Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude

When Herbert Hughes Bigelow, president of Brown & Bigelow of St. Paul, Minnesota, arrived at Leavenworth on a conviction of income tax evasion, Charlie Ward also befriended him. In fact, he went out of his way to motivate Bigelow to adjust himself to his environment. Mr. Bigelow was so appreciative of Charlie's friendship and help that as his prison term approached its end, he told Charlie, "You have been good to me. When you get out, come to St. Paul. We will have a job for you."

Five weeks later Charlie was released from prison and went to St. Paul. As he had promised, Mr. Bigelow gave Charlie a job. He was given work as a laborer at $25 a week. Because Charlie worked with PMA, he became a foreman within two months. After a year, he became a superintendent Finally Charlie was made vice president and general manager. And when Mr. Bigelow died, Charlie was made president of Brown & Bigelow; he continued in this capacity until his own death many years later. Under Charlie's management, sales rose from less than three million dollars to over fifty million dollars annually. Brown & Bigelow became the largest company of its kind.

Because of Ward's positive mental attitude and his desire to help those less fortunate, he himself received peace of mind, happiness, love, and the better things in life. By presidential decree, his rights as a citizen were restored in acknowledgment of his exemplary life. Those who knew him held him in the highest esteem, and were themselves inspired to help others.

Perhaps one of his most unusual and commendable activities was his employment of over five hundred men and women who had come from prisons. They continued their rehabilitation under his stern and understanding guidance and inspiration. He never forgot that he too had been a convict. He wore a tag on his bracelet with his old prison number as a symbol.

Charlie Ward had been sentenced to prison. That was good! Why? Who knows what might have become of Charlie Ward had he continued in the direction in which he was headed. But in prison he met the challenge to change. And there he learned to use PMA to solve his personal problems. He made his world a better world to live in. He became a bigger and better man. No one will ever know the exact number of the needy who have prayed for blessings to Charlie Ward in response to their inner thoughts:

I was naked and ye clothed me; I was sick and ye visited me. I was in prison and ye came unto me.

Fortunately not everyone is faced with problems as severe as those which Charlie Ward was called upon to meet and solve. But there is a lesson in Charlie's story, in addition to the fact that he changed his attitude from negative to positive. You will recall, Charlie himself said: "My greatest mistake was being with the wrong companions." Negative attitudes are often contagious, and bad habits are contagious. Let each of us look to our own associations and be certain to keep them on the highest possible level. One of the greatest services you can render to children is to motivate them to motivate themselves to select the right kind of friends and associates. Remember:

Vice is a monster of such awful mien That to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet, seen too oft, familiar with his face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

Another force with which every human being has to contend, and which, if not met with PMA, can cause physical, moral, and mental destruction is the power of sex. Sex presents the greatest challenge of change! Each human being hat the power to choose for himself whether he will use the tremendous power of sex for good or for evil. Each human being must contend with the problems that will arise in his life because of sex.

You can transmute sex into virtue or vice. One of God's greatest gifts to mankind is the power to procreate a human being. Sex is the means of procreation. It is power! Like all power, it can be used for good or for evil.

Sex is a physical function of the body under the control of the subconscious and conscious mind. It is inherited. The physical sex organs, works of God, like all His creations, are good. The little difference that makes the big difference between the power of sex being a virtue or a vice is mental attitude.

The inherent emotion of sex is one of the most powerful forces of the subconscious mind. The effects of its motivating power can be observed long before adolescence. This power blends with and intensifies the driving force of all other emotions.