Your Need To Know

This story proves the truth of that old saying, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. It was told to me by that beloved educator and clergyman, the late Frank W. Gunsaulus, who began his preaching career in the stockyards region of South Chicago.

While Dr. Gunsaulus was going through college, he observed many defects in our educational system, defects which he believed he could correct, if he were the head of a college. His deepest desire was to become the directing head of an educational institution in which young men and women would be taught to “learn by doing.”

He made up his mind to organize a new college in which he could carry out his ideas, without being handicapped by orthodox methods of education. He needed a million dollars to put the project across! Where was he to lay his hands on so large a sum of money? That was the question that absorbed most of this ambitious young preacher’s thought. But he couldn’t seem to make any progress. Every night he took that thought to bed with him. He got up with it in the morning. He took it with him everywhere he went. He turned it over and over in his mind until it became a consuming obsession with him.

A million dollars is a lot of money. He recognized that fact, but he also recognized the truth that the only limitation is that which one sets up I one’s own mind. Being a philosopher as well as a preacher, Dr. Gunsaulus recognized, as do all who succeed in life, the DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE is the starting point from which one must begin. He recognized too, that definiteness of purpose takes on animation, life, and power when backed by a BURNING DESIRE to translate that purpose into it’s material equivalent.

He knew all these great truths, yet he did not know where, or how to lay his hands on a million dollars. The natural procedure would have been to give up and quit by saying, “Ah well, my idea is a good one, but I cannot do anything with it because I never can produce the necessary million dollars.” That is exactly what the majority of people would have said, but it is not what Dr. Gunsaulus said. What he said and what he did are so important that I now introduce him and let him speak for himself.

“One Saturday afternoon I sat in my room thinking of ways and means of raising the money to carry out my plans. For nearly two years, I had been thinking, but I had done nothing but think!” “The time had come for ACTION! I had made up my mind, then and there, that I would get the necessary million dollars within a week. How? I was not concerned about that.

The main thing of importance was the decision to get the money within a specified time, and I want to tell you that the moment I reached a definite decision to get the money within a specified time, a strange feeling of assurance came over me, such as I had never before experienced. Something inside me seemed to say, ‘Why didn’t you reach that decision a long time ago? The money was waiting for you all the time!’” “Things began to happen in a hurry.

I called the newspapers and announced I would preach a sermon the following morning, entitled, What I would do if I had a Million Dollars.” “I went to work on the sermon immediately, but I must tell you, frankly the task was not difficult, because I had been preparing for that sermon for almost two years. The spirit back of it was a part of me!” “Long before midnight I had finished writing the sermon. I went to bed and slept with a feeling of confidence, for I could see myself already in possession of the million dollars.”

“Next morning I arose early, went into the bathroom, read the sermon, then knelt on my knees and asked that my sermon might come to the attention of someone who would supply the needed money.”
“While I was praying, I again had the feeling of assurance that the money would be forthcoming. In my excitement, I walked out without my sermon, and did not discover the oversight until I was in my pulpit about ready to begin delivering it.” “It was too late to go back for my notes, and what a blessing that I couldn’t go back! Instead, my own subconscious mind yielded the material I needed.

When I arose to begin my sermon, I closed my eyes and spoke with all my heart and soul of my dreams. I not only talked to my audience, but I fancy I talked also to God. I told what I would do with a million dollars if that amount were placed in my hands. I described the plan I had in mind for organizing a great educational institution, where young people would learn to do practical things, and at the same time develop their minds.”

“When I had finished and sat down, a man slowly arose from his seat about three rows from the rear, and made his way toward the pulpit. I wondered what he was going to do. He came into the pulpit, extended his hand and said, ‘Reverend, I liked you sermon. I believe you can do everything you said you would, if you had a million dollars. To prove that I believe in you and your sermon, if you will come to my office tomorrow morning, I will give you the million dollars. My name is Phillip D. Armour.’”

Young Gunsaulus went to Mr. Armour’s office and the million dollars was presented to him. With the money, he founded the Armour Institute of Technology. (Now the Illinois Institute of Technology)

That is more money than the majority of preachers ever see in an entire lifetime, yet the thought impulse back of the money was created in the young preacher’s mind in a fraction of a minute. The necessary million dollars came as the result of an idea. Back of the idea was a DESIRE, which young Gunsaulus had been nursing in his mind for almost two years. Observe this important fact: HE GOT THE MONEY WITHIN THIRTY SIX HOURS AFTER HE REACHED A DEFINITE DECISION IN HIS OWN MIND TO GET IT, AND DECIDED UPON A DEFINITE PLAN FOR GETTING IT! - Napoleon Hill

This story is from Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich, published over 70 years ago. Napoleon Hill was an American author who was on e of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal success literature.

The text of Think and Grow Rich! is founded on Hill’s earlier work, The Law of Success, the result of more than twenty years of research based on Hill’s close association with a large number of individuals who achieved great wealth during their lifetimes. Hill studied the characteristics of these achievers and developed fifteen “laws” of success intended to be applied by anybody to achieve success. Think and Grow Rich! condenses these laws further and provides the reader with 13 principles in the form of a philosophy of personal achievement.

Reflected in these principles is the importance of cultivating a burning desire, faith, auto suggestion, and persistence in the attainment of one’s goals. Hill also discusses the importance of overcoming many of the common fears that can adversely affect one’s thinking and potential.

If you have not yet read this wonderful work, download it today using the above active link. Feel free to visit my Free Books page and download other great works and great reading.

Gina

Fifty years ago, on old country doctor drove to town, hitched his horse, quietly slipped into a drug store by the back door, and began “dickering” with the young drug clerk.

His mission was destined to yield great wealth to many people. It was destined to bring to the South the most far-flung benefit since the Civil War.

For more than an hour, behind the prescription counter, the old doctor and the clerk talked in low tones. Then the doctor left. He went out to the buggy and brought back a large, old-fashioned kettle, a big wooden paddle (used for stirring the contents of the kettle), and deposited them in the back of the store.

The clerk inspected the kettle, reached into his inside pocket, took out a roll of bills, and handed it over to the doctor. The roll contained exactly $500. – the clerk’s entire savings!

The doctor handed over a small slip of paper on which was written a secret formula. The words on that small slip of paper were worth a King’s ransom. But not to the doctor. Those magic words were needed to start the kettle to boiling, but neither the doctor nor the young clerk knew what fabulous fortunes were destined to flow from that kettle.

The old doctor was glad to sell the outfit for five hundred dollars. The money would pay off his debts, and give him freedom of mind. The clerk was taking a big chance by staking his entire life’s savings on a mere scrap of paper and an old kettle! He never dreamed his investment would start a kettle to overflowing with gold that would surpass the miraculous performance of Aladdin’s lamp.

What the clerk really purchased was an IDEA! The old kettle and the wooden paddle, and the secret message on a slip of paper were incidental. The strange performance of that kettle began to take place after the new owner mixed with the secret instructions an ingredient of which the doctor knew nothing.

Read this story carefully; give your imagination a test! See if you can discover what it was the young man added to the secret message, which caused the kettle to overflow with gold. Remember, as you read, that this is not a story from Arabian Nights. Here you have a story of facts, stranger than fiction, facts which began in the form of an IDEA.

Let us look at the vast fortunes of gold this idea has produced. It has paid, and still pays huge fortunes to men and women all over the world, who distribute the contents of the kettle to millions of people.

The Old Kettle is now one of the world’s largest consumers of sugar, thus providing jobs of a permanent nature to thousands of men and women engaged in growing sugar cane, and in refining and marketing sugar.

The Old Kettle consumes, annually, millions of glass bottles, providing jobs to huge numbers of glass workers.

The Old Kettle gives employment to an army of clerks, stenographers, copywriters, and advertising experts throughout the nation. It has brought fame and fortune to scores of artists who have created magnificent pictures describing the product.

The Old Kettle has converted a small Southern city into the business capital of the South, where it benefits directly, or indirectly, every business and practically every resident of the city.

The influence of this idea now benefits every civilized country in the world, pouring out a continuous stream of gold to all who touch it.

Gold from the kettle built and maintains one of the most prominent colleges of the South, where thousands of young people receive the training essential for success.

The Old Kettle has done other marvelous things. All through the world depression, when factories, banks and business houses were folding up and quitting by the thousands, the owner of the Enchanted Kettle went marching on, giving continuous employment to an army of men and women all over the world, and paying out extra portions of gold to those who, long ago, had faith in the idea.

If the product of the old brass kettle could talk, it would tell thrilling tales of romance in every language. Romances of love, romances of business, and romances of professional men and women who are daily being stimulated by it.

The author is sure of at least one such romance, for he was a part of it, and it all began not far from the very spot on which the drug clerk purchased the old kettle. It was here that the author met his wife, and it was she who first told him of the Enchanted Kettle. It was the product of that kettle they were drinking when he asked her to accept him “for better or worse.”

Now that you know the content of the Enchanted Kettle is a world famous drink, it is fitting that the author confess that the home city of this drink supplied him with a wife, also that the drink itself provides him with stimulation of thought without intoxication, and thereby serves to give the refreshment of mind which an author must have to do his best work.

Whoever you are, wherever you may live, whatever occupation you may be engages in, just remember, in the future, every time you see the words ________________, that it’s vast empire of wealth and influence grew out of a single IDEA, and that the mysterious ingredient the drug clerk mixed with the secret formula was ___________________!

Do you know the answers?  See the rest of the story HERE..

Gina

Technorati Tags:Inspiration, Motivation

Here is another inspirational story with the moral: It’s never too late to be all you can possibly be. Gina

The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we did not already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.

I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being.

She said, ‘Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I’m eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?’

I laughed and enthusiastically responded; ‘Of course you may!’ and she gave me a giant squeeze.

‘Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?’ I asked.

She jokingly replied, ‘I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids…’

‘No seriously,’ I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.

‘I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!’ she told me.
After class, we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.

We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this ‘time machine’ as she shared her wisdom and experience with me.

Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester, we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I will never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor.

Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, ‘I’m sorry I’m so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I’ll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.’

As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, ‘We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.

There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day. You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.

We have so many people walking around who are dead and don’t even know it!
There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up.

If you are nineteen years old, lie in bed for one full year, and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old, stay in bed for a year, and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.

Anybody can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets.

The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets’

She concluded her speech by courageously singing ‘The Rose.’

She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year’s end, Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago.

One week after graduation, Rose died peacefully in her sleep.

Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s never too late to be all you can possibly be.

Author Unknown

“Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.”
 Samual Ullman

Technorati Tags:Inspiration,Motivation