Awesome Success Principles and Quotations

Chapter One
A Positive Attitude
“The last great freedom we have is the freedom to choose our attitude under any given set of circumstances.”
—Viktor Frankl


Researchers over the years believe that people who routinely maintain a positive mental attitude may enjoy many benefits such as:
• Increased life span
• Lower rates of depression
• Lower levels of distress
• Greater resistance to the common cold
• Better psychological and physical well-being
• Reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
• Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

I have studied people for many years, and have come to the conclusion that some people have a positive attitude, while some others maintain an attitude of doom and gloom. I believe that we are all born to be great successes. We are each born daring and fearless. But somewhere in our upbringing some people change.
We each possess the ambition, aggressiveness, and mental attitudes to succeed. And even if we have turned off some of the elements needed, we can switch those elements back on, but it will take much practice and work to get in the groove. Some people would rather go with flow, and follow the follower than go the extra mile to achieve greatness.
There are those whom I enjoy being around, because of their positive outlook on life and many of its problems, and those whom I merely tolerate. Those who practice an attitude of doom and gloom about life are unfortunately stuck in a rut. The habit they have developed is hard to break and turn around. And even if they become ecstatic about a sudden turn of good fortune, it will be short lived at best. They can, though, change their attitude, if they practice working on a newfound positive attitude for 20 days. You see, it takes approximately 20 consecutive days to form a new habit.
Practice makes perfect, we all know that line. Reading and practicing positive self help is a great way to begin to change. When I say change, I mean separate yourself from the average person that is doing fine with job and life. But they are not in the top of their field, and not earning the top of their earning potential.

Faith And Appreciation

Dr. Robert Schuller, minister, author, and lecturer on positive thinking, told a story in Insight Publication, about his father and how his father's attitudes have remained with him to this day. Schuller, born and raised on a farm in Iowa in the 1930s, lived during a very difficult time for farmers. In one year, his father would normally harvest 10 wagons of corn from their farm, but in one particularly bad year his father harvested only half a wagon. Schuller remembers his father's feelings at the time this way: “I'll never forget how, that night, seated at the dinner table, his calloused hands folded in prayer, my father looked up and thanked God. He said, 'I thank you, God, that I have lost nothing, I got a half a wagon load back. I have regained the seed I planted in the springtime.'
“His attitude of gratitude was that he had lost nothing.”
In another example of his father's “Attitude of Gratitude,” Schuller tells of the time a tornado hit their home without any warning, and how they all managed to escape in the family car without harm, but the tornado did destroy all nine of their buildings on the farm.
The next night at a gathering in the country church he heard his father pray: “Oh God, I thank you that not a life was lost, not a human bone was broken. We have lost nothing that cannot be recaptured, regained and replaced. And through the storm, oh God, we have kept everything that would have been irreplaceable - the lives of the children and our own faith.”

Rev. Robert H. Schuller was born on September 16, 1926 and is now a retired American televangelist, pastor, motivational speaker, and author. Rev. Schuller is the founder of Southern California's Crystal Cathedral, a huge church with a congregation of 10,000, and he was the host of the "Hour of Power" televangelism broadcast. He once said: “Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.”
“When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you are trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must—but don’t you quit!
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow—
You might succeed with another blow. . . .
Success is failure turned inside out—
the silver tint of the clouds of doubt—
And you can never tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you are hardest hit—
It’s when things get worse that you mustn’t quit!”
—Edgar A. Guest