Your thoughts determine your direction. It is impossible to act in a way that is inconsistent with the way you see yourself. How you see yourself, is how you approach life. If you believe you cannot get ahead, then the chances are you never will, however if you believe you can get ahead, the chances are you probably will.
“J D Rockefeller is an interesting personality. Some people call him a wonderful business titan, other people call him a robber baron. You cannot deny the fact that he achieved quite a bit with his life, and he has, in fact, from a financial standpoint, achieved more than any other person in history. All things considered, he is probably the wealthiest person who has ever lived, certainly the wealthiest in modern times.
He started a company called Standard Oil, which after an antitrust suit, was broken into 34 companies, two of which include small companies like Exxon Mobile and Chevron. He was a 90% shareholder in those companies. Hence, J D Rockefeller, of course, multi, multi billionaire, was so wealthy he would lend money to the federal
government when they got in trouble. This is true!
His childhood was a strange one. He had a father who was con man. His mother brought him up on her own. She taught him a moral life and he really was a moral man. He said, ‘I never took a sip of alcohol, or tobacco, and I always treated my staff with compassion.
One of the interesting things about J D Rockefeller is how generous he was, even when he had nothing. There are accounts of him finding his neighbours in need, and finding a way to get money to help them. He would lend people money or give people money outright. Additionally, he had this tremendous love of work. In a time where there were unjust child labour laws, he got a job at .50 cents a day, which even then was absolutely nothing, was immoral and wrong, and you would think that he would always kind of curse the name of the boss that took advantage of this teenage boy, right?
But the rest of his life, J D Rockefeller celebrated the day he got that job. He celebrated it as ‘job day’ until he died when he was 97. Every September 26th he had a party at his house to celebrate his first job he ever got. This is a man who loves
work, and who appreciates anyone who would hire him to do their labour.
He also had a sense of destiny. As an adult, he was a clerk attached to a new company… and he was supposed to catch a train to get to his new job. It was one of those scenes from a movie where back then, there were no planes, so you had to get around by train and if you did not catch your train, you would be delayed… sometimes days. We find him running down the platform, carrying his bags, and he could see the train pull away! His heart sank… he was shouting out… “Come back!” Well that same train hours later have a terrible accident and everybody on the train died.
This affected him in a big way. He talked about it a lot. He believed God spared him for a reason, and his whole life, he had these two things: one, a celebration and love of work that he felt so honoured to be able to be working and doing work, but the other, a sense of destiny; that every day he woke up.
Do you think he knew what his destiny was when he woke up the next morning? Absolutely not. He just knew there was something, and that was enough. These two changes in thoughts for J D Rockefeller, along with integrity, which he got from his mother, created, in a way, J D Rockefeller. And J D Rockefeller is a mind. It is a mind that made certain decisions in life. And whether we agree with all those decisions or not… we do agree with the life of the man. You cannot take away that the result of his life is first and foremost the result of his thinking.” What you think about tends to manifest itself. Your thoughts determine your direction. This is just one instance… there are so many stories we can share from our lives.
Hence, we need to work on the following:
- Create positive affirmations.
- Learn to apply full stops.
- Stop being masochistic.
- Appreciate and enjoy what you have.
- Savour the joys of achievement.
- Always stand tall and hold your head high.
- Allow yourself to be playful and childlike.
- Seek happiness and contentment.
- Be a master of your moods.
- Wake up with a resolve to stay happy during the day.
- Your body is your temple…honour it.
- Meditate daily.
- Focus on changing yourself, not the world around you.
- Make the best of what you have.
Victories attained by right thought can only be maintained by watchfulness. Many victories give way when success is assured, and rapidly fall back into failure. Achievement, of whatever kind, is the crown of effort, the diadem of your thought. By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity, righteousness, and well-directed thought a man ascends; by the aid of animality, indolence, impurity, corruption, and confusion of thought, a man descends.
SELF CONTROL IS STRENGHTH; RIGHT THOUGHT IS MASTERY; CALMNESS IS POWER. KEEP YOUR HAND FIRMLY UPON THE HELM OF THOUGHT. CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS AND YOU CHANGE YOUR WORLD!!
