by Napoleon Hill
Available in 122 free installments
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2. Engage in thinking time for the purpose of solving your problems. Remember that every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit for those who have PMA.
3. State the problem. Analyze and define it.
4. State to yourself enthusiastically: "That's good!"
5. Ask yourself some specific questions, such as:
(a) What's good about it?
(b) How can I turn this adversity into a seed of equivalent or greater benefit; or how can I turn this liability into a greater asset?
6. Keep searching for answers to these questions until you find at least one answer that can work.
Now the problems that will confront you will, broadly speaking, be of three kinds: personal problems ? emotional, financial, mental, moral, physical; family problems; and business or professional problems. Because personal problems are the most immediate problems experienced by all of us, we would like to tell you the story of a man who met some of the most severe problems a human being can experience. As you read this story,
see how he applied PMA to the solution of each difficulty until he achieved ultimate victory.
He met his challenge to change with PMA at Leaven-worth Penitentiary. This man was born in poverty. While in grade school, he sold newspapers and sinned shoes in and around the saloons on Seattle's waterfront to help his mother meet expenses. Later he became a cabin boy on an Alaskan freighter during the summer months. After be finished high school at the age of seventeen, he left home. He became one of the horde of hobos that rode the rails and traveled to every part of the United States.
His companions were hard-bitten men. He gambled, associated with riffraff ? men of the so-called "Border Legion." Soldiers of fortune, fugitives, smugglers, cattle thieves, and the like were his companions. He joined the forces of Pancho Villa in Mexico. "You can't skate close to those extra-legal operations without knowing about them, even if you have nothing to do with them," Charlie Ward said. "My mistake was being with the wrong companions. My major sin was associating with people who were bad."
From time to time he won large sums gambling, and then lost them. Finally he was arrested for narcotics smuggling. He was tried and convicted. Yet throughout his life Charlie Ward maintained his innocence of the charge on which he was convicted.
Charlie Ward was thirty-four years old when he entered Leavenworth. He had never been in jail before in spite of his associates. And he was embittered. He vowed that no prison was strong enough to hold him. He looked for a chance to make a break.
Then something happened! Charlie chose to change his attitude from negative to positive. He met the challenge to change with PMA. Something within him told him to stop being hostile and to become the best prisoner in the prison. From that very moment the entire tide of his life began to flow in the direction most favorable for him. By the simple change from negative to positive thinking, Charlie Ward began to master himself.
He changed the direction of his aggressive personality. He forgave the federal agents who had brought about his plight. He quit hating the judge who sentenced him.
He took a real good look at the Charlie Ward of the past. And he resolved to avoid the very appearance of evil in the future. He looked around for ways to make his stay in prison as pleasant as possible.
First he asked himself some questions. And for the first time in his adult life he found his answer in books, Particularly The Book. In his prison cell he began to read the Bible. He read it and reread it. Thereafter, and up to the date of his death at the age of seventy-three, he read the Bible every day for inspiration, guidance and help.
Because of his change in attitude, and consequently in behavior, he began to attract favorable notice from the prison officials. And one day a convict clerk told him that a trusty in the power plant was to be released in three months. Charlie Ward knew little about electricity, but there were books on electricity in the prison library. So he studied. He learned what these books could teach him.
At the end of three months, Charlie was ready. He applied for the job. Something about his mannerism and his tone of voice impressed the deputy warden. That something was the
earnestness and sincerity of Charlie Ward's positive mental attitude. He got the job!
Because he continued to study and work with PMA, Charlie Ward became superintendent of the prison power plant with one hundred and fifty men under him. He tried to inspire each one of them to make the best of his situation.
