Have You Listened To "The Strangest Secret" by Earl Nightingale?

One of my favorite audios that I listen to regularly is “The Strangest Secret” by Earl Nightingale.

 

This is a very short and inspiring audio which actually makes you “think”.  I highly recommend you listen to it.  I have found several recordings of it on YouTube but you should be able to Google it and find a downloadable version.

 

In the remainder of this article, I will be quoting and paraphrasing in order to relate to you Nightingale’s “The Strangest Secret” as it is revealed.

 

 

 

One of the stories he talks about in this audio is when being interviewed in London, the late Albert Switzer was asked “what’s wrong with men today?”  Dr. Switzer thought for a moment and said “Men simply don’t think.”

 

Nightingale says if you take 100 men who start even at the age of 25….do you know what will happen to these men by the time they are 65…?

 

1 will be rich

4 will be financially independent

5 will still be working

54 will be broke

 

We learn to make a living by the time we’re 25.  Most of the time we’re not only making a living, we may be supporting a family and these days and times we may often be paying on student loans.

 

And, by the time we’re 65, we haven’t learned how to become financially independent in the richest land that has ever been know.

 

Why?  We conform and the trouble is that we’re acting like the wrong percentage group.  The 95% who don’t succeed.

 

Why do these people conform?  Actually, they really don’t know.  These people believe that their lives are shaped by circumstances, by things that happen to them, by exterior forces, they are outer directed people.

 

“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy idea.” ~ Earl Nightingale~

 

 

Have you wondered by some people are successful and others aren’t?

 

It’s because of goals.  People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going.  Do you have goals?  Have you written them down?

 

Why do men with goals succeed and men without them fail?

 

According to Nightingale in “The Strangest Secret” the answer is “we become what we think about”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not only is he noted for saying this but also Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor says “A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.”

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said this, “man is what he thinks about all day long.”

 

William James said “if you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly ascertain it.  If you wish to be rich, you will be rich.  If you wish to be learned, you will be learned.  If you wish to be good, you will be good.  Only you must then, really wish these things and wish them exclusively and not wish at the same time, a hundred other compatible things just as strongly.”

 

We become what we think about.  A person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going to reach it because it’s what he is thinking about and we become what we think about.  On the other hand, a man who has not goal, who doesn’t know where he is going and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety, fear, and worry becomes what he thinks about. 

 

His life becomes one of frustration, fear, anxiety, and worry and if he thinks about nothing, he becomes nothing.

 

Our mind is like land.  It reaps what we sow. Or, what we think about.

 

 

The key is to decide now what it is that you want.  Plant your goal in your mind.  It’s the most important decision you’ll ever make in your entire life. 

Take time each day to think about your goal in a relaxed positive way. Visualize in your mind’s eye as having already achieved this and see yourself doing the things that you will be doing when you have reached your goal.

 

     30 Day Challenge

 

For the next 30 days take control of your mind.  Each day do more than you have to do while maintaining a cheerful positive outlook, give of yourself more than you’ve ever done before.  Do this knowing that your returns in like must be in direct proportion to what you give.

 

The moment you decide on a goal, you are immediately a successful person.  You are then belong in the top five out of 100 who are in the successful category.

 

Don’t concern yourself to much with how you’re are going to achieve your goal.  Just know that you’re going to do it.