Week 12“Have Confidence in YOURSELF!”
“From my dad I learned never to give up. He taught me it’s better to go after something special and risk starving than to surrender.”
—Jim Carrey, comedian/movie star/multi-millionaire
One of the great lessons I’ve discovered over the years is in the beginning of innovation, new ideas, or revolutionary thinking…don’t look to those around you for confirmation or support.
History has also proven that these radical new ideas happened because of the CONFIDENCE of uncommon individuals.
In the beginning of new ideas or new ways of doing something, the CROWD is seldom right.
Napoleon Hill shares the story of Thomas Edison having a discussion with the maker of some of his invention models. Edison plays the role of the inventive genius with his model-maker as the doubting Thomas who comes up with all the reasons why something new WON’T WORK!
Fortunately for us Edison won out and his voice-recorder became a “talking machine” that was previously thought, even by those around the genius inventor as IMPOSSIBLE. History proves that the impossible is done over and over by confident individuals who refused to let the opinions of others dissuade them from achieving amazing things even in the midst of doubters, scoffers, and other small minds.
Recently I’ve been watching “The FOOD that built America” on the History Channel and it’s so fascinating to hear the stories of ordinary individuals who went ALL-IN on their NEW THING and risked everything to make it happen.
“The person who backs his ideas and plans with SELF-CONFIDENCE always has the advantage over those who give up and quit at the first signs of defeat…
Success doesn’t crown the person who sells himself short through LACK of self-confidence. It does favor the person who knows what he wants, is DETERMINED to get it and refuses to accept the word IMPOSSIBLE.”
—Napoleon Hill, A Year of Growing Rich
This lesson alone is one of the greatest reasons to own your own copy of Hill’s book A Year of Growing Rich.
This is one of the greatest lessons of success throughout history permeating the writings and recordings of some of the greatest speakers and leaders and teachers and authors on BIG SUCCESS.
Hill drives home the fundamental of confidence in yourself by explaining the magic of our subconscious mind and our inner confidence that can propel our actions and attitudes toward a desired result.
Most people send negative messages, not only to others, but to themselves, as their mind and inner self hears the negative messages over and over. Spaced-repetition is how we LEARN anything, from our multiplication tables to any measure of success or a confidence that we CAN SUCCEED.
It’s that “what the mind can conceive and BELIEVE it can achieve” quote that we’ve all heard. And it is basic, fundamental, truth when it comes to the evidence that the most successful individuals of our time and times past have left behind for our benefit.
“Surely it must be harder than this,” most will say.
But this single lesson is confirmed as a building block for most any big-success- foundation. Believing in yourself, having confidence and faith, and taking action in a specific direction lead to accomplishing BIG DREAMS and big results that many have called IMPOSSIBLE once upon a time.
Light, flight, the 4-minute mile, a man on the moon, Edison’s inventions and many more RADICAL, NEVER-DONE-BEFORE ideas all were called IMPOSSIBLE. And today all of them and a long list of other impossible things are almost routine.
“Every successful person has a SYSTEM for conditioning his mind to feed the subconscious with aims and purposes (goals) of his own choice, and to do it so intensely that it has no opportunity to attract anything that is not desired.
The technique of the system is unimportant as long as it conveys to the subconscious, by REPETITION, a clear description of what is wanted.”
Use your subconscious to build your SELF-CONFIDENCE and you will STRENGTHEN YOUR MINDSET and train your mind to serve you in all you do.
Even when others may doubt, or things seem difficult, even impossible…
You can STILL “Have Confidence in YOURSELF!”