Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude

3. Work now becomes fun. You are motivated to pay the price. You budget your time and money. You study, think, and plan. The more you think about your goals, the more enthusiastic you become. And with enthusiasm your desire turns into a burning desire.

4. You become alerted to opportunities that will help you achieve your objectives as they present themselves in your everyday experiences. Because you know what you want, you are more likely to recognize these opportunities.

These four advantages are illustrated by an early experience of the man who was later to become editor of the Ladies Home Journal. Edward Bok came from Holland as a boy with his parents. He was imbued with the idea that some day he was going to run a magazine. With this specific goal before him, he was able to seize upon an incident so trivial that with most of us it would have passed unnoticed.

He saw a man open a package of cigarettes, take a slip of paper from it, and drop the paper on the floor. Bok stooped and picked

up the scrap of paper. On it was a picture of a famous actress. Below the picture was a statement that this was one of a series. The cigarette buyer was urged to collect the complete set of pictures. Bok turned the piece of paper over and noticed that the back side was perfectly blank.

Bok's mind, filled as it was with a purpose, sensed an opportunity here. He reasoned that the value of the picture enclosed in the package of cigarettes would be greatly enhanced if the blank side were devoted to a brief biography of the person pictured. He went to the lithograph firm, which printed the enclosure and explained his idea to the manager. The manager promptly said:

I'll give you ten dollars each if you will write me a 100-word biography of 100 famous Americans. Send me a list, and group them ? you know: presidents, famous soldiers, actors, authors, and so on."

This is the way Edward Bok got his first literary assignment. The demand for his short biographies became so great that he needed help, so he offered his brother five dollars each if he would help him. Before long, Bok had five journalists busy turning out biographies for the lithograph presses. Bok ? he was the editor!

You have success born in you. Notice that none of the men we have been talking about had success handed to him on a platter. At first the world was not particularly kind to Edward Bok or Judge Cooper. And yet each carved from the raw material around him a career of great satisfaction. And each one did it by developing the many talents he found within himself.

Everyone has many talents for surmounting his special problems. It is interesting to note that life never leaves us stranded. If life hands us a problem, it hands us also the abilities with which to meet the problem. Our abilities vary, of course, as

we are motivated to use them. And even though you are in ill health, you can nonetheless lead a useful and happy life.

You may fear ill health is too great a handicap to overcome. If this is true, take courage from the experience of Milo C. Jones. Milo had not tried to acquire wealth when he had good health. And then he became sick. When he became sick, the odds were stacked heavily against him.

Here's the story of his experience.

When Milo C. Jones had been in good health he had worked very hard. He was a farmer and he operated a small farm near Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. But somehow he seemed unable to make his farm yield much more than the bare necessities for himself and his family. This kind of existence went on year after year. Then suddenly something happened!

Jones was stricken with extensive paralysis and confined to his bed. Here was a man who late in life became completely incapacitated. He was barely able to move his body. His relatives were certain he would be permanently unhappy as a hopeless invalid. And he would have been had not something more happened to him. And he made it happen. It brought the kind of happiness to him that comes with achievement and financial success.

What was it Jones used to bring about this change? He used his mind. Yes, his body was paralyzed. But his mind was unaffected. He could think and he did think and plan. One day while engaged in thinking and planning, he recognized the most important living person with the magic talisman with PMA on one side and NMA on the other. He saw clearly that he was a mind with a body. He made his own decision right then and there!