I Don’t Believe in Defeat - 2

I Don’t Believe in Defeat - 2


Practically speaking, there are only a few human stories and they have all been enacted previously. This is a fact that you must never forget—there are people who have overcome every conceivable difficult situation, even the one in which you now find yourself and which to you seems utterly hopeless. So did it seem to some others, but they found an out, a way up, a path over, a pass through. One of the most inspiring illustrations of this fact is the story of Amos Parrish who twice every year brings together hundreds of leading department-store executives
and style experts in two huge clinics held in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. At these clinics Mr. Parrish gives advice to the merchants and their associates on business trends, on merchandise, on selling methods, and other matters important to the conduct of their business. Having attended a number of the clinics, however, I am convinced that the greatest values Mr. Parrish transmits to his customers are courage and positive thinking, a deep belief in themselves, and the confidence that they can overcome all difficulties. He seems a living example of the philosophy which he teaches. As a boy he was sickly. Moreover, he stuttered. He was sensitive and a victim of an inferiority complex. It was thought that he would not live because of his weakened physical condition, but one day Amos Parrish had a spiritual experience. Faith dawned in his mind, and from then on he knew that with the help of God and the utilization of his own powers he could achieve.



He developed a unique idea of service to businessmen, and so highly do they rate it that they are willing to pay large fees to attend a two-day session twice a year under the business wisdom and inspiration of Amos Parrish. To me it is a moving experience to sit with that big crowd in a hotel ballroom and listen to "A. P.," as he is affectionately called, talk positive thinking to those important businessmen and women.



Sometimes he has the greatest difficulty with his stuttering, but he is never discouraged. He refers to it frankly and with a sense of humor. One day, for example, he was trying to say the word Cadillac. He tried several times and was unable to get it out, and finally did so with a powerful effort. Then he commented, "I can’t even say C-C-C-Cadillac, let alone buy one." The audience roared with laughter, but I noted that they looked up at him with affection written on their faces. Everyone leaves a meeting at which he speaks with the conviction that they, too, can turn their obstacles into assets.



Again I repeat, there is no difficulty you cannot overcome. A wise and philosophical Negro man once said to me, when asked how he overcame his difficulties, "How do I get through a trouble? Well, first I try to go around it, and if I can’t go around it, I try to get under it, and if I can’t get under it, I try to go over it, and if I can’t get over it, I just plow right through it." Then he added, "God and I plow right through it."



Take seriously that formula of a businessman given earlier in this chapter. Stop reading for a moment and repeat it over to yourself five times, and each time you say it conclude with this affirmation, "I believe that." Here is the formula again, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Php 4:13) Say that five times every day and it will release indomitable power in your mind.



Your subconscious, which always resents any change, may say to you, "You don’t believe any such thing." But remember that your subconscious mind in a sense is one of the greatest liars in existence. It concurs in and sends back to you your own errors about your abilities. You have created the negative attitude in your subconscious and it gives this error back to you. So just turn on your subconscious and say to it, "Now look here, I do believe that. I insist upon believing it." If you talk to your sub-conscious mind with that positiveness, in due course it will be convinced. One reason is because you are now feeding it positive thoughts. In other words, you are at last telling the truth to your subconscious. After a while your subconscious mind will begin to send back the truth to you, the truth being that with the help of Jesus Christ there isn’t any obstacle you cannot overcome.



An effective method for making your subconscious positive in character is to eliminate certain expressions of thought and speech which we may call the "little negatives." These so-called "little negatives" clutter up the average person’s conversation, and while each one is seemingly unimportant in itself, the total effect of these attitudes is to condition the mind negatively. When this thought of "little negatives" first occurred to me, I began to analyze my own conversational
habits and was shocked by what I found. I discovered that I was making such statements as, "I’m afraid I’ll be late," or "I wonder if I’ll have a flat tire," or "I don’t think I can do that," or "I’ll never get through this job. There’s so much to do." If something turned out badly, I might say, "Oh, that’s just what I expected." Or, again, I might observe a few clouds in the sky and would gloomily state, "I knew it was going to rain."



These are "little negatives" to be sure, and a big thought is of course more powerful than a little one, but it must never be forgotten that "mighty oaks from little acoms grow," and if a mass of "little negatives" clutter up your conversation, they are bound to seep into your mind. It is surprising how they accumulate in force, and presently, before you know it, they will grow into "big negatives." So I determined to go to work on the "little negatives" and root them out of my conversation. I found that the best way to eliminate them was deliberately to say a positive word about everything. When you keep asserting that things are going to work out well, that you can do the job, that you will not have a flat tire, that you will get there on time, by talking up good results you invoke the law of positive effects and good results occur. Things do turn out well.



On a roadside billboard I saw an advertisement of a certain brand of motor oil. The slogan read, "A clean engine always delivers power." So will a mind free of negatives produce positives, that is to say, a clean mind will deliver power. Therefore flush out your thoughts, give yourself a clean mental engine, remembering that a clean mind, even as a clean engine, always delivers power.



So to overcome your obstacles and live the "I don’t believe in defeat" philosophy, cultivate a positive-idea pattern deeply in your consciousness. What we do with obstacles is directly determined by our mental attitude. Most of our obstacles, as a matter of fact, are mental in character.



"Ah," you may object, "mine are not mental, mine are real."



Perhaps so, but your attitude toward them is mental. The only possible way you can have an attitude is by the mental process, and what you think about your obstacles largely determines what you do about them. Form the mental attitude that you cannot remove an obstacle and you will not remove it, not if you think you can’t. But get the idea firmly fixed that the obstacle is not so great as you previously considered it to be. Hold the idea that it is removable, and however faintly you entertain this positive thought, from the very moment you begin to think in this manner, the process is inaugurated which will lead to its ultimate removal.



It you have been long defeated by a difficulty, it is probably because you have told yourself for weeks, months, and even for years that there is nothing you can do about it. You have so emphasized your inability to yourself that your mind gradually accepted the conclusion upon which you have insisted, and when your mind is convinced, you are convinced, for as you think so are you.



But, on the contrary, when you employ this new and creative concept, "I can do all things through Christ," then you develop a new mental slant. Emphasize and reemphasize that positive attitude and you will finally convince your own consciousness that you can do something about difficulties. When at last your mind becomes convinced, astonishing results will begin to happen. Of a sudden you discover that you have the power you would never acknowledge.



I played golf with a man who was not only an excellent golfer but a philosopher as well. As we went around the golf course the game itself drew out of him certain gems of wisdom for one of which I shall ever be grateful.



I hit a ball into the rough, into some high grass. When we came up to my ball I said in some dismay, "Now just look at that. I certainly am in the rough. I have a bad lie. It is going to be tough getting out of here."



My friend grinned and said, "Didn’t I read something about positive thinking in your books?"



Sheepishly I acknowledged that such was the case.



"I wouldn’t think negatively about that lie of yours," he said. "Do you think you could get a good hit if this ball were lying out on the fairway on the short grass?" I said I thought so.



"Well," he continued, "why do you think you could do better out there than here?"


"Because," I replied, "the grass is cut short on the fairway and the ball can get away better."



Then he did a curious thing. "Let’s get down on our hands and knees," he suggested, "and examine the situation. Let’s see just how this ball does lie."



So we got down on our hands and knees, and he said, "Observe that the relative height of the ball here is about the same as it would be on the fairway, the only difference being that you have about five or six inches of grass above the ball." Then he did an even more whimsical thing. "Notice the quality and character of this grass," he said. He pulled off a blade and handed it to me. "Chew it," he said. I chewed, and he asked, "Isn’t that tender?"



"Why, yes," I replied. "It certainly does seem to be tender grass."



"Well," he continued, "an easy swing of your number-five iron will cut through that grass almost like a knife." And then he gave me this sentence which I am going to remember as long as I live, and I hope you will also.



"The rough is only mental. In other words," he continued, "it is rough because you think it is. In your mind you have decided that here is an obstacle which will cause you difficulty. The power to overcome this obstacle is in your mind. If you visualize yourself lifting that ball out of the rough, believing you can do it, your mind will transfer flexibility, rhythm, and power to your muscles and you will handle that club in such a manner that the ball will rise right out of there in a beautiful shot. All you need to do is to keep your eye on that ball and tell yourself that you are going to lift it out of that grass with a lovely stroke. Let the stiffness and tension go out of you. Hit it with exhilaration and power. Remember, the rough is only mental."



To this day I remember the thrill, the sense of power and delight I had in the clean shot that dropped the ball to the edge of the green.



That is a very great fact to remember in connection with difficult problems—"the rough is only mental."



Your obstacles are present all right. They are not fanciful, but they are not actually so difficult as they seem. Your mental attitude is the most important factor. Believe that Almighty God has put in you the power to lift yourself out of the rough by keeping your eye firmly fixed on the source of your power. Affirm to yourself that through this power you can do anything you have to do. Believe that this power is taking the tension out of you, that this power is flowing through you.

Believe this, and a sense of victory will come.

(From: Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale)