The Strangest Secret – Part 1

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I’d like to tell you the strangest secret in the world… by Earl Nightingale

NOTE: The text below is a transcript of the audio… I made some very minor changes to accommodate today’s readers by removing the masculine gender (where possible)to represent all people.

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. But since it’s here, we pretty well take it for granted. We in America are particularly fortunate to live in the richest era that ever existed on the face of the earth … a land of abundant opportunity for everyone.

But you know what happens? Let’s 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 who all start even at the age of 25 believe they’re going to be successful. If you ask any of these individuals if he wanted to be a success, he would tell you he did. You’d notice 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.

Think about it…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

When we say about 5% achieve their success we first, must define success and here is the best definition I’ve ever been able to find: "Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal."

If a person is working toward a predetermined goal and knows where they are going that person is a success. If they’re not doing that they’re a failure. "Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal."

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 trouble for today… is Conformity – people acting like everyone else, without knowing why or without knowing where they are going.

Now think of it, in America right now there are over 18 million people 65 years of age or older and most of them are broke. They are dependent on someone else for life’s necessities.

We learn to read by the time we’re seven. We learn to make a living by the time we’re 25. 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! The trouble is most of us are acting like the wrong percentage group – the 95 who don’t succeed.

Now why do these people conform? Well they really don’t know. These people believe their lives are shaped by circumstances, by things that happen to them, by exterior forces. They are outer directed people.

A survey was made one time that covered a lot men working and these men were asked: "Why do you work?" "Why do you get up in the morning?" Nineteen out of twenty had no idea. If you ask them, they’ll say everyone goes to work in the morning and that’s the reason they do it… Because everyone else is doing it.

Now let’s get back to our definition of success… who succeeds? The only person who succeeds is the person who is progressively realizing a worthy ideal."

Is the person who say I’m going to become this and begins to work toward that goal?

I’ll tell you who the successful people are is the school teacher who is teaching because that’s what he or she wants to do. Success is woman who wanted to be a wife and mother and is doing a good job at it. A success is the entrepreneur who starts his own company because that was his dream – that’s what he wanted to do. A success is the successful salesperson who wants to become the top notch salesperson to grow and build with his or her organization. Success is anyone who is doing deliberately a predetermined job because that’s what he or she decided to do deliberately. But only one out of 20 does that! That’s why today there really isn’t any competition unless we make it for ourselves. Instead of competing, all we have to do is create.

You know for 20 years I looked for the key which would determine what would happen to a human being. Was there a key I wanted to know which would make the future a promise that we could foretell the future to a larger extent? Was there a key that would guarantee a person success if they only know about it and knew how to use it. Well there is such a key and I found it.

End part one — [amazon-product text="Earl Nightingales The Strangest Secret Millennium 2000 Gold Record Recording" type="text" target="blank"]1893984001[/amazon-product]