All great men have followed one success, with another, and another. Thomas Edison did not stop when he invented the talking machine (record player). Next, he invented the light bulb. It did not work with his first try; it came on after 3000 failures. Edison said, “I now know 3000 ways a light bulb won’t work.” Did he quit? No, thank goodness, or I would be writing this in the dark.” Edison patented over an additional 300 inventions.
Edison used to go fishing with his friends, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone. One day, Edison’s wife asked her husband what he and his friends did while fishing. They had no hooks and no bait. Edison’s reply was, “We’re just fishing for ideas.”
The more the mind does, the more it can do. Ideas are released energy. You can do more and better work than you ever have done before with this released energy. You can know more than you know now. You know from your own experience that under proper mental conditions of joy or enthusiasm, you can do three or four times the work without fatigue than you could ordinarily do with this released energy.
Tiredness is more boredom than actual physical fatigue. You can work almost indefinitely when the work is a pleasure. One of the most famous and most reproduced poem, The Victor, by C.W. Longenecker, starts out by saying:
“If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don’t;”
If you like to win, but think you can’t, it’s almost certain you won’t.
The poem ends by saying:
“Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man; But, sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.”
The key word throughout this message is THINK.
It all begins in a person’s mind and thinking capacity. Success begins with a person’s will; it’s all in the state of mind.
Today’s Exercise: Use your mind, it’s free!
Today’s Affirmation: I have a positive mental attitude, therefore I am a success.
Points to Ponder: Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man; but sooner or later the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.
