CHANGE YOUR THINKING CHANGE YOUR LIFE (0)

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CHANGE YOUR  THINKING ,
CHANGE YOUR  LIFE
How to Unlock Your Full Potential 
for Success and  Achievement
B R I A N   T R AC Y
JOHN WILEY & SONS , INC.
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CHANGE YOUR THINKING,
CHANGE YOUR  LIFE
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CHANGE YOUR THINKING,
CHANGE YOUR  LIFE
How to Unlock Your Full Potential 
for Success and Achievement
B R I A N   T R AC Y
JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.
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Copyright © 2003 by Brian  Tracy . All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means , electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty:  While the publisher and author have
used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or
warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this
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for a particular purpose . No warranty may be created or extended by sales
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rendering professional sevices, and you should consult with a professional where
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Tracy, Brian.
Change your thinking, change your life : how to unlock your full 
potential for success and achievement / Brian Tracy.
p.
cm.
ISBN 0-471-44858-3 (alk.  paper )
1. Success—Psychological aspects.
I. Title.
BF637.S8T634
2003
158.1—dc21
2003006625
Printed in the United States of America.
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To my wife Barbara,
from whom I have learned so much 
about the importance of love and family.
You are my mainstay 
and my greatest inspiration.
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Foreword
If you are ready to leverage yourself to greatness and achieve giant
results , you have the right road map in your hands.You have before
you the DNA of your future. All you need to create a wonderful fu-
ture for yourself is to read this book, decide how you are going to
apply it to your own life, write out a plan, and then go forth with en-
thusiasm and make it happen .
I have a confession to make. I am one of Brian’s raving fans. I
have studied him, his brilliant work , and the extraordinary results
he has achieved. I am also one of his close colleagues and friends .
We have worked together on many platforms, and met and talked
with each other on numerous occasions.
Brian is one of the finest thinkers and writers on inner develop -
ment and personal success in the world. I know ; I have sold over 82
million books aimed at helping people get the most out of themselves.
Change Your  Thinking, Change Your  Life shows you how to dis-
cover your extraordinary inner resources and tap your incredible
powers.You will learn how to attract into your life all the people and
resources you need to achieve any goal you can set for yourself.
You will absolutely amaze yourself as you start to achieve new
and better results by employing these concepts and ideas in every-
thing you do. These are the same concepts used by all big-time win-
ners, self-made millionaires, and leaders in every field.
In this book, you will learn a step -by-step process to great suc-
cess that you will eventually implement, easily and effortlessly. This
strategy for success is so logical , so inviting, and ultimately so fulfill-
ing and omni-beneficial that it is virtually a breakthrough in per-
sonal performance .
As long as you are going to think anyway, why not think great
thoughts and get great results?
Brian is a shining light in the speaking and writing world. He
has done incredible thinking and achieved amazing results, for
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➤
himself and many hundreds of thousands of other people. Brian’s
thinking in this book will inspire you to do the same or more.
Get ready for one of the great adventures and explorations into
the last great frontier, and the first—your mind! You are about to
have a wonderful experience .
MARK VICTOR  HANSEN
Author, Chicken Soup for the Soul
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Contents
Acknowledgments
xi
Introduction
xiii
Chapter 1
Change Your Thinking
1
Chapter 2
Change Your  Life
18
Chapter 3
Dream Big Dreams
40
Chapter 4
Decide to Become Rich
52
Chapter 5
Take Charge of Your Life
77
Chapter 6
Commit to Excellence
90
Chapter 7
Put People First
118
Chapter 8
Think Like a Genius
136
Chapter 9
Unleash Your Mental Powers
154
Chapter 10 Supercharge Your Thinking
179
Chapter 11 Create Your Own Future
201
Chapter 12  Live  A Great Life
222
Summary and Conclusions
249
ix
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CONTENTS
➤
Bibliography
256
Index
260
Advanced Coaching and Mentoring  Program
268
About the Author
269
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Acknowledgments
The writing of this book has taken many years of work,  reading ,
teaching, and experience. Many people have contributed to my
thinking and have been invisible guides as these chapters came to-
gether. I would like to first thank my friend Mark Victor Hansen, who
introduced me many years ago to Emmet Fox,  perhaps the finest
spiritual thinker of the twentieth century . Ernest Holmes, founder of
Science of Mind, opened my eyes and heart to the incredible universe
of potential contained within each person when they changed their
thinking and changed their lives . Great spiritual teachers such as
Charles Fillmore, Neville,  Eric Butterworth, Wayne Dyer, and
Roberto Assagioli have had a profound influence on my thinking.
I would also like to thank those great practical thinkers on suc-
cess who have had such a wonderful influence on me—and on the
world—such as Napoleon Hill , Maxwell Maltz, Claude Bristol,
David Schwarz, W.  Clement Stone ,  Earl Nightingale, Jim Rohn, Zig
Ziglar, Dennis Waitley, and Charlie Jones.
Business thinkers such as Peter Drucker, Andrew Grove, Ken
Blanchard, Warren Bennis, Tom Peters, Nido Qubein, and Marshall
Goldsmith have greatly enriched me with their ideas and insights.
I would like to thank my editor, Matthew Holt of John Wiley &
Sons, for his unflinching support of this book, and his constant en-
couragement over the many months that it has taken to write and edit.
Not least , I thank my wonderful wife Barbara and my fabulous
children —Christina, Michael, David, and Catherine—for their sup-
port and patience during the long hours away from them to finish
this book.
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Introduction
There  is  nothing on earth that you cannot have  once you have
mentally accepted the  fact that you can have it.
—Robert Collier
■ THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU
You are a thoroughly good person.You deserve a wonderful life, full
of success,  happiness , joy, and excitement. You are entitled to have
happy relationships, excellent health, meaningful work, and finan-
cial independence. These are your birthright. This is what your life
is meant to include.
You are engineered for success and designed to have high levels
of self- esteem , self-respect, and personal pride. You are extraordi-
nary; there has never been anyone exactly like you in all the history
of mankind on earth.You have absolutely amazing untapped talents
and abilities that, when properly unleashed and applied, can bring
you everything you could ever want in life.
You are living at the greatest time in all of human history. You
are surrounded by abundant opportunities that you can take advan-
tage of to realize your dreams. The only real limits on what you can
be, do, or have are the limits you place on yourself by your own
thinking.Your future is virtually unlimited.
■ GET REAL!
How did you react to the preceding three paragraphs? You probably
had two responses. First, you liked what they said, and your fondest
wish was for them to be true for you. But your second response was
probably one of skepticism and disbelief.  Even though you deeply
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desire to live a wonderfully healthy, happy, prosperous life, when
you read those words , your doubts and fears arose immediately to
remind you of reasons why these dreams and goals may not be pos-
sible for you. Well,  join the crowd!
This is exactly how I felt many years ago. Even though I wanted
to be a big success in life, I was unskilled, uneducated, and unem-
ployed. I had no idea what I could do to improve my situation. I felt
trapped between big ideas on the one hand and limited resources
and opportunities on the other. Then I discovered a series of re-
markable principles that have been responsible for all the great suc-
cesses and achievements of the ages , and my life changed forever .
After proving these laws and principles in my own life, I began
speaking, and training others to apply the same ideas.  Since then, I
have given more than two thousand talks and seminars as long as
four days in length, in 24 countries, to a total of more than two mil-
lion participants. Most of them were also skeptical when they first
heard these ideas of optimism and possibility,  until they learned
what you are going to learn in the pages ahead . It changed their
lives, as it will change yours .
■ THE GREAT PRINCIPLE
Perhaps the most important mental and spiritual principle ever dis-
covered is that you become what you think about most of the time. Your
outer world is very much a mirror image of your inner world. What
is going on outside of you is a reflection of what is going in inside of
you. You can tell the inner condition of a person by looking at the
outer conditions of his or her life. And it cannot be otherwise.
■ THOUGHTS ARE THINGS
Your mind is extraordinarily powerful . Your thoughts control and
determine almost everything that happens to you. They can raise or
lower your heart rate , improve or interfere with your digestion,
change the chemical composition of your blood, and help you to
sleep or keep you awake at night .
Your thoughts can make you happy or sad, sometimes in an
instant . They can make you alert and aware , or distracted and de-
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pressed. They can make you popular or unpopular, confident or
insecure,  positive or negative . Your thoughts can make you feel
powerful or powerless, a victim or a victor, a hero or a coward.
In your material life, your thoughts can make you a success or a
failure , prosperous or poverty-stricken, respected or ignored. Your
thoughts, and the actions that they trigger , determine your whole
life. And the best news of all is that they are completely under your
own control.
■ THOUGHTS, FEELINGS , AND DESIRES
You are a complex bundle of thoughts, feelings, attitudes, desires,
images, fears, hopes, doubts,  opinions , and ambitions, each of them
constantly changing , sometimes from second to second. Each of
these elements of your personality affects the others, sometimes in
unpredictable ways . Your entire life is the result of the intertwining
and interconnecting of these factors.
Your thoughts trigger images and pictures, and the emotions
that go with them. These images and emotions trigger attitudes and
actions.Your actions then have consequences and results that deter -
mine what happens to you.
If you think about success and confidence, you will feel strong
and competent, and you will perform better at whatever you at-
tempt. If you think about making mistakes or being embarrassed,
you will perform poorly, no matter how good you really are.
Pictures and images, from your imagination or from the exter-
nal influences, produce ideas, emotions, and attitudes that corre-
spond to them. They then trigger actions that bring about certain
results and outcomes. The  thought  of a person or situation can cause
you to instantly feel happy or sad, elated or angry, loving or lonely.
■ ATTITUDES, ACTIONS, 
AND EMOTIONS
Your attitudes, positive or negative, constructive or destructive,
lead to corresponding images, emotions, and actions that affect
your life and relationships. Your attitudes, in turn , are based on
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your previous experiences and your basic premises about how
things are supposed to be.
Your actions trigger the emotions and attitudes that go with
them. By the Law of Reversibility, you can actually act your way
into feeling in a manner consistent with the action . By acting as if
you were already happy, positive, and confident, you soon begin to
feel that way on the inside. And your actions are under your direct
control, whereas your emotions are not.
In and of themselves, the outer aspects of your life are neutral.
It is only the meaning that you give to them that determines your
attitudes, opinions, emotions, and reactions to them. If you
change your thinking about any part of your life, you will change
how you feel and behave in that area. And since only you can de-
cide what to think, you have the ability to take complete control
over your life.
■ QUESTION YOUR  BELIEFS
The Law of Belief says : Whatever you believe, with conviction, be-
comes your reality .You always act in a manner consistent with your
deepest and most intensely held beliefs, whether they are true or
not. And all your beliefs are learned. At one time, you did not
have them.
Your beliefs largely determine your reality. You do not believe
what you see; you rather  see what you already believe. You can
have life-enhancing beliefs that make you happy and optimistic,
or you can have negative beliefs about yourself and your potential
that act as roadblocks to the realization of everything that is truly
possible for you.
The most harmful beliefs you can have are your self-limiting be-
liefs. These are beliefs about yourself and your potential that hold
you back . Most of them are not true. Most of them are the result of
information you have accepted without question, often from early
childhood. Even if it is completely untrue, if you believe yourself to
be limited in areas such as achieving wonderful health and happi-
ness and earning a lot of money , that will become your truth. As the
author Richard Bach in his book Illusions wrote, “Argue for your
limitations and sure enough, they’re yours.”
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■ YOU ARE A LIVING MAGNET
The Law of Attraction says that you are a “living magnet” and that
you invariably attract into your life the people, ideas, opportunities, and
circumstances in harmony with your dominant thoughts.
When you think positive, optimistic, loving, and successful
thoughts, you create a  force field of magnetism that attracts, like iron
filings to a magnet, the very things you are thinking about. This law
explains why it is that you don’t have to be concerned where your
good is going to come from. If you can keep your mind clearly fo-
cused on what you want, and refrain from thinking about what you
don’t want, you will attract everything you need to achieve your
goals, exactly when you are ready. Change your thinking and you
change your life.
■ THE ONLY REAL MEASURE
Bertrand Russell, the English philosopher, once said, “The very
best proof that something can be done is that others have already
done it.” In the New Testament, Jesus taught the way to measure
the truth of any principle: “By their fruits, ye shall know them.”
In other words, the only question you need to ask about any
idea is, “Does it work?” Does it bring about the results that you de-
sire ? Milton Friedman, the Nobel prizewinning economist, said,
“The only true measure of a theory or idea is your ability to make
accurate predictions of the future based on it.”
The good news is that the ideas and principles you are about to
learn have been tested and proven in the lives and experiences of
millions of people. In themselves, like any principles of nature , they
are neutral. Nature plays no favorites. Nature treats everyone alike.
Whatever seed you plant in the ground, nature will grow . Whatever
thought seeds you plant in your mind, nature will grow as well. It is
entirely up to you.
■  CHOOSE YOUR THOUGHTS
Successful people are those who think more effectively than un-
successful people. They approach their lives, relationships, goals,
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problems, and experiences differently from others. They sow bet-
ter seeds, and as a result they reap better lives. If you learn to
think and act like other successful, happy, healthy, and prosperous
people, you will soon enjoy the kind of lives they do. When you
change your thinking, you change your life.
Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always
serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors and
faults are always those of man. The man incapable of
appreciating her she despises, and only to the apt, the pure,
and the true does she resign herself and reveal her secrets.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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C h 1
a p t e r
Change Your Thinking
There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in
your mind of what you would like to be, and you keep
and hold that picture there long enough, you will soon
become exactly as you have been thinking.
—William James
Once upon a time there was a woman, about 30 years old, married
with two children. Like many people, she had grown up in a home
where she was constantly criticized and often treated unfairly by her
parents . As a result, she developed deep feelings of inferiority and
low self-esteem. She was negative and fearful, and had no confi-
dence at all. She was shy and self-effacing, and did not consider
herself to be particularly valuable or worthwhile. She felt that she
was not really talented at anything .
One day, as she was driving to the store ,  another car went
through a red light and smashed into her. When she awoke, she was
in the hospital with a mild concussion and complete memory loss.
She could still speak , but she had no recollection of any part of her
past life. She was a total amnesiac.
At first, the doctors thought it would be temporary. But weeks
passed and no trace of her memory returned. Her husband and
children visited her daily , but she did not know them. This was
such an unusual case that other doctors and specialists came 
to visit her as well, to test her and ask her questions about her
condition.
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■ STARTING OVER
Eventually, she went home, her memory a complete blank . Deter-
mined to understand what had happened to her, she began reading
medical textbooks and studying in the specialized area of amnesia
and memory loss. She met and spoke with specialists in this field.
Eventually she wrote a paper on her condition. Not long afterward,
she was invited to address a medical convention to deliver her pa-
per,  answer questions about her amnesia, and share her experiences
and ideas on neurological functioning.
During this period, something amazing happened. She became a
new person completely. All the attention in the hospital and afterward
made her feel valuable, important, and truly loved by her family.
The attention and acclaim she received from members of the med-
ical profession built her self-esteem and self-respect even higher .
She became a genuinely positive, confident, outgoing woman,
highly articulate, well informed, and very much in demand as a
speaker and authority in the medical profession.
All memory of her negative childhood had been wiped out. Her
feelings of inferiority were wiped out as well. She became a new
person. She changed her thinking and changed her life.
■ THE BLANK SLATE
The Scottish philosopher David Hume was the first to propose the
idea of the tabula rasa or blank slate. This theory says that each per-
son comes into the world with no thoughts or ideas at all, and
everything that a person thinks and feels is learned from infancy on-
ward . It is as though the child ’s mind is a blank slate that every
passing person and experience leaves a mark on. The adult becomes
the sum total of everything he or she learns, feels, and experiences
growing up. What the adult does and becomes later is the result of
this early conditioning. As Aristotle wrote, “Whatever is impressed
is expressed.”
Perhaps the greatest breakthrough in the field of human poten-
tial in the twentieth century was the discovery of the self- concept .
This is the idea that each person develops a bundle of beliefs re-
garding oneself, starting at birth. Your self-concept then becomes
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the master program of your subconscious computer, determining
everything you think, say, feel, and do. For this reason , all change in
your outer life begins with a change in your self-concept, with a
change in the way you think and feel about yourself and your world.
The child is born with no self-concept at all. Every idea,  opin -
ion, feeling,  attitude , or value you have as an adult you learned from
childhood. Everything you are today is the result of an idea or im-
pression you took in and accepted as true. When you believe some-
thing to be true, it becomes true for you, whatever the fact may be.
“You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are.”
■ FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE LASTING
If you were raised by parents who continually told you what a good
person you were, who loved you, encouraged you, supported you,
and believed in you, no matter what you did or didn’t do, you would
grow up with the belief that you were a good and valuable person.
By the age of three, this belief would lock in and become a funda-
mental part of the way you view yourself in relation to your world.
Thereafter, no matter what happens to you, you would hold to this
belief. It would become your reality.
If you were raised by parents who did not know how powerful
their words and behaviors could be in shaping your personality,
they could very easily have used destructive criticism, disapproval,
and physical or emotional punishment to discipline or control you.
When a child is continually criticized at an early age, he soon con-
cludes that there is something wrong with him. He doesn’t under-
stand why it is that he is being criticized or punished, but he
assumes that his parents know the truth about him, and that he de-
serves it. He begins to feel that he is not valuable or lovable. He is
not worth very much. He must therefore be worthless.
Almost all personality problems in adolescence and adult-
hood are rooted in what psychologists refer to as love withheld.
The child needs love like roses need rain. When children feel
unloved, they feel unsafe and insecure. They think, “I’m not good
enough.” They begin to engage in compensatory behaviors to
make up for this inner anxiety. This sense of love deprivation is
manifested in misbehavior, personality problems, bursts of anger ,
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depression, hopelessness,  lack of ambition, and problems with
people and relationships.
■ YOU ARE BORN UNAFRAID
The child is born with no fears, except those of falling and loud
noises. All other fears have to be taught to the child as he or she
grows up.
The two major fears we all develop are the fear of failure or loss
and the fear of criticism or rejection. We begin to learn the fear of fail-
ure if we are continually criticized and punished when we try some-
thing new or different . We are shouted at and told, “No! Get away
from there! Stop that! Put that down!” Physical punishment and the
withholding of love, possibilities that scare us and make us feel inse-
cure, often accompany these shouts and criticisms.
We soon begin to believe that we are too small, too weak , in-
competent, inadequate, and incapable of doing anything new or dif-
ferent. We express this feeling with the words, “I can’t, I can’t, I
can’t.” Whenever we think about doing something new or challeng-
ing, we automatically respond with feelings of fear, trembling, and a
churning stomach. We react exactly as if we are afraid of getting a
spanking. We say, “I can’t” over and over.
The fear of failure is the primary reason for failure in adult life.
As the result of destructive criticism in childhood, we hold our-
selves back as adults. We sell ourselves short. We quit before we
even try the first time. Instead of using our amazing minds to fig-
ure out how to get what we want, we use our reasoning ability to
create reasons why we can’t, and why the things we want are not
possible for us.
■ THE NEED TO BE LOVED
The second major fear that holds us back, undermines our confi-
dence, and destroys our desire for a happy life is the fear of rejec-
tion , and its expression, criticism. This emotion is learned in early
childhood as the result of our parents expressing disapproval of
us whenever we do something they don’t like, or don’t do some-
thing that they expect . As a result of our displeasing them, they
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become angry and withdraw the love and approval we need so
much as children.
The fear of being unloved and alone is so traumatic for a child
that she soon conforms her behavior to do whatever she thinks her
parents will approve of. She loses her spontaneity and uniqueness.
She begins to think, “I have to! I have to! I have to!” She concludes,
“I have to do whatever Mommy and Daddy want me to, or they
won’t love me, and I’ll be all alone!”
■ CONDITIONAL LOVE
As an adult, a child raised with what is called “conditional love” (as
opposed to unconditional love, the greatest gift one person can give
to another) becomes hypersensitive to the opinions of others. In its
extreme form, he cannot do anything if there is the slightest chance
that someone else may not approve. He projects his childhood rela -
tionship with his parents onto the important people in his adult
life—spouse,  boss , relatives, friends, authority figures—and tries
desperately to earn their approval, or at least not lose it.
The fears of failure and rejection, caused by destructive criti-
cism in early childhood, are the root causes of most of our unhap-
piness and anxiety as adults. We feel, “I can’t!” or “I have to!”
continually. The worst feeling is when we feel, “I can’t, but I have
to!” or “I have to, but I can’t!”
We want to do something, but we are afraid of failure or loss,
or if we are not afraid of loss, we are afraid of disapproval. We
want to do something to improve our lives, at work or at home,
but we are afraid that we may fail, or that someone else may criti-
cize us, or both .
For most people, their fears govern their lives. Everything they
do is organized around avoiding failure or criticism. They think
continually about playing it safe, rather than striving for their goals.
They seek security rather than opportunity .
■  DOUBLE YOUR RATE OF FAILURE
The author Arthur Gordon once approached  Thomas J. Watson Sr.,
the founder of IBM, and asked him how he could succeed faster as
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a writer. Thomas J. Watson, one of the giants of American business,
replied with these profound words: “If you want to be successful
faster, you must double your rate of failure. Success lies on the far
side of failure.”
The fact is that the more you have already failed, the more likely
it is you are on the verge of great success. Your failures have pre-
pared you to succeed. This is why a streak of good luck seems to fol-
low a streak of bad luck. When in doubt , “double your rate of
failure.” The more things you try, the more likely you are to triumph.
You overcome your fears only by doing the thing you fear until the
fear has no more control over you.
■ YOUR MENTAL HARD DRIVE
Everything you know about yourself, all your beliefs, are recorded
on the hard drive of your personality, in your self-concept. Your
self-concept precedes and predicts your levels of performance and
effectiveness in everything you do. Because of the law of correspon-
dence, you always behave on the outside in a manner consistent
with your self-concept on the inside. All improvement in your life
therefore begins with an improvement in your self-concept.
You have an  overall  self-concept that is made up of all your be-
liefs about yourself and your abilities. This bundle of beliefs in-
cludes all the experiences,  decisions , successes, failures, ideas,
information, emotions, and opinions of your life up to now. This
general self-concept determines how and what you think and feel
about yourself, and measures how well you are doing in general.
■ YOUR MINI-SELF-CONCEPTS
You have a series of “mini-self-concepts” as well. These mini-self-
concepts combine to make up your overall self-concept. You have a
self-concept for every area of your life that you consider important.
This mini-self-concept determines how you think, feel, and perform
in that area.
For example, you have a self-concept for how healthy and fit
you are, and how much you eat or exercise . You have a self-concept
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for how likable and popular you are with others, especially with
members of the opposite sex. You have a self-concept for what kind
of a spouse or parent you are, for how good a friend you are to your
friends, how smart you are, and how well you learn.You have a self-
concept for every sport you play, and for every activity you engage
in, including how well you drive your car.
You have a self-concept for how well you do your work, and
for how well you do each part of your work. You have a self-
concept for how much money you make and how well you save
and invest it. This is a critical area. The fact is that you can never
earn much more or less than your self-concept level of income . If
you want to make more money, you have to change your beliefs
about yourself relative to income and money. This is an important
part of this book.
■ CHANGE YOUR BELIEFS
In every case, if you want to change your performance and your
results in any area of your life, you have to change your self-
concept—or your beliefs about yourself—for that area.  Fortu -
nately, your beliefs are largely subjective. They are not always
based on facts. Instead, they are based largely on information you
have taken in and accepted as true, sometimes with very little evi-
dence or proof.
The very worst beliefs you can have are self-limiting beliefs of any
kind. These are beliefs about yourself that cause you to feel some-
how limited or deficient in a particular area. These beliefs are sel-
dom true, but if you accept them as valid estimates of your ability,
they become true for you, exactly as if they were correct.
The starting point of unlocking your potential, and accomplish-
ing more than you ever have before, is for you to challenge your self-
limiting beliefs. You begin this process of freeing yourself from
self-limiting beliefs by imagining that, whatever they are, they are
completely untrue.  Imagine for the moment that you have no limi-
tations on your abilities at all. Imagine that you could be, do, or
have anything you really wanted in life. Imagine that your potential
is unlimited in any way.
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For example, imagine that you could be earning twice as
much as you are earning today. Imagine that you could be living
in a bigger house, driving a better car, and enjoying a more ex-
pensive lifestyle.
Imagine that you have the ability to be one of the top people in
your field. Imagine that you are one of the most popular, powerful,
and persuasive personalities in your social and business world.
Imagine that you are calm, confident, and unafraid of anything.
Imagine that you could set and achieve any goal you put your mind
to. This is how you begin changing your thinking and changing
your life.
The starting point of eliminating your fears, and releasing your
potential, is to reprogram your mental hard drive with new, positive,
constructive, and courageous beliefs about yourself and your future.
Throughout this book, you will learn how to do this.
■ THREE PARTS OF 
YOUR SELF-CONCEPT
Your self-concept has three parts, like a pie divided into three
wedges. Each is linked with each of the others. All three elements
together make up your personality. They largely determine what you
think, feel, and do, and everything that happens to you.
Your self- ideal  is the first part of your personality and your self-
concept. Your self-ideal is made up of all of your hopes, dreams,
visions, and ideals. Your self-ideal is composed of the virtues, val-
ues, and qualities that you most admire in yourself and others.
Your self-ideal is the person you would most like to become, if you
could be a perfect person in every way. These ideals guide and
shape your behavior.
Great men and women , leaders, and people of character are
very clear about their values , visions, and ideals. They know who
they are and what they believe in. They set high standards for them-
selves, and they don’t compromise those standards. They are men
and women that others can look up to and depend on. They are def-
inite and distinct in their interactions with others. In everything
they do, they strive to live up to their ideals.
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■ THE WAY YOU SEE YOURSELF
The second part of your self-concept is your self-image. This is the
way you see yourself and think about yourself. It is often called your
“inner mirror.” It is where you look internally to see how you
should behave in a particular situation. Because of the power of
your self-image, you always perform on the outside consistent with
the picture you have of yourself on the inside.
The discovery of the self-image, pioneered by Maxwell Maltz, is
a major breakthrough in understanding human performance and ef-
fectiveness. By visualizing and imagining yourself performing at your
best in an upcoming situation, you send a message to your subcon-
scious mind.Your subconscious mind accepts this message as a com-
mand , and then coordinates your thoughts, words, and actions so
that they fit a pattern consistent with the picture you created.
All improvement in your life begins with an improvement in
your mental pictures.Your internal images influence your emotions,
your behaviors, your attitudes, and even the way other people re-
spond to you. The development of a positive self-image is a vital
part of changing your thinking and changing your life.
■ HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT YOURSELF
The third part of your self-concept is your self-esteem. This is the
emotional component of your personality, and is the most impor-
tant factor in determining how you think, feel, and behave. Your
level of self-esteem largely determines much of what happens to
you in life.
Your self-esteem is best defined as how much you like yourself.
The more you like yourself, the better you perform at anything you
attempt. And by the law of reversibility, the better you perform, the
more you like yourself.
Your self-esteem is the “reactor core ” of your personality. It is
the energy source that determines your levels of confidence and
enthusiasm . The more you like yourself, the higher will be the
standards you will set for yourself. The more you like yourself, the
bigger the goals you will set for yourself and the longer you will
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persist in achieving them. People with high self-esteem are virtu-
ally unstoppable.
Your level of self-esteem determines the quality of your relation-
ships with others. The more you like and respect yourself, the more
you like and respect others and the better they feel toward you. In
your business life and career , your personal level of self-esteem will
be the critical factor that determines whether or not people will buy
from you, hire you, enter into business dealings with you, and even
lend you money.
The better your self-esteem, the better you will be as a spouse
and parent. High self-esteem parents raise high self-esteem chil -
dren. These children develop high levels of self-confidence and as-
sociate with other high self-esteem children. High self-esteem
homes are characterized by love, laughter, and happiness for every-
one who lives there.
■ THE DETERMINANT OF SELF-ESTEEM
Your level of self-esteem is largely determined by how closely your
self-image—your current performance and behavior—matches your
self-ideal—your picture of how you would perform if you were at
your very best. You are always comparing your actual performance
with your ideal performance at an unconscious level. Whenever you
feel that you are living up to your very best, you feel terrific about
yourself.Your self-esteem soars.You feel happy and fulfilled.
Whenever you do or say something that is not in keeping with
your ideals or the best of which you feel you are capable, your self-
esteem goes down. Whenever there is a wide separation between the
person you are in the moment and the ideal person you want very
much to be in the future, you feel badly about yourself. This is why
you get angry with yourself whenever you fail at something, or be-
have badly in a situation with other people. Your self-ideal continu -
ally reminds you of how much better a person you can be.
■ THE CORE OF PERSONALITY
Psychologists agree today that your self-esteem lies at the core of
your self-concept and your personality. Every improvement in any
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part of your personality or performance boosts your self-esteem,
and causes you to like and respect yourself even more. The more
you like yourself, the better will be your self-image and subsequent
performance, and the faster you will move toward becoming more
like your self-ideal.
The best news of all is that there is an inverse relationship
between your level of self-esteem and your fears of failure and 
rejection. The more you like yourself, the less you fear failure.
The more you like yourself, the less concerned you are with the
opinions of others, and the less you fear criticism. The more you
like yourself, the more you make your decisions based on your
own goals and standards, and the less you care what others think
or say.
■ CONTROL YOUR INNER DIALOGUE
Just as you become what you think about, you also become what you
say to yourself. The most powerful words you can repeat to yourself,
especially if you are feeling tense or uneasy about an upcoming
event, are the words, “I like myself ! I like myself! I like myself!”
Whenever you say, “I like myself!” your fears diminish and your
courage increases. The words, “I like myself!” are so powerful and
positive that they are immediately accepted by your subconscious
mind as a command. They instantly affect your thoughts, feelings,
and attitudes. Your body language immediately improves, and you
stand straighter.Your face becomes more positive and cheerful.Your
tone of voice becomes stronger and more confident. You feel better
about yourself, and as a result, you treat everyone around you in a
warmer, friendlier way.
You begin the process of changing your thinking and chang -
ing your life by going to work on your self-concept. You start by
developing a clear, positive, exciting, and inspiring self-ideal,
consistent with the very best person you can imagine yourself 
becoming. You develop a positive self-image by imagining your-
self performing at your very best in everything you do. Finally,
you develop high and unshakable levels of self-esteem by loving
and accepting yourself unconditionally as a valuable and worth-
while person.
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■ EXAMINE YOUR BASIC PREMISES
Most of your thoughts and your responses to the events and people
of your life are determined by your basic premises. These are the
ideas, beliefs, opinions, and conclusions you have come to as the re-
sult of inputs and experiences starting in childhood. They constitute
not only your self-concept, but also your philosophy of life. The more
adamant and convinced you are of your basic premises, the more
they predict and control everything you do, say, and feel.
If you believe yourself to be an excellent person, loaded with tal-
ent and ability, friendly and popular, healthy and energetic, curious
and creative , and destined to have a wonderful life, these basic
premises will lead you to set goals, work hard, develop yourself,
treat others well,  bounce back from adversity, and ultimately suc-
ceed. Nothing will be able to stop you in the long run.
It is not what happens to you in life that is important. It is
only how you react to what happens. It doesn’t matter where
you’re coming from, either. All that really matters is where you
are going. And where you are going is limited only by your own
imagination. And since your imagination is unlimited, your future
is unlimited as well. These are the basic premises and beliefs you
need to fulfill your potential.
■ DISSOLVING THE MYTHS
Unfortunately, there are several myths that we accept as we grow up
that can sabotage our hopes for success, joy, and fulfillment later in
life. Let’s look at these self-limiting beliefs one at a time.
The first and worst is summarized in the feeling, “I’m not good
enough.” This is the basic premise that causes feelings of inferiority
and inadequacy. We assume that other people are better than we are
just because, at the moment, they are doing better than we are. We
feel that they must be worth more than us. Therefore, we must be
worth less than them. This feeling of worthlessness sits deep in the
psyche and causes us to sell ourselves short. We settle for less than
we are truly capable of. Rather than to fail at a new goal, we don’t
set it in the first place.
The correct basic premise for you to develop, or belief for you to
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have, is that not only are you good enough, but you have the ability
to be excellent in any area that is important to you.You have unlim-
ited potential to be, do, and have more than you have ever achieved
up to now. As William Shakespeare said in The Tempest, “What’s past
is prologue.” Whatever you have accomplished in the past is only a
hint of what you can do in the future.
■  TALK TO YOURSELF POSITIVELY
The most powerful words in your vocabulary are the words that you
say to yourself and believe.Your self-talk, your inner dialogue, deter-
mines 95 percent of your emotions. When you talk to yourself, your
subconscious mind accepts these words as commands. It then ad-
justs your behavior, your self-image, and your body language to fit a
pattern consistent with those words.
From now on, talk to yourself only in terms of what you want to
be and do.  Refuse to say anything about yourself that you do not sincerely
desire to be true. Repeat the powerful, positive words, “I can do it!”
over and over. Prior to any event of importance, repeat the words, “I
like myself!” Say, “I’m the best! I’m the best! I’m the best!”  again
and again like you really mean it. Then, stand up straight and strong,
put a confident smile on your face, and do the very best of which you
are capable. Soon it will become a habit .
■ YOU DESERVE THE BEST
As the result of previous destructive criticism, people accept an-
other myth , or self-limiting belief. It is that they don’t really be-
lieve that they deserve to be successful. This deep inner feeling of
undeservingness is quite common among those of us who started
off with very little in life, or who came from families that had little
money when we were growing up. It can also be caused by people
who told us at a young age that to be poor is virtuous but to be
rich is sinful.
If you have grown up feeling undeserving of good things, for any
reason, and you do achieve success in your field, you may experi-
ence what is called the “imposter syndrome.” You will feel that you
are an imposter in your success, and that you are going to be found
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out. No matter how successful you become as the result of your
hard work, you will have a nagging fear that it will all be taken away
from you.
If you feel like an imposter, you will often feel guilty for achiev-
ing greater success than others. To escape these feelings of guilt,
many people engage in self-sabotage. They eat too much, drink too
much, take dope, ignore their families, engage in unpredictable be-
haviors, and often throw their money away in extravagant living and
unwise investments. They feel deep down inside that they don’t de-
serve their success. As a result, they often drive it away.
■ DEDICATE YOURSELF 
TO SERVING OTHERS
The truth is that you deserve everything you can rightfully earn by
doing an excellent job, and producing or distributing products or
services that improve people’s lives and work. In a market society
such as ours, all transactions are voluntary. People buy something
only if they feel that they are going to be better off as a result. You
can therefore be successful in the long run only by providing peo-
ple with the things they want to improve their lives and work. The
more and better you serve other people, the more you both de-
serve and earn.
The word “deserve” comes from the two Latin words, “de
-”
which means “from” and “servire” which means “to serve.” There-
fore , the word “deserve” means “from service .” The people who do
the best in our society, with few exceptions, are those who are serv-
ing other people better than someone else.Your whole focus in your
career should be on serving other people better. Then you will de-
serve every dollar you earn.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “The very best way to help the
poor is not to become one of them.” In our society, the more finan-
cially successful you are, the more taxes you are likely to pay. These
taxes help pay for the schools, hospitals, roads, welfare, Medicare,
military expenditures, and all the important things that our society
offers.You can be proud to be financially successful. By making a lot
of money, you make a significant contribution to lots of people.You
do well for yourself by doing well for others.
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Repeat the words, “I deserve every penny I earn as the result of
serving others with the products and services they need to improve
their lives. I am proud of my success.”
■ YOU ARE AN EXCELLENT PERSON
You are a thoroughly good person.You are honest, decent, truthful, and
hardworking.You treat other people with courtesy, respect, and warmth.
You are dedicated to your family, friends, and your company. You are
strong, confident, and responsible.You are knowledgeable, intelligent, and
experienced.You are important not only to the people closest to you, but
also to your community.You were born for a special reason, and you have
a great destiny to fulfill.You are an excellent person in every way.
The preceding paragraph is a statement of your real personality
and character. It may not be true for you 100 percent of the time,
but it is a good general description of who you really are inside, and
where you are going with your life. When you unconditionally ac-
cept that you are a truly valuable and worthwhile person, you will
express it in everything you say and do. Over time, it will become
true for you.Your ideal will become your reality.
Repeat to yourself, “I like myself and l love my life. I am a thor-
oughly good person in every way, and I always do my very best at
anything I attempt.”
■ THE MENTAL SOFTWARE STORE
Imagine that there was a store that sold mental programming. You
could purchase any self-concept, belief, or attitude that you wanted
and install it in your brain , and that is the person you would be
from then on. If such a store existed, and you could buy any set of
beliefs, what would you choose?
Here is a suggestion. Look around you and find out what the
happiest and most successful people in your world have developed
as their core beliefs, and then get the same set of beliefs for yourself.
Load them onto your mental hard drive and start running the same
programs they are running.
Fortunately, based on hundreds of interviews with successful
people, we know exactly how they are programmed and what beliefs
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they have developed from an early age. The most important core be-
lief you can adopt for yourself is this: “I am a thoroughly good per-
son and I am going to be a big success in life. Everything that
happens to me, good or bad, is simply a part of the process of
achieving the great success and happiness that is inevitable for me.”
If you absolutely believed that you were guaranteed to be happy
and successful, and that every setback or obstacle was sent to you to
teach you important lessons that you needed to know to achieve
your goals, you would be completely unstoppable. You would be
positive and optimistic most of the time.You would set big goals for
yourself and bounce back quickly from any temporary defeat. Your
belief would eventually become your reality. By changing your
thinking, you would change your life.
■ ■ ■ ■ ■
Throughout the pages that follow, I will share with you a series of
time-tested and proven methods and techniques that you can use
to take complete control over every area of your thinking. I will
show you how to think so positively and effectively that you will
feel yourself capable of accomplishing anything. You will learn
how to program and reprogram your self-concept so that your in-
ner world is consistent with the person you want to be and the life
you want to experience on the outside. You will learn how to be-
come unstoppable.
ACTION EXERCISES
1. Define your ideals clearly. If you could be an excellent person
in every way, what qualities would you have? How would you
behave?
2. You become what you think about most of the time. Identify one
or more areas of your life where your thinking is having a major
influence on your emotions, attitudes, or actions.
3. In what area of activity do you perform at your best? How do
you visualize yourself in that area? How could you extend this
act of visualization to other areas?
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4. What kind of people do you most admire and respect? Why?
How could you change your behavior so that it is more consis-
tent with that of the best people you know?
5. In what areas of your life do you like yourself the most? What
sorts of activities give the highest levels of self-esteem and per-
sonal value? How could you do even more of these things?
6. You are a thoroughly good person. From this day forth, see
yourself as the very best you can be, and refuse to accept any
limitations on your possibilities.
7. Change your self-concept by continually thinking, talking, and
acting as if you were already the person you would like to be, en-
joying the life that you want and deserve.
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a p t e r
Change Your Life
If you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy
expectations , you put yourself into a condition conducive
to your goals.
—Norman Vincent Peale
The way you think and feel about yourself, including your beliefs
and expectations about what is possible for you, determines every-
thing you do and everything that happens to you. When you change
the quality of your thinking, you change the quality of your life,
sometimes instantly.
You have complete control over only one thing in the universe—
your thinking! You can decide what you are going to think in any
given situation. Your thoughts and the way you interpret any event
trigger your feelings—positive or negative. Your thoughts and feel-
ings lead to your actions and determine the results you get. It all
starts with your thoughts.
■ POSITIVE THINKING
Positive thoughts are life enhancing. They empower you and make
you feel stronger and more confident. Positive thinking is not just a
motivational idea. It has measurable, constructive effects on your
personality, your health, your levels of energy, and your creativity.
The more positive and optimistic you are, the happier you will be in
every area of your life.
18
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Negative thoughts bring about the opposite. They disempower
you and make you feel weaker and less confident. Whenever you
think or say something negative, you give your power away. You
feel angry and defensive. You feel frustrated and unhappy . Over
time, negative thinking can make you physically ill, and even poi-
son your relationships.
Positive thinking leads to mental health and peak performance.
Negative thinking leads to mental illness and decreased effective-
ness. Your goal, therefore, if you want to live a wonderful life, is to
cultivate positive emotions and get rid of negative emotions.
The elimination of negative emotions is the most important sin-
gle step you can take toward health, happiness, and personal well-
being. Each time you take complete control over your thoughts and
feelings, and discipline yourself to keep them positive, the quality of
both your inner and outer lives improves. In the absence of negative
emotions, your mind automatically fills with the positive emotions
that generate feelings of happiness and fulfillment.
■ YOU CAN CHOOSE YOUR THOUGHTS
The Law of Substitution says, “Your mind can hold only one
thought at a time, positive or negative. You can substitute a positive
thought for a negative thought whenever you choose.” You can apply
this law by deliberately thinking about something positive when-
ever you want to cancel out a thought or feeling that makes you
angry or unhappy.
The Law of Habit says, “Any thought or action that you repeat
over and over will eventually become a new habit.” When you repeat-
edly react and respond in a positive way, you take full control over
your conscious mind. Soon it becomes automatic and easy to think
and act in that manner. By using willpower and repetition, you de-
velop new habits of thinking and acting. By applying this law, you
can become a completely positive person and change your life.
■ STARVE YOUR NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
Your negative emotions have all been learned, beginning in child-
hood. And what has been learned can be unlearned, sometimes
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quite quickly.You can learn any habit or skill that you consider to be
either desirable or necessary . Especially, you can learn positive, con-
structive ways of thinking about people, money, health, and other
factors to cancel out negative ideas that limit your potential and in-
terfere with your success.
Many negative ideas or attitudes are based on false premises.
Sometimes a negative idea about a subject , or a negative attitude
toward a person, can be completely reversed with a single piece  
of new information. You could suddenly learn that an idea you
had about yourself or another person was not true. As a result,
you could change your thinking in an instant. Be open to this
possibility.
Negative emotions exist only because we give them life and
then keep them alive. We feed them by continually thinking and
talking about things that make us angry or unhappy. Fortunately,
you can change this situation by applying the Law of Emotion.
This law states, “A stronger emotion will dominate and override a
weaker emotion, and whichever emotion you concentrate on grows and
becomes stronger.”
What this means is that whatever emotion you dwell upon grows
and eventually dominates your thinking in that area. If you with-
draw your mental energy from a person or situation that makes you
sad or angry by refusing to think about it, the emotion connected
with that situation eventually dies away. Like a fire with no fuel, it
goes out.
You have experienced this many times already. For example, as
we grow up, we have relationships with the opposite sex. Most of
them do not work out over time. When they end, we are often emo-
tionally distressed and hurt . We are often sad, angry, depressed, pre-
occupied, and unhappy. These feelings last for a certain period.
Then we recover. We meet someone else. Gradually we forget about
the unhappy ending of the earlier relationship. Months or years
later, we look back or even meet the other person, and we cannot
imagine how emotionally involved we were with him or her. Be-
cause we did not feed them, the feelings have died away completely.
This is an example of the laws of substitution and emotion in action
in your own life.
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■ THE SOURCES OF 
NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
There are four basic causes of negative emotions. According to the
Russian philosopher Peter Ouspensky, in his book In Search of the
Miraculous, these are: (1) justification; (2) identification, (3) inward
considering, and (4) blame. The greatest leap forward in changing
your thinking and changing your life will take place when you sys-
tematically eliminate all four of these causes of negative emotions
from your life.
■ STOP JUSTIFYING
Justification is what you do when you rationalize or create a rea-
son for your anger and unhappiness. You tell yourself, and who-
ever else will listen , how badly you were treated and how
dreadfully the other person behaved. You continually rehash the
situation in your mind. You repeat all the reasons you have for be-
ing upset . Each time you think of the person or situation, you be-
come angry. You feel entitled to your anger, as if you have paid a
high price for it, especially since, in your estimation, you were
such a good and virtuous person.
The way you short-circuit the natural tendency toward justifica-
tion and rationalization is by refusing to engage in it. Instead, you
stop justifying.You use your marvelous mind to think of reasons not
to justify your negative emotions.  Remember , your negative emo-
tions do you no good. They are totally destructive. They do not af-
fect the other person or change the situation. They simply
undermine your happiness and self-confidence, making you weaker
and less effective in other areas of your life.
Instead of justifying your anger and unhappiness, you should
use your intelligence and imagination to excuse the other person, or
to let go of the unhappy situation. For example, if someone cuts you
off in traffic, instead of becoming angry, you say, “Well, I’d better be
more careful next time,” “I guess he is having a bad day,” or “He
must be late for an important appointment.”
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■ MAKE EXCUSES FOR OTHERS
Since your mind can hold only one thought at a time, the instant
you start excusing the other person you withdraw the energy or
fuel that the negative emotions of anger and resentment require
to get going and stay burning. You reassert your mental control.
You keep yourself calm and positive. In a little while, the situation
passes and you forget all about it. By substituting a positive
thought for a negative thought, you get rid of the negative emo-
tion, whatever it is.
If you have a major life problem, such as a divorce, a lost job, or
a failed investment, the same rule holds true. Stop telling yourself
(and anyone who will listen) why you are entitled to be angry or un-
happy. Instead, make excuses for the other person each time you
think about the situation until the negativity dies away. When the
fire of negative emotion goes out, you can then turn your attention
to something positive.
One of the most important rules for success and happiness is,
“Don’t be upset or worry about something that you can’t do any-
thing about.” Don’t criticize anyone for something that the person
cannot change. A famous law says, “If there is no solution , there is
no problem.”
■ TWO TIME PERIODS
There are two time periods in life, the past and the future.
The present is only a brief, fleeting moment. You can choose to
focus your attention on what has happened, which cannot be
changed, or on the future, on what is possible, over which you
have some control.
Many people spend most of their emotional energies being
upset and angry about events that occurred in the past. Unfortu-
nately, this energy is completely wasted. Nothing good can come
of constantly complaining about the past. Even worse , the nega -
tive emotions kept alive by reliving past events rob you of the joy
and excitement that you could experience by thinking about fu-
ture possibilities.
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■ LET IT GO
A psychiatrist with more than 25 years’ experience working with
unhappy people wrote that the two most common words he heard
in his practice were the words “if only.” It seemed that most un-
happy people are held back by some event that occurred in the past
that they cannot let go of. They are still resentful, angry, or de-
pressed over something that someone did or did not do or say. They
are angry with one or both parents, a sibling, a previous relationship
or marriage, a boss or business relationship, a failed investment or
financial mistake.
The fact is that your life will be a continuous series of problems,
difficulties, setbacks, and temporary failures. These unexpected and
unwanted reversals and disappointments are a normal, natural, and
unavoidable fact of growing up. To change your thinking and change
your life, you must make a decision to get over them and to get on
with your life, no matter what happened. Until you do, you remain a
slave to the past, which cannot be changed in any case. Make a deci -
sion today that, from now on, you are going to eliminate all the “if
only’s” from your life.
■ REINTERPRET EVENTS DIFFERENTLY
The author and speaker Wayne Dyer says, “It’s never too late to
have a happy childhood.” He means that at any time you can rein -
terpret the unhappy events of your early life in a positive way. You
can practice the Law of Substitution and look into those negative
experiences for something good, and think about that instead.
You can focus on how your unhappy experiences have made you a
better, wiser person. You can actually be grateful to people who
have hurt you in the past because they have made you so much
stronger in the present. And in any case, it could not have hap-
pened otherwise.
Your parents had no experience with raising children. In addi -
tion, they were a product of the way they were raised. Like all hu-
mans, they came to parenting with their problems and weaknesses,
just as you have today. Nonetheless, they did the best they could
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with what they had. They were the people they were, and they
could not have raised you any differently than they did. It is silly to
continue to be unhappy about things they did or didn’t do that
they were incapable of doing otherwise. Let it go and get on with
your life.
■ DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY
The second major cause of negative emotions according to Ouspen-
sky, is  identification, or attachment. This occurs when you take
something personally or you become attached to a person or thing.
You see the unhappy outcome of an event or circumstance as a per-
sonal affront or attack on you or on something you believe in or
hold dearly. You become emotionally involved in a situation and
identify so strongly with it that it affects your emotions and your
reason in a negative way.
The great spiritual teachers, such as Buddha and Jesus, have
emphasized the importance of separating yourself emotionally from
the situation (disidentification), in order to regain your calmness and
composure. Psychologist and philosopher William James of Har-
vard wrote, “The first step in dealing with any difficulty is to be will-
ing to have it so.” He encouraged people to say, “What cannot be
cured must be endured.” In other words, practice detachment from
any person or situation that makes you feel angry or upset. With-
draw the emotional energy from it so that you can regain your calm-
ness and composure.
This approach does not suggest that you passively accept any-
thing that happens to you. Instead, it encourages you to use your
willpower to keep your mind and emotions under control.You disci-
pline yourself to stand back mentally and deal with the problem in-
telligently. You use your mind to see the situation objectively and
make better decisions to resolve it.
Nothing and no one can have any control over you unless there
is something you still want from them. They must have something
that they can still give you or withhold from you. As soon as you de-
tach emotionally from a person or object and no longer want any-
thing from them, you are free. This ability to practice detachment is
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a power you can develop through practice. It can make you the
master of a situation that might otherwise cause you to become up-
set and angry.
One of the kindest things you can do to help others is to encour-
age them to stand back from a problem situation and be objective
about it. Encourage them to view the difficulty as if it was happen-
ing to someone else. Ask them what advice they would give to an-
other person who was facing this same problem. By detaching from
the emotionally charged situation, you and others will become
much more capable of dealing with it effectively.
■ THE OPINIONS OF OTHERS
The third major cause of negative emotions, according to Ous-
pensky, is inward considering. This occurs when you become overly
concerned with the way people are treating you. If you perceive
that someone is not giving you the respect that you feel you de-
serve, you can feel insulted and angry, and want to strike back.
If people are rude or indifferent to you, you can experience their
behavior as an attack on your personality or character. This in-
terpretation of their attitude or behavior can make you angry 
or depressed.
Psychologists say that everything we do is to increase our self-
esteem and sense of personal value, or to protect it from being di-
minished by other people or circumstances. If your self-esteem is
not as high as it could be, you will be sensitive to the actions and re-
actions of other people toward you. You will take everything person-
ally, exactly as if what they said or did was consciously and
deliberately directed at you.  However , this is seldom the case.
The fact is that most people are preoccupied with themselves
and their own problems. As much as 99 percent of the time, people
are wrapped up in their own thoughts about themselves. They de-
vote the other 1 percent of emotional energy they have available to
everyone else in the world, including you. The person who cuts you
off in traffic is so involved with his own thoughts, he is not even
aware of your existence. It would be silly to become angry or upset
over his thoughtless action.
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■ SET YOUR OWN SAILS
There is a rule that I have learned from experience: Never do or re-
frain from doing something because you are concerned about what people
might think about you. The fact is that nobody is even thinking about
you at all.
Of course , I am not talking about criminal or antisocial be-
haviors. But it is amazing how many people make decisions to 
get into or to not get into relationships, businesses, new endeav-
ors, adventures, and other things for fear that someone else might
not approve. They stay in marriages they hate, they work at jobs
they dislike, or they turn down business opportunities for fear
that someone, anyone, might criticize them. The truth is that 
no one cares more about your key life decisions than you do.
Plan accordingly.
In Abraham Maslow ’s studies of self-actualizing people, those
1 or 2 percent of men and women who are fully mature, fully
functioning adults, he found a particular quality that they all had
in common: They were completely honest with themselves. They were
objective and clear about their own strengths and weaknesses.
They did not hope or pretend that they were other than they were.
This self-acceptance was a foundation stone of their self-esteem
and self-respect.
Because they knew who they were, and who they were not, they
did not feel that they had to continually earn the approval of others.
They took the opinions of others into consideration, but then they
made their own decisions. They were not overly influenced by the
possible approval or disapproval of other people. You should do the
same.You are the one who cares the most and who is most affected,
in any case.
■ THE RESPECT OF OTHERS
When Somerset Maugham, the famous English author, was asked
by a reporter for his chief motivation for writing, he replied, “I write
to earn the respect of the people I respect.”
The fact is that much of what you do, or fail to do, is influenced
by the same concern.You do many things in your social life to earn
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the respect of the people you respect, or at least not to lose it. In
fact, the people whose respect is most important to you largely de-
termine how good you feel about yourself, both at home and at
work. The respect of others has an inordinate influence on your
self-esteem because it is so closely linked to your self-ideal and
your self-image.
Exceptional men and women look up to and seek the respect of
men and women of character and accomplishment. They strive, at
an unconscious level, to behave and to live up to their ideals of how
an excellent person would behave.
One of the most important decisions you make as you go
through life is to decide for yourself the specific people whose re-
spect is of the greatest value to you. Once you are clear about who
you respect and why you respect them, you can then organize your
life in such a way that you continually earn that respect, whether
they know of your actions or not.
■ SET HIGH STANDARDS
In the famous book In His Steps, by Charles M. Sheldon (Christian
Library, 1984), an entire town agrees, prior to every act or decision,
to ask the question, “What would Jesus do?” and then to behave ac-
cordingly. The eventual outcome for the townspeople was that the
problems that had divided them were soon solved and the town be-
came happy and prosperous. They created an ideal for themselves
and then built their lives around living up to it.
In a study of successful men and women, most of whom had
started from humble beginnings, researchers found that these
people had almost all been avid readers of biographies and auto-
biographies when they were young. As they read the life stories of
famous men and women, they imagined themselves having the
same qualities and characters of the people they were studying.
When they became adults themselves, those qualities and virtues
had become part of their thinking and guided their choices and
decisions in later life.
Modeling has been used as a powerful way to develop personality
and character throughout history. Young people have been encour-
aged to study school heroes and heroines, and emulate them as
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much as possible. In the military, the heroic acts of soldiers and
sailors from the past are taught as part of the curriculum , encourag-
ing young soldiers and sailors to think and act like them when the
situation demands it.
The people you most admire and look up to have an inordinate
influence on how you think and feel about yourself, and the kind of
decisions you make. Who are your  role models?
■ CHOOSE YOUR ROLE 
MODELS WITH CARE
There is nothing wrong with being thoughtful and concerned
about the feelings and reactions of others toward you and your
choices. When you select admirable people to look up to, you de-
velop an inner guide that leads you to conduct yourself in an excel -
lent way yourself.
What is silly and self-defeating however, is for you to allow
yourself to be inordinately influenced by the fleeting opinions of
people whose regard and respect is of no concern or value to you. If
you have been raised with destructive criticism, you can easily slip
into the trap of organizing your life around trying to gain the ap-
proval, or escape the disapproval, or people you don’t even know or
care about.
Here is the way to avoid this form of negative emotion:
Decide for yourself the men and women you most admire, and
the qualities they have that you would most like to emulate.
From now on, when you have to make a decision, think about
someone you admire and ask, “What would he or she do in this
situation?”
When you ask this question, you actually connect at an 
unconscious level with a higher power that will then give you
guidance and insight. You will experience a deep inner knowing 
of exactly the right thing to do or say. You will make the right 
decision and achieve the desired result. This is a technique used
by many successful men and women. Give it a try and see 
what happens.
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■ THE WORST NEGATIVE 
INFLUENCE OF ALL
The fourth major cause of negative emotions, according to Ouspen-
sky, and the trigger of anger, resentment, envy, jealousy, and frustra-
tion of any kind is blame. It is blame especially that generates anger,
the worst of all the negative emotions. Anger is more destructive
than any force in the human world. Uncontrolled anger destroys
health, relationships, families, businesses, and societies, and is the
chief generator of wars, revolutions, and social conflict.
The primary cause of anger can be traced back to destructive
criticism in early childhood. Whenever a person is criticized, he
reacts exactly as if he is being attacked, with defensiveness and re-
sentment. Since any behavior that you repeat over and over be-
comes a habit, many people develop the habit of responding with
anger to every problem, disappointment, or frustration they expe-
rience. Eventually, they reach the point where they are always an-
gry about something.
To become angry, a person must be able to blame someone for
something that has happened or not happened that they don’t like
or approve of. Many people are so preoccupied with blaming others
for their problems that they lose contact with reality. They see the
entire world through a lens of blame and its sister emotion, guilt.
Whenever there is a problem, personal or public, the angry per-
son automatically concludes that someone must be to blame. The
individual then spends his time and emotion apportioning blame
among various parties. This obsession with blame and anger, lead-
ing to resentment and envy, can often consume the person who ex-
periences it.
■ NO ONE IS GUILTY
Here is a common example. Two people in love get married. Both of
them have the best of intentions and the highest of expectations for
the future, or they wouldn’t get married in the first place. Unfortu-
nately, people and situations change over time. The couple finds
that they are no longer happy together and decide to divorce. But
then the problems really begin.
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Instead of agreeing, like adults, that they have reached a point
where they are incompatible and they no longer want to live to-
gether, blame must be apportioned. Someone must be guilty. The
guilty party must be punished. Lawyers and judges now have to get
involved. Detectives and accountants are hired to dig up dirt on
each party. The situation gets worse and worse, until it finally ends
in anger, bitterness, accusations, and even hatred.
The best of solutions , when a marriage or a relationship does
not work out, is to accept that fact as an unfortunate reality, make
reasonable provisions for each party, and then for each person to
get on with his or her life. Many couples are doing this today
through mediation rather than going through the bitterness of 
a traditional divorce. The results turn out to be better for every-
one involved.
It is a psychological fact that most people feel that they are right
in whatever they do. But as soon as one person starts to blame the
other, and even worse, demand that the other person admit to being
guilty, the emotional and legal battles begin. The saddest part of
these legal battles is that they usually end where they started, with
no one having gained very much.
■ ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY
The best way to eliminate anger of all kinds is to accept responsibility.
The acceptance of responsibility immediately short-circuits the
emotion of anger. All the energy that anger requires for its existence
is cut off. As soon as you say, “I am responsible!” your anger stops.
Because of the Law of Substitution and the fact that your mind can
hold only one thought at a time, you cannot accept responsibility
for your situation and be angry at the same time. The idea of blame,
on which the emotion of anger is based, is canceled out by the deci-
sion to accept responsibility.
■ POSITIVE VERSUS 
NEGATIVE WORLDVIEWS
There are two basic ways of looking at your world. You can have a
positive and benevolent worldview or a negative and malevolent
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worldview. By taking responsibility for yourself and what happens
to you, you become positive. You see the world in benevolent
terms.You become more optimistic toward yourself and your possi-
bilities.You become a happier and more effective person.
In contrast , when you take a negative or malevolent worldview,
you see problems and injustice everywhere. You see oppression and
evil. You see guilty people all around you. You see limitations and
unfairness rather than opportunity and hope. Worst of all, you
spend your time apportioning blame to various people and institu-
tions for all the problems you see.
■ DIFFERENCES IN RESULTS
For example, in this country , some people are better off than others.
This has been true of all societies throughout human history. This
can be for various reasons. It may be the result of different people
having different talents, ambitions, and desires. It may be the result
of some people working harder, having a better start at life, being
born with greater intelligence, or simply being at the right place at
the right time to catch a favorable trend in the economy.
In any case, people who are well off are not to blame for the fat
that other people are not well off. People who are healthy are not to
blame for the fact that other people are sick. People who are suc-
cessful and happy are not to blame for those who are unsuccessful
and unhappy. People who are building a good life for themselves
and their families are not at fault because other people are not.
Success does not cause failure. Correlation is not causation. Be-
cause both situations occur simultaneously, this does not mean that
one caused the other. An honest acceptance of this simple fact
would solve many arguments and disagreements at the philosophi-
cal and political levels.
■ THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS
The root cause of negative emotions, the main factor that predis-
poses a person to blaming and to anger and resentment, fear and
doubt, envy and jealousy, is the inability to forgive someone we feel
has hurt us in some way.
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As we develop as children, we go through a phase where “jus-
tice” is very important to us. We fixate on the concept of “fairness.”
We are upset by any situation in our lives that does not seem to be
fair and equitable to anyone, especially if it concerns ourselves.
Whenever we feel that we or anyone else has been unfairly treated,
for any reason, we take it as a personal attack. Our fragile self-
esteem is threatened. We react with anger and resentment. This is a
normal developmental phase of growth that we go through as we
move toward adulthood.
However, some people fixate at this stage and never grow beyond
it. If we are not taught the importance of letting go of our grievances
as children, we will come into adulthood with a gunnysack of unfor-
given experiences. If we are not careful, we will then build our lives
around our anger toward people who we feel are to blame for some-
thing they did or that we disapprove of. Many psychotherapists and
psychiatrists spend their entire careers helping people confront and
deal with these unhappy past and current experiences.
The most powerful and liberating decision you can make is to
forgive everyone who has ever hurt you in any way. Only by freeing
the other person, in your mind, by forgiving him or her can you be
free yourself. This is why most religions stress the importance of for-
giveness as the first step toward peace of mind and earthly bliss.
Just imagine how you would feel if you had no anger toward
anyone at all in the whole world. Imagine being a completely posi -
tive, optimistic, cheerful person, with high levels of self-esteem and
enthusiasm and unlimited self-confidence. Imagine being a warm,
friendly, loving person filled with feelings of calmness and inner
peace. All this is possible for you when you practice forgiveness.
In contrast, the refusal or failure to forgive lies at the base of
negativity, anger, stress, anxiety, mental and physical illness, and
most unhappiness. The refusal to forgive keeps you trapped. For-
giveness sets you free. And it is always a choice you make. It has
nothing to do with the other person or situation.
■ IT TAKES TWO
Some people hold themselves back from forgiving with a false basic
premise. They think that by forgiving they are condoning the behav-
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ior of the person they are mad at. They think that, if they forgive the
other person, they are doing that person a favor . They even think
that they are letting the other person go free, which they are deter-
mined not to do.
The fact is that it takes two to make a prison, the prisoner and
the jailer. Both are in the jail. When you let the other person go
free, you liberate yourself. You don’t have to condone the behavior
or like the person who hurt you.You just have to forgive him or her
so that you can get on with the rest of your life. Forgiveness is
therefore a totally selfish act. It really has nothing to do with the
other person at all. It has only to do with your own mental integrity
and peace of mind.
The comedian Buddy Hackett once said, “I never hold grudges;
while you’re holding grudges, they’re out dancing!”
When you remain angry with another person, you give away
your emotional control to that person each time you think of him or
her.You allow him or her to control your emotions at long distance.
By not forgiving, you allow that person to run your emotional life,
exactly as if he or she were right there with you and the situation
was occurring all over again.
■ THE PATH TO FORGIVENESS
The way you forgive is simple. Each time you think of the other
person, you use the Law of Substitution and say, “God bless
him/her; I forgive him/her for everything, and I wish him/her well.” It
is not possible to bless and forgive another person and simultane-
ously be angry or upset. The positive thought cancels out the neg-
ative thought.
You can speed up the process of personal liberation by accept-
ing responsibility for your share of what happened. Very few nega-
tive events that lead to anger and resentment occur in a vacuum.
Almost invariably, you did something to contribute to the situa-
tion.You therefore need to have the maturity to take your share of
the responsibility.
You can then say, “I am responsible. I shouldn’t have gotten into the
situation in the first place, or stayed in so long. I should not have done
what I did. I forgive him/her completely and let it go.”
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It may be difficult for you to forgive at first. These words will be
hard for you. Many people have built their entire adult lives around
their grievances. They are afraid that they will have nothing else to
talk about if they stop complaining about their parents or their bad
marriages. But don’t worry.
When you forgive others and let them go, you soon begin to
feel lighter and happier. As the thoughts of anger and resentment
fade away, your mind will fill with positive thoughts. You will have
more energy and enthusiasm. You will feel stronger and more
confident. Your whole future will open up before you, like a sum-
mer sunrise.
Don’t worry about what your friends think or say when you de-
cide to forgive people who have hurt you. They are probably tired of
hearing your complaints about the unfortunate events of your past.
In fact, when you start forgiving, you will often find that the only
common bond between you and certain people is your gripe ses-
sions. When you decide to forgive others, you may no longer find
them very interesting to talk to.
■ THE PEOPLE YOU MUST FORGIVE
There are four groups people you need to forgive if you are serious
about changing your thinking and changing your life.
The first is your parents, living or dead.You must absolutely for-
give them for every mistake they ever made in bringing you up. At
the very least, you should be grateful to them for giving you life.
They got you here. If you are happy to be alive, you can forgive
them for everything else. Never complain about them again.
Many of my seminar participants have phoned or visited their
parents and told them that they forgive them for everything. Often
this simple act of courage and character has had a profound effect
on their relationship with their mother or father. From that day on-
ward, they have become good friends, which lasted the rest of their
lives together.
In contrast, by not forgiving your parents, you remain forever a
child. You block your own chance to grow up and become a fully
functioning adult. You continue to see yourself as a victim. Even
worse, you keep your negative feelings of inferiority and anger alive.
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If your parents die without your having forgiven them, it can bother
you for the rest of your life.
■ CLOSE PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
The second group you must forgive is the people from your close re-
lationships that didn’t work out. Marriage and other intimate rela-
tionships can be so intense , and so threatening to your feelings of
self-esteem and self-worth, that you can be angry and unforgiving
toward those people for years.
But you were at least partially responsible. Have the personal
strength and integrity to say, “I am responsible,” and then forgive
the other person and let him or her go. Say the words, “I forgive
him/her for everything and I wish him/her well.” Each time you re-
peat this, the negative emotion attached to the memory will dimin-
ish. Soon it will be gone forever.
■ THE LETTER
Many of my graduates have found that “the letter” is the key to
putting a bad relationship behind them forever. This is a powerful
technique that can free you from feelings of anger and resentment
almost instantly.
Here is how it works :You to sit down and write the other person
a letter of forgiveness. It consists of three parts.
First you say, “I forgive you for everything you ever did that
hurt me.”
Second, you write out a description or list of every single thing
that you are still angry about. Some people write several pages in
this part.
Third, you end the letter with the words, “I wish you well.”
You then take the letter to the mailbox and drop it in. At that
moment, you will feel a huge sense of relief, and you will be free
at last.
By the way, don’t worry about how the other person might re-
act. That is not your concern.Your goal is to free yourself, to regain
your peace of mind, and to get on with the wonderful life that lies
ahead of you.
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■ CLEAR YOUR SLATE
The third group you must forgive is everyone else in your life who
has ever hurt you in any way. Let them go. Forgive every boss, busi-
ness partner, friend, crook, or betrayer who has ever caused you
grief of any kind. Clean the slate. Wipe each of their names and im-
ages off by saying, “I forgive him/her for everything, and I wish
him/her well.” Repeat this statement each time you think of the per-
son or situation until the negative feelings are gone.
■ SET YOURSELF FREE
The fourth and final person you have to forgive is yourself.You must
absolutely forgive yourself for every silly, senseless, wicked, brain-
less, thoughtless, or cruel thing you have ever done or said. Stop
carrying these past mistakes around with you. That was then and
this is now.
Think of it this way: When you did those things in the past that
you still feel badly about, you were not the person you are today. At
that time, you were a different person, younger and less experi-
enced.You were not your true self.You were an immature version of
the person you have become with experience. Stop beating yourself
up for something that occurred in the past that you cannot change.
In psychotherapy, when a person feels burdened with a deep
sense of guilt or shame as the result of a childhood trauma , the
cathartic moment comes when he or she suddenly realizes, “It’s
not my fault.” Sometimes you did things, or things were done to
you, when you were too young or inexperienced to know what was
going on or to change the situation. It was not your fault. You did
the best you could. You are okay. Forgive yourself and let yourself
off the hook .
Just say, “I forgive myself for every mistake I ever made. I am a thor-
oughly good person and I am going to have a wonderful future.” When-
ever you think of that event or situation, just repeat, “I forgive
myself completely.” And then get on with your life. Focus on the fu-
ture rather than the past. Look at where you are going rather than
where you have been.
Finally, if you did something that hurt someone, and you still
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feel badly about it, you can go to that person, or write, and apolo-
gize. Tell the person you are sorry for what you did or said. What-
ever his or her reaction, positive or negative, it doesn’t matter. The
very act of repentance, of expressing regret, will set you free.
■ A FINAL WARNING
Most people are open to the idea of forgiveness. It is among the
core beliefs of most religions, and is taught in psychology and meta-
physics. You are probably comfortable with the idea of forgiving
most of the people in your life who have hurt you in some way. But
there is a great danger .
The danger is that your refusal to forgive just one major grievance
can be enough to sabotage your entire life. Your insistence on holding
onto just one person or situation by not forgiving can put the brakes
on all your forward progress. There are countless men and women
who ruin their lives because of their anger and resentment toward a
single person. They can’t let go of it, and so they never get free.
Don’t let this happen to you. You must have the courage and
character to forgive everyone, without exception. There should be
no one in your life with whom you are still angry. Your mind
should be calm and clear. You should be able to say, “I do not have
a negative or unforgiving thought toward anyone in the world; I freely
forgive them all.”
■ TAKE CONTROL 
OVER YOUR EMOTIONS
The starting point of eliminating negative emotions is for you to
take full control over your thoughts and actions, and to discipline
yourself not to express negative emotions when they arise, as they
surely will. You may not be able to stop the initial negative reaction
to a disappointment or a frustrated expectation, but you can refuse
to express it, either to yourself or to another. You can cancel it in-
stantly by saying, “I am responsible!”
There are some who say that it is healthy to express the nega-
tive emotions of anger, hurt, fear, and doubt. But the fact is that
whatever you dwell upon and talk about grows in your reality. A small
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negative experience is like a spark that can be fanned into a blaze
by thinking and talking about it. Instead, snuff it out the instant it
arises by saying, “I am responsible!” Then look for reasons why you
might be responsible.You will always find them.
■ THE TRUE GODS ARRIVE
An English poet once wrote, “When the false gods go, the true gods
arrive.” When you stop thinking about, talking about, and rehears-
ing negative events and the emotions they trigger, the “true gods” of
positive emotions will fill your mind and heart. When you let go of
the thoughts, opinions, prejudices, and attitudes that make you un-
happy, you will begin to experience the thoughts and emotions that
make you feel good about yourself and your life.
Nature is on your side. Nature wants you to be happy, healthy,
prosperous, and fulfilled.Your destiny is to experience joy, harmony,
love, and the greatest of all human blessings, peace of mind. And just
as a gyroscope knocked off balance returns to an upright position ,
your life and emotions return to peace and joy just as soon as you
stop doing and saying the things that move you away from a sense
of inner peace.
Decide this very day to give up your negative emotions. Re-
solve from this moment forward to become a positive, optimistic,
happy, enthusiastic person in every part of your life. Change your
thinking about yourself and your possibilities, and you change
your life.
ACTION EXERCISES
1. Resolve today that you are going to be a completely happy per-
son. Now ask, “What is it in my life that makes me unhappy or
causes me stress?” Whatever your answer, decide to deal with it
and eliminate it.
2. Recall an experience from your childhood that you are still an-
gry about. Now reinterpret that experience positively and view it
as a valuable learning experience.
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3. In what areas of your life are you angry or resentful because you
are still blaming someone for something he did or didn’t do?
Whatever it is, accept responsibility and get on with your life.
4. Who is there in your past that you have not forgiven? What pre-
vious experience causes you the most anger still today? Whoever
or whatever it is, resolve to forgive and let it go.
5. Don’t take things personally anymore. From now on, when peo-
ple do not respect you or treat you as you wish to be treated,  rise
above it and go about your business.
6. Make a decision today to forgive everyone in your past toward
whom you still feel any negative emotion. Let them go and let
yourself go at the same time.
7. Forgive yourself for every mistake you have ever made. If it is
appropriate, go and ask forgiveness of the other person. Set
yourself free.
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C h 3
a p t e r
Dream Big Dreams
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you
become. Your vision is the promise of you shall at 
last unveil.
—John Ruskin
Your mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Your
thoughts alone have the power to make you healthy or sick, rich or
poor, popular or unpopular. Your mind is like a powerful force that
can be turned in any direction to bring about wonderful results, or
wreak havoc and destruction.Your main goal in life must be to har-
ness your amazing powers and direct them intelligently and system-
atically toward achieving everything you really want.
■ A JOURNEY THROUGH ITALY
Let me tell you a story. Some years ago, I took my family to Italy on
vacation. We toured several of the great art museums of Rome and
Florence. In Florence, there is a special museum that was built to
house the statue of David created by Michelangelo several hundred
years ago. This is perhaps the most beautiful piece of sculpture in
the world. The actual physical experience of being in the same room
with it is something that none of us has ever forgotten.
The story of the creation of the David is very interesting and
contains a lesson for all of us. Michelangelo was commissioned
by the Medicis to create a statue for the main square in Florence.
40
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The Medicis were the wealthiest and most powerful family of
Italy at the time. A commission for a statue from the Medicis was
not only a great honor; it was also a task that could not be re-
fused. For two years, Michelangelo searched for a block of stone
out of which he could create the kind of masterpiece the Medicis
were looking for.
Finally, on a side street of Florence, partially overgrown with
weeds and covered with dirt, he found a huge slab of marble lying
on wooden trestles. It had been hauled down from the mountains
years before and had never been used.
Michelangelo had walked past this street many times, but this
time he stopped and looked more closely. As he walked back and
forth studying the block of marble, he actually envisioned the statue
of David and saw it in its entirety.
■ GREAT SUCCESS REQUIRES 
LONG, HARD WORK
The sculptor quickly arranged to have workmen haul the block of
marble to his studio some distance away. He then began the long,
hard job of hammering and chiseling. It took him two solid years of
work to create the rough outline of the statue. He then put his ham-
mers and chisels aside and spent two more years polishing and
sanding before the statue was complete.
Michelangelo was already famous as a sculptor, and the news
that he was working on a major commission for the Medicis spread
all over Italy. When the day came for its first public viewing, thou-
sands of people came from all over Italy and gathered in the main
square. When it was unveiled, the crowd stood gaping in awe. It was
breathtakingly beautiful. People cheered. Women fainted. The audi -
ence was amazed at the incredible beauty of the enormous statue.
Michelangelo was immediately recognized as the greatest sculptor
of his age.
Afterward, when Michelangelo was asked how he was able to
create such a masterpiece, he replied by saying that he saw the
David complete and perfect in the marble. All he did was to remove
everything that was not the David.
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■ YOU ARE A MASTERPIECE
There are many parallels between yourself and the David. You are
very much like a great masterpiece enclosed in marble as well. But
the marble that envelops you, and most other people, is the marble
of small, limited thinking and excessive worry about the possibili-
ties of loss or failure, rather than an excited anticipation of the re-
wards of success and achievement.
To realize your full potential, your greatest need is to break out
of your limited thinking by dreaming big dreams and imagining un-
limited possibilities.You need to remove all the negative beliefs that
hold you back from becoming all you are capable of becoming.
But remember, even after the David had been released from the
marble, it took Michelangelo two solid years of sanding and polish-
ing to turn it into a masterpiece. In the same way, you also have to
work on yourself, sanding and polishing, learning and practicing,
for days, weeks, months, and even years, to develop and bring out
all the talents and abilities that lie deep inside of you.
■ YOU CAN BECOME UNSTOPPABLE
The central purpose of this book is to help you change your think-
ing in such a way that you become absolutely unstoppable in achiev-
ing any goal you can set for yourself.Your goal is to develop yourself
to the point psychologically where you become like an irresistible
force of nature.You will be like the tide coming in, or like a powerful
storm that sweeps across the land .
Your aim is to become so confident, courageous, strong, and
resolute that you can set any goal for yourself with the firm knowl-
edge that you can learn what you need to learn, and do what you
need to do, to eventually achieve it. You will become so persistent
and determined that nothing and no one can slow you down or alter
your course.You will become truly unstoppable!
■ DREAM BIG DREAMS
You begin the process of becoming unstoppable by dreaming big
dreams. Since everything you create in your world begins with a
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thought, the bigger the dreams you dream, the bigger the goals you
will achieve. All successful men and women are dreamers. All peak
performers are what are called “blue-sky thinkers.” They continu-
ally allow their minds to float freely when they think about what is
possible for them. They look at the unlimited blue sky above them
as the only limit to everything and anything that they could possibly
be, or have or do.
Successful people continually practice “back from the future”
thinking. They project into the future several years and imagine
what their lives would look like if they had achieved all of their
goals. They look back to the present, from the mental vantage point
of the future, like looking from the top of a high mountain down to
where they are actually standing in the valley, in the present. They
then look at the path that they would have to take to get to where
they want to be in the future.
By the law of correspondence, whatever you can clearly see on
the inside, you will eventually experience on the outside.You should
therefore visualize your goals with as much clarity and vividness as
possible. Visualize your goals intensely and create within yourself the
same feeling that you would have if you had already achieved your
goals. Visualize your goals frequently. Replay a picture of your goal,
as if you had already realized it, on the screen of your mind as many
times a day as you possibly can. Visualize your goals for as long as
you possibly can, preferably just before falling asleep each night.
Repeat these exercises of visualization—vividness, intensity, fre-
quency, and duration—until your goals become absolutely clear,
living, breathing, exciting, clear pictures in your mind. The more
skilled you become at moving from the dream through the goal to
the visualization, the more motivated and determined you will be.
The more clarity you develop, the more courage and confidence
you will have, and the more unstoppable you will become.
■ CREATE YOUR IDEAL FUTURE VISION
The most important part of dreaming big dreams is for you to define
your ideal future vision. It is for you to think about what you want be-
fore you begin to think about what is possible for you.You dream big
dreams by looking into the future and imagining that you have no
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limitations holding you back from achieving anything you set your
mind on.
Detach yourself from your current situation and allow yourself
to dream. Pretend for the moment that you have all the time and
money you need. Imagine that you have all the connections and con-
tacts, all the resources and opportunities, all the education and
knowledge , all the skills and experience that you require to be, have,
or do anything that you could dream of.
Imagine your ideal lifestyle. Imagine your ideal job or income.
Imagine where you would like to live and how you would like to
spend each day, each week, each month . Imagine your ideal family
life. Imagine your ideal state of health. Design your perfect life in
every respect.
■ MAKE YOUR OWN DREAM LIST
Here is an exercise for you. Take out a piece of paper and at the top
write the words “Dream List.” Underline these words and then
write down everything that you can think of that you could ever
possibly want if you had no limitations whatsoever.
Most people are held back by their self-limiting beliefs. The way
you burst these mental chains is with a dream list. The very fact that
you can write down something that you would love to have someday
means that you probably have within you, right now, the ability to
achieve it. Let your mind float freely as you write. There will be lots
of time to organize and evaluate your dreams later.
■ WHAT WOULD YOU DARE TO DREAM?
Here is a great question: “What one great thing would you dare to
dream if you knew you could not fail?”
If you were absolutely guaranteed of success in the achievement
of any one goal, big or small, long- term or short-term, what would
it be? If a billionaire took a liking to you and offered to write you a
check to cover any goal that you could clearly define, what one goal
would you choose?
If you could have any job, what would it be? If you could work
for any kind of company, what kind of a company would you se-
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lect? Where would it be, and what would it be doing? If your fam-
ily life and your relationships could be perfect in every respect,
what would they look like? Answer these questions clearly. Write
them down.
■ START WORK ON YOUR FUTURE
You begin the creation of your ideal future by making up your
dream list.You write down everything that you would want to be, do
and have, exactly as if you had no limitations at all. You make up
your list as if you were absolutely guaranteed of success. Then you
can begin refining your list, step by step to develop a detailed blue-
print for your life.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “Have you built your castles in
the air? Good, that’s where they should be built. Now, go to work and
build foundations under them.” Once you have broken free from your
limited thinking, like a balloon casting loose its moorings and rising
high into the sky, you can begin to turn your dreams and fantasies
into concrete practical goals with specific plans of action.
Your ability to set goals and to make plans for their accomplish-
ment is the “master skill” of success. With this master skill, there are
no limits on what you can accomplish. Putting your goals on paper
is the next step in the process.
■ HOW TO ACHIEVE ANY GOAL
There is a seven -step method for goal setting and achievement
that you can use, over and over, in any situation, to accomplish
anything you could ever want for yourself. These seven steps con-
stitute a powerful, proven formula that you can use to change your
life immediately.
■ STEP ONE: DECIDE EXACTLY 
WHAT YOU WANT
A real goal is clear, specific, measurable, and time bounded. A non-
goal—a wish or a hope—is fuzzy and unclear. It is a fantasy that
floats in the air. People with clear, specific goals, who know exactly
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what they want, are very different from people who are going
through life hoping for the best.Your ability to decide exactly what it
is you want in each area of your life is one of the most important re-
sponsibilities of adult life.
People often approach me at my seminars and ask what 
their goals should be. I reply that only they can decide. It is amaz-
ing how many of them tell me how hard it is to set goals, and I
agree with them. It is hard, but it is also essential . With clear
goals, you can do almost anything. Without them, you can do vir-
tually nothing.
One of the major reasons that people fail in life is because they
waste so much of their time doing things of low value or no value at
all. And the reason they waste so much time is because they have no
real idea of what they really want. Once you have clear goals, your
ability to manage your time improves dramatically.
■ USE YOUR TIME WELL
Here is a way to decide whether something is a good use of your
time. Just ask, “Does this move me toward the achievement of one of
my goals?” If the activity helps you to achieve a goal you have set
for yourself, it is a good use of time. If it doesn’t, it is a poor use
of time.
When you get into the habit of only doing those things that
move you toward your goals, your life will take off. Your results will
improve. You will soon find yourself busy every hour of every day
doing things that are helping you in some way.You will have no time
left to spend on activities that aren ’t helping you to achieve one of
your goals.
When you set clear goals for yourself, and you know exactly
what you want, you will become increasingly impatient with activi -
ties that are not helping you in some way.You will watch less televi-
sion. You will listen to less radio. You will read the newspapers
quickly, if at all. You will become far more selective with your
friends and your social activities.You will spend time only with peo-
ple you enjoy, people you can learn and benefit from. But, as the old
saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take
you there.”
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■ STEP TWO: WRITE DOWN 
YOUR GOALS
Write your goals down on paper. There is something quite incred-
ible that happens between the brain and the hand. When you take
a paper and pen and write down your goals, you activate the Laws
of Expectation, Attraction, and Correspondence simultaneously.
You intensify your belief and deepen your conviction that your
goals are possible for you. The very act of writing down your goals
gives you a sense of control and personal power. Written goals in-
crease your resolve and determination to do whatever is necessary
to achieve them.
The speed at which you will begin to achieve your goals after
you have written them down is nothing short of miraculous. The
very act of writing out your goals increases the likelihood of your
achieving them by as much as 10 times—1,000 percent!
Many thousands of my graduates have written or come back
to tell me about the amazing things that have happened in their
lives that started immediately after they began putting their goals
in writing.
■ STEP THREE: BE WILLING 
TO PAY THE PRICE
Determine the price you are going to have to pay to achieve your
goal. Make a list of everything that you are going to have to do if
you want to make your goal a reality.
Are you going to have to start each day’s work a little earlier,
work a little harder, and stay a little later? Write it down. Are you go-
ing to have to upgrade your knowledge and skills, and take addi-
tional courses? Again, write it down. Are you going to have to change
jobs, change industries, or change careers in order to achieve every-
thing that is possible for you? Write it down.
The Law of Cause and Effect is the iron law of the universe. For
everything that you want, there is a price that must be paid. This
price must be paid in full and in advance. The Law of Sowing and
Reaping is not the Law of Reaping and Sowing. You have to put in
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CHANGE YOUR THINKING, CHANGE YOUR LIFE
before you get out. You have to give before you receive. You have to
pay the price before you enjoy the reward.
Your willingness to do whatever you need to do, pay whatever
price is required, go whatever distance is necessary, and make what-
ever sacrifice is demanded is the measure of how badly you really
want your goal.
Many people sabotage their own success by deciding that they
want a particular goal, and although they are willing to pay a high
price for it, they are not quite willing to pay the full price that the
goal demands. This is like wanting to win in a poker game but not
being willing to match the final bet made by the other player. You
end up losing the whole hand, just as by failing to make a total com-
mitment people end up losing the entire goal.
■ STEP FOUR: MAKE A DETAILED PLAN
Make a plan, in writing. Remember, the ability to develop written
goals and create plans for their achievement is the master skill of
success. A plan begins with your making a list of all the things that
you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your
goal. Once you have made your list, you can add new items as they
occur to you.
You then organize your list in terms of priority and sequence.
What are the most important things on the list that you will have to
do to achieve your goal? What are the things that you will have to do
before you do something else? Which items on your list are depen -
dent on your completing other items first?
A plan of action gives you a track to run on. It increases your
level of belief and intensifies your desire for the goal. You gradually
become convinced that your goal is actually possible and achievable
for you. You begin to see possibilities that you may not even have
been aware of in the absence of a written plan.
■ STEP FIVE: TAKE ACTION 
ON YOUR PLAN
Take action of some kind in the direction of your goal. Once you
have set a goal, written it down, determined the price that you are
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Dream Big Dreams
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going to have to pay, and made a plan, you must take some action
immediately. Even if you only make one phone call or collect one
piece of information, be sure to do something. In the Bible it says,
“ Faith without deeds is dead.”
There is something powerful in your willingness to take a 
specific action, in faith, in the direction of your goal, with no
guarantee of success. Your action itself seems to trigger all kinds
of other powers and forces in the universe. You activate the Law
of Attraction to help you. When you take action, you demonstrate
to yourself, and to others for that matter, that you are really seri-
ous about your goal.
Until you have taken a specific, irrevocable action of some
kind, you have merely engaged in an enjoyable exercise, like day-
dreaming. You have put your key into the ignition but you haven’t
turned it on.
■ STEP SIX: DO SOMETHING EVERY DAY
Do something every day that moves you toward your most impor-
tant goal. This is a vital success principle that generates energy and
enthusiasm. For you to maintain your courage, confidence, and self-
motivation, you must be doing something every single day that gives
you a feeling of forward motion and progress. Your job is to build
yourself up to the point where you genuinely feel unstoppable, and
the only way that you can do this is by refusing to stop, by doing
something daily.
■ STEP SEVEN: NEVER GIVE UP
Resolve in advance that you will never quit once you have started
toward your goal. No matter how many setbacks or obstacles you
experience, make the decision that you will keep on picking yourself
up and persisting until you eventually succeed.
By deciding in advance that you will persist, no matter what the
difficulty, you give yourself a psychological edge. When the difficul-
ties do arise, you will be mentally prepared to plow through them
rather than quitting. Your willingness and ability to persist are what
will eventually guarantee your success.
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■ SECRETS OF 
SELF-MADE MILLIONAIRES
If money is your goal, remember that most of the people who are
wealthy today started out with no money at all, or even deeply in
debt . Almost everyone who is on the top today was once at the bot-
tom. Almost everyone who is at the front of the line of life was once
at the back of