For those of you not familiar with the book, Hill interviewed more than five hundred successful people from early last century. He identified thirteen behavioral traits common to most of these outstanding performers. We are talking about people like Thomas Edison, Theodore Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller, Wilbur Wright, Henry Ford and Woodrow Wilson. This sounds like pretty good company to keep. And think about the tools not available to aid in their success. Their time was before Social Security, Medicare, personal computers, Internet, cell phones, email, Tweeter, Face Book or even fax machines. And the economic times they experienced were as rough as or rougher than ours today.
I remember the comment about wealth distribution I learned a number of years ago. If all the money in the world was collected and deposited in one place, it would all soon find itself back in the same pockets. What makes the difference in the determination of who will develop and continue to attract wealth regardless of the external circumstances? Our internal guidance and our external activities have and will always make a huge difference between having abundance or not.
I need not cover all thirteen of Hill’s points as you may read or review for yourself. But here is one insight with some clues. “Truly, thoughts are things and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence and a burning desire for their translations into riches.” Learn how to utilize the power of the Mastermind Group, energizing the subconscious mind to maximize our natural given brain power. If anything, technology has increased the information available and the speed to access it. William E. Henley, in his poem, Invictus, (also a great recent movie of the same title) writes that “It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
So Captains, we all, first take charge of our thoughts. Mix in some faith, education and persistence and if you believe in the fundamentals you will not be surprised at your successful results. These principles held true in the past and no doubt will be valid in the future so let’s be intelligent and utilize these ideas in our present.
