Here is a major fact of life. You must first know yourself, in order to grow yourself. Self awareness is one of the single most important parts of a maturing life.
The precious gift of living a free life was not freely given to you. Over all the years of our combined history, there has been lots of shed blood spilled out by many people as a paid-in-full price for the rest of mankind’s personal freedom. There was lots of sacrifice and training that was poured into you by your parents, educators, family, and friends. If you are a “Saved Believer” then Divine Human Blood was shed for the forgiveness of your personal sins. For most everyone, all that was provided to you in helping you reach adulthood was freely given to you without personal charge. Whatever and whoever it was that assisted you in becoming a full grown man or woman provided the solid basis for you,…so as to enable you to personally take that assistance, knowledge, and wisdom, and further develop it and then pass it on to future generations so that they may do the same with it,…as did you and all of your predecessors.
That is to say that if you don’t really know: (1) who you really are, (2) what your purpose in life really is, (3) where you are really going, and (4) how it is that you plan to get there, then…I will tell you that failure to know the real answers to those questions will undeniably and unarguably reduce the chances of you ever achieving anything of any real significance in your life. Additionally, it will practically guarantee that in the end, you are not going to like where it is that you actually end up!
My point is really quite simple,…Very few, if any at all, ever luck themselves into success. Now I am not talking about the “poor” folks who inherit large fortunes from prior generations without having to work, sacrifice, pay-the-price, and create or produce the wealth or the estate that will be eventually passed on as an inheritance to their own future generations. No, this discussion will be totally in reference to those real men and real women, girls and boys,…who are indeed upward mobile entrepreneurs and visionaries,…who indeed are those folks who truly intend to build their own success,…not the ones who merely suck off the full nursing bottle that was initially produced by others who later gave it all to their progeny to consume until empty.
You see, as is always the case, it will be these upward mobile type people who realize that they first must gain the knowledge and wisdom that they admittedly do not presently possess themselves. It will be these visionary type people who are totally willing to sit at the feet of wise men and women who know more than they do,…and learn from those wise people and their experience, all about the real principles of success and how to apply them in their own lives.
It is my sincere prayer that you, the reader or listener to this discussion, are one of those type people who want to learn more. I know that I myself fit right into that category. I am truly grateful that you want to join me in this incredible journey to the higher levels of living, performance, productivity, and contribution to our fellow men and women anywhere on this earth.
Now let us be certain to keep everything in its proper perspective as we dive off the end of the board and into the pool of the unknown….or as some would prefer to call it the unseen. Father God, clearly tells us in His Word, The Holy Bible, that to whom much is given, then much will also be required. He additionally tells us that once we learn what to do, once we learn how to help our fellow man,…once we learn how to do good things for other people,…and we then fail to do it,…then that is to be known as sin in our own life. So, you see, the student who learns the right and good thing to do,…has, along with his new knowledge, an immediate responsibility to take that which he has learned,…and use it to help, to love, to serve, and to assist his fellow man to improve his own life. The overarching theme of this message is that you learn so that you are then able to give (share) that which you have learned with another person.
What do you personally think and truly believe that the world needs most today? What is needed by our society to turn things around from what it has degenerated into,…and turn it back into the preparatory place for all great production, achievement, and service?
Permit me to remind you that every individual must first learn the principles of successful living before they can ever expect to become successful and then continue to live a successful life. You cannot give away that which you do not possess. You cannot help another person to become something more than they are if you, yourself, are not becoming more than you are.
Most of us really do want to succeed in life. The biggest problem that we face is getting ourselves into the proper position to enable our desired success to occur. Most folks so desirous to succeed do not put themselves into a condition to win. They do not cut the chords that bind them, or eliminate the entanglements and obstructions that constantly hinder them. The fact is that we must first prepare ourselves for success before we have any right to expect to achieve it.
The first thing you need to do is to begin paying the price to get a good quality personal education. Before success has a chance to happen in your life you must first learn the principles for successful living. Uneducated people rarely know anything about those principles. It is for this very reason that many highly educated and intelligent people who attempt to achieve great success in any particular vehicle and fail to achieve it,…quit trying to succeed. They quit working. They give up. They sadly give up on themselves and on their own dreams and on their own family. They pitch the towel in on themselves because they are unwilling to pay full price and learn the principles of successful living and then apply them. Rather they think that they already know all there is to know,…or they think that they know enough that they no longer need to learn anymore and as such they never adequately put themselves into a proper position to succeed. The sad but true fact is that they simply are NOT as intelligent as they have given themselves credit for being. How smart do you have to be to give up on yourself and your own family? Fame and fortune never come just because they are craved or seriously desired. There has to be some long, hard, committed, consistent work involved to reach your dreams.
Now when I mention getting yourself educated, I am not merely referencing getting an education from a formal government owned and operated school or higher education institution. I am not talking about a person who has obtained a sufficient amount of book-learned knowledge and facts that earns him or her the title of “Theoretical-Intellectual.” No, I believe that no student should ever be allowed to graduate with a diploma and all other associated recognitions from any of the higher educational institutions, without being well grounded in the practical principles for achieving and living of a successful life. Only a very few institutions in our nation today have any staff properly qualified and knowledgeable enough to enable them to teach such a topic.
The great and knowledgeable sage and author, Orison Swett Marden once said: “It is a sad sight to see thousands of students graduated every year from our grand institutions whose object is to make stalwart, independent, self-supporting men, and women, but who only turn out into the world saplings instead of stalwart oaks, “memory-glands” instead of brainy men and women, helpless instead of self-supporting, sickly instead of robust, weak instead of strong, leaning instead of erect. ‘So many promising youths, and never a finished man!’ ”
If a real quality personal education on the principles of successful living is to be found only in good and fit books written only by those who have achieved such success, then one had better make certain, that regardless of the name and prestige of the name of the institution from which he or she formally graduated, that he or she had better have obtained and read more than once those precious and valuable fit books. The ones that do teach those principles of successful living. Read, and meditate on the material discussed and taught in those fit books. To become successful you must constantly feed your own mind just as regularly as you do your own body.
The scientific world tells us from their studies and tests that most people use but a small fraction of their mental faculties–somewhere between three and ten per cent. The remainder of their brains, somewhere between 90 and 97 per cent goes completely unused! While attaining what appears to be full physical stature, i.e. an adult human being….most men and women today remain complete “mental pygmies.” And that, you do not want to be! Think small and you will for certain be small.
You can only catch a cold from another person who has a cold. You can only learn from someone who has the true and correct knowledge, and who has an ability to communicate and teach someone else that same knowledge. Failures don’t know how to succeed from the start of any endeavor, but they can continue to learn until they know enough to use and become successful. Successful people, on the other hand, became such because they obtained and used the correct and proper knowledge, and initially failed. Then they tried again and failed, and again and failed, and on and on until they finally succeeded! You will always succeed in the end of things if you will only keep on trying using the right and proper things and techniques you’ve been taught to use,…until you make it! Perseverance is one of the great principles of successful living.
You must seek out and keep looking until you find,…a wise old man who will delight in giving you your own chair in the library of his mind. It is there that you will have all the access you need to truly become totally successful in your chosen field of endeavor!
This is a fact of life…..The person you will become in the next five years will strictly depend upon the books you read, and the people with whom you associate. Be very careful and selective as to what and who those books and people are.
Peace and Love To All of You……………….Poppa Bear