The Resilient Mind - The Power of Your Mind - Earl Nightingale

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Earl Nightingale was an American radio speaker and author, dealing mostly with the subjects of human character development, motivation, and meaningful existence. He was the voice during the early 1950s of Sky King, the hero of a radio adventure series, and was a WGN radio program host from 1950 to 1956.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to The Power of Your Mind with Earl Nightingale. Get access to the Mental Mastery Program and other exclusive episodes by becoming a subscriber. Enjoy. I spent nearly 20 years looking for the secret to achievement. I didn't know it was older than the pyramids and had appeared in more than 50 million books. It started in 1933 during the last depression for me. I was bothered by the difference that existed between what I had been told and what I could see around me.

For example, I had been told that man was God's noblest creature and had dominion over all the earth and all its other creatures. I knew this was true, but in my neighborhood the creatures were eating better than we were, and I wanted to know why so many were poor when there was such abundance on the earth. They had no money, but there was still as much as there had been a few years before, where it had gone. They had little education, yet education was on every side of them. They had very little food, yet it was raised in abundance. They lived in inadequate and ugly dwellings, yet there were good homes for sale.

Well, it was apparent to me that these people didn't have the answer to the problem. They were good people, but they didn't have the answers. And you know what the answer was, the secret to achievement that I had devoted nearly 20 years to finding? Its pure simplicity had caused it to allude me, just as it manages to elude the majority of the people in any given age. I had been looking for something complicated, something only a mind prepared by years of study could grasp.

And I found the answer so simple a child can understand it. In six words, we are what we think about. Our minds, our thinking controls our destinies here on earth to a degree totally unsuspected by the great majority of people. When you think about it a moment, it becomes so obvious, so clear and simple. Well, then, if we become what we think about, and if we can control our minds, we can pretty well tell our own future.

And that's the point I want to make. That's what I meant when I said earlier, that each one of us is the architect of the structure fashioned by our years. This means that if we're confused about what we wish to become or accomplish, our lives, our environment will mirror that confusion. It also means that if we know what it is we seek, that it will, it must be accomplished. Barring an act of God or a catastrophe over which we have no control, we as individuals can call our own shots for the rest of our lives.

We can know what it means to go through life from one success to another, to play life according to the rules and reap the rewards. We can know what it means to have peace of mind and live calm, cheerful, successful lives. You are at this moment the sum total of your thoughts to this point, for there is nothing else you can be, and five years from now you can be and have anything you set your entire mind and heart upon. Glance around you. If you are in a furnished room, your eyes tell you that you are looking at a number of inanimate objects.

That's true, so far as visual perception is concerned, but in reality, you are actually looking at thoughts or ideas which have come into materialization through the creative work of some human being. It was a thought first that created the furniture, fashioned the window glass, and gave form to the draperies and coverings. the automobile, the skyscraper, the great planes that sweep the stratosphere, the sewing machine, the tiny pin, a thousand and one things, yes, millions of objects. Where did they come from originally?

Only one source. From that strange force, thought. As we look further, we realize that these achievements, and in fact all our possessions, came as a result of creative thinking. Thought is the original source of all wealth, all success, all material gain, all great discoveries, inventions, and of all achievements. With that in mind, it becomes easy to understand that a man's thoughts make or break him, and Shakespeare's words become more intelligible.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Many people feel that success comes with hard work. However, I would like to point out that hard work alone will not bring success. The world is filled with people who have worked hard but have little to show for it. Something more than hard work is necessary. It is creative thinking and firm belief in your ability to execute your ideas. The successful people in history have succeeded through their thinking. Their hands were merely helpers to their brains.

It has been said that thought attracts that upon which it is directed. It was Job, who said, for the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me. Our fearful thoughts are just as creative or just as magnetic and attracting troubles to us as are the constructive and positive ones and attracting positive results. So no matter what the character of the thought, it does create. after its kind. When this sinks in to a man's consciousness, he gets some inkling of the awe-inspiring power which is his to use. Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian psychoanalyst, brought the world's attention to the hypothesis that there was a powerful force within us, constantly at work molding our

thoughts, feelings, and actions. Others have called this division of our mental existence the soul. Some call it the super ego, the inner power, the superconsciousness, the unconscious, the subconscious, and various other names. It isn't an organ or so-called physical matter, such as we know the brain to be. Nevertheless, it is there, and from the beginning of recorded time, man has known that it exists. The ancients often referred to it as the spirit. Paracelsus called it the will. Others have called it the mind. No matter what was. call it, it is recognized as the essence of life, and the limits of its powers are unknown. It never sleeps. It comes to our support in times of great trouble. It warns us of impending danger.

Often it aids us in what seems impossible. It guides us in many ways, and when properly employed, performs so-called miracles. I remember one time I was driving through eastern Arizona, and I saw one of those giant earth-moving machines roaring along the road at about 35 miles an hour with what looked like 30 tons of dirt in it, a tremendous, incredible machine, and there was a little man perched way up on top with the wheel in his hands guiding it. And as I drove along, I was struck by the similarity of that machine to the human mind. Just suppose you're sitting at the controls of such a vast source of energy. Are you going to sit back and fold your arms and let it run itself into a

bitch? Or are you going to keep both hands firmly on the wheel and control and direct this power to a specific, worthwhile purpose? It's up to you. You're in the driver's seat. Some of our important contemporary philosophers tell us that man today is entering a new era, one they call the age of unity. They say that now for the first time the barriers between thought and actuality are beginning to disappear. For the past two or three thousand years, great philosophers and teachers have been showing their fellow humans how life on this small planet Earth could be improved. But during most of this period, man's control of his environment has been very limited. Today this is no longer true.

If man thinks he might like to unmake the atom, he does. If he thinks of living in the depths of the oceans, going to the moon, or voyaging in outer space, he does. The problem, then, is no longer what man can do. It becomes what men can think. Every thought seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind and to take root there produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit. Bad thoughts, bad fruit. He will find that as he alters his thoughts towards situations and other people, situations and other people will alter toward him.

The proof of this truth is in every person, and it therefore admits of easy investigation by systematic introspection and self-analysis. Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will affect in the material conditions of his life. Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot. It rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance. Thoughts of fear, doubt, and indecision crystallize into weak, unmanly, and irresolute habits, which solidify into circumstances of failure, indigence, and slavish dependence. Lazy, apathetic thoughts crystallize into habits of disorder, uncleanniness, and dishonesty, which solidify into circumstances of confusion, foulness, and beggary.

Thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision, crystallize into, manly habits, which solidify in the circumstances of strength and freedom. A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances. Nature helps every man to the gratification of the thoughts which he most encourages, and opportunities are presented. which will most speedily bring to the surface both the good and evil thoughts. Let a man choose his thoughts wisely and all the world will soften toward him and be ready to help him.

Let him put away bad thoughts and low. Opportunities will spring up on every hand to aid his strong resolves. A man should conceive of a worthy purpose in his heart and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at the time. But whichever it is, he should steadfastly focus his thoughts upon the object which he has set before him. He should make this purpose his supreme duty, and should devote himself to its attainment,

not allowing his thoughts to wander away into vague and ephemeral fancies. This is the royal road to self-control and true concentration of thought. even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose, as he necessarily must until weakness is overcome. The strength of character he earns will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph.

Those who are not prepared to conceive and dedicate themselves to a great purpose should fix their thoughts upon the faultless performance of their duty no matter how insignificant their tasks may appear. Only in this way can the thoughts begin and focused and resolution and energy be developed which being done, there is nothing that may not be accomplished. As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient exercise, so the man of weak thought can become strong by training himself in thinking.

To put away aimlessness and weakness, and to begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment. who make all conditions serve them and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly, and accomplish masterfully. Fearlessly to purpose becomes creative force. He is ready to become something higher and stronger than a mere bundle of wavering thoughts and fluctuating sensations. He who does this has become the conscious and intelligent wielder of his mental powers.

All that he fails to achieve is the direct result. of his own thoughts. In a justly ordered universe where loss of equipoise means destruction, individual responsibility must be absolute. A man's weakness and strength, wisdom and folly are his own and not another man's. They are the product of himself and not another. And they can only be altered by himself, never by another. His circumstances also are his and not another man's. His suffering and his happiness revolved from within. As he thinks, so is he. As he continues to think, so he remains. Man can only rise, conquer and achieve. He can only remain weak and abject and miserable by refusing to lift up his thoughts. Before a man can achieve anything,

even in worldly things, he must lift his thoughts above the animal level. He may not in order to succeed, give up all animality and selfishness by any means, but a portion of it at least must be sacrificed. A man whose first thought is self-indulgence can neither think clearly nor plan methodically. He cannot find and develop his latent resources and must fail in any undertaking. Not having commenced manfully to control his thoughts, he's not in a position to control affairs and to adopt serious responsibilities. He's not fit to act independent and stand alone. He's limited by the thoughts, which he chooses. There can be no progress, no achievement, without sacrifice, and a man's worldly success will be in the measure that he

sacrifices his confused, animal thoughts, and fixes his mind on the development of his solution and self-reliance. And the higher he lifts his thoughts, the more manly and upright he becomes, the greater will be his success, the more blessed and enduring will be his achievements. He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another world, and he discovered it. Copernicus fostered the vision of a multiplicity of worlds in a wider universe, and he revealed it. Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and perfect peace, and he entered into it. Cherish your visions, cherish your ideals, dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.

Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be. The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. Dreams are the seedlings of realities. Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an ideal. and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without. Here is a youth,

hard-pressed by poverty and labor, confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop, unschooled and lacking all the arts. But he dreams of better things. He thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal life.

The vision of a wider liberty in a larger scope takes possession of him. Unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources. Very soon, so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside, and with the growth of opportunities which fit the scope of his expanding ability. He passes out of it forever. Years later we see this youth as a full-grown man. We find him a master of certain forces which he wields with worldwide influence and almost unequal power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities. He speaks and, lo, lives are changed. Men and women hang upon his words and re-mold their characters and sunlike.

He becomes the fixed and luminous center around which innumerable destinies revolve. He has realized the vision of his youth. He has become one with his ideal. And you too will realize not the idle wish of your heart, be it base or beautiful, toward that which you secretly most love. Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts. You will receive that which you earn, no more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain.

or rise with your thoughts, your vision, your ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire, as great as your dominant aspiration. The thoughtless, the ignorant, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves. Talk of luck, of fortune and chance. Oh, rich, they say, how lucky he is. Observing another become intellectual, they exclaim, how highly favored he is. And noting the character and wide influence of another, they remark, how chance aids him at every turn.

They do not see the trials and failures and struggles which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience. They have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable and realize the vision of their heart. They do not know the darkness and the heartaches.

They only see the light and joy and call it luck. They do not understand the process, but only perceive the result and call it chance. Human affairs, there are efforts, and there are results. And the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. Material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort. They are thoughts completed, objects accomplish, visions realized.

The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart, this you will build your life by, this you will become. Thank you for tuning into this episode. If you're enjoying the content, you can access exclusive material by becoming a subscriber.

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