There are a few…just a VERY few…traits that people must cultivate and develop in their lives before they can even START to become successful in whatever path they choose.

You can think of these traits as the building blocks…the foundation…of your growth into a successful life.

You can build a life without them, but, like building a house without a strong foundation, it’ll be put at risk with the first heavy wind or rainstorm. Believe me, you will have a few of those in your life for sure!

  Let’s talk for a moment about the trait of concentration.

The power of concentration is to be developed so as to enable a person to do better work, to produce the best of which they is capable. It does not mean brooding and meditating, with no thought of action and production. It is to encourage work, not restrain it.

It’s a mistake to think that concentration means a straining of the mind. On the contrary, it is power in repose. It’s not a nervous habit of doing your work under pressure, but the ease of self-control. Every person should have one great ideal in life toward which they direct their best powers.

By constantly keeping that aim before you, by bending your energies to it, you can hope eventually to attain to your highest goals. When a successful financier was asked the secret of his great success, he said that as a young man they made a strong mental picture of what some day he would become.

Day and night he concentrated his powers upon that one goal. There was no feverish haste, no nervous overreaching, and no squandering of mental and physical power, but a strong, reposeful, never-wavering determination to make that picture of his youth a living reality. Such is the power of concentration; such is the secret of success.

Another trait that we cover in the book is self-confidence.

Indecision is a frequent cause of the fear. People hesitate to take a step one way or the other for fear that they might do the wrong thing, and this spirit of irresolution and hesitation often leads them into the very mistakes they would avoid. It’s like a man on a bicycle, endeavoring to steer clear of an obstruction on the road, but all the while keeping his eye fastened upon it so that a collision is inevitable. There is nothing more disastrous to success than lack of purpose. "He who hesitates is lost," while he grows great who puts on "the dauntless spirit of resolution." The world generally accepts a man at his own value. If you give an impression that you are afraid, you will elbowed aside and imposed upon at almost every turn.

If you want to learn how to be self-confident, resolve to follow it to completion with bulldog tenacity. Realize that no weak-hearted, intermittent efforts will achieve your desired purpose. Hold in your mind the supreme assurance that you can and will achieve this indispensable power, and your reward for your energy and perseverance will be great!

Are you self-conscious? Are you timid? Let’s talk about that for a moment.

So, what is the remedy for self-consciousness? It’s mainly a matter of securing control of one's thoughts and intelligently directing them. The mind is a machine, which must be made obedient to the owner's will. When brought under subjection, it will serve man's highest and best purposes, but left to itself it may run easily to confusion and destruction.

You might say: "But my mind wanders." Then go after it and bring it back. You say you can’t? Who’s operating your mind? Does it run itself? What would you think of a train that had no engineer, no conductor, no one to direct it, and was allowed to run just anywhere? Yet this is what you permit with your train of ideas. Be sensible. Take hold of yourself seriously. Set your will to work. Straighten your spine. Take time today for mental overhauling. You are about to educate your will and it’s serious business. Procrastination will not do. From this time forward resolve to control and direct your mental powers for definite purposes.

Are you surrounded by negative people and thoughts? Here’s a few things to do to remedy that.

How would a man exclude negative thought from his life? Certainly not by affirming such sentences as "I have no fear," "I am not weak," "I do not lack ability," "I am not a failure." Remembering that only positive thoughts are constructive, they will avoid even the use of negative symbols as "weak," "fear," "lack," "failure." They will say, rather, "I am self-confident," "I am strong," "I am able," "I am a success."

These affirmations will be made both silently and audibly, always with deep conviction and earnestness.

Remember, however, that these affirmations must be confirmed by actual performance. A man might sit in his office chair and continually affirm that he was a success, and nothing but success, until they fell over from heart failure. When you say "I am courageous," you must demonstrate it in your daily life. You may say "I am hopeful, powerful, buoyant, cheerful," but if you then proceed to sit down in a corner by yourself and moan about your fate, you are simply deluding yourself. It is not sufficient that you believe what you affirm; you must be it, live it, and act it.

Every person who aspires to positive thinking should shut the door of his mind against fear thought and negative thought as they would against their most bitter enemies. Negative thought works its way cunningly, by plausible excuse and subterfuge, until it holds a person in its death-like grasp. It subdues, discourages, weakens, intimidates, and at last brands its victim a failure and outcast. To harbor it in one's mind is to entertain an enemy.

Positive thinking means that which constructs, strengthens, and ennobles. It means better manhood, the courage to do and to dare, and the heroism of mighty effort. It knows no limitation, but reaches out daily for new conquests. It is a power unto itself, growing through its own use.

Our habits of thought must be governed by fixed principles. One clear-cut, positive suggestion made in good time may frighten off a thousand petty negative thoughts. The thing we repeat frequently enough in our mind comes to acquire undisputed authority. We should not seek to perform some one great act of courage, but courageously perform all acts, however small, of our every-day life.

Here’s how to build up your imagination and initiative.

Every great work in the world first has its place in the human imagination. If a man is about to build a bench, he first pictures in his own mind the kind of bench it should be. Similarly the painter, architect, contractor, or manufacturer, traces in his imagination an image of that which they would produce.

The imagination, then, is a gallery in which we hang pictures, both of what we have done and what we intend to do. We may not always turn these pictures into realities at once, but they are there to interest and encourage us, and to come to our aid when needed. Upon one occasion Webster used, in one of his speeches, an illustration that he had carried in his imagination for fifteen years. Beecher, who was endowed with an unusually vivid imagination, placed this faculty first in importance in the making of a preacher.

They affirmed that a man with a trained imagination could not possibly wear out or become uninteresting to his congregation, and asked pertinently: "Did you ever hear anybody say that spring has been worn out? It has been coming for thousands of years, and it is just as sweet, just as welcome, and just as new, as if the birds sang for the first time; and so it will be for a thousand years to come.''

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Thanks for reading.  I look forward to helping you do better than YOUR best!

Ken Wallace

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