Foreword
These
days there seems to be a lot of confusion about whether there are any
permanent
truths to hang on to. So much is changing, and in the course of my
life. I have
certainly witnessed many profound changes in this world.
But
I have discovered that some things do not change. Because of that, I
can write
this book based on enduring principles that I have built upon in my
lifetime.
First,
I have found that the spiritual help available is the same today as
fifty years
ago. If anything, the method of living I have called 'Positive
Thinking' has
gained greater acceptance throughout the years.
Second,
the simple formulas for applying this spiritual guidance to everyday
life are
the same today as when I started to preach. As we worked on this book,
I asked
myself, would people in the future, trying the same methods, achieve
the same
results as someone I told about in 1970? It was exciting to answer that
question with a resounding yes, because everywhere I travel
today I hear
similar stories of powerful results in the lives of people from many
walks of
life.
Third,
the hurts and needs of people stay the same. Our clothes may change, or
the
ways we earn a living, or our method of travel. (I used to go
everywhere by
train and thereby met many interesting people.) But the basic human
problems of
inferiority, loneliness, worry, fear, tension, and doubt never change.
I
suppose they have not changed much since the beginning of time.
So,
you are holding the result of those three discoveries. These concepts
work when
you work them; they are timeless; people still have the same needs that
provoked the development of these ideas. My positive prayer for you is
that you
will find something for your life.
If
I could get across just one concept, it would be this: You are
someone
special because you have divine potential within you just waiting to
blossom.
Once
you start with that idea, nothing can hold you back, because you will
start to
see yourself as God does: a person of wonder and beauty. You will find
the
source of positive attitudes that lead to belief, faith, hope,
anticipation,
enthusiasm — in a word, LIFE.
By
now, I'm sure you have deduced that the germination of the material for
this
book came to me as I performed my function as a minister of the
Christian
Gospel. These days, there seems to be uncertainty about what preachers
should
preach and whether the teachings of Jesus are valid today.
To
me, Jesus is simply the greatest personality who ever lived. He has the
greatest thoughts of any philosopher. He has the greatest wisdom of any
counselor.
He has the deepest insight of any psychiatrist. But most of all, He has
the
greatest love possible for every man, woman, or child who was ever born.
Perhaps
He summed it up best when He described His purpose in coming to this
earth and
walking among men. He knew that many negative forces would press upon
mankind.
He called these forces 'thieves' who set upon unsuspecting lambs:
'The
thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I
am
come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly'
(see John
10:10).
<>
Abundant
life! What a wonderful concept. That life is open to you.
NORMAN
VINCENT PEALE
Chapter
1
A
Positive Attitude Works Wonders
Any
person, who needs a change within himself, or within his life, can have
this
take place by changing his mind. This, however, cannot be superficial
mental
change; it must be in-depth. Such a change can be extremely effective.
Are
you, perhaps, facing a hard situation? Are you involved in some
unsatisfactory
personal relationship? Is there some other kind of trouble in your
life? We
could hardly enumerate all the problems a human being has to deal with.
But
there is a great answer to them all, and it is this: They can all be
changed
and you can be changed — everything for the better — through the magic
of a
positive mental attitude.
Now,
a positive mental attitude, a phrase coined by my dear friend W.
Clement Stone,
is not just some cheery, blithe point of view. A truly positive
attitude faces
all the cold, hard realities of a situation and sees them straight. It
does not
desire to evade them — because it knows it can handle
them. A positive mental attitude is positive thinking in-depth. It is
vertical
thinking: it rises to God, comes back to you, back to God, back to you;
the
power passes along a vertical line and, lest you think this is some
kind of
psychological dissertation, there is a text from the Bible that
supports it,
'Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.' That means if you
don't like
the way you are now, you can change yourself by making a fundamental
change in
your mind.
Let us
imagine a difficult situation. There does not seem to be any
hope in it, any possibility, any potential. Now, let's bring two men
with
different points of view up against it. One has a negative attitude and
the
other a positive attitude. The man with the negative attitude will
immediately,
of course, be appalled by it. He will see no chance of light in the
darkness.
It is all impossible. It's hopeless. There is no chance of doing
anything with
it. So naturally, a series of unhappy circumstance develops from it.
What else
could he expect? His negative outlook emphasizes every destructive
aspect of
the situation. He is an expert at that.
Now, on
the other hand, a man with a positive attitude, facing
precisely the same situation, asks himself some questions. He is no
Pollyanna.
He knows the score; he sees the difficulties. But he asks himself, What
is
God trying to say to me through this tough situation? There is an
answer here,
and I mean to find it. I know that, with the help of God, I can handle
this
situation and turn it to happy results. Consequently, from the
situation
flow bright and happy potentials.
Isn't
it strange — or is it? What makes the difference? It is how you think
about
something. It is whether you bring to a situation (personal, business,
social,
or whatever it may be) the magic of a positive mental attitude.
Never Say — You 'Can't'
I
admire the industrialist Henry Kaiser. He was a great big man,
physically,
spiritually, and mentally. He came from humble beginnings, but he had
been
raised in a Christian home, with a positive spirit, and he believed
that with
the help of God you could accomplish anything. He had a principle that
anything
you can conceive, you can achieve. It was said of him that he never
knew when
something couldn't be done, which is a remarkable virtue to have.
There
are so many people around today saying that society is going to pieces
and the
country is going down the drain. Let us hope these people never become
the
majority in our society — or we will be through. Fortunately, we still
have
people who believe that, out of all the tumult of this hour, we will
build a
greater world than ever before. With a positive attitude, the minds of
all
people can be transformed so they will see things from the standpoint
of new
and more profound justice and brotherhood than ever before. And these
things
will come to pass. A positive mental attitude — it's a magical thing!
I
was reading the sports pages of the newspaper one day. These I enjoy
even more
than the front pages, because you know that there are pretty decent
people on
the sports pages. If you read the sports pages, you can stand the front
pages.
Anyway, I was reading about a football player named Tom Dempsey, who
was then
playing for the New Orleans Saints. He had just single-handedly won a
game over
the New York Giants. He was twenty-two years old and considered by some
the
greatest field-goal kicker in the game. With unerring accuracy, he
would boot
the ball right over the crossbar. He was a genius with the foot —
because he
was also a genius with the mind.
His
foot was motivated by a positive attitude, for Tom Dempsey, big fine
husky chap
that he is, was born with a right hand without fingers and a
half-formed right
foot. He had to wear an orthopedic kicking shoe that cost him two
hundred
dollars. But with that half foot, he made incredible kicks. One
sportswriter
asked him, 'How do you do so well, being handicapped?'
Because he didn't
know he couldn't...
During World War II,
America had to have more ships and have them fast, and the shipbuilding
companies couldn't produce enough. Their methods were too slow. Kaiser
came
forward and offered to build them. Now, he had never built a ship, but
ships
were needed, and he was an American, and he believed that God would
help him do
it. I was at the meeting where he told a whole ballroom full of leading
industrialists how he was going to build what they called 'liberty
ships'.
Some men sitting near
me
made the most uncomplimentary remarks about Mr. Kaiser: 'He's a fool.
He knows
nothing about ships. How can he build them?'
But Kaiser did build
them, because he didn't know he couldn't!
'What's
that you say?' he asked. 'I don't know the word. I never thought of
myself as
being handicapped. And, as for the word cant, it's not in my
vocabulary.'
Now,
how about you? Your difficulty, little or big — is it bigger than you?
Or are
you bigger than it? 'Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.'
Know
that, with faith, all things are possible, all things; and you
will be
the beneficiary of the magic of a positive mental attitude.
What
is it that undergirds this positive attitude? It is nothing dreamy or
Pollyannaish; it is a solid fact, a fact that should be brought again
and again
to the attention of us all. It is the fact of who you are. Who are you?
You are
a child of God. You are a being in time and eternity.
You
have a physical body and this physical body is a marvelous instrument.
We take
it too much for granted. Only God could have thought of the physical
body. Only
God could have created it. Look, what it can do. Take, for example, a
hand. It
may seem ordinary. But look at the various positions and motions you
can make
with your fingers and your hands. You can turn it down and you can
raise it up;
you can reach behind and sideways. Think of the angles, the joints, the
engineering that goes into that one small member of your body known as
a hand!
And that isn't all there is about you. There is the heart and the
central
nervous system. There is the blood vessel system and the bone
structure. And
this wonderful body isn't the greatest thing about you, either.
There
is in you that indescribable thing called God's power. It is a power
over
yourself, a power over situations, a power over circumstances. If you
exercise
this power, amazing things can be done. It is through the use of a
positive
mental attitude that you have such power. Now, you must be humble about
it. It
isn't your power. It is God living within you. This is why we
constantly
urge people to come into a closer relationship with God. Why? He
releases
power, whereby anyone can manage himself and make a contribution
through this
inner thing called spiritual power.
One
of the first stories ever published in Guideposts magazine was
by
aviator Eddie Rickenbacker, who was a great American and a sincere
Christian.
He titled the article 'I Believe in Prayer,' and he told how, in his
adventurous life, power of prayer had enabled him to face death a dozen
times,
look it right in the eye, and live. He said this was one of the things
that
made him believe in a protective Providence and in life after death.
He related an
experience he had while driving a racing
car, many years ago, on a speedway. He had it going at the top of its
power. He
was leading the pack, driving skillfully. Suddenly he felt a faint
tremor in
the mechanism. Now, he knew that, if anything went wrong at that speed,
it
could mean disaster and possibly death. But instead of thinking
disaster, he
prayed in confidence and faith. He sent up the vertical thought to God.
And
suddenly, he said, he had one of the greatest experiences of his life.
He knew
exultantly that he had power over that machine that he could bring it
in even
if it deteriorated — he could bring it in, driving it not by his hands
but by
his mind. Rickenbacker said that if he had told other drivers of this,
they
would have thought he was crazy. He knew that there is built into a
human being
an enormous power, if he will but use it.
I
once went with Rickenbacker to a hospital to speak to airmen who had
been sent
back from the fighting front, many of them broken in body and in
spirit. I'll
never forget him standing there, as he spoke to those airmen about the
power
God had put in them. He told them they mustn't give in to depression or
defeat
in the face of any problem. He closed his speech in this manner: 'Let
me tell
you guys something,' he said. (They all had their eyes riveted on him).
'If you
haven't had an experience of God in your life, you get yourself one
mighty
quick, because with that you will have power over all your problems.'
'Well,'
you say, 'Rickenbacker was an extraordinary person.' That is right. But
so are
you, if you will allow yourself to be. The trouble is that many people
write
themselves off as ordinary. But God never made an ordinary human being.
Maybe
you think you never could have power like this. But you really can, if
you
believe you can.
Discover Your Potential
I
once made a speech to a chamber of commerce in a southern city, and it
was
recorded for a radio broadcast later on. When I went back to my hotel
to get my
bag, I heard a radio playing in the lobby, and I recognized my own
voice. I saw
there weren't many people in the lobby, so I sat down behind a pillar
to listen
to my own speech, just to see how it sounded. After listening for a
little
while, I decided to go upstairs to my room and get my bag.
Now,
the girl running the elevator was leaning there, chewing gum. I got in
the
elevator, and presently she pulled herself together and got in to run
it up for
me. I asked her, 'Did you listen to that speech on the radio there in
the
lobby?'
'Yeah,'
she answered, 'I listened to it.'
'What
did you think of it?'
'Well,'
she replied, 'that man sure does like to hear himself talk, doesn't he?'
'You
don't know me, do you?' I asked. And she said no, she didn't for which
I was
profoundly grateful!
Well,
I got my bag and, on the way down, I talked with this elevator operator
again.
She said, 'You know that speech by that man?'
'The
one who likes to hear himself talk?'
'Yes,
sir, that's the one.' She continued, 'You know, there was one little
point that
got to me. It was pretty good.'
'What
was that?' I asked.
'Well,'
she said, 'you know what he said? He said, "Everyone has something
greater
in him than he ever knew."'
'You
think you've got that in you?'
'Yes,
sir. I know I have, and someday I'm going to go places.'
Well, that was the last
I ever saw of her. But from the
look in her eyes and that sense of latent power she expressed, I have
no doubt
that the positive mental attitude, if cultivated, can give her power
over her
problems.
God
has planted this potential in you and me, and it will never rest until
it is
realized — until you get yourself 'transformed by the renewing of your
mind.'
It is God who does it. The greatest thing that can happen to anyone is
to
accept Christ, to find Him, to have Him explode in your mind, to become
identified with Him. He is not merely the head of a religious faith or
someone
whose picture is in stained-glass windows. He is a vital principle. And
when
this principle connects with a human being, a great transformation
takes place.
There is romance in the way people's lives can be changed through God.
A man is
weak, defeated, sinful, confused and everything suffers accordingly.
All of a
sudden, God comes into this man's mind and soul and works a
transformation, a
miracle, and the man is changed. He is no longer the same person.
Everyone can
become a changed person by the power of God and the magic of a positive
mental
attitude.
Some
years ago, I was speaking in a church in New Jersey on a Sunday
afternoon.
Sitting in the pulpit before speaking, looking at the congregation, I
noticed
the face of a certain man. The minute my eye caught his eye, he smiled
at me
and I smiled at him. And I sat there thinking about him, for this man
is a
miracle of transformation. There was a time when he was really licked
and had
become a heavy drinker, for that was the only way he felt he could live
with
himself. Everything was at loose ends. He was mixed up, hopeless, and
running
low on money. It was one job after another and all that disorganized
kind of
living.
Well, one day he was
slumped over a bar in Brooklyn, as
he describes it, about half shot. There was a radio in the bar and it
was tuned
— get this — to one of my sermons.
And
he was listening. Now, thousands of people listen to sermons and
nothing
happens. But once in a while something does. So here he was slumped
over a bar.
And something was said in that sermon about the immense possibilities
of a
human being who would accept God into his life to reorganize him.
The
next Sunday, this man came to Marble Collegiate Church, and he was
there every
Sunday thereafter for a long time. He became a member of the young
adult group.
His life was completely changed. But, he said, it was not in the church
or in
the group that the change occurred. He was changed in that bar when an
idea penetrated
his consciousness and exploded in his mind. The explosion was from the
sudden
belief that God could change him. He experienced then there the magic
of a
positive mental attitude.
Now, however
the change takes place, it is
valid. If you live your days thinking on an elevated, positive level
with God,
everything, including yourself, will change. Problems that you couldn't
handle.
Situations that previously you couldn't endure, you now will be able to
endure
or even change. Accept this concept. Tell yourself, 'I will live with
the magic
of a positive mental attitude through the help of God.' You'll never be
the
same person again — you will be a new person.
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