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Chapter 10 - How the Plus Factor Lends Reality to Hope
"Is there a difference between hoping an wishing? Yes there is.
Hope has the quality of expectancy in it." p91
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Re difficult times:
"You can even begin to enjoy this sense of hopelessness, In a perverse sort of way. It gives you an excuse for not trying to improve the situation!" p94
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"You should never write off anything as impossible or as a failure.
...
"The hopeful thinker projects hope and faith into the darkest situation and lights it up." p90
"if you look through history you will see many shining examples of where a single man or woman has brought hope and courage and endurance to a whole nation: Winston Churchill in the Battle of Britain, George Washington at Valley Forge,..."p89
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He was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 4, 1902. His father died in 1905 leaving his family in debt. In 1908 he hawked newspapers on the South Side of Chicago, while his mother worked as a dressmaker. By 1915 he owned his own newsstand. In 1918 he moved to Detroit to sell casualty insurance for his mother.[1]
[1902-2002= 100 years]
Stone dropped out of high school to sell insurance full-time. He later received a diploma from the YMCA Central High School in Chicago. He later took courses at Detroit College of Law and Northwestern University.[1]
Much of what is known about Stone comes from his autobiography The Success System That Never Fails.[2] In that book, he tells of his early business life which started with the selling of newspapers in restaurants. At the time, this was a very novel thing to do, which deviated dramatically from the normal practice of young boys hawking newspapers on street corners.
At first, the managers of restaurants tried to discourage him from this practice, but he gradually won them over by his politeness, charm, persistence and the fact that by and large, the patrons of the restaurants had no objection to this new way of selling his newspapers.
From there, he graduated to selling insurance policies very successfully in the offices of downtown businesses. His mother was the initiator of his new career, and together, they did quite well, she as the manager of the business, and he as the salesperson.
Stone ran $100 into millions with a strong desire to succeed and by putting into practice the principles in the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.[1][3][4]
He was the living example of the proverbial rags-to-riches protagonist in Horatio Alger's stories he loved so much. Eventually he became an 'angel' to others lifting some from the gutter, to incredible heights. One of his great successes was Og Mandino, an alcoholic at the time whom Stone took under his wing. The relationship engendered a new life for Mandino who became the publisher of Success Magazine at the time. In 1978, Stone met an aggressive young securities broker named Christopher Nolan and recruited him to become his Director of Education for the Entrepreneurship Forums. The forums were created by Stone to educate aspiring business owners in developing new business in Chicago.
In 1919, Stone built the Combined Insurance Company of America (a company providing accident and health insurance coverage) and by 1930, he had over 1000 agents selling insurance for him across the United States.[2] By 1979, his insurance company exceeded $1 billion in assets. Combined later merged with the Ryan Insurance Group to form Aon Corporation in 1987.,[2] and Combined was later spun off by Aon to ACE Limited in April 2008 for $2.56 billion.[5]
A proponent of the motivational book Think and Grow Rich by Hill, Stone associated with Hill to teach the Philosophy of Personal Achievement “Science of Success" course. Stone wrote: "One of the most important days in my life was the day I began to read Think and Grow Rich in 1937.[6][7] Stone said that the Bible was “the world's greatest self-help book".[8]
Stone explained the importance of PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) in his last interview not long before dying. Stone said: "A positive mental attitude is necessary for achieving worthwhile success. We in America know what it is for us, for we have inherited the tenets of the Judeo-Christian faiths on which our Constitution, laws and customs have been based.... Strive to understand and apply the Golden Rule.... Believe that any goal that doesn’t violate the laws of God or the rights of your fellow men can be achieved.... I attended one of the PMA rallies in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1976. I'll never forget Stone, the MC of the event; and how he leapt on the stage, grabbed the microphone and shouted: I feel healthy! I feel happy! I feel terrific! It gave me goosebumps. At the time, he was 74 years old; and possessed the energy of a man in his thirties." ~ M.L. Harris, author.[4]
Stone emphasized using a "positive mental attitude" to succeed.[1] Stone adopted the motto of his mentor, Napoleon Hill, "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve (with PMA)."[9] In 1960, Stone teamed up with Napoleon Hill to author Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude.[10] The book Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude includes the following testimonial from the Rev. Robert H. Schuller on the inside front cover page: "Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude is one of the ten books that has most impacted my faith and my philosophy...no person's education is complete without the concepts articulated in it so wisely and so well."[11] Norman Vincent Peale said that Stone and Hill "have the rare gift of inspiring and helping people...In fact, I owe them both a personal debt of gratitude for the helpful guidance I have received from their writings."[12] Stone and Hill also founded a monthly digest magazine, entitled Success Unlimited.[7] In 1962, Stone wrote the Success System That Never Fails, in which he suggested how to become successful and have a healthy, productive lifestyle.[13] In 1964, he and Norma Lee Browning collaborated on writing The Other Side of the Mind.[14]
You must keep your mind sharply focused on your goals, and you must have a grounding philosophy that sustains you when the going is tough. When you apply the principles of success consistently until they become a part of you, no longer will you have to stop and think about what you should do in any given situation. Your positive response will be automatic. Make sure you spend time in reflection and study. Clearly establish your goals and develop a plan and timetable for their achievement. Read the works of motivational writers and the great philosophers, and use the knowledge you gain to develop your own code of conduct. Establish your own philosophy of success that you can stick with — day in and day out — regardless of what the rest of the world does.
My approach to repetition is through my daily morning journal.
I have a template or form that I use for the journal. This template contains items to be filled in, such as what time I went to bed and what I ate for dinner, what I did during the day. What frogs I ate, and what ones I am going to eat today.
The Template also contains a list of my most important Rules, both for life and for trading. I am forced to read them every morning, first thing.
This also requires me to write out my three major goals and upcoming milestones on the goals. Every day I repeat the focus on these goals. As a result you could wake me out of a dead sleep and I could recite them instantly, like my name rank and serial number.
There is also a block text of my "ideal case for the year" statement. I reread this every day. I keep the vision very clear in mind as a result.
Also there are a bunch of questions that I want to ask myself on a regular basis.
I am constantly adding to and changing the journal format.
Repetition. I review the journal on Sundays and summarize according to another template, answering questions about the week. Same goes for the month, quarter and year. This takes time, but it's time I used to waste on Facebook.
So there is a great deal of repetition, and this is one way I reprogram myself.
One of the surest ways to achieve success is to observe the actions of successful people, determine what principles they regularly employ, and then use them yourself. The principles of success, as Andrew Carnegie said, are definite, they are real, and they can be learned by anyone willing to take the time to study and apply them. If you are truly observant, you will find that you can learn something from almost everyone you meet. And it isn’t even necessary that you know them. You may choose great people who are no longer alive. The important thing is to study their lives, and then learn and apply in your own life the specific principles these people used to achieve greatness.
Bob reprogammed himself and changed from always losing to having everything work out for him. It change like night and day, everyhting turned to gold.
He play the same record over and over again (condensed summary of Think and Grow Rich) and kept reading the same book over and over and over again (Think and Grow Rich). He was writing a new program for his life. Soon everything was working our for him, he was making money, he wasn't getting sick anymore.