Think a minute…”Any man can be a success, no matter how poor he started in life.” This statement came from Clement Stone, a highly successful businessman who began his career as a 16-year-old who sold insurance from door to door. After four years, at only 20 years of age, he started his own agency; and later he owned his own large insurance company worth more than $150 million.
Stone says we need to program ourselves to succeed, similar to how a computer is programmed. In fact, the modern computer is only a simple, poor imitation of the far more advanced and powerful computer of our own human mind.
Today and tomorrow, we will talk about the three essential ingredients you must program into yourself for success. First, and most importantly, is your own motivation to make the best choices that will move you to the best actions and changes. A rich owner of a women’s cosmetics company told his secret for success. He said: “I never promised a woman that my products would make her beautiful, but I always gave her the hope of looking better.”
With no hope of improving and changing, you cannot motivate yourself. Hope is your strong belief that you really can reach your life’s dream and expectation. You must believe each day that you are getting closer to your goal, because you know that you’re doing what it takes to get there. It’s not just believing it, but starting to do it now—hour by hour, day by day—until it becomes your way of thinking, living, and working every day.
Another powerful way to motivate is by example. Clement Stone had a young salesman who did not believe he could sell insurance to the kind of people who lived in his town. Stone went to work together with this young salesman for just one day to show him how. Stone asked the young man a few questions about his town’s people. Then Stone prayed and asked God to help him do his very best. Afterwards, Stone confidently went from house to house and sold an insurance policy to every single person he talked to that day! These were the same people the young salesman said would never buy insurance!
Why don’t you start today? Sincerely ask God to give you His kind of hope that is real, and His power to start changing now. With Him in charge of your way of thinking and living, you can become truly successful the way He created you to be. Just think a minute…