On Fridays I have sent an email to many friends with an inspiring story. I have decided to put at least some of the significant quotes on this blog because they can stir our own thinking to where we can see change where it is needed. It’s common knowledge that, globally, business people are being inundated by one challenge after another. These are considered by most everyone, tough times. Personally, I’ve been in business for a long time. This is my 41st year in this business. I have a number of companies that operate globally and like everyone else, we’re experiencing challenges on a number of fronts. However, over the course of these 41 years, I’ve seen this happen more than once. Fortunately I’ve always weathered the storm … and not by accident - by design. I thought I’d share with you today some of the ideas that have helped me to keep moving in the right direction.
.....You see, I learned that one of the great secrets in life is recognizing when you need help and graciously accepting it. I coach people from all over the world, and I do this because the coaches I had made such an enormous difference in my life. The changes I experienced came fast and furious and they’ve all been long lasting. The names of the 6 people are Raymond Douglas Stanford, Earl Nightingale, Lloyd Conant, Val Van De Wall, Dr. C. Harry Roder, and Bill Gove. Let me touch on each of them, one at a time because I believe the lessons I learned will benefit you, as well.
I was working in a fire hall in Toronto when I was 26 years old, and I was not a very happy person. I was earning $4,000/year and I owed $6,000. The idea of getting out of debt never entered my mind. That’s when Ray Stanford entered my life. He encouraged me to take an honest look at the results I was getting. He said “Bob, you keep talking about not having a formal education and using it as an excuse for getting poor results.” He then said,
“Those are only reasons why you’re not getting what you want. Set those aside and start to focus on all the reasons you can get what you what.” Then he gave me Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich. He said, “Bob, if you will make the commitment to do exactly what this book says and to do exactly what I suggest, I’ll help you change your life.” I didn’t really believe I could, but I believed he believed I could. And it was his belief in me that inspired me to begin to study. One year later, I was earning $175,000 a year and, from there, I took it to over a million a year. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I
was beginning to realize a lot of the things that I had been thinking weren’t true. I thought some people were lucky but others weren’t. I was to find out that you and I have exactly the same potential.
I then got a hold of Earl Nightingale’s condensed narration of the Napoleon Hill book, Think And Grow Rich on a record. I began listening to that record every day.......Earl Nightingale taught me how to study. He said, “Don’t just read the book, study it. Attempt to understand the idea the author is attempting to communicate in each paragraph. To do that you might need to study that paragraph for a month.”
As I’m writing this story, I’m surrounded by a few thousand books in my own library, all of which I’ve studied. Lloyd Conant taught me to take the lid off my mind and let it soar. He said,
“Bob, nothing is big or small, except our thinking makes it so. No one alive knows what we’re capable of doing. Go after something big. Even if you miss, it can be exhilarating.”........On Earl Nightingale’s recording of The Magic Word …
the magic word being Attitude … at one point he says,
“Now right here we come to a rather strange fact. We tend to minimize the things we can do, the goals we can accomplish, and for some equally strange reason we think other people can accomplish things that we cannot. I want you to understand that that is not true. You have deep reservoirs of talent and ability within you that you can bring to the surface and achieve all that you desire.”.......I want to leave you with one thought:
These are only tough times if you think of them as tough times. I see these as good times. It is times like these that cause us to grow… to dig down deep inside and bring something out of ourselves that we might not have known was there. I am very pleased that I have been able to share what I have learned with many thousands of people from every walk of life through our Coaching Program. I’ve watched people who were in financial trouble become prosperous; companies that were struggling grow into viable organizations. Any way a person can be helped, I’ve seen it happen because
the answers are within us. And, because of what these great men taught me, I was able to pass it along.
[If you would like to change, let me help you learn what my coaches taught me. If you think I could help you, send me an email at bob@bobproctorcoaching.com and I’ll get back to you.]
.,..............Bob Proctor Chairman Life Success Productions.
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