“Even the person whose sole object is to acquire wealth must be prepared to make great personal sacrifices before he can accomplish his object; and how much more so he who would realize a strong and well-poised life” — As A Man Thinketh

Whether you like Bobby Knight or not, you have to respect his ability to produce championship teams. One of his winning principles is one I have come to embrace: “The will to succeed is important, but what’s more important is the will to prepare.”

For all of my life I’ve had the will to succeed. Like most people, I’ve always wanted to stand in the winner’s circle — to win the championship — to wear the gold medal. But for a good part of my life I never fully understood that champions aren’t made on the day of the game. That’s simply the day the world recognizes all of the preparation that took place before that day arrived.

It has taken me many years to learn that none of the “big” things I’ve done have helped me to succeed. Instead, it’s all of the little things that I did over and over. For example, the discipline to plan each day’s work the night before, no matter how tired I was, has had more to do with my success than any “big” thing I’ve ever done. Not a “big” thing, but a necessary thing in getting prepared to win.

The adoring crowds and television cameras aren’t around when Champions are made. They’re made in the early morning hours when the rest of the world is sleeping just a little bit longer; in the late evening hours when fatigue has overtaken the average person and sent them to bed. In thousands and thousands of little ways that they discipline themselves to do the things that everyone could do, but most people won’t do. As one of my heroes, Muhammad Ali, said, “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”

And that’s worth thinking about.

“A person cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.” – As A Man Thinketh

In her outstanding book, Choose the Happiness Habit, Pam Golden writes: “Take the story of two brothers who are twins. One grows up to be an alcoholic bum. The other becomes an extremely successful businessman. When the alcoholic is asked why he became a drunk, he replies, “My father was a drunk.” When the successful businessman is asked why he became successful, he says, “My father was a drunk.” Same background. Same upbringing. Different choices.”

The brothers chose different thoughts about the identical experience. Those thoughts over the years shaped the circumstances they now find themselves in.

There was a time in my life when I chose to think about challenges and obstacles as just more of the “bad luck” I seemed to attract. Ever hear the expression “when it rains, it pours?” That was my constant mantra when others asked me how things were going. So what do you think I got more of? If you answered “RAIN,” you’re correct!

Bob Proctor says “you’re either living in the problem or you’re living in the solution.” Now, when I’m confronted with what I used to think was a negative situation, I use a different thought process. I force myself to replace those negative thoughts that creep in with positive thoughts about how I might solve the “problem.” Sometimes I’ll take a notepad and just start jotting down ideas that might be a solution. At the same time, my thoughts are focused on the possible lessons I might learn from the situation so that I might profit from the experience in the future.

If you’ve guessed that it doesn’t “rain” as much in my life as it used to, you’re correct again. In fact, most days it’s a beautiful, cloudless and sunny day! Only occasionally now do I get any rain, and it’s good rain, the kind that makes living things grow.

And that’s worth thinking about.

Note: This was previously published in Day by Day with James Allen, but its message bears repeating many times.

“Faith and purpose constitute the motive-power of life. There is nothing that a strong faith and an unflinching purpose may not accomplish.” — The Path to Prosperity

In my darkest hours, when it appeared I didn’t have a whole lot to hang onto, I somehow managed to develop the most important element of success in any undertaking: Faith.

I remember driving down the road in the 12-year-old automobile I had borrowed from a friend (because I had lost mine), telling myself over and over that it was just a matter of time before my fortunes were going to improve. It was a principle that I had borrowed from Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich: “Repetition of affirmation of orders to your subconscious mind is the only known method of voluntary development of the emotion of faith…This is the equivalent of saying that any impulse of thought which is repeatedly passed on to the subconscious mind is, finally, accepted and acted upon by the subconscious mind, which proceeds to translate that impulse into its physical equivalent, by the most practical procedure available.”

One of the most quoted verses of the Christian Bible is Paul’s instructions that “Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.” That in itself tells us that we must see our desired outcome despite our present condition. In a similar way, Answers.com defines Faith as “belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.”

Faith is so important to success that Hill devoted an entire chapter to it, calling it “the second step toward riches (or success in any endeavor).” James Allen was even stronger in his statement above that “There is nothing that a strong faith and an unflinching purpose may not accomplish.”

As Napoleon Hill also tells us:

FAITH is the starting point of all accumulation of riches!
FAITH is the basis of all “miracles,” and all mysteries which cannot be analyzed by the rules of science!
FAITH is the only known antidote for FAILURE!

And that’s worth thinking about.

“Most beginnings are small, and appear trivial and insignificant, but in reality they are the most important things in life.” – Byways of Blessedness

In this one of James Allen’s lesser known books, Byways of Blessedness, he devotes the entire first chapter to beginnings. Mostly the right beginnings.

In my experience, it’s not only the right beginning that is important, it’s beginning in the first place. In other words that powerful six-letter-word: Action.

Without action, you could have the greatest idea and the greatest plan in the world and you would still fail. Whereas a modest idea and an incomplete plan often produces success when accompanied by enough action.

Hugely successful people, the kind who go from mediocre to millions almost overnight, know that the major key to their success was taking MASSIVE ACTION. When Jeff Bezos decided to start Amazon.com, he left his job on the East Coast and headed to Washington State. He had his wife drive him and their belongings across the country so that he could stay on the phone constantly, convincing potential investors and vendors why Amazon would be a success.

Even the smallest of actions, the ones James Allen called trivial and insignificant, can lead to great success. Sir Isaac Newton’s principle that a “body at rest tends to remain at rest and a body in motion tends to remain in motion,” definitely applies to the action principle. Once you’ve taken the first step (even a baby step), the next steps seem easier to take.

My brother shared an incredible insight on this subject with me yesterday: “Actions, like pictures, are worth a thousand words.”

And that’s worth thinking about.

“A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses.” — As A Man Thinketh

You are not limited to the life you now live. It has been accepted by you as the best you can do at this moment.

Any time you’re ready to go beyond the limitations currently in your life, you’re capable of doing that by choosing different thoughts.

We each earn the income we do today because that is the amount we have limited ourselves to earn. We could easily earn 5, 10, 20 times or more if we did not limit ourselves through the thoughts we maintain.

Don’t believe that’s true? Surely you know people who earn much more than you who don’t have your education, your skills, or your intelligence. So why do they earn more than you?

I love the story of George Dantzig that Cynthia Kersey wrote about in Unstoppable. As a college student, George studied very hard and always late into the night. So late that he overslept one morning, arriving 20 minutes late for class. He quickly copied the two math problems on the board, assuming they were the homework assignment. It took him several days to work through the two problems, but finally he had a breakthrough and dropped the homework on the professor’s desk the next day.

Later, on a Sunday morning, George was awakened at 6 a.m. by his excited professor. Since George was late for class, he hadn’t heard the professor announce that the two unsolvable equations on the board were mathematical mind teasers that even Einstein hadn’t been able to answer. But George Dantzig, working without any thoughts of limitation, had solved not one, but two problems that had stumped mathematicians for thousands of years.

Simply put, George solved the problems because he didn’t know he couldn’t.

Bob Proctor tells us to “keep reminding yourself that you have tremendous reservoirs of potential within you, and therefore you are quite capable of doing anything you set your mind to. All you must do is figure out how you can do it, not whether or not you can. And once you have made your mind up to do it, it’s amazing how your mind begins to figure out how.”

And that’s worth thinking about.

Note: This was previously published in Day by Day with James Allen, but its message bears repeating many times.