The Value of Positive Thinking
The Value of Positive Thinking
by Napoleon Hill
Is a negative mental attitude barring your way to success? If so, it’s time to change.
The negative-minded person is one who accepts any problem or obstacle as insurmountable. The positive person not only finds ways to overcome obstacles, but actually turns them into stepping stones.
In Louisiana, a large piece of acreage was put up for sale to close an estate. Only two bids were received, one from a man who owned adjoining land. He bid low because much of the ground was covered with bamboo growth which he thought made the land practically worthless.
The other bidder made an offer twice as high. He got the land, cut the bamboo into fishing poles, and sold them for enough money to pay the price of the land!
Thus we see that a positive mind attracts favorable opportunities for success. Negative-mindedness repels opportunities – and doesn’t even take advantage of them when they chance along.
F. W. Woolworth began as a clerk in a hardware store. The annual inventory showed that the store was stocked with thousands of dollars worth of old merchandise that was out of date and practically useless.
“Let’s run a bargain sale” he suggested to the owner, “and sell off all of this old merchandise.”
The owner rejected the idea but Woolworth was persistent as people with a positive mental attitude always are. He kept after the store owner until it was agreed that the plan could be tried out with a few of the very oldest items.
A long table was built down the middle of the store and every item on it was priced at ten cents. The goods went so fast that Woolworth got permission to run a second sale, and it went over with a bang also.
Then he proposed to the owner that they go into partnership in a Five and Ten Cent Store, with Woolworth supplying the management and the store owner supplying the capital.
“No!” shouted the owner, “the plan will never work because you can’t find enough items to sell at a nickel and a dime.”
Woolworth went ahead by himself and piled up a fortune.
In speaking of the transaction years later, Woolworth’s old boss said woefully: “As near as I can figure it, every word I used in turning Woolworth down has cost me about a million dollars.”
A negative mental attitude carries with it many related traits – such as fear, indecision, doubt, procrastination, irritability and anger – which tend to repel people and drive away favorable opportunities.
A positive mental attitude brings with it faith, enthusiasm, personal initiative, self-discipline, imagination and definiteness of purpose which attract people and beneficial opportunities.
How does one maintain a positive mental attitude?
By thinking and acting of the “can do” portion of every plan or purpose, and refusing to accept as insurmountable the “no can do” portion which is to be found in almost every undertaking.
Source: Success Unlimited. April, 1967. Vol. 14, No. 4. Pgs. 33 & 34.