13, the crew staged the first strike in the
history of space travel. The date was December 27, 1973.
Mission Control had sent more commands than the crew could
cope with. Commander General Carr put a stop to this when
he radioed in to Mission Control. “You have given us too
much to do,” he complained. “We’re not going to do a thing
until you get your act in better order.”
He then shut off communications for 12 hours. The
astronauts used the time to catch up and enjoy the unusual
view.
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Success happens in small steps. Scale down big projects.
Go for small victories.
Over time, small victories add up to complete the overall
goal.
In the parable, the space crew scaled everything down to
regain control of their mission. They reduced an
overwhelming situation to a managable one. Here you have
an example of scaling down the element of time. While the
projects remained the same size, they were extended over
time. They became more managable, easier to get done.
The key word here is managable.
Scaling down can also be done in terms of size. A project
can be broken down into smaller units, into sub-projects.
When the parts of a whole are disconnected, each part can
be worked on. A system with fewer interconnected parts is
easier to comprehend, easier to control, manipulate,
improve. Science, itself, is based on boiling down the
vast complexity of nature into small, comprehensible units
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of information called scientific laws. Gradually, the
completed parts are assembled into a whole again.
In your own life, when things get overwhelming, scale them
down. Either do less of them, diminish the size; or do
them all over a longer period of time. Scaling down means
working at a level of competence. It means doing only a
few things, and one thing at a time.
Ultimately, scaling down means shunning big wins for
smaller wins. Going for big wins creates high stress,
confusion, loss of momentum and balance.
When a large problem is broken down into smaller chunks,
stress is reduced in three ways. First, a small win cuts
the pressure. “This is no big deal.” The price of failure
is low. The pain of failure is minimal. Consequently, you
are willing to try again and again, until you figure out
the pattern which ensures success. Second, it cuts demand.
There is less to do. And it is less strenuous. “This is
all that needs to be done.”
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Third, the level of skill needed is sufficient.
Performance anxiety is reduced. A sense of competency
exists. “I can do at least this much.”
What is a small victory?
A small victory is a concrete, complete, clear-cut outcome
of modest value. By itself, one small victory may seem
trivial. But a series of victories at small but
significant tasks, lowers resistance to opposition. Small
victories are controllable opportunities. They produce
visible results.
Small solutions single out and define problems clearly. By
looking at specific, limited conditions of a problem, it is
easier to find a solution that fits. The problem is easier
to see and the solution easier to try out.
Small victories emphasize the importance of defining
limits. They avoid defining problems diffusely. “The
establisment stinks.” They avoid open-ended solutions.
“Burn the system down.” They define problems more
precisely. “This is what is wrong.” They narrow
solutions. “This is the first thing we have to work on.”
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Once a small victory has been secured, energy is released
and powerful forces are set in motion that favor another
small victory. When a problem is solved, the next solvable
problem appears. This happens because information is
clear. When our perceptions are sharper, more resources,
both inner and outer, can be tapped.
Small victories change a situation. They stir up change.
Even when complexity does occur in the future, you will
have the skills to meet them. In time, more complex tasks
are handled with more mastery.
Small victories provide information. This information
speeds up learning and adaptation. Small attempts are
miniature experiments. They test theories. They offer
insight into viable strategies. In little experiments,
numerous theories can be postulated, numerous strategies
tried out, until something clicks, a pattern is discerned,
a meaningful solution appreciated.
Small victories are also more emotionally stable. A small
defeat does not result in despondency, a small victory in
exuberance. Everything is relatively even-tempered. A
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large, sudden victory can be overwhelming. Lottery
millionaires, for example, have been known to lose all
their money rapidly. This is different from the
businessman who understands how to manage his money, even
when it runs in millions, because he has built his business
over a series of small victories.
Essentially, then, the best big victories are those that
have arrived over a period of time as a series of small
victories. These victories have stability, balance, and
perpetuating power. They have matured over time because
they have been built up over a process of events. Big
corporations, for example, sometimes break themselves down
into smaller departments to stimulate the creativity and
dynamism of a small group.
Above all, when you initiate a small-scale project, or
break a large project into small-scale projects, there is
less that can go wrong. There is a closer link between
cause and effect. Simple patterns can be created,
observed, tested, discarded, tried out, and finally
trusted. Immediate feedback is available as to what works
and how long it takes. Clarity of vision, managability of
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tasks, immediacy of results – all these arise from pursuing
small victories.
A striking example of the cumulative effect of small
victories is that of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1980. By
February of that year, the Pittsburgh Steelers in the
National Football League had won an astonishing 88 games
and lost only 27. Under their coach, Chuck Noll, they
broke about even with strong opponents and won by a
landslide against weaker opponents. With strong opponents,
they won 29 games and lost 26 games. Against weak
opponents, they won 59 games and lost one game. Thus,
their fabulous statistics were based on small victories
spread over time.
Another example is that of the rise of the Women’s
Liberation Movement. The feminist campaign against sexism
did not make much progress when they aimed for the big
victory of changing legislation, the Equal Rights
Amendment. But through the smaller victory of desexing
language, they made successful inroads into changing the
collective consciousness regarding women’s rights. The
smaller reforms worked and were adopted with less
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resistance because they tackled issues of a discernible,
size, clarity, and visibility.
The Bottom Line
Small victories may not inspire much attention, but through
methodical persistence something large and awesome is
created. Great men and women succeed moment by moment,
step by step, lifted up by one small victory after another,
until they reach a lofty and impressive pinnacle of success
and influence.
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Chapter 4
The Lucky Lease
J. Paul Getty planned to enter the U.S. Diplomatic Service,
but, when he got out of college, the Oklahoma oil boom
caught his attention. Since his father had already
prospered in the oil business, he was irresistably
attracted to the prospects of wildcatting, and he decided
to postpone his diplomatic ambitions for two more years.
He worked on other wildcatter’s rigs and borrowed money
from his father to raise money for oil speculation. His
father only gave him small amounts of money and demanded
prompt repayment.
J. Paul Getty spent his money frugally, and also saved
money through haggling over prices.
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At first his speculations did not go well, and a diplomatic
career looked increasingly inviting. Then, early in 1916,
he secured a bargain price of $500 on a lease and the well
he sank produced 700 barrels a day. Suddenly, at the age
of 23, he made a fortune.
Years later, journalists would ask him about his lucky
beginning. They wondered how he knew that the well was so
rich. He responded that he had gathered all the necessary
geological facts from experts and the spot appeared to have
been a good one.
“But,” he added, “ as for actually knowing what the outcome
would be that was impossible. If there were a way to be a
hundred percent sure where rich oil deposits are, nobody
would ever sink a dry well.”
“Oil prospecting is like any other venture in life, from
getting married to buying a car...there is always an
element of chance, and you must be willing to live with
that element.”
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“If you insist on perfect certainty, you will never be able
to make any decisions at all. You will simply paralyze
yourself.”
Make a decision, and take the risk associated with it.
In the parable, J. Paul Getty appeared to be incredibly
lucky, but it was a luck which, in many ways, he
engineered. Instead of continuing on a well-structured
career—that of the U.S. Diplomatic Services—he made a
detour to the rich oil fields of Oklahoma.
Here he had the difficult task of raising money, which he
did by working and borrowing. He then took care of his
funds, by spending them frugally. Initially, he hit a
number of dry wells, but one speculation paid off for him.
This last speculation was a calculated risk. Yes, he was
lucky, but he also did his best to attract that luck.
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A notable feature in his “luck” was his decisiveness.
After reviewing the geological data, he decided to act on
it. The data gave him odds on success, but it didn’t
guarantee anything. He could have continued to
investigate, postponing the decision to act.
But, in his own words, he did not want to be “like one of
those government commissions that are afraid to make a
decision. They hold hearings, collect facts, stew and fuss
and keep very, very busy for months and months. After a
while you know it’s just a sham. The appearance of action
is just a front to hide inaction.”
When you take chances, you risk defeat, you risk loss, but
unless you play the game you may never win either. Playing
to win also means willing to lose. Indeed, J. Paul Getty
lost often before he won.
Money management enabled him to continue despite his
losses. Small losses enabled him to keep enough resources
to stay in the game.
Successful investors on Wall Street advise new investors
never to gamble with their grocery money, because it has a
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twofold effect: one, it jeopardizes their well-being; two,
they are nervous when they invest and this clouds their
judgement.
In your own life, you can use the following checklist to be
a bolder and more prosperous person.
Find some area that needs investment of time, money,
energy, and skill.
Calculate the risks.
Estimate the rewards.
Find the time, raise the money, harness the energy,
and learn the skills.
Manage your resources so that you only take affordable
risks.
Above all, remember that winning often involves risking,
but risking does not mean gambling. When you gamble, you
don’t evaluate much information and you use all your
resources. When you take risks, you review all the
available information and only commit what you can afford
to lose.
The Bottom Line
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Dr. Abraham Weinberg, a prominent psychiatrist, once
commented that passive people “tend to let life happen to
them instead of using its opportunities in an asserive way.
Often they are afraid of change itself, even change without
risk. They tell themselves, ‘I’m afraid of going into this
new situation,’ even when the situation holds no objective
terrors except its newness. Instead of examining the
situation and finding what the risks actually are, they
simply drop out by saying, ‘No, it’s too much of a gamble.’
It may not be a gamble at all. They are only making an
excuse for staying in some familiar territory.”
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Chapter 5
The Restless Boy
One Saturday morning, a minister could not think of a
sermon to write. He simply could not get inspired. He
stared out of the window, at the birds splashing in the
bird-bath. His mind was blank, as was the sheet of paper
on his writing desk.
He also had to write a sermon under difficult conditions.
His wife, out shopping, had left him with his son. Since
it was raining, his son was restless and bored. To keep
him occupied the minster tore a colorful world map out of a
magazine. He then shred the map into pieces. “If you can
put it together, “he said, scattering the pieces on the
floor, “I’ll give you a quarter.”
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The preacher thought his son would be occupied with this
game for some time. But, in a few moments, his son was at
his study door. He handed him the completed map. All the
continents were properly put together.
“How did you do it so fast, and so well?”
“I just put the picture of the man on the other side
together. I figured if I got the man right, the world
would be right, too.”
“Thank you for my sermon. Here.”
“You said a quarter! It’s 10 dollars!”
“And the ideas worth a lot more,” responded his father.
When you are right, your world will be right.
The Principle in Action
38
In the parable is a wonderful lesson for us all. The place
to start to change the world from is yourself. Instead of
blaming the world for all your ills, improve yourself.
In your own life:
1. Make a definite plan for success. Fix a time limit to
this plan. Determine the benefits of your goal.
2. Hold on to a positive attitude. See the best in any
situation. Positive thinking heals your body and vitalizes
your mind. A negative outlook is self-destructive.
3. Give your employer your best service. Even if you’re
underpaid, you’ll create a twofold bonus. First, you’ll
increase your level of skill, and this can taranslate to a
higher income later on. Second, you’ll win sufficient
goodwill to attact the favor of your boss or a competitor.
The more you give, the more you receive.
4. Continue to learn more about your job. Knowledge is
power, and power creates increased income.
5. Work on being calm and even-tempered. An angry or
bitter person is hard to get along with. Along with your
positive mental attitude comes positive emotions. This
enhances both your relationships and your health.
39
6. Share your goals with others. It is easier to achieve
something when you’re working on it with someone else. If
your goal is too individualistic to share with others, at
least get some moral support, some people to cheer you on
your way.
7. Put your faith in a higher power. Such faith removes
many fears, like fear of poverty, criticism, ill health,
loss of liberty, old age, and death.
8. Avoid bad habits, especially those offensive to other
people. For example, criticizing others, gossiping,
slandering. Also avoid taking in toxic material, like
alcohol and cigarettes. Why would you want to ruin your
liver and lungs?
9. Plan your work and complete each day’s work. Include
in your plan, ways to work more effieciently. Don’t leave
for tomorrow what can be done today. Tomorrow will have
its own demands. Progress means moving forward.
10. Enjoy your work. If you don’t feel enthused, it’s
time for a change.
11. Concentrate on your work. And stay at the same task
until you finish it. Being easily influenced by other
options and abandoning your plans when things go awry can
be discouraging, and creates a sense of frustration and
failure. .
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12. Work in harmony with others. Help people when they
ask for it. Avoid arguing, gossiping, judging. Each of us
is doing our best to survive as we know how.
13. Learn from your defeats. Use your mistakes to learn
what not to do. Convert your liabilities into assets.
Consistently learning from errors and improving, enduring
the learning curve, is necessary for success. Remember,
temporary failure is only feedback. Creative work requires
patience and committment. It takes time to be great.
14. Imagination is a two-edged sword. On one hand, you
can create thoughts that expand your personal vision and
empower you. On the other hand, you can create visions of
doom that limit and frighten you. Choose to imagine your
best possible outcomes. Be open to your many
possibilities.
15. Allocate a fixed percentage of your income to savings.
A part of all you earn should be yours to keep. Its a
source of great comfort to have extra cash. Life is full
of surprises. Things are going to break down unexpectedly.
Opportunities are going to arise out of nowhere. Be
prepared.
16. Contribute. Allocate some of what you earn to help
others. The money may come back multiplied or it may give
a deep sense of satisfaction.
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17. Observe sound principles of health. You are not just
a mind, but a body, too. Your body needs exercise, healthy
food, deep relaxation, a sense of pleasure, and sufficient
sleep.
18. Seek sound advice when you’re confused. Refer to
people, books, and the internet, or other sources of
information to get a wide spectrum of ideas and then decide
for yourself what will best resolve your question.
19. Live with integrity. Create a reputation of
reliability. When people can trust you, you open up a
whole new world of opportunities. Your handshake should be
as good as a written contract.
20. Listen to your dreams. Those you have at night, and
those which whisper in your heart during the day. They may
reveal to you a path of great joy.
The Bottom Line
Positive change can come from each individual. Above are
just a few suggestions. Adjust them to suit your needs.
Act on them. Also, add more on your own. Keep the list
active. It is a schedule of your own evolution. As you
become more balanced and poised in your life, as you become
42
aware of your own particular way of relating to the world
and yourself, you create an example for others to follow.
Your positive contribution to life is like dropping a
pebble into a lake. The ripple that spreads outward
creates other ripples.
Sometimes you may not be able to make people kinder or
wiser. Sometimes you cannot avert terrible events. But
you can always work on your relationship with yourself and
how you relate to others. Slowly, inevitably, perhaps
subtly, as you change yourself, you will change the world.
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Chapter 6
The Second Day of Creation
A farmer in Pennsylvania decided to sell his farm, but
before he sold it, he wrote to his cousin in Canada, who
collected coal, and asked for a job. In those days, coal
oil, which dipped from running Canadian streams, where it
was first discovered, was lucrative business.
The farmer, a sensible man, did not want to leave his farm
without securing his livelihood so he wanted to make sure
his cousin would hire him before he left. His cousin,
however, was not enthusiastic about the proposal and wrote
back to discourage the farmer, arguing that the farmer did
not know anything about the coal oil business.
This blatant rejection did not discourage the farmer. He
simply sat down and studied all about coal oil, studying it
from the second day of creation. He read about how the
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world had once been covered with rich vegetation which
eventually turned to coal beds, and when those rich coal
beds were drained, they furnished coal oil. The coal oil
worth pumping came up from living springs.
The farmer studied coal oil until he could almost see it
and smell it.
When he believed he knew how to refine it, he wrote back to
his cousin asking for a job again. He spelled out how he
had painfully studied every aspect of the business.
Reluctantly, his cousin invited him over.
The farm was sold well below market value as the farmer was
eager to make his way to Canada to begin a new life of
industry and prosperity.
The new owner decided that the first thing he needed to do
was to see if the cattle had enough water. At the brook,
behind the delapidated barn, he found a black-stained plank
that appeared to have been placed years ago to throw dark
scum onto the bank. The plank separated off the clean,
drinkable water from the scum-laden water.
45
He called in a geologist, who, after careful tests,
declared that the scum was coal oil, worth an estimated
hundred million dollars. The geologist estimated that the
coal-oil that stained the plank was about twenty-three
years old. The new owner laughed at the irony of the whole
situation: although the old farmer had studied coal oil
from the second day of creation, he had sold his own vast
reservoir for a mere $833.
Success Principle
See the acres of diamonds in your own backyard before you
go elsewhere looking for your fortune.
In the parable, the first farmer made a terrible mistake,
one which cost him a fortune. Although he studied coal oil
in depth and although he was the one who placed the plank
that separated off the scum, he did not think of seeking
his fortune from his own backyard. His failure was one of
imagination. He simply could not imagine that a hundred
46
million dollars worth of coal oil was just sitting there
behind his old barn. He could not associate something as
familiar as the scum which he had first found twenty-three
years ago with the unfamiliar industry of coal oil. The
farmer was an intelligent, sensible man, but he had a
psychological block which prevented him from observing the
obvious. He, like most of us, looked for his fortune
elsewhere, looking to other people and places for his
prosperity. The grass has to be greener on the other side,
he reasoned.
In your own life, do you tend to look in the distance for
your own fortune. Perhaps what you need is near, not
far...here, not there. This pattern of thinking, of
looking elsewhere for your good fortune, has been
ingrained in you since childhood. First, you looked to
your parents for answers, then to your teachers, then to
your employer, and so on. Always, the psychological habit
has been to look elsewhere for your answers. You are never
taught to look within yourselves and never taught to
explore your own environment. Always, the emphasis has
been to look outwardly, to look elsewhere, to look away.
47
What could be nearer to us than our own selves. What could
be a greater fortune to discover than our own love. When
you can accept yourself just as you are, with all your
warts and wrinkles, with all those extra tucks of fat, with
all those scars and blemishes, with all your broken
promises and misadventures, then, and only then, can you
begin to appreciate your own power, beauty, integrity,
intelligence, and competence.
The first fortune found within is unconditional self-love.
Personal power comes from learning to respect and listen to
your own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.
How much do you think you’re worth? Dale Carnegie observes
that we possess incredible riches, “riches exceeding by far
the fabled treasures of Ali Baba.” He asks, “Would you
sell both your eyes for a billion dollars? What would you
take for your legs? Your hands? Your hearing? Add up
your assets, and you will find that you won’t sell what you
have for all the gold ever amassed by the Rockerfellers,
the Fords, and the Morgans combined.”
Schopenhauer once said: “We seldom think of what we have
but always what we lack.”
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The second fortune found within is time. Do you squander
precious hours of your day just fumbling and, loitering?
Yet this is your vital life-force ebbing away. Respect
your time. Organize it. Make the time of your life count
for something.
What are your values and how much of your time are you
spending to fulfill those values? Draw up daily notes of
what you do with your day. Organize the time of your life.
The simple idea of planning your day the night before will
open up hours of creative, value-affirming time.
The third fortune found within is purpose. Where are you
going in your life? Do you have a direction?
Is this the right direction? Are you in the right place to
fulfill your inner yearnings? Perhaps you could be in the
wrong place and doing the wrong things. Perhaps you’re a
mathematician working as an accountant, or a writer working
as a computer technician, or an artist trying to climb the
corporate ladder.
While financial necessity may force you to stay in a
position which does not match your talents, you should
49
commit your free time to developing your skills so that a
time comes when they are marketable and can open up a way
to live your dream job. If you continue to do what you’re
doing will it lead to the life you really want?
Purpose makes life worth living. Once, in Biloxi,
Mississippi, a news report told the story of a 24-year-old
dancer who tired to commit suicide by jumping from a wharf.
A young man dived in after her, hoping to save her life,
but quickly remembered that he couldn’t swim. He would
have drowned had the young woman not rescued him. Thus,
saving his life gave her the will to live.
The fourth fortune found within is learn from your
mistakes. Mistakes are the building blocks to success.
The more mistakes you make, the more you realize how not to
do something. Mistakes guide you to the right direction.
Basically, you have to fail your way to success.
“Failure,” observed the English poet, John Keats, “is, in a
sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery
of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is
true, and every fresh experience points out some form of
error which we shall afterward carefully avoid.”
50
And the fifth fortune found within is to nourish dreams.
“Give things a chance to happen!” admonishes Richard DeVos.
“Give success a chance to happen! It is impossible to win
the race unless you venture to run, impossible to win the
victory unless you dare to battle. No life is more tragic
than that of the individual who nurses a dream, an
ambition, always wishing and hoping, but never giving it a
chance to happen. He nurses the flickering dream, but
never lets it break into flame.... There are
millions...the schoolteacher who wants to go back for that
master’s degree; the small businessman who dreams of
expanding his business; the couple who has intended to make
that trip to Europe; the housewife whose ambition is to
write short stories for the fiction market. The list could
go on and on. People dreaming but never daring, never
willing to say, ‘I can,’ never trusting their dreams to the
real world of action and effort; people, in short, who are
so afraid of failure that they fail.”
Above all, look in your own backyard for your own fortune.
Instead of seeing the scum, see the rich coal oil deposits.
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The Bottom Line
By loving yourself, you can create an empowering self-
image. By using time wisely, you can become more
productive. By finding a purpose, you can live with
passion. By learning from your mistakes, you can move
toward success. By nourishing your dreams, you can find a
way to live them. And by doing all these things, you can
turn them scum in your own backyard to rich coal oil
deposits and make a fortune without selling the farm.
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Chapter 7
Victory over the “African Bug”
Many years ago, shortly after Dr. Maxwell Maltz opened his
office to start practicing as plastic surgeon, a tall
African-American came to see him. Over six feet tall, he
towered over the surgeon. He complained about his lip.
After examing his lower lip, he could find nothing wrong
with it, and told his patient this.
The patient confessed that it was not his idea, but his
girlfriend’s. She had told him that she was afraid to be
seen with him in public because of his lower lip.
Dr. Maltz thought the man a dignified giant who had become
attached to an overly critical woman.
53
Although there was nothing wrong with his lip, the patient
insisted on an operation. Thinking that an outrageous fee
would bring the man to his senses, Dr. Maltz said it would
cost $1200. The ruse appeared to work. The patient said
that he couldn’t afford such a fee, thanked the good
doctor, and even bowed courteously.
But, the very next day, the man was back, a little black
bag in his hand. He dumped its contents on the table, and
hundreds and hundreds of bills poured out. Twelve hundred
dollars lay on the table; his life’s savings.
Dr. Malz was shocked, and saddened too, because he didn’t
want to deprive the man such a huge sum of money. He
confessed that he had merely quoted that figure to dissuade
the money from having the operation. In that case, said
the patient, he would find another plastic surgeon who
would do it for him. Backed into a corner, Dr. Maltz said
that he would do it for a smaller fee on the condition that
he tell his lover that he paid $1200 for the operation.
The operation was simple enough. Under local anaesthesia,
he cut the superfluous tissue from inside the lip,
approximated the rims of the wound with extremely fine
54
silk, and bandaged the upper lip for support. The
operation only took a half hour.
The patient returned a few times to have the bandages
changed. There was no visible scar because all the surgery
was done inside the lip.
Although the patient did not look much different, his whole
attitude changed. After the stitches were removed, he
crushed the doctors hand in a hearty handshake, thanked him
profusely, and strode out of the room, a commanding figure.
However, a few weeks later he was back. Dr. Maltz barely
recognized him. He had lost a considerable amount of
weight, he stooped, his handshake was weak and timorous,
and his voice barely audible.
“The bug, sir --the bug!” proclaimed the man.
“What bug?”
“The bug, sir –the African bug. It’s got me, and it’s
killing me.”
55
Apparantly after the last stitches had been removed he had
gone and seen his woman. She had asked how much it cost.
After he had told her $1200 dollars, as the doctor had
recommended, she had flown into a rage and claimed that he
had cheated her of the money. She revoked her love and
cursed him, promising a swift death.
Deeply troubled, the man had gone to his room. He lay
there for four days. A loud rapping on the door forced him
to open it. The landlady, concerned about his unusual
behavior, had brought a “doctor”.
The so-called “doctor” listened to the man’s explanation
about the curse. He examined the man’s lower lip and
confirmed that he had indeed been bitten by the African
bug.
The doctor had tried to drive out the bugs with liquids,
pastes, and strong potions, but the bug was too strong.
Dr. Maltz, examined the inside of the lower lip, filled a
syringe with Novacain, then, after it had taken effect,
removed the scar tissue.
56
“It’s only some scar tissue,” he explained to the man,
holding it up.
“You mean, there’s no bug, no African bug?”
“Never was.”
The man suddenly regained his full height. A rich smile
spread over his face, his voice boomed out a gravely,
courteous thanks, and he bowed. Once again, he strode out
of his office.
A few months afterward, Dr. Maltz received a letter from
the former patient. Enclosed was a picture of a smiling,
handsome giant with a lovely girl beside him. Emboldened
by his new appearance and his freedom from the illusion of
the African Bug, he had met a new girl, courted her, and
married.
The way to refine your personality is to define your
thoughts.
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The Principle at Work
In this parable, the patient suffered from low self-esteem.
His girlfriend’s critical attitude made him define his
lower lip as a problem. When this was resolved by having
his lower lip thinned, his girlfriend created another
illusion to shame him. After this hoax was exposed, the
man finally accepted himself, and went on to create a happy
relationship.
In your own life, do you tend to exaggerate your minor
flaws? Do you undermine your self-image with these flaws?
When these flaws, imperceptible to others, loom large
enough in your mind, you will find ways to confuse and
sabotage your progress in life.
Your self-critical thoughts are toxic. Think of your mind
as a garden. Pull out all the weeds. Plant flowers
instead. Think well of yourself. Accept your perceived
limitations and flaws. Love yourself just as you are.
Remove the African Bugs from your own consciousness.
58
The Bottom Line
You refine your personality when you refine your thoughts.
When you grasp the neurotic theme of your thoughts, then
you can improve your personality. Success arises from
positive self-esteem.
Life provides both positive and negative experiences. If
you can appreciate the positive and choose to learn from
the negative, then you move your personality towards
positive Self-esteem.
59
Chapter 8
Around the World on $80
Jules Vernes adventure story, Around the World in 80 Days,
stimulated the imagination of 26-year-old Robert
Christopher.
“Why,” he asked himself, “can’t I go around the world on
$80.”
Bob’s first step was to list all the problems that he would
face. His second step was to note all possible solutions.
His third step was to take action!
He started by signing a contract with the Charles Pfizer
Company, a large pharmaceutical company, to collect soil
samples from the various countries that he planned to
60
visit. Next he secured an international driver’s license,
obtained maps in return for a proposed report on Middle
East road conditions, acquired seamen’s papers, and secured
a letter from the New York Police Department to show that
he had no criminal record. Then he took care of his
boarding by arranging for a youth hostel membership. His
final step was to talk a freight airline into flying him
over the Atlantic in return for photographs which could be
used for company publicity.
Bob left New York City with $80 in his pocket.
He used his wits to travel around the world in 86 days.
He saved money by breakfasting free in Gander,
Newfoundland, by photographing the cooks in a hotel
kitchen. He also travelled free by bus from Syria to
Damascus by taking pictures of a Syrian policeman who then
ordered a bus driver to transport Bob. And he used the
same idea to travel free from Baghdad to Teheran. This
time he took pictures of the staff of the Iraq Express
Transportation Company.
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Another idea he used to get free or inexpensive travel was
to use cigarettes as a medium of exchange. He bought four
cartons of American cigarettes in Shannon, Ireland, for
$4.80. He used one carton to pay someone to drive him from
Paris to Vienna. And he used four cigarette packs to pay a
train conductor fro a trip from Vienna to Switzerland
through the Alps.
Besides cigarettes, Bob also used maps as a medium of
exchange. In Bangkok, the owner of an expensive restaurant
fed him in exchange for a a set of maps and a detailed
description of a specific area that Bob had travelled
through.
Bob finally came home to the U.S. as a crew member of the
S.S. Flying Spray, which transported him from Japan to San
Francisco.
Bob proved to himself that any given aim could be
accomplished if he had faith in it.
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Any given aim can be accomplished with sufficient faith.
In the parable, Robert Christopher set himself an
apparantly impossible task. He wanted to challenge
himself. He wanted to prove that he could do anything he
set his mind to doing. He used organized thinking,
exercised initiative, self-discipline, and creative vision,
and acted with faith and confidence.
In your own life, you can do apparantly impossible things
as well if you can organize your thinking, and exercise
initiative, self-discipline, and creative vision, and act
with faith and confidence.
Above all, refuse to believe in the impossible. You can do
anything you want once you set your mind on it and follow
through with a positive plan.
63
The Bottom Line
Believe in your dreams and make them real by trying out all
possible options. When you’re sufficiently motivated to do
something—no matter how impossible it may seem—your mind
will create ways to convert your dreams into reality.
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Chapter 9
The Automatic Champion
“Babe” Didrickson Zaharias was a phenomenal athlete. This
Texan ran, jumped, rode horses, and played basketball and
baseball—with tremendous flair.
In the Olympic tryouts in 1932, she won five first places
in track and field events. In the games of that year in
Los Angeles, she won a gold medal in the women’s 80 meter
hurdles, a gold medal in the javelin throw, and a silver
medal in the high jump.
After the Olympics, Zaharias turned to golf. Although she
started from scratch, she won the National Women’s Amateur
and the British Women’s Amateur.
65
The press hailed her as a “natural athlete.” They often
referred to as an “automatic champion.”
But the real story behind Zaharias fairy-tale success was
her painstaking diligence.
Her success came from studied repetition. In every sport
she undertook, she was methodical, deliberate, and
persistent. She was neither “natural” nor “automatic.”
When, for example, she played golf for the first time, she
did not automatically master the game. Instead she studied
the game carefully, covering all its complex skill sets,
under the tutelage of the finest golf teacher she could
find. She looked at all the elements of the golf swing,
broke it down into parts, then put it all together in a
fluid movement.
Besides using an analytical approach to understand the
game, Zaharias also locked the information into her motor
nervous system through exhaustive practice. She would
spend as many as 12 hours a day on the golf course, hitting
as many as a thousand balls. Her hands would often becomes
so sore that she could hardly grip her club. She stopped
66
only long enough to tape up her hands before picking up the
club again.
You can learn to do anything really well if you study and
practice it.
In the parable, Zaharias learned to play golf the right
way. She started out by hiring an exceptional teacher.
She analyzed each part of the golf swing then put them all
together in a fluid motion. She practiced for about 12
hours a day. She exercised self-discipline and self-
sacrifice. And she didn’t doubt herself. Her previous
successes had created an enduring self-confidence. She
believed that if she applied herself she would be a golf
champion. She proved this belief true.
Zaharias took a risk. She risked her reputation as an
athlete by trying something new. She also risked the time
and money it cost her to perfect her new sport.
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Above all, she was methodical in the way she went about
inventing herself as a champion golfer. She chose a gifted
teacher, studied all aspects of the game, and put her new
knowledge into practice, converting theory into motor
learning, coordination, and stamina.
In your own life, you can model her success strategy.
Learn how to master your area of endeavor the right way.
Start out by finding the people and books that will make
you exceptional. Seek out the best sources of information
that you can afford.
Analyze each part of the skill you wish to master, then put
it all together to create a fluid, form. Develop first a
theoretical understanding, then a practical one. When you
practice your knowledge, your work will flow and appear
effortless.
Practice relentlessly. Spend long hours practising. Keep
a regular schedule for your activity. If you have long
gaps between practice, you will lose some momentum in
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mastering your skill. The cumulative effect of practice
will make you exceptional.
Self-discipline will come from imagination. When you can
create a burning desire by imagining your ultimate success,
self-discipline will happen spontaneously. If you don’t
have a burning desire, you may want to rethink your goals.
Unless you feel passionate about your goals, the smallest
obstacle will throw you off course.
Believe in yourself. Recall all the previous successes
you’ve had in your life. Use these memories to build an
enduring self-confidence. When you believe that you can do
something, you will find a way to make your belief come
true.
If you methodically prepare for your own particular game,
like Zaharias did, you will find yourself on the way to
mastery.
The Bottom Line
69
It isn’t easy to become exceptional at anything. Zaharias
learned the skill of training to be phenomenal. She
translated burning desire into methodical study and
relentless practice. This is what you, too, must learn if
you wish to master anything.
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Chapter 10
The High Flyers
Dick and Jay sat on the ground outside the shed. The rain
pelted down on them. They stared in disbelief at the lake
of mud all around them. The Piper Cub slumped in the mud a
few feet in front of them. Neither a wet bird nor muddy
squirrel could be seen.
"It's going to be like this for some time," said Jay,
gloomily, "according to the weather report."
Dick feebly told the joke about the weatherman who left
town because the weather didn't agree with him--but neither
of them laughed. The rain fell without remorse.
"Boy, boys, boys," said a beautiful woman with auburn hair.
She had a fresh complexion. She wore a wet, slightly
muddy, mauve dress. She sat down between them, covering
them with her pink umbrella.
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Dick kissed his wife on the cheek. He reached down into
the vanilla box for his sandwich. The box tumbled out of
his hands and landed in a puddle. It floated.
"That's it,” shouted Jay. He grabbed Dick's elbow.
"Don't you see— that's it!”
It only took a day to add the inflated pontoon boats to the
Piper Cub. Now instead of wheels, it had floats. Now,
instead of the muddy runway, they used the river.
But another calamity waited: a lightning storm. A bolt of
lightning struck the hut, shattering it.
Without an office, it was hard to run operations.
Dick, however, found a solution. He bought a chicken coop
from the farmer down the road for $25.
"One last yard," said Dick, talking to the old mare. The
mare grunted as it dragged along the chicken coop.
72
After propping up the chicken coop, Dick began whitewashing
it.
"There," said Dick, slapping on the last coat.
He stepped back to join his wife, Doreen, and his partner,
Jay. All of them admired the bright chicken coop. It
proudly bore the blue legend "Wolverine Air Service."
"Soon," said Dick, "Millions will be flying their own
planes. They'll come to us and we'll teach them.”
“And it only cost us $200 to get this Piper Cub," added
Jay.
“Airplanes will swarm the air, the way cars do the ground,"
predicted Dick.
Just then a freckled-faced young man came up to them.
"Is this your school?" he asked, squinting at Dick.
"Have you come for lessons?" asked Dick.
73
"Darn right!"
"We’d love to teach you, but we don't know how to fly!"
confessed Dick.
A few days later, however, they found a flight instructor.
Dick straightened out the sheaf of papers on his ramshackle
desk as the last interviewee walked out of the shack. He
looked over at Jay. "Well?" Jay nodded. "I like him."
"Then we have a new flight instructor," said Dick, smiling
broadly.
The next day, Dick and the new flight instructor stood
outside the chicken coop office.
"How are you going to pay me?" asked the flight instructor,
a tall man with thick dark hair and brilliant blue eyes.
"Cash," said Dick, unruffled.
"But you said a moment ago that you don't have any money?"
"I don't," confirmed Dick, "but they do."
74
The flight instructor turned around to follow Dick's
finger. He had to chuckle. On the edge of the field was
Jay whooping in a group of three eager students, all
trussed up in flight gear. They were wet to their thighs
from wading across the river.
"They'll be the first to graduate," affirmed Bob, the new
flight instructor.
This is the story of Richard M. DeVos and his high-school
buddy, Jay Van Andel, who came home after the Second World
War convinced that the aviation business would be the trend
of the future.
The only limits are those that you set up for yourself.
Limited thoughts create limited people.
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The parable reveals seven of the essential keys to success.
The first key is self-confidence. Richard and Jay believed
in their dream. They had no market survey to convince
themselves that flying lessons would be profitable. They
had no real airport, no personal flying experience, and no
particular skill in selling lessons.
They grasped the big picture and colored in the details as
they went along.
The second key is persistence. They persisted in the face
of severe setbacks. These setbacks would have been enough
to dissuade anyone. They could have backed down without
losing face. They didn’t have a runway –so, they improvised
and used the river. Then, they lost their shack – so, they
bought a chicken coop. Then, they had students, but no
flying instructor – so, they hired one. And finally they
had a flying instructor but no money – so, they found
students.
The third key is purpose. They set themselves up the big
goal of teaching flying lessons.
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Before they could meet this goal, they set out to achieve
smaller ones…they needed “runway” of sorts, an office, a
flight instructor, and students. They met one sub-goal
after another—relentlessly. They did not display
aimlessness. They didn’t slip into helplessness. Because
they held to their purpose, creative ideas moved them from
one step to the next. They never allowed themselves to
feel that they were “going nowhere.”
The fourth key is recognizing that success is based on the
law of averages. Success is not all of one piece. They
did not succeed every day. Often it may have seemed that
they would not succeed at all. But behind every obstacle
there was a way around.
The fifth key is the willingness to pay the price of
success. They were willing to buy an airplane based on
speculation. They believed that they could find students.
And they believed that they could find someone to teach
these students. They paid the price of success by taking
on risk and by working smart to make those risks pay off.
The sixth key is to enjoy the experience. Since they were
both interested and involved in the venture, they were
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enthusiastically committed to resolving whatever issues
arose.
The seventh key is to be willing to be original. They
decided that flying lessons would be popular and decided to
create a school. They created their idea from scratch.
There were no other successful models they could imitate.
In your own life, you can use these success principles.
Choose to be self-confident. Believe in your dream, in the
evidence of things not seen.
Choose to be persistent. Persist even when things go wrong.
Don’t turn back when you hit an obstacle, go over, under,
around, or through it.
Choose to act with purpose. Start out with a purpose and
when things get difficult, hold on to your purpose. Let
your purpose empower creative ideas and breakthroughs.
Choose to play the battle of averages. It doesn’t matter
how many times you fail; you just need that one success to
break through to a new level. For example, it doesn’t
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matter if you get turned down by a number of employers; you
just need one job to be employed.
Choose to pay the price for success. When you choose to be
successful, there is a price that is required…it may be
risk-taking, money, time, effort, anxiety. Be willing to
pay the price before you even start.
Choose to enjoy the experience. Any new undertaking is an
adventure. Immerse yourself in the movie of your own life;
enjoy the twists and turns of the plot.
And, finally, choose to be original. Even if your idea is
not new, try and find a new angle to it; make your idea
special, exceptional in some way.
Above all, when you choose to get your dreams off the
ground, refuse to believe in limits.
Every problem has a solution. Every obstacle has a way
around it.
The Bottom Line
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Find ways to stretch your beliefs about what is possible.
Break free of self-imposed limits.
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Chapter 11
The Millionth Pebble
Rafeal Solano, his back bent, his shoulders crushed by an
invisible weight, sat on a boulder in the dry river bed.
He lifted his head up slowly. It weighed a ton. He spoke
in a low voice, his words almost incomprehensible. He
mumbled again to his two friends.
“I quit.”
They stopped gathering pebbles and looked at him.
“I can’t go on. I don’t believe in it anymore.”
The sweat glistened on his brow. The brilliant sun had
parched his face to a network of fine blood vessels. Dark
shadows outlined his eyes.
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He held up a pebble in his hand. “The next one will be a
million”
He threw the pebble down. It bounced off another stone and
lay shining in the sunlight.
The year was 1942; the country, Venezuela.
Long hard months had passed for the three men prospecting
for diamonds in the watercourse of their native country.
They had worked relentlessly, driven by greed, by passion,
by an outrageous hope for the future. They had stooped and
gathered pebbles from sunup to sundown. They had fought
off discouragement with talk about how they would spend
their new found wealth. But all they ever found were
pebbles. Now, as they all faced each other, their clothes
were torn and filthy, merely rags, clinging to their gaunt
bodies. They stank of long months of unwashed sweat, which
had soaked into skin, hair, and what was left of their
clothes.
“Pick up another pebble,” urged one of Rafael’s friends.
“Make it a million.”
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Solano sank down on his knees and sank his hands in the
sand. He wriggled it around in the moist sand until he
touched a large, hard object. He pulled out a sand-
encrusted pebble about the size of a hen’s egg. He bounced
the heavy pebble in his hand, a little surprized by the
weight of it. His friends watched in awe as he brushed the
pebble clean.
The millionth pebble, the largest and purest diamond ever
found, was sold in New York to Harry Winston, a jewel
dealer. He paid Rafael Solano $2,000,000 for the diamond.
The millionth pebble was affectionately named, The
Liberator.
Success Principle
When all else fails, persist.
In the parable, Rafael Solano and his friends had a wild
dream. There was nothing sensible about this dream. It
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was, in fact, so far-flung, so outrageous, that a sensible
person would have dismissed it at the first thought. They
wanted to find diamonds. After much inquiry, they found a
spot that had a reputation for being a possible site.
The men worked long and hard in apparantly futile labor.
They kept each others spirits up, and when, at the
999,999th pebble Rafael Solano was about to give up, his
friends pushed him to continue.
Then as if on a cue, the universe gave back the men a
millionfold return on their sweat equity. After months of
not having the slightest clue that they were in the right
place, suddenly, quite unexpectedly, a diamond showed up,
and it was a diamond of such epic proportions that they did
not have to try any more.
In your own life, if you have a dream, follow it. No
matter how wild, outrageous, and improbable it may seem.
If possible travel on your journey with friends who will
support you. Friendship can keep your faith alive long
after your energy and hope have been worn away.
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Another thing you might want to do is to go where your
probability of success is greatest.
When you work long and hard at the apparantly futile,
remember that your sense of futility is a lie; it is merely
your conditioned mind reminding you of your limits; the lie
seeks to eliminate your future promise.
Sooner or later, you’ll get results. Unless you’re
searching for something as random as a diamond, you’re less
likely to have to try 999,999 times before you get results.
Chances are that your returns will be faster, much, much
faster, a hundred-fold faster.
Above all, in the throes of failure persist. Persistance
can initiate success. When talent and effort have been
exhausted, persistence will carry you through to the end.
Sometimes all that is needed to change a hopeless situation
is hanging on until you find the millionth pebble.
In the memorable words of Winston Churchill, “Never, never,
never, never give up.”
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The mass appeal of movie-character Indiana Jones is that he
symbolizes the quality of persistence. No matter how bad
things get, he keeps on trying one more time.
Eventually, somehow, despite every reversal, he breaks
through to his goal.
You, too, must learn the art of persistence. Persist when
you’re completely exhausted. Persist when all efforts
fail. Persist when you feel hopeless. You will find your
dream if you can persist long enough.
You may sometimes win through sheer luck. You may
sometimes win through broad talent. But, eventually,
neither luck nor talent will be enough, and the principle
of persistence is all that you will have left. In the end,
it may be that persistence is your only abiding friend. It
will pull you through all the pain, all the toil, all the
hardship. In the long run, persistence, more than any
other trait of success, makes a true winner. Persistence
pays. It pays handsomely. With persistence comes learning
and adaptation. With persistence comes luck and change.
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To succeed in anything, learn how to endure adversity,
learn how to feel confident in the midst of obvious
failure. Let no-one and nothing deter you from your
heart’s desire.
Water persistently washing against the hardest rock will
eventually erode it away.
Be as water.
“Beware of no-one more than of yourself,” said Charles
Spurgeon. “We carry our worst enemies within us.” When
you give up, you let yourself down. You lose your chance
at success. You also lose your self-confidence.
The Bottom Line
Persist! Stick to what you set out to do. Stick to it
even if it doesn’t seem worth it. Physical energy, moods,
circumstances change. The darkness passes. In the face of
failure, poverty, loneliness and obscurity, persistence
brings you success.
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Chapter 12
The Right Bid
Conrad Hilton relied on his hunches to make his fortune.
His intuition was so finely-honed that it was uncanny.
Although he denied any psychic talent, he was often baffled
by the accuracy of his intuitions.
“Most of the time I can reconstruct the circumstances of
these hunches,” he confessed, “and I can figure out in a
general way where it came from. I mean I can explain it—
not completely but enough to make it less strange. There
have been times, though, when I couldn’t come up with a
good explanation.”
Once his remarkable intuition helped him buy a prestigious
old hotel in Chicago. The sale was based on sealed bids.
All the bids were to be opened on a select day and the
hotel would go to the highest bidder.
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Some days prior to the deadline, Hilton offered a bid of
$165,000, but that night he went to bed feeling restless
and did not sleep well. The next morning he changed his
mind. “It just didn’t feel right,” he said afterward. He
increased his bid to $180,000. This was just right—he
outbid his close rival by a mere $200.
In the parable, Conrad Hilton had a strong desire to win
the bid. Although he made a calculated guess at what to
bid, it did not feel right and he tossed and turned all
night long. In the morning, he upped his bid. His new
figure was arbitrary, but it was perfect.
His hunch arose from the wealth of knowledge stored in his
subconscious. He had been in the hotel business ever since
his purchase of a hotel in Texas as a young man. He had
spent many years learning about the field and must have
gathered a staggering number of facts.
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In bidding for the Chicago hotel, he was consciously aware
of the value of the real estate, the owner’s estimate of
its value, and his competitor’s ideas about how much to
stake. Based on this understanding, he placed his first
bid. However, while he slept, his brain probably ruminated
over numerous subtle pieces of information—perhaps the
personalities of the owner and the other bidders, perhaps a
remark heard, perhaps the memory of a offer on another
similar property, and so on. This nonspecific and
unconscious information forced him to raise his bid by an
additional $15,000 when he woke up the next day.
Thus while he made a rational decision based on his
conscious knowledge, his subconscious went through its own
files during the night, and, upon awakening, prompted him
to increase his offer.
In your own life, it is possible for you to go beyond your
conscious knowledge of a situation and tap into the
remarkable powers of your intuition. Perhaps your
intuition will help you move toward a fortune or move away
from a disaster.
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Dr. Natalie Shaines, a New York psychiatrist, says, “A
hunch is only as good as the sum of past experiences that
produces it. You can trust a hunch only if you’ve had
experience in the situation it deals with. I often do
intuitive things in treating patients, for instance. I
have hunches about what will or won’t work. I trust these
hunches because I’ve had a long experience in this field.
I take them to be true perceptions on a nonconscious level.
But if I had a hunch about some field I didn’t know—let’s
say a hunch about making a killing in soybean futures—I
wouldn’t trust it. It couldn’t be a true perception.”
So far, we can deduce two important features to a hunch.
One, they must be based on a strong database of past
experiences. Two, you must trust them.
Intuitions with a weak database are suspect. For example,
intuition about somebody you just met. The feelings you
have may be based on unconscious memories of someone
similar. Someone, perhaps, who looks similiar, wears
similar clothes, talks in a similar way, and so on. But
all these memories don’t allow for the person’s utter
uniqueness.
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In romantic relationships, for example, the attraction may
be to the person’s shadow side.
A classic story in psychotherapy is that of the co-
dependent person who is attracted to the secret alcoholic.
While this may seem to have all the enchantment of
intuition, it is, in fact, something else entirely.
Another form of pseudo-intuition is wishful thinking. When
you want something to happen, you simulate the emotion
associated with intuition. This is not intuition; it’s
hope. “A lot of bad hunches are just strong wishes in
disguise,” notes Dr. Natalie Shainess.
Intuition is a thought followed by a strong feeling. It is
available to people who are in touch with their feelings,
but it can be confused with emotions of psychological
compensation or wishful thinking. Yet, if you don’t trust
your intuition, you silence it. Intuition, then, is a
tricky issue. You have to trust it to make it work and to
keep it active. Yet, when it comes, it has no rational
basis for itself.
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Basically, the rule of thumb is to ask if you have a strong
database for the intuition and to ask if you can afford to
risk following the intuition to verify it.
Since intuition appears irrational—you don’t know why you
know what you know or why you feel the way that you do—you
may be tempted to smother it with reasoning.
But intuition can’t be figured out; it can only be tested
out. Excessive reasoning informs your subconscious that
you simply don’t trust it. It is like shouting at a shy
child to speak up. Inevitably, the child only becomes more
withdrawn.
An intuition, according to Dr. Gendlin, represents feeling
about a total situation absorbed by the mind. Since the
conscious mind can absorb only a limited amount of
information and can only think sequentially, most of the
information is shunted off to the subconscious mind. It is
because of this that analysis is futile. It is like a bank
hiring only a single employee to run the whole bank.
The Bottom Line
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Dr. Abraham Weinberg, a New York Psychiatrist, advises,
“Keep forcing yourself to perceive more than you see. Keep
asking yourself, ‘What are the vibrations here, what do I
feel?’”
Also, when you’re learning about something, collect the
soft facts along with the hard facts. Soft facts are
feelings and impressions, which are subjective. Hard facts
are measurable data, which are objective. This way you’re
telling your subconscious that you consider it a valuable
ally in your total observation.
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Chapter 13
The Stunning Failure
When Willis H. Carrier was a young man, he worked for the
Buffalo Forge Company in Buffalo, New York. He remembered
that one of his toughest projects was the installation of a
gas-cleaning device in a plant of the Pittsburgh Glass
Company at Crystal City, Missouri. While the device,
designed to clean gas as it burned without damaging the
engines, worked properly, it was new and had only been
tried once under different conditions.
As Willis worked on this project, problems arose – because,
while the device did work, it did not work properly.
Stunned by his failure, Willis got nervous, upset, and
physically ill, and he obsessed about the malfunctioning
device to the point of insomnia.
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Finally, in a fit of desperation, Willis decided to think
his way out of his problem.
His first step, he decided, was to fix himself; the device
could wait. Worry, he decided, had rendered him
ineffective.
After much thinking, he came up with a peace-of-mind plan.
His plan, he believed, would allow him to get a handle on
resolving the mechanical problem. To his surprize, it
worked so well that he used the plan for the next 30 years.
“I analyzed the situation fearlessly and honestly,” he
commented, “and figured out what was the worst that could
possibly happen as a result of this failure.” It was
unlikely that he would be jailed, shot, or hanged. The
worst that would happen is that he would be fired and be
forced to look for a new job. Also, his employer would
lose $20,000, which could be written off as a tax loss.
“After discovering,” he concluded, “the worst that could
possibly happen and reconciling myself to accepting it, if
necessary, an extremelly important thing happened: I
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immediately felt a sense of peace that I hadn’t
experienced in days.”
After reconciling himself with his possible fate, Willis
calmly devoted the rest of his time to trying to resolve
the issues with the gas-cleaning device. After running
several tests, he estimated that his company needed to
spend another $5,000 to buy some additional equipment which
would solve the problem.
The additional equipment worked and the company made a
profit of $15,000.
“I probably would never have been able to do this,” Willis
summarized, “if I had kept on worrying because one of the
worst features about worrying is that it destroys our
ability to concentrate. When we worry, our minds jump here
and there and everywhere, and we lose all power of
decision. However, when we force ourselves to face the
worst and accept it mentally, we then eliminate all these
vague imaginings and put ourselves in a position in which
we are able to concentrate on our problem.”
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When you face your problems, you can find remarkable
solutions.
In the parable, Willis figured a way out of his problem by
first working on his own mental fog, then focussing on the
problem. He thought his way to a successful attitude by
imagining the worst scenario. This method alleviated his
fears because he brought them out in the open and faced
them. Once this was done, he moved on to exploring the
problem by running tests, coming up with some empirical
data, and investing more resources, time, money, and energy
to fixing the problem. While his approach was somewhat
paradoxical – he had to contemplate failure before he could
open himself up to look at success – his method did the
trick.
In your own life, you, too, can move beyond your stuck
states by contemplating all the possible consequences of
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your own particular situation. What is it that you want to
work in your life? What inner obstacles prevent you from
achieving the successful outcome you desire? Once you have
confronted your own fears, pulled the emotional skeleton’s
out of your mental closet, then you will be ready to take
stock of your current situation, look at it objectively,
and try out new strategies. You may have to pull on a few
resources to manage the situation.
Thus, there are several stages of problem-solving.
First, get clear on your vague fears and imaginings. Bring
them out in the open. Confront them.
Second, once you have some inner clarity, freed from
emotional congestion, look at your problems objectively,
empirically. Ask yourself, “What needs to happen here to
make things work out?”
And third, apply what resources you can harness to
resolving your problem.
Above all, find your way back to faith in your situation.
When you believe in yourself, when you can rekindle the
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flame of hope in your heart, when you can reanimate your
brain and your nervous system – then the creative solution
to your problem will arise. Once you clear the vague,
illusive, obstructive emotional blocks, your mind will
function clearly and well.
The Bottom Line
Once you confront a problem head on, you’re halfway there
to resolving it. Turning your back on problems, avoiding
them, and procratinating only makes them more substantial
and terrifying. Once you face your fears, you can begin to
solve your problem. Once you have brought your fears to
light, courage returns, and with courage comes hope, and
with hope, creativity, boldness, and magic.
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Chapter 14
One Took the High Road
Anne and Maggie grew up in the same Chicago suburb, went to
the same high school, and then went to the same junior
college. They also went to work for the same insurance
company, and both were hired to work in its billing
department.
Although the two women had similiar socioeconomic and
educational backgrounds, there was an obvious difference,
which affected their careers. Anne was extroverted and
friendly, while Maggie was introverted and reserved. In
the company cafeteria, for example, Anne would always talk
to the people who shared their table, while Maggie would
read the newspaper or poke the food around her plate.
Since the company was huge, most people were strangers.
Anne made many new friends. Maggie made only a few. Anne
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enjoyed talking to strangers and finding out about their
lives. She also enjoyed exchanging ideas. Humanity
fascinated her. Maggie seldom joined the conversation
unless an attractive man joined their table. Usually
Maggie sat quietly, frequently bored, while her friend,
gesturing animatedly next to her, engaged in conversations.
One day Anne chatted with an old man who worked in the
personnel department. The conversation turned to women’s
careers. She confessed that she had long since learned the
skills needed to do her job and hoped for more challenges.
A few days after this conversation, the old man stopped
Anne in the corridor. He mentioned a job opening in the
personnel department and he offered to help her transfer if
she were interested.
Although the new job was another secretarial job, requiring
a low amount of skill, and paying as little as the previous
job, Anne enjoyed it – because part of her responsibility
was to interview people who resigned. Anne tried to find
out the reasons for their leaving. She learned how their
job could have been more attractive.
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Meanwhile, Maggie stayed on at Accounts Receivable.
After two years, Anne became a full-time interviewer, and
now spoke to those who wanted to join as well as those who
wanted to leave. One outgoing employee was her friend
Maggie, who had found a better paying secretarial job. She
was leaving, she said, because no special opportunities had
come her way.
Two more years were to pass before Anne became the
Assistant Personnel Director. Her main responsibility was
to assess and address the main career problems of women
employees.
One day an executive recruiter called her on behalf of a
bank. The bank had been experiencing costly difficulties
over sex discrimination among employees. They were
prepared to pay a handsome salary to a Personnel Director
who knew about women’s job rights.
“How did you hear about me?” asked Anne, curious.
The executive recruiter confessed that it had been in an
extraordinary way. He had initially contacted a woman
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college professor who had written about gender problems in
a labor-relations journal. The professor had recalled
Anne, who had attended one of her seminars. She recalled
that Anne had spoken to many participants and had suggested
numerous ideas to them. She had also spoken to the
professor about some innovative job ideas when the two of
them had accidentally met on campus. The professor had
been impressed by Anne’s friendliness.
Anne joined the bank, becoming its Personnel Director. She
doubled her salary and improved her career profile.
Maggie, meanwhile, had married and quit her previous job.
Unfortunately, the marriage did not last and she returned
to secretarial work.
When you are warm and outgoing, people and opportunities
come your way.
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In the parable, Anne and Maggie both shared many things in
common – except for personality. Anne was curious about
people and life, Maggie was indifferent and withdrawn.
Anne, consequently, attracted opportunity and gathered
ideas and skills wherever she went. She made an impression
on the old man she met in the company cafeteria and on the
professor whose seminar she had attended. Both recommended
her for advancement.
Between these events, however, Anne developed a knack for
interviewing people. This gave her enough information and
experience to leverage the prestigious bank job.
Maggie, unfortunately, never developed any skills in
relationships. Consequently, on the job and in marriage,
she did not find a way to learn how to express herself.
In your own life, you can create your own luck by learning
to become more open and curious about people and life. In
the long run, the gregarious person attracts more
opportunity than the reserved person. Try this small
experiment. Spend one day being reserved. Then spend the
next day being gregarious. Note the difference. Which was
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more fun? Which attracted more “luck?” Which brought out
more of the best in you?
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Chapter 15
The Bridgehouse
Mr. Galen Litchfield, the manager of Asia Life Insurance,
was in Shanghai when Japanese troops invaded. This was in
1942, after the invasion of Pearl Harbor.
A Japanese Admiral was sent to liquidate the company’s
assets. Litchfield was ordered to assist in this
liquidation. He didn’t have any choice. He could either
cooperate or face the grim consequences of certain death.
He was ordered to compile a list of the company’s assets—
but there was one block of securites worth $750,000, which
he left off the list because they belonged to the Hong Kong
organization and were not part of the Shanghai assets.
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Still, he feared the Admiral’s wrath should the omission be
discovered.
And it was discovered—soon afterward.
Litchfield wasn’t in the office when the discovery was
made; only the head accountant.
Litchfield received the chilling new on a Sunday afternoon.
The accountant told him that the Admiral had flown into a
terrible rage. He had stomped and cursed and branded
Litchfield a thief, traitor, and scoundrel.
Litchfield knew the consequences of defying the Japanese
Army. They were grim. He would be fling into the
Bridgehouse! The name alone filled people with fear. It
was a torture chamber. Litchfield had personal friends who
had committed suicide rather than be taken to the
Bridgehouse. Other friends had died in the Bridgehouse
after only ten days. Now it seemed Litchfield himself was
destined for the chamber of horror.
Litchfield went to the typewriter in his room in the
Y.M.C.A. He wrote out two questions. The first: What am
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I worrying about? The second: What can I do about it? He
had used this technique for years whenever he had a
problem. Now, the answers might save his life. Writing
down the answers to these questions clarified his thinking.
He wrote that the problem was that he was afraid that he
might be thrown in the Bridgehouse.
“What,” he asked himself, “would he do about it?”
He spent hours answering the second question. He came up
with four possible courses of action and weighed each one.
One, he could try to speak to the Japanese Admiral. But
the Admiral spoke no English. He could use the
interpreter, but this might only irritate the Admiral, for
he was an irrational and cruel man who would rather let the
sadists in the Bridgehouse deal with interrogations.
Two, he could try to escape. But his chances were slim.
The Japanese kept track of him all the time. He had to
check in and out of his room at the Y.M.C.A. If he did get
caught trying to escape, he would be shot.
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Three, he could stay in his room and never go near the
office again. But, if he did, the Admiral would become
suspicious. Soldiers would be sent to get him and they
would throw him into the Bridgehouse.
Four, he could go down to the office on Monday morning as
usual, pretending that nothing was wrong. Perhaps, the
Admiral would have cooled off by then. Perhaps, he would
be too busy to remember. Or, perhaps, the Admiral would
give him a chance to explain why he made the omission in
the list.
After long deliberation, the fourth option appeared
favorable. It offered him the best chance of survival.
As soon as he had made the decision and made a committment
to follow it, a wave of relief swept over him. Exhausted,
he went to bed and slept well.
When he entered the office on Monday, the Admiral was
there, smoking a cigarette. He glared at Litchfield but
said nothing. Six weeks passed, and still the Admiral did
nothing to bring up the topic. Then—the Admiral was sent
back to Tokyo.
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Make a decision and act on it. It could even save your
life.
In the parable, Galen Litchfield’s experience illustrates
the importance of arriving at a decision. He was caught in
a no-win situation. Any decision could have been the wrong
one. There was no way for him to resolve this dilemma.
However, not making a decision is also a decision. It is
choosing to act impulsively, and not rationally. There are
also consequences to this.
The failure to arrive at a decision causes a person to go
round and round and round in maddening circles. The person
ponders over the same information over and over. It is
this failure to grasp a problem that creates nervous
breakdowns. Once a decision is made, a clear, definite
course of action opens up. Once a decision is acted on, a
flow of courage and energy opens up new possibilites.
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There is no guarantee that the decision is correct. Not
making a decision, however, can result in disaster. If
Litchfield had not made a decision, he would have been
nervous in the presence of the Admiral. This may have been
seen as an admission of guilt. The result: the
Bridgehouse.
In your own life, you can arrive at a decision in a
baffling situation by writing down four steps.
Step one: Write down what the problem is.
Step two: Write down what you can do about it.
Step three: Decide, or choose, what to do.
Step four: Act on it as soon as possible.
This method should not be underestimated because it is so
simple. It is efficient, concrete, and strikes at the root
of the issue. Decision-making puts an end to an endless
loop of fact-finding and increasingly bewildering analysis.
Once sufficient facts are in, and once sufficient analysis
has been done – make a decision and act on it.
112
Decisions are powerful because they lead to action. Action
is a positive effort to resolve the problem.
Sometimes problems do go away on their own. Sometimes they
need decisive action. Sometimes you need to wait to get
more information. But whether you decide to ignore, act,
or wait – do decide rather than wallow in uncertainty.
Seldom are decisions life and death issues. Often enough,
you have to make the wrong decision so as to later on
arrive at the correct one. It is not possible to be wholly
accurate, but it is possible to find the right route by
taking all the wrong ones first.
It is self-destructive to refuse to confront a situation.
When you deal with it, you’re on your way to resolving it.
Above all, decide. Waite Phillips, one of Oklahoma’s most
prominent of oil men, once said. “I find that to keep
thinking about our problems beyond a certain point is bound
to create confusion and worry. There comes a time when any
more investigation and thinking are harmful. There comes a
time when we must decide and act and never look back.”
113
The Bottom Line
Once you have made a careful decision based on the
available facts, swing into action. Avoid hesistation,
reconsideration, retracing your steps. Follow the advice
of William James: “When once a decision is reached and
execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all
responsibility and care about the outcome.
114
Chapter 16
The Inspired Boy
Ben Cooper, the son of a poor immigrant tailor, lived in a
disheveled neighborhood in St. Joseph, Missouri. The
family was so poor that they could not eat everyday.
They lived in a small home...and Ben was assigned the task
of heating it. He would pick up pieces of coal near the
railroad tracks, collecting them in a coal scuttle. This
task embarrassed him and he used the back streets to avoid
meeting children from his school.
What made the task particularly unpleasant was a group of
boys who delighted in ambushing him. These three boys
would wait until he had filled his coal scuttle before
pouncing on him, beating him up, and scattering his coal
all over the street.
115
They laughed as they watched him run home crying.
Ben lived in a constant state of dread.
Then, one day, Ben came across a book that changed his
life.
The book was Robert Coverdale’s Struggle by Horartio Alger.
Ben identified with the young hero, a boy about his own
age, who faced great odds. But, unlike Ben, the young
hero faced his tormentors with unflinching courage.
Sitting in his shabby kitchen, Ben slowly read every one of
Horatio Alger’s books. He forgot about his own cold and
hunger. His mind was elsewhere: immersed in tales of
courage.
As the winter wore on, he fed his soul and warmed his heart
with these stories. Something began to change inside him.
He began to feel bigger, more substantial. He began to
feel within himself the birthing of a hero.
116
One day, between readings, on his way back from his coal-
gathering trip, he spied three figures slinking behind a
soot-stained wall. Usually, he would have turned on his
heels and fled to the safety of his home, but today there
was something else alive inside of him, something bigger,
more substantial.
He continued walking toward the wall. Unconsciously, his
grip tightened around the cold steel handle of his coal
scuttle. He braced himself. His scuttle was already
flying before they pounced. It hit the leader of the pack
right on the forehead. He went down like a large sack of
cement.
Alarmed at this unexpected aggression, the other two boys
turned and fled. Ben gathered up a few chunks of coal and
threw it at them. He chased after them, but they were
bigger and faster than he was and made a clean escape.
Returning back to his coal scuttle, Ben found the leader
sitting up, a dazed look in his eyes, an enormous welt over
his eyebrows. Ben raised his right arm threateningly –
and, to his surprize, the boy jumped to his feet and began
to run.
117
A big chunk of coal bounced off the back of the fleeing
boy’s head.
When we begin to live the life we imagined, we become
bolder and more adventurous.
In the parable, Ben Cooper was raised in a slum and his
dire poverty reinforced his feelings of low self-worth.
Although he would come home beaten and crying and without
coal, his family did not support Ben in his terrifying
predicament.
Ben was alone in a harsh world.
He found solace in a virtual reality, the fictional world
of Horatio Alger. Immersed in this world, he absorbed it
into his thoughts and feelings. Fictional heroes inspired
him to discover his own grit and determination, his own
118
courage in the face of adversity. In time, they
transformed him from servility to indignation.
His new attitude pushed him to act out his fantasies. In
real life, he developed a source of personal power. He was
no bigger, no stronger than before, but his complete
absence of fear, his sudden transformation terrified his
bullies.
In your own life, you can similarly choose to be nurtured
by identifying with someone who has succeeded. By relating
to someone, whether through reading about them or actually
associating with them, you can stop relating to your own
ingrained negative attitudes.
While your bullies may not be physical, like Ben’s, but
more subtle, like fear and self-doubt, by assuming an
image that inspires you, by pretending to be someone bigger
and stronger, someone more capable, you can overcome your
own particular demons.
Assume an image of power and act out your fantasy. When it
is acted out in the real world, it assumes a life-force of
its own which will pull you into a positive future. Your
119
whole personality will be transformed by the experience of
changing a wish into an event.
The Bottom Line
The only way past fear is through it. Fear is a wall that
holds you back. It stymies your personal power. Fear is a
source of torment, a bully who will beat you down until you
face it and fight back.
120
Chapter 17
The Proud Chemist
A young chemist who worked in a small mining company, took
up a better paying job in New York, hoping to move up to
doing pure research. Neither his wife nor his boss
approved of his decision. His wife thought that city life
would be a rude contrast to the peace of their native
mountains and the abundant trout streams. His boss, the
President of the mining company, also had his doubts and
invited the young man to take his job back if he returned
within six months.
For the young chemist, the taste of the Big Apple turned
sour after only a few months.
121
The glamor of the city faded and his job conditions changed
considerably. The job changes occured when the senior
executive who had hired him was stripped of power and
transferred to another division of the company. With him
went a whole realm of possibilities that would have
gradually opened up for the young chemist.
Although the potential opportunities of the job had changed
overnight, the young chemist, a proud man, decided to stick
it out rather than face the humiliation of going back home
and admitting that he had made a mistake.
In addition, the young chemist had invested a considerable
amount into his new job.
He had invested money to move his family, buy and furnish a
suburban home, and in numerous incidental expenses. He had
invested time in making the move. And he had invested
effort in learning new skills, attending company-sponsored
seminars and night classes to supplement his education.
Six months passed, then a year passed, then several years.
As the years passed, the chemist, now not as young, became
122
invested in the company’s bonus plans that rewarded long
service.
After many years, the chemist found that he was simply
marking time toward retirement.
His ideal job in pure research was now no more than a
distant pipe dream. He worked in the dull area of
purchasing and quality control.
We need to be flexible, and bold, if we want our life to
have growth and meaning.
In the parable, the young chemist slipped into inertia. As
the years went by he lost his courage to pursue a career of
his choice.
123
When his New York job fell apart, he let his pride get in
the way of heading back home and starting over. He also
had the choice of looking for another job in New York. He
was also unwilling to cut his losses with the time, money,
and effort he had invested in.
While persistence and consistency are often touted as
essential success principles, they can also work against
other success principles: flexibility and sound judgement.
The antithesis to the story of the young chemist, who
doggedly stuck to his investments, is a famous story on
Wall Street. It is the story of a stock market
speculator, the late Gerald M. Loeb, who died in 1975. He
understood the value of flexibility and made a fortune from
applying this simple distinction.
In his book, The Battle for Investment Survival, he used a
specific formula to maximize his gains and minimize his
losses in the fickle stock exchange. Using this formula,
he took advantage of the boom in the 50’s and 60’s and
survived the market fall in 1969.
His principles are still valid in today’s market and in
other areas of life, too.
124
This is how the formula worked:
1. Select a stock to buy.
2. Make your selection on the basis of rational fact-
finding, expert counsel, and intuitional judgement.
3. Recognize that despite your thorough research of the
stock, it’s future is still uncertain.
4. After you buy the stock, several things might happen:
a) The price might fall.
b) The price might rise a short time before it falls.
c) The price might rise for a long time before it
falls.
Only one pattern is certain: sooner or later the price
will fall.
5. When the price starts to fall, wait for it to fall at
least ten to fifteen percent. When it does, cut your
losses. Sell out at the chosen percentage level. Forget
about waiting for the price to rise again. Sell out before
you get hurt. Loeb’s formula, in essence, is that you must
be willing to accept only small losses.
125
6. As long as a stock rises, consider it a success, but
as soon as it falls below a certain level drop it like a
hot potato.
In your own life, recognize that there are many situations
in life that are like the stock market: they fluctuate,
sometimes appearing positive, sometimes negative. The best
way to deal with these events is learning how to maximize
profits and minimize losses. These situations can be
related to careers, relationships, projects, practically
anything which has a life-cycle.
Also, sometimes consistency is a virtue, sometimes it
isn’t. Often, you have to decide.
Emerson once said that a foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds. The key word here is “foolish.”
Sometimes one needs to be consistent to break through to a
higher level of understanding and achievement, as in, for
example, a research undertaking. And sometimes one needs
to re-evaluate a situation to see if it is leading you to
where you really want to go, as in, for example, the career
of the chemist.
126
Success has a knack for elaborating two illusions. One is
the illusion of mastery. The other is the illusion of
control. But life works on a different principle...the
principle of change and uncertainty. Recognize this fact,
rather than fight it. We all know stories about people or
corporations, who appear to have mastered their particular
discipline and who appear to have complete control of their
outcomes, then when conditions change they fall apart
because they are still operating on those skills that once
worked.
Flexibility, then, or adapatation to change is a
fundamental success principle. The dinosaurs were not
flexible. Humankind has been flexible. Magnificent
civilizations have flourished during their era of expansion
and flexibility, but when they created inflexible rules of
control and conditions changed, they collapsed. How much
more fragile, then, is the average person, who is living in
our fast-paced world. As technology accelerates, many
skills become obsolete and there is a need for flexibility
in adapting to coming changes.
Change is part of life. Learn to navigate your course in
life by the winds of change. What you have invested in the
127
past is not a sure indication of what you will need in the
future.
There are mainly two reasons for making a change. One,
opportunity has floated into sight and you must boldly
seize it. Two, opportunity has been lost and you need to
move away before things get worse.
How does one balance flexibility with consistency?
Consistency should be pursued as long as resources last and
there is a predictable possibility that things can get
better.
Flexibility should be pursued when you could be making more
progress doing something else with the resources you
possess.
While flexibility and consistency are opposite principles,
there is a time for each, and that is why both are
legitimate success principles.
Another interesting duality closely linked to flexibility
and consistency is the duality of pessimism and optimism.
While in most cases, pessimism is destructive and optimism
constructive, there are exceptions.
128
Healthy pessimism can be constructive and naive optimism
can be destructive.
Healthy pessimism is accepting that things can go wrong and
preparing to meet it with solutions. Opening up a savings
account, for example, is a solution. You’re saying, in
effect, I may not always be making as much money as today,
or you could be saying, I’m preparing money to invest in
future opportunities. Either way, you’re meeting the
future with a solution for a problem or opportunity.
Naive optimism, using the same example about savings, is
choosing not to save, because you believe that things will
always flow smoothly.
Change is something inherent in life. It is also something
we insert into our lives. We can elect to change. Again,
this is not a simple proposition. Change, for its own
sake, for the sake of excitement, is not always
beneficial. Change prompted by boredom or restlessness is
often too haphazard to be successful. In the job market,
for example, it is a loss of momentum to simply hop from
one job to another. It is a gain in momentum if the change
129
is intentional, if it is a movement from a lower state to a
higher state, a movement to more opportunity or more
earnings.
The Bottom Line
A college professor at the University of Michigan, Dr. E.
Louis Mahigel, was once a professional poker player. He
said he learned valuable lessons about flexibility from the
game. “An outstanding characteristic of the successful
gambler,” he noted, “is that he knows how and when to get
out of a hand and cut his losses. Of course, he knows all
the mathematical odds by heart, which gives him an edge
over most people he hustles, but his main edge is in the
area of emotion. When the odds say he probably won’t win,
he doesn’t argue; he just leaves his money in the pot and
lays down his cards. The chronic loser isn’t emotionally
equipped to do that. He’s so desperate not to lose his
investment that he takes wild chances to protect it.”
130
Chapter 18
The Royal Road
Nicholas Darvas, escaping his war-torn homeland, Hungary,
sought refuge in Turkey in June 1943. In Istanbul,
however, he faced a new crisis. Now, he had no friends, no
money, no knowledge of Turkish, and no citizenship. He
risked starvation. He also risked losing his sense of
specialness. He didn’t want to be poor and hungry for the
rest of his life. No, he had fonder hopes for himself. He
wanted to thrive. He wanted to be an outrageous success.
After the penniless 23-year-old exile fought off immediate
peril, he turned his mind back to dreams of glory. He
analyzed his situation by listing his talents. He
dismissed numerous options. Only one talent really
appealed to him. Only one sang to his soul. He loved to
dance.
131
Yes, he finally decided, he would be a dancer.
Dancing fit his personality. In dancing, he had only to
display the grace of his body in motion. He did not have
to be witty or eloquent. He was basically a shy person.
He would be different, special, unusual. He would dance
amazingly well. He would be the best. No, better still,
he would be the best of the best. He would dance in the
finest theaters in the world. He would dance to packed
audiences. He would flit, like a butterfly, across the
stages of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities. He would
be a firefly of the night- life. People would talk about
him long after he had left the stage. Newspapers would
rave about his performances. Agents would compete for his
attention. Yes, people the world over would be willing to
pay a high price for the joy of seeing him dance. Just by
watching him, people would be enthralled. They would be
inspired by his power, speed, grace, agility. He would be
famous. No, world-famous. His life, he decided, would be
one of splendid, dancing, uplifting motion.
132
Slowly the images took shape in the theater of his mind.
He eagerly outlined how he would achieve his lofty
ambition.
He considered a powerful twofold plan.
One, he would learn the latest dance steps. He would
practise until he could perform them smoothly,
effortlessly, flawlessly.
Two, he would market his talent to the world. Talent alone
might land him numerous engagements in Turkey, but it would
not open up the rest of the world. He had to let the top
people, the wheelers-and-dealers of the entertainment
industry, the influential managers, producers, and agents
know that he existed. They would learn that he was someone
to watch out for, someone who would make them popular and
very, very rich.
He rehearsed daily. He practised, as he had promised
himself, the latest dance steps. His clumsy feet moved
gracefully after hours; his heavy legs rose off the ground,
as if levitating, after months. He read
voraciously...devouring the the international dance
133
magazines. He learned avidly...about the styles of the the
best dancers. He investigated their favorite locations,
where only the elite performed.
Gradually, after years, as he exposed himself to the world
of dance, a map emerged in his mind. He saw a royal road.
It led to the glittering, night-lit cities, where the top
dancers mesmerized audiences. The royal road he envisioned
in his mind took him from here to there. Archimedes talked
about wanting to move the world with a lever – but he,
Nicholas Darva, would spin it around on the balls of his
feet.
On the route to success, Turkey would be the first
milestone. He would make himself well-known in his new
homeland. Then, he would spread his wings, like a
butterfly blossoming in the light. He would dance in the
Middle East. He would dance in Europe.
Eventually, he would dance in Paris. From Paris, he would
leap across the ocean and dance in New York. New York, he
decided, would be his ultimate destination. In New York,
he would establish his presence, and from there on he would
be invited to dance in all the big cities of the world. He
134
would dance around the world. He was Nicholas Darva. He
was invincible. His fate was inevitable. It had all been
decided. It was as good as done.
With his plan in his mind as clear as a vivid dream, he
prepared for New York. Now he spent three afternoons a
week watching American movies. He wanted to understand the
culture. He wanted to capture the American heart.
In these movies, he saw the dance routines that Americans
loved. But, he looked deeper, beyond dance, into trends,
fashions in drama. He saw a wide variety of movies. He
discerned trends. Vague patterns floated in his mind.
Ideas came to him and he wrote them down. There was
something elusive he was tracking down. It was subtle, a
question of nuances. Elusive, half-remembered dreams
floated before him when he awoke in the mornings. There
were patterns before him, but he could not put them
together into one synergistic whole. Then after months of
accumulative musing, the ideas began to fall into place.
He saw dance trends in non-dance movies. For example,
In gangster movies, gun-shot victims reeled a number of
times before dying. Americans, he discerned, loved
135
exaggeration, larger-than-life stuff, heroic proportions to
their drama.
Since the audience loved drama, he would give it to them in
his dance routines.
Another trend also emerged. Suspense, intrigue. Movie
plots were full of mystery, confusion, surprise. He would
create a choreography full of these elements. The audience
would find him unpredictable, surprizing, sensational.
A time came when he did indeed dominate the dance stage of
Turkey. He found occassional work in the Middle East. He
now moved to the second part of his plan: marketing.
Since he could not afford to buy the promotion he needed,
he created a sort of mail-order business. He gathered the
names and addresses of all those responsible for hiring
dancers in France, in Europe, and in New York. He
assembled a gargantuan list of theatrical agents, managers,
and night-club owners. Every week, without failing, he
sent them regular mailings -- letters, pictures and
newspaper clippings about his latest dance routines. He
sent notices of when and where he would be performing next.
136
He sent publicity releases whenever he could, where-ever he
could. Slowly, these unknown people started to respond.
They wrote back to him, they visited his acts, they invited
him to their clubs. His dream was emerging, attaining an
energy and mass that even surprized him.
One day, in New York, in his dressing room, he looked at
himself in the mirror and smiled. A shiver ran up his
spine. He was looking at the highest-paid dancer in the
world.
Later on in life, Nicholas Darvas created imaginary
blueprints for other fields. He thrived and enjoyed
outrageous success in everything that he tried. He went on
to become a multimillionaire, a successful theatrical
producer, a real estate tycoon, an international
businessman, and a Wall Street wizard (who made $2,000,000
in the Stock Market).
137
A clear plan, a flexible strategy, and an invincible
determination will create your dream, no matter where you
start at from.
The Principles at Work
In this parable, Nicholas Darvas focussed on his strong
points. He didn’t dwell on his weaknesses. He chose his
strongest asset, love of dancing, and built it into a
formidable asset. Since he was shy, he found an ambition
that worked around that social liability.
After finding his heart’s desire, his bliss, he dared to
dream big; he dreamed the biggest, boldest dreams that he
could think of. He wanted to do more than merely dance –
he wanted to be phenomenal, the best of the best,
unforgettable. He wanted to be famous.
He then translated his dream into two managable plans.
First, he developed talent. Second, he marketed it. Then
he continued to reality-test and refine his plans. He
created a feedback loop between his inner desires and
138
imaging and the outer world of possibility, working and
reshaping forms of dance that were already in existence.
He took action with unbending intent. He put his twofold
plan into effect by doing practical things within his
reach. He researched and rehearsed the latest dance steps.
He subscribed to international magazines to keep abreast of
his chosen profession.
In line with his goal of dancing in New York, he set about
learning about dance forms in the United States. He also
studied audience response in general. By watching movies,
he learned to see cultural patterns. He noticed that since
Americans loved drama and suspense, he built his
choreography around the element of surprize.
After mastering his talents, he developed the second
pathway to his success. He learned how to sell himself, to
broadcast his talents to a captive audience of night-club
talent agents, managers, and owners around the world.
Throughout this journey, he refused to believe in
limitations. He also displayed self-confidence, prior to
developing his talents and connections. He put faith
139
before experience. And, he took risks, investing time,
money, and energy into his project.
In short, he dreamed big, developed elaborate plans, and
then acted boldly with unbending intent.
In your own life, you can implement all the important
aspects of planning your royal road to success. Here are
some pointers:
1. Isolate your strongest talent. Forget about your weak
points. Use your precious energy to master one particular
skill. Focus on your best quality and be a success at it.
2. Forget about your personal flaws. Make choices where
they don’t get in the way. While it may be possible to
change maladaptive conditioning, consider this as another
venture. Build upon your assets. Once you have
sufficiently strong assets, you can go back and take care
of your liabilities.
3. Dare to dream big. Why bother with half-measures?
Compromised dreams have no power to energize and excite you
into action. Playing it safe is a losing proposition.
Even if you never measure up to an absolute standard,
140
you’ll be pushed much further than you would have ever
dared to go.
4. Break your big plan into small, managable parts. See
the big picture, then figure out how to make it all fit
together.
5. Stay in touch with the outer world. Keep abreast of
the latest trends and use them in your plans. Learn only
what is relevant. Avoid obsolete techniques. Keep an eye
on the market. Note where it is, where it’s moving, and
orient yourself accordingly.
6. Stay out of the shadows. Make some noise. Find a way
to get noticed. Frank Sinatra broke into show business by
standing on a table and singing. He was a waiter and he
sang to a top local producer. Similarly Darvas sent out
unapologetic news bulletins to people who neither knew nor
cared about him; but he eventually got them interested.
Create a way to help people help you.
7. Learn about your market. Isolate your target
audience. Study what interests you; make it fun, bold, and
exciting.
8. Refuse to believe in limitations. Limited thoughts
create limited people. “The sky,” as Wayne Dyer has
correctly reminded us, “is the limit.” Napoleon Hill once
said: “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe,
141
it can achieve.” When you doubt your competence and
question your options, you lose vital energy. You need
this energy to press on with your goals. The more original
your ideas, the more critics you’ll find. Don’t add to the
inertia by adding your own name to the list of critics.
9. Above all, plan, dream, and act.
10. And when you fail, learn from your mistakes, and
continue.
--The End--
142
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143

18 Parables of Success

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18 Parables of Success

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18 Parables Of Success

18 True Stories That Teach You

Permission to duplicate and distribute copies is granted as

long as it is distributed in whole, without addition,

subtraction, or modification, and so long as it is distributed

and publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy,

applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this report. The information

EVERY EFFORT HAS BEEN MADE TO ACCURATELY REPRESENT THIS

PRODUCT AND IT'S POTENTIAL. HOWEVER, THERE IS NO GUARANTEE

IDEAS IN THESE MATERIALS. EXAMPLES IN THESE MATERIALS ARE NOT

TO BE INTERPRETED AS A PROMISE OR GUARANTEE OF ANYTHING. SELF-

HELP AND IMPROVEMENT POTENTIAL IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT ON THE

PERSON USING OUR PRODUCT, IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES.

YOUR LEVEL OF IMPROVEMENT IN ATTAINING THE RESULTS CLAIMED IN

OUR MATERIALS DEPENDS ON THE TIME YOU DEVOTE TO THE PROGRAM,

IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES MENTIONED, KNOWLEDGE AND VARIOUS SKILLS.

SINCE THESE FACTORS DIFFER ACCORDING TO INDIVIDUALS, WE CANNOT

GUARANTEE YOUR SUCCESS OR IMPROVEMENT LEVEL. NOR ARE WE

RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY OF YOUR ACTIONS.

RESULTS AND NO GUARANTEES ARE MADE THAT YOU WILL ACHIEVE

RESULTS SIMILAR TO OURS OR ANYBODY ELSE'S, IN FACT NO

OUR IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES IN OUR MATERIAL.

is provided “as is”, and without warranties.

As always, the advice of a competent professional should be sought.

of any sites listed or linked to in this report.

any other implied or explicit purpose.

CHAPTER 1: A Change of Mind ………………………………………… 7

CHAPTER 2: Quest for Freedom ................……………………………... 16

CHAPTER 3: The First Space Strike ....................…………………………... 23

CHAPTER 4: The Lucky Lease ……………………………………………… 31

CHAPTER 5: The Restless Boy.................... ………………………………. 37

CHAPTER 6: The 2nd Day Of Creation.......... ………………………………. 44

CHAPTER 7: Victory over the “African Bug”………………………………… 53

CHAPTER 8: Around the world on $80......... ……………………………... 60

CHAPTER 9: The Automatic Champion........... …………………………... 65

CHAPTER 10: The High Flyers.. ……………………………………………… 71

CHAPTER 11: The Millionth Pebble........... ………………………………. 81

CHAPTER 13: The Stunning Failure........................ ……………………………... 95

CHAPTER 14: One Took the High Road........... …………………………... 101

CHAPTER 15: The Bridgehouse ……………………………………………… 107

CHAPTER 16: The Inspired Boy.................. ………………………………. 115

CHAPTER 17: The Proud Chemist.............. ………………………………. 121

CHAPTER 18: The Royal Road.................... ………………………………. 131

Napoleon Hill, the famous inspirational writer, once met a

reader who became a millionaire after reading one of his

books. The book, Think and Grow Rich, transformed Bill

McCall of Australia from rags to riches.

When Bill was 19 years old, he sold hides and skins. He

failed miserably. Two years later, he ran for Federal

Congress. Again, he failed. In desperation, Bill went to

the library to read about success principles. There, he

found Hill’s book.

Although he read the book three times, he failed to see how

to use the success principles. Then, during the fourth

reading, something shifted within him, a flash of

inspiration, and his life changed.

Honorable William V. McCall, now a director of 22 family-

owned businesses, and now a man as rich as the people whom

while walking leisurely along a business street in Sydney.

And then it happened! It happened suddenly. I stopped in

front of a meat market and glanced up. And in that

fraction of a second I had a flash of inspiration.

“You see, I was reading Chapter Four entitled