Can you dig it?

Do you believe success is having a lot of money? Success is not just the possession of money. Success is a knowing of who and what you are. Once known, anything can be achieved. I once read a statistic that I remember from time to time. rnTake 100 people of similar backgrounds. All starting out at age 25 with the same look of determination, the same education and a motivation to succeed in life. How many of these original 100 will succeed in life? Let’s take the standard retirement age of 65. I believe now it is 67 and possibly going higher. Only 1 will be very wealthy and 4 will be well off. 54 will be living off of government or family support. 5 will still be working because they have to and 36 will be dead. rnAfter looking at these numbers, where do you want to be when you decide to stop? This same question was and still is self evident for me. I do hope it is for you as well? rnMany of the traditionally educated people are failures because there knowledge is superficial rather than practical. The so called un-educated who are successful discovered this power within. This invisible power knows no defeat. This is not saying that a good education from a good institution is a bad thing. However, I have talked to many individuals with a fine degree that has never succeeded in life. rnWhen I was in the army a new soldier came into my platoon. He was straight out of training with that fresh look about him. After several weeks of getting to know him, I discovered he had only two classes before he would receive his business degree. I asked why he didn’t finish college? His response was this “Oh, I figured I should get a job and earn money rather than be overeducated and unemployed”. rnThis statement did not quite register with me. I believe my head tilted to one side because of the oddity of the statement. I started questioning several other soldiers in my platoon. Come to find out almost half has either a college degree or very close to having one. All there responses were very similar. They joined the army to have a job rather than be over educated or unemployed. The repetition of any statement calls forth in your self the very quality or thing expressed. Our minds determine our success or failure. Your mind is your ultimate strength and weakness. Everything begins and ends with your thinking. Our mind is like a giant receiving station for all of the thoughts, pictures, images, feelings, experiences, to which it is exposed. Over our lifetime our mind gradually builds a library of beliefs and understandings, putting in concrete what it sees or hears most often. These beliefs may be true or false; our mind simply offers them to us as reality. “The world is flat” was a widely held belief by early Europeans, until Columbus proved otherwise. People then incorporated the new belief that the world is not flat, it is round and went ahead with a new belief. An open mind leads one to wisdom, knowledge, power and inspiration. The person who has the ability to concentrate is a genius in the making. With an open mind and concentration a person opens themselves up to infinite knowledge and leads a person to think accurately. Uncover your power and you can accomplish anything. It is true that the greatest study of mankind is man! I truly recommend that you begin an in depth study of success. There are countless books on the subject. If you begin a search for this knowledge I am sure the ones that you are drawn to will stand out. rnTo your success - Your friend Jim The secret which every intellectual man quickly learns – that beyond the energies of the possessed and conscious intellect he is capable of a new energy (as of intellect doubled upon itself), by abandonment to the nature of things; that besides his privacy of power as an individual man, there is a public power upon which he can draw, by unlocking, at all risks his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him, then he is caught up into the life of the universe, his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and his words are universally intelligible to plants and animals. ~ Emerson