The Strangest Secret
Do you know what will happen
to 100 individuals who start even at the age of 25, and who believe they will
be successful? By the age of 65, only five out of 100 will make the grade! Why
do so many fail? What happened to the sparkle that was there when they were 25?
What became of their dreams, their hopes, their plans ... and why is there such
a large disparity between what theses
people intended to do and what they actually
accomplished? That is ... The Strangest Secret.
Some years ago, the late
Nobel prize-winning Dr. Albert Schweitzer was asked by a reporter, “Doctor,
what’s wrong with men today?; The great doctor was silent a moment, and then he
said, “Men simply don’t think!”
It’s about this that I want
to talk with you. We live today in a golden age. This is an era that humanity
has looked forward to, dreamed of, and worked toward for thousands of years. We
live in the richest era that ever existed on the face of the earth ... a land
of abundant opportunity for everyone.
However, if you take 100 individuals
who start even at the age of 25, do you have any idea what will happen to those
men and women by the time they’re 65? These 100 people believe they’re going to
be successful. They are eager toward life, there is a certain sparkle in their
eye, an erectness to their carriage, and life seems like a pretty interesting
adventure to them.
But by the time they’re 65,
only one will be rich, four will be financially independent, five will still be
working, and 54 will be broke — depending on others for life’s necessities.
Only five out of 100 make the
grade! Why do so many fail? What has happened to the sparkle that was there
when they were 25? What has become of the dreams, the hopes, the plans ... and
why is there such a large disparity between what these people intended to do
and what they actually accomplished?
THE DEFINITION OF
SUCCESS
First, we have to define
success and here is the best definition I’ve ever been able to find: “Success
is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”
A success is the school
teacher who is teaching because that’s what he or she wants to do. A success is the entrepreneur who start
his own company because that was his dream — that’s what he wanted to do. A
success is the salesperson who wants to become the best salesperson in his or
her company and sets forth on the pursuit of that goal.
A success is anyone who is
realizing a worthy predetermined ideal, because that’s what he or she decided
to do ... deliberately. But only one out of 20 does that! The rest are “failures.”
Rollo May, the distinguished
psychiatrist, wrote a wonderful book called Man’s Search for Himself, and in
this book he says: “The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice …
it is conformity.” And there you have the reason for so many failures.
Conformity — people acting like everyone else, without knowing why or where
they are going.
We learn to read by the time
we’re seven. We learn to make a living by the time we’re 30. Often by that time
we’re not only making a living, we’re supporting a family. And yet by the time
we’re 65, we haven’t learned how to become financially independent in the
richest land that has ever been known. Why?
We conform! Most of us are acting
like the wrong percentage group — the 95 who don’t succeed.
I cannot take credit for this work. I want to share The Strangest Secret. If you have not listened to Earl Nightingale and The Strangest
Secret, stop what you are doing, find the audio clip and listen. If you truly desire something
different, this will change your life.
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