Year of Growing Rich: Week 37
What Exactly Does it Mean to Have a "READY MIND?" It's actually a big part of The Champion's MINDSET...
Week 37 “A Ready Mind”
Progress, and most any type of ACHIEVEMENT, calls for an open mind.
A FREE mind, or what the Japanese call shoshoni, a “beginners mind” or an “empty mind.” One that is open to learning something brand new. A mind that isn’t already SET on opinions like “That won’t work” or “I could never do THAT!” A READY MIND is just the opposite.
That’s how Napoleon Hill begins this lesson, going on to challenge us that closing our minds to new ideas, concepts, people and experiences locks a door that can prevent us from expanding our own thinking and capitalizing on life’s possibilities.
“Only if you have an open mind can you grasp the full impact of the first rule of the science of success: Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.
The person blessed with an open mind performs wonderful feats in business, industry and all professions while the fool with the closed mind is still shouting Impossible!” —Napoleon Hill, A Year of Growing Rich
Emerson said this type of READY MIND requires courage over conformity. The courage to believe when those around you can’t, or won’t.
“Whatever you do you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon there is always someone there to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising to tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course and follow it to an end requires…courage.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Know anyone who always seems to focus on the negative?
I’m sure you’ve heard the term “doubting Thomas,” can you think of someone you’d put into that category when it comes to their mentality or their thinking? Someone you know will take the cynical or “can’t-do-it” position before the message is ever delivered?
Why are so many so quick to jump to the worst possible scenario they can imagine in most any situation?
Are you a “worrier?”
Or do those around you know you as a positive FORCE in your thinking and attitude, even when things don’t go your way?
Believing THE BEST and focusing on how to attain the desired outcome doesn’t work EVERY TIME, but it does set you apart from those who are defeated long before the battle is really over. And who have already lost (in their minds) almost before they begin.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Napoleon Hill.
Sometimes carefully choosing our words is like finding exactly the right tool for the job. It’s a powerful message that should challenge each of us and done with such an “economy” of words…
“The human mentality withers unless it is in constant contact with the stimulating influence of FRESH THOUGHT.” —Napoleon Hill
Here’s to the STIMULATING INFLUENCE of FRESH THOUGHT and new ideas waiting just around the corner for us all.
Discipline yourself to make time for sharpening our greatest human tool…