The Inflow of New Thoughts Can Remake You

The Inflow of New Thoughts Can Remake You


ONE OF THE most important and powerful facts about you is expressed in the following statement by William James, who was one of the very few wisest men America has produced. William James said, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." As you think, so shall you be. So flush out all old, tired, worn-out thoughts. Fill your mind with fresh, new creative thoughts of faith, love, and goodness. By this process you can actually remake your life.


And where do you find such personality remaking thoughts?


I know a business executive, a modest man, but the type of individual who is never defeated. No problem, no setback, no opposition ever gets him down. He simply attacks each difficulty with an optimistic attitude and a sure confidence that it will work out right, and, in some strange way, it always does for him. He seems to have a magic touch on life—a touch that never fails.


Because of that impressive characteristic this man always interested me. I knew there was a definite explanation of his being this way and of course wanted to hear his story, but in view of his modesty and reticence it was not easy to persuade him to talk about himself.


One day when he was in the mood he told me his secret, an amazingly simple but effective secret. I was visiting his plant, a modern, up-to-date structure, much of it air-conditioned. Latest-type machinery and methods of production make it a factory of outstanding efficiency. Labor-management relations seem as nearly perfect as is possible among imperfect human beings. A spirit of good will pervades the entire organization.


His office is ultra-modernistically decorated and furnished with handsome desks, rugs, and paneled with exotic woods. The decorating scheme is five startling colors blended together pleasingly. All in all it is the last word, and then some. Imagine, then, my surprise to see on his highly polished white mahogany desk an old battered copy of the Bible. It was the only old object in those ultra-modern rooms. I commented upon this seemingly strange inconsistency.


"That book," he replied, pointing to the Bible, "is the most up-to-date thing in this plant. Equipment wears out and furnishing styles change, but that book is so far ahead of us that it never gets out of date."


"When I went to college, my good Christian mother gave me that Bible with the suggestion that if I would read and practice its teachings, I would learn how to get through life successfully. But I thought she was just a nice old lady"—he chuckled—"at my age she seemed old—she wasn’t really, and to humor her, I took the Bible, but for years practically never looked at it. I thought I didn’t need it. Well," he continued slangily, "I was a dope. I was stupid. And I got my life in a
terrific mess."


"Everything went wrong primarily because I was wrong. I was thinking wrong, acting wrong, doing wrong. I succeeded at nothing, failed at everything. Now I realize that my principal trouble was wrong thinking. I was negative, resentful, cocky, opinionated. Nobody could tell me anything. I thought I knew everything. I was filled with gripes at everybody. Little wonder nobody liked me. I certainly was a ‘washout.’ "


So ran his dismal story. "One night in going through some papers," he continued, "I came across the long-forgotten Bible. It brought up old memories and I started aimlessly to read it. Do you know it is strange how things happen; how in just a flashing moment of time everything becomes different. Well, as I read, a sentence leaped up at me, a sentence that changed my life—and when I say changed, I mean changed. From the minute I read that sentence everything has been different, tremendously different."


"What is this wonderful sentence?" I wanted to know, and he quoted it slowly, "‘ The Lord is the strength of my life ... in this will I be confident.’"( Ps 27:1, 3) "I don’t know why that one line affected me so," he went on, "but it did. I know now that I was weak and a failure because I had no faith, no confidence. I was very negative, a defeatist. Something happened inside my mind. I guess I had what they call a spiritual experience. My thought pattern shifted from negative to positive. I decided to put my faith in God and sincerely do my best, trying to follow the
principles outlined in the Bible. As I did so I began to get hold of a new set of thoughts. I began to think differently. In time my old failure thoughts were flushed out by this new spiritual experience and an inflow of new thoughts gradually but actually remade me."


So concluded the story of this businessman. He altered his thinking, and the new thoughts which flowed in displaced the old thoughts which had been defeating him and his life was changed.


This incident illustrates an important fact about human nature: you can think your way to failure and unhappiness, but you can also think your way to success and happiness. The world in which you live is not primarily determined by outward conditions and circumstances but by thoughts that habitually occupy your mind. Remember the wise words of Marcus Aurelius, one of the great thinkers of antiquity, who said, "A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it."


It has been said that the wisest man who ever lived in America was Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Sage of Concord. Emerson declared, "A man is what he thinks about all day long."


A famous psychologist says, "There is a deep tendency in human nature to become precisely like that which you habitually imagine yourself to be."


It has been said that thoughts are things, that they actually possess dynamic power. Judged by the power they exercise one can readily accept such an appraisal. You can actually think yourself into or out of situations. You can make yourself ill with your thoughts and by the same token you can make yourself well by the use of a different and healing type of thought. Think one way and you attract the conditions which that type of thinking indicates. Think another way and you can create an entirely different set of conditions. Conditions are created by thoughts far more powerfully than thoughts create conditions.


Think positively, for example, and you set in motion positive forces which bring positive results to pass. Positive thoughts create around yourself an atmosphere propitious to the development of positive outcomes. On the contrary, think negative thoughts and you create around yourself an atmosphere propitious to the development of negative results.


To change your circumstances, first start thinking differently. Do not passively accept unsatisfactory circumstances, but form a picture in your mind of circumstances as they should be. Hold that picture, develop it firmly in all details, believe in it, pray about it, work at it, and you can actualize it according to that mental image emphasized in your positive thinking.


This is one of the greatest laws in the universe. Fervently do I wish I had discovered it as a very young man. It dawned upon me much later in life and I have found it to be one of the greatest if not my greatest discovery, outside of my relationship to God. And in a deep sense this law is a factor in one’s relationship with God because it channels God’s power into personality.


This great law briefly and simply stated is that if you think in negative terms you will get negative results. If you think in positive terms you will achieve positive results. That is the simple fact which is at the basis of an astonishing law of prosperity and success. In three words:


Believe and succeed.


I learned this law in a very interesting manner. Some years ago a group of us consisting of Lowell Thomas, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, Branch Rickey, Raymond Thornburg, and others established an inspirational self-help magazine called Guideposts. This magazine has a double function: first, by relating stories of people who through their faith have overcome difficulties, it teaches techniques of victorious living, victory over fear, over circumstances, over obstacles, over resentment. It teaches faith over all manner of negativism.


Second, as a non-profit, non-sectarian, inter-faith publication it teaches the great fact that God is in the stream of history and that this nation was founded on belief in God and His laws.


The magazine reminds its readers that America is the first great nation in history to be established on a definitely religious premise and that unless we keep it so our freedoms will deteriorate.


Mr. Raymond Thornburg as publisher and I as editor in starting the magazine had no financial backing to underwrite it. It was begun on faith. In fact, its first offices were in rooms above a grocery store in the little village of Pawling, New York. There was a borrowed typewriter, a few rickety chairs, and that was all; all except a great idea and great faith. Slowly a subscription list of 25,000 developed. The future seemed promising. Suddenly one night fire broke out, and within an hour the publishing house was destroyed and with it the total list of subscribers.
Foolishly no duplicate list had been made.


Lowell Thomas, loyal and efficient patron of Guideposts from the very start, mentioned this sad circumstance on his radio broadcast and as a result we soon had 30,000 subscribers, practically all the old ones and many new ones. The subscription list rose to approximately 40,000, but costs increased even more rapidly. The magazine, which has always been sold for less than cost in order widely to disseminate the message, was more expensive than anticipated and we were faced with difficult financial problems. In fact, at one time it seemed almost impossible to keep it going.


At this juncture we called a meeting, and I’m sure you never attended a more pessimistic, negative, discouraging meeting. It dripped with pessimism. Where were we going to get the money to pay our bills? We figured out ways of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Complete discouragement filled our minds.


A woman had been invited to this meeting whom we all regarded most highly. But one reason she was included in this meeting was because, on a previous occasion, she had contributed $2,000 to help inaugurate Guideposts magazine. It was hoped that lightning might strike twice in the same place. But this time she gave us something of more value than money.


As this dismal meeting progressed she remained silent for a long time, but finally said, "I suppose you gentlemen would like me to make another financial contribution. I might as well put you out of your misery. I am not going to give you another cent."


This did not put us out of our misery. On the contrary, it put us deeper into our misery. "But," she continued, "I will give you something far more valuable than money."


This astonished us, for we could not possibly imagine anything of more value than money in the circumstances.


"I am going to give you an idea," she continued, "a creative idea."


"Well," we thought to ourselves unenthusiastically, "how can we pay our bills with an idea?"


Ah, but an idea is just what will help you pay bills. Every achievement in this world was first projected as a creative idea. First the idea, then faith in it, then the means of implementing the idea. That is the way success proceeds.


"Now," she said, "here is the idea. What is your present trouble? It is that you lack everything. You lack money. You lack subscribers. You lack equipment. You lack ideas. You lack courage. Why do you lack all these requirements? Simply because you are thinking lack. If you think lack you create the conditions that produce a state of lack. By this constant mental emphasis upon what you lack you have frustrated the creative forces that can give impetus to the development of Guideposts. You have been working hard from the standpoint of doing many things, but you have failed to do the one all-important thing that will lend power to all your other efforts: you have not employed positive thinking. Instead, you have thought in terms of lack." ‘To correct that situation—reverse the mental process and begin to think prosperity, achievement, success. This will require practice but it can be done quickly if you will demonstrate faith. The process is to visualize; that is, to see Guideposts in terms of successful achievement. Create a mental picture of Guideposts as a great magazine, sweeping the country. Visualize large numbers of subscribers, all eagerly reading this inspirational material and profiting thereby. Create a mental image of lives being changed by the philosophy of achievement which Guideposts teaches monthly in its issues.


"Do not hold mental pictures of difficulties and failures, but lift your mind above them and visualize powers and achievements. When you elevate your thoughts into the area of visualized attainment you look down on your problems rather than from below up at them and thus you get a much more encouraging view of them. Always come up over your problems. Never approach a problem from below."


"Now let me continue further," she said. "How many subscribers do you need at the moment to keep going?"


We thought quickly and said "100,000." We had 40,000.


"All right," she said confidently, "that is not hard. That is easy. Visualize 100,000 people being creatively helped by this magazine and you will have them. In fact, the minute you can see them in your mind, you already have them." She turned to me and said, "Norman, can you see 100,000 subscribers at this minute? Look out there, look ahead of you. In your mind’s eye can you see them?" I wasn’t convinced as yet, and I said rather doubtfully, "Well, maybe so, but they
seem pretty dim to me."


She was a little disappointed in me, I thought, as she asked, "Can’t you imaginatively visualize 100,000 subscribers?"


I guess my imagination wasn’t working very well because all I could see was the insufficient but actual 40,000.


Then she turned to my old friend Raymond Thornburg who has been blessed with a gloriously victorious personality, and she said, calling him by his nickname, "Pinky, can you visualize 100,000 subscribers?"


I rather doubted that Pinky would see them. He is a rubber manufacturer who gives his time freely from his own business to help advance this inspirational, non-profit magazine, and you would not ordinarily think that a rubber manufacturer would respond to this type of thinking. But he has the faculty of creative imagination. I noticed by the fascinated look on his face that she had him. He was gazing straight ahead with rather a look of wonder when she asked, "Do you see the 100,000 subscribers?"


"Yes," he cried with eagerness, "yes, I do see them."


Electrified, I demanded, "Where? Point them out to me."


Then I, too, began to visualize them.


"Now," continued our friend, "let us bow our heads and together thank God for giving us 100,000 subscribers."


Frankly I thought that was pushing the Lord rather hard, but it was justified by a verse in the Scriptures , where it says, "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive them." (Mt 21:22) That means when you pray for something, at the same time visualize what you pray for. Believe that if it is God’s will and is worth while, not selfishly sought after, but for human good, that it is at that moment given you.


If you have difficulty in following this reasoning, let me tell you that from that moment until the present writing Guideposts never lacked for anything. It has found wonderful friends and has had fine support. It has been able always to meet its bills, purchase needed equipment, finance itself, and as I write these words Guideposts is nearing the half million mark and more subscriptions are coming in regularly, sometimes as many as three or four thousand per day.


I recite this instance not for the purpose of advertising Guideposts, although I strongly recommend this magazine to all my readers, and if you would like to be a subscriber, write to Guideposts, Pawling, New York, for information. But I tell the story because I was awed by this experience, realizing that I had stumbled upon a law, a tremendous law of personal victory. I decided to apply it thereafter to my own problems and wherever I have done so can report a marvelous result. Wherever I have failed to do so, I have missed great results.


It is as simple as this—put your problem in God’s hands. In your thoughts rise above the problem so that you look down upon it, not up at it. Test it according to God’s will. That is, do not try to get success from something that is wrong. Be sure it is right morally, spiritually, and ethically. You can never get a right result from an error. If your thinking is wrong, it is wrong and not right and can never be right so long as it is wrong. It it is wrong in the essence it is bound to be wrong in the result.


Therefore be sure it is right, then hold it up in God’s name and visualize a great result. Keep the idea of prosperity, of achievement, and of attainment firmly fixed in your mind. Never entertain a failure thought. Should a negative thought of defeat come into your mind, expel it by increasing the positive affirmation. Affirm aloud, "God is now giving me success. He is now giving me attainment." The mental vision which you create and firmly hold in consciousness will be actualized if you continually affirm it in your thoughts and if you work diligently and effectively. This creative process simply stated is: visualize, prayerize, and finally actualize.
People in all walks of life who accomplish notable achievements know the value of this law in their experience.


Henry J. Kaiser told me that at one time he was building a levee along a riverbank, and there came a great storm and flood which buried all his earth-moving machinery and destroyed the work that had been done. Upon going out to observe the damage after the water receded, he found his workers standing around glumly looking at the mud and the buried machinery.


He came among them and said with a smile, "Why are you so glum?" "Don’t you see what has happened?" they asked. "Our machinery is covered with mud." "What mud?" he asked brightly.


"What mud!" they repeated in astonishment. "Look around you. It is a sea of mud." "Oh," he laughed, "I don’t see any mud." "But how can you say that?" they asked him. "Because," said Mr. Kaiser, "I am looking up at a clear blue sky, and there is no mud up there. There is only sunshine, and I never saw any mud that could stand against sunshine. Soon it will be dried up, and then you will be able to move your machinery and start all over again."


How right he is. If your eyes are looking down in the mud and you feel a sense of failure, you will create defeat for yourself. Optimistic visualization combined with prayer and faith will inevitably actualize achievement.


Another friend of mine who started from the lowliest beginnings has performed some outstanding achievements. I remember him in his schooldays as an awkward, unprepossessing, very shy country boy. But he had character and one of the keenest brains I have ever encountered. Today he is an outstanding man in his line. I asked him, "What is the secret of your success?"


"The people who have worked with me across the years and the unlimited opportunity given any boy in the United States of America," he replied.


"Yes, I know that is true, but I am sure you must have some personal technique, and I would be interested in having it," I said.


"It all lies in how you think about problems," he replied. "I attack a problem and shake it to pieces with my mind. I put all the mental power I have upon it. Second, I pray about it most sincerely. Third, I paint a mental picture of success. Fourth, I always ask myself, ‘What is the right thing to do?’ for," he said, "nothing will be right if it is wrong. Nothing that is wrong will ever come out right. Fifth, I give it all I’ve got. But let me emphasize again," he concluded, "if you’re thinking defeat, change your thoughts at once. Get new and positive thoughts. That is primary and basic in overcoming difficulties and in achieving."


At this very minute, as you read this book, potential ideas are in your mind. By releasing and developing these ideas you can solve your financial problem, your business situation, you can care for yourself and your family, and attain success in your ventures. A steady inflow and practical use of these creative thoughts can remake your life and you along with it.


There was a time when I acquiesced in the silly idea that there is no relationship between faith and prosperity; that when one talked about religion he should never relate it to achievement, that it dealt only with ethics and morals or social values. But now I realize that such a viewpoint limits the power of God and the development of the individual. Religion teaches that there is a tremendous power in the universe and that this power can dwell in personality. It is a power that can blast out all defeat and lift a person above all difficult situations.


We have seen the demonstration of atomic energy. We know that astonishing and enormous energy exists in the universe. This same force of energy is resident in the human mind. Nothing on earth is greater than the human mind in potential power. The average individual is capable of much greater achievement than he has ever realized. This is true regardless of who is reading this statement. When you actually learn to release yourself you will discover that your mind contains ideas of such creative value that you need not lack anything. By the full and proper use of your power stimulated by God power, you can make your life successful.


You can make just about anything of your life—anything you will believe or will visualize, anything you will pray for and work for. Look deeply into your mind. Amazing wonders are there.


Whatever your situation may be, you can improve it. First, quiet your mind so that inspirations may rise from its depths. Believe that God is now helping you. Visualize achievement. Organize your life on a spiritual basis so that God’s principles work within you. Hold firmly in your mind a picture not of failure but of success. Do these things and creative thoughts will flow freely from your mind. This is an amazing law, one that can change anybody’s life including your own. An inflow of new thoughts can remake you regardless of every difficulty you may now face, and I repeat—every difficulty.


In the last analysis the basic reason a person fails to live a creative and successful life is because of error within himself. He thinks wrong. He needs to correct the error in his thoughts. He needs to practice right thinking. When the 23rd Psalm says, "He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness," it not only means the paths of goodness, but the paths of right-mindedness as well. When Isaiah says, "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts," (Isa 55:7) it not only means that a person is to depart from evil and do good, but that he is to change his thinking from wrong to right, from error to truth. The great secret of successful living is to reduce the amount of error in oneself and increase the amount of truth. An inflow oú new, right, health-laden thoughts through the mind creatively affects the circumstances of life, for truth always produces right procedures and therefore right results.


Years ago I knew a young man who for a while was one of the most complete personality failures in my entire experience. He had a delightful personality, but he failed at everything. A person would employ him and be enthusiastic about him, but soon his enthusiasm would cool and it was not long until he was out of that position. This failure pattern was repeated many times. He was a failure as a person as well as an employee. He missed connections with everything. He just couldn’t do anything right, and he used to ask me, "What is wrong with me that everything goes wrong?"


Still he had a lot of conceit. He was cocky and smug, and had the irritating habit of blaming everybody but himself. Something was wrong with every office with which he was connected or every organization that employed him. He blamed everybody else for his failures—never himself. He would never look inside himself. It never occurred to him that anything could be wrong with him.


One night, however, he wanted to talk with me, and as I had to make a drive of about a hundred miles to deliver a speech he drove there and back with me. On our return we stopped along about midnight at a roadside stand for a hamburger and a cup of coffee. I don’t know what was in that hamburger sandwich, but since this incident I have had a new respect for hamburgers, for of a sudden he shouted, "I’ve got it! I’ve got it!"


"You’ve got what?" I asked in astonishment.


"I’ve got the answer. Now I know what’s the trouble with me. It’s that everything goes wrong with me because I myself am wrong."


I clapped my hand on his back and said, "Boy, at last you are on your way."


"Why, it’s as clear as a crystal," he said. "I have been thinking wrong, and as a result I have created wrong out-comes."


By this time we were out in the moonlight standing alongside my car, and I said to him, "Harry, you must go one step further and ask God to make you right inwardly," I quoted this passage from the Bible, " ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ " (Joh 8:32) Get the truth into your mind and you will be free of your failures.


He became an enthusiastic practicing follower of Jesus Christ. Through real faith and a complete change of thoughts and personal habits, wrong thinking and wrong acting were removed from his nature. He straightened out by developing a right (or righteousness) pattern instead of an error pattern. When he was made right, then everything began to go right for him.


Following are seven practical steps for changing your mental attitudes from negative to positive, for releasing creative new thoughts, and for shifting from error patterns to truth patterns. Try them—keep on trying them. They will work. 1. For the next twenty-four hours, deliberately speak hopefully about everything, about your job, about your health, about your future. Go out of your way to talk optimistically about everything. This will be difficult, for possibly it is your habit to talk pessimistically. From this negative habit you must restrain yourself even if it requires an act of will.


2. After speaking hopefully for twenty-four hours, continue the practice for one week, then you can be permitted to be "realistic" for a day or two. You will discover that what you meant by "realistic" a week ago was actually pessimistic, but what you now mean by "realistic" is something entirely different; it is the dawning of the positive outlook. When most people say they are being "realistic" they delude themselves: they are simply being negative.


3. You must feed your mind even as you feed your body, and to make your mind healthy you must feed it nourishing, wholesome thoughts. Therefore, today start to shift your mind from negative to positive thinking. Start at the beginning of the New Testament and under-score every sentence about Faith. Continue doing this until you have marked every such passage in the four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Particularly note Mr 11:22, 23, 24. They will serve as samples of the verses you are to underscore and fix deeply in your consciousness.


4. Then commit the underscored passages to memory. Commit one each day until you can recite the entire list from memory. This will take time, but remember you have consumed much more time becoming a negative thinker than this will require. Effort and time will be needed to unlearn your negative pattern.


5. Make a list of your friends to determine who is the most positive thinker among them and deliberately cultivate his society. Do not abandon your negative friends, but get closer to those with a positive point of view for a while, until you have absorbed their spirit, then you can go back among your negative friends and give them your newly acquired thought pattern without taking on their negativism.


6. Avoid argument, but whenever a negative attitude is expressed, counter with a positive and optimistic opinion.


7. Pray a great deal and always let your prayer take the form of thanksgiving on the assumption that God is giving you great and wonderful things; for if you think He is. He surely is. God will not give you any greater blessing than you can believe in. He wants to give you great things, but even He cannot make you take anything greater than you are equipped by faith to receive. "According to your faith (that is, in proportion to) be it unto you." (Mt 9:29)


The secret of a better and more successful life is to cast out those old dead, unhealthy thoughts. Substitute for them new vital, dynamic faith thoughts. You can depend upon it—an inflow of new thoughts will remake you and your life.

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