Brian Tracy - Believe It to Achieve It

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.

ANN LANDERS

Perhaps the most important questions you ever ask and answer are: Who am I, why am I here, and what do I really want to do with my life?

Your natural state is to be happy, healthy, joyous, and full of excitement at being alive. You should wake up each morning eager to start the day. You should feel wonderful about yourself and your relationships with the people in your life. As a fully functioning, mature adult, you should be doing things every day that move you upward and onward toward the realization of your full potential. You should be grateful for all your blessings, in every area of your life.

If, for any reason, you do not think and feel this way most of the time, it could mean that something is not right in the way you think, feel, or react to life. Your primary goal is to organize your life in such a way that you feel happy, joyous, and fulfilled most of the timeto shed negative or pessimistic thoughts, beliefs, and ideas that are holding you back and adopt an achievers positive mind-set. This book will teach you how to do that using the strategies that the worlds most successful and happiest people use to achieve what they want.

Let me tell you a story. In the Accademia Gallery, in Florence, Italy, stands Michelangelos David, perhaps the most beautiful piece of sculpture in the world. People come from everywhere to stare at it in awe. The emotional power of the statue is almost overwhelming when you first enter into its presence.

Where did it come from? Therein lies the story. In about 1501, Michelangelo was commissioned to create a statue for the Cathedral of Florence that would stand out from all other works of art. (It was later placed in the Piazza della Signoria.) He worked on this statue outside in the courtyard of the Opera del Duomo from 1501 to 1504 in complete secrecy.

When this incredible work of art was unveiled at a large public ceremony attended by thousands, a gasp of awe arose from the crowd. They recognized immediately that this was perhaps the most beautiful statue ever created.

Later, Michelangelo was asked how it was that he was able to sculpt something so beautiful. He explained that he was walking to his studio one morning, as he usually did. He happened to glance down a side street to where a huge piece of marble, brought down from the mountains, was lying, overgrown with grass and bushes.

He had walked this street many times in the past, but this time, he stopped and examined the huge block of marble, walking around it several times. Suddenly, he realized that this was exactly the piece of marble that he had been seeking to create the statue that the Medicis wanted. He had it loaded up and brought to the courtyard. There he worked on it for the next four years to create the David.

He said later, I saw the David in the block of marble at the very beginning. My sole job from then on was to remove everything that was not the David, until only perfection was left.

In the same sense, you are like the David imprisoned in the marble. The great goal of your life is to remove all those fears, doubts, insecurities, negative emotions, and false beliefs that hold you back until all that remains is the very best person that you could possibly become.

We are living today in one of the greatest times in all of human history. There are more opportunities and possibilities for you to accomplish more in every area in your life than have ever existed before, and if anything, it is only getting better, year by year.

More wealth has been created in the past twenty-five years than in the history of man on earth, and the total wealth of the world is increasing and compounding at 4 percent per year or more. More people are becoming millionaires and billionaires today, at a faster rategoing from rags to riches in one generationthan at any other time in human history.

People are living longer too. In the year 1900, the average life span was 52 years. By 1935, it had risen to 62 years. Today, the average man can expect to live to 77 years and the average woman to 80 years. And these numbers are increasing every year.

This means that if you take good care of your physical and mental health, you can quite comfortably beat the averages and live to be 85, 90, 95, or even older. Your job is to learn what you need to learn to live a long, happy life, and then apply what you learn, so that you can fully participate in the greatest time for humans that has ever existed.

Unfortunately, too many people, even in this world of abundance and opportunity, continue to live lives of quiet desperation.

Instead of being happy, enthusiastic, and optimistic about their lives and the future, many people are still fearful, negative, insecure, worried, angry, and frustrated. They have mental blocks, fears, and frustrations, all rooted in previous experiences, that hold them back from fulfilling their potential and becoming everything they are capable of becoming.