Whenever you meet a misfortune, put into your past. Keep your mind upon future achievement, and you will find that mistakes of the past often work to fill the future with good fortune. Your wealth and your peace of mind are strongly connected with each other. Even at your lowest-level jobs, your success waits within your own mind. Add value to your work and you set in motion the forces that make the concepts of your mind into the realities of living.
When I was still a poor youth in Wise County, Virginia, I invested twenty-five cents in a raffle ticket. The prize was a horse – and I won! A horse was of considerable value to a farming family in those days, and this one, all agreed, was a good horse. Filled with pride, I led him home. How fortunate I was!
Or was I? Having installed my horse carefully in the stable, I treated him to oats, corn and hay – all he could eat. That same night he broke out of the stable, went down to the river and drank his fill of water. As anyone who know horses could have predicted, the poor bloated animal foundered and died. It cost me five dollars to have him hauled away and buried. So much for my good luck!
Yet who can tell the uses of the past? I was able in later years to look back upon that incident and see I had been fortunate. You see, I never again have been tempted to risk money in any kind of gambling. Surely I have saved the cost of many horses, let alone saved my peace of mind.
Now let me tell you of a more serious incident which cost a man’s life, threatened my own life, prevented me from taking advantage of a great opportunity, seemed like an unmitigated disaster – and yet turned out to be for my boundless good and the good of others as well.
At that time I had completed the first draft of The Science of Personal Achievement, in eight volumes, and I needed a publisher. Mr. Don R. Mellet, publisher of the Canton Ohio Daily News, became my partner and business manager. We induced Judge Elbert H. Gary, Chairman of the Board of the United Sates Steel Corporation, to supply the money necessary to print the first edition. Furthermore, Judge Gary agreed to purchase a complete set of books for every key man employed in the vast corporation. The contract had not yet been signed, but I was on top of the world.
Now, Mr. Mellett had been using his newspaper as a means to expose a very unholy alliance between the bootleggers and the police force of his city. Three days before we were to meet Judge Gary, a member of the police force and a gangster shot and killed Don Mellett. Because I had been associated with him, the gang believed I too had had something to do with their exposure. I missed assassination by only a few hours.
For a year I had to hide. At length the murderers were caught, convicted and given lifetime sentences in prison. Meanwhile Judge Gary had died. All my plans were upset, I had had to waste much precious time while in hiding, and I had no publisher. I was right back where I had started – or rather, I was behind where I had been.
I made a new start and found a publisher for my writings. That is a story in itself, but it is not the point of this story.
I found out later that if Judge Gary had become my financial backer, and if The Science of Personal Achievement had been distributed within the United States Steel Corporation as had been planned, I would forever after have been looked upon as a tool of Big Business. The Science of Personal Achievement would have been greeted with suspicion, would have been turned down cold by many of those whom it now serves. Furthermore, I might have been inhibited against making statements I have made from time to time against Big Business when it forgets is real purpose, which is to build a better world for mankind.
Every adversity has within it the seed of an equivalent or a greater benefit. Can you remember that? Write it on a card. Carry the card in your pocket and read it daily! In that phrase lies the key to many a man’s peace of mind. It is not the Supreme Secret to which I have referred but is lives on the same street. Set it firmly into your consciousness: Every adversity has within it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.
Thus it is possible, and strongly advisable, to CLOSE THE DOORS TO YOUR PAST insofar as any regrets or bitterness or post-mortems are concerned. You are searching for wealth and peace of mind. Neither the way to wealth nor the way to peace of mind leads through the graveyard of unpleasant experiences long past.
When you have attained peace of mind, your mind will automatically reject every thought and every mental reaction which is not beneficial to your welfare. Meanwhile, help yourself attain this great command-of-mind and all it can do for you. Avoid all negative mental influences and especially avoid that shadow of mournful regret which can keep all the sunshine out of your life – and keep out other gold as well.
Source: Grow Rich! With Peace of Mind by Napoleon Hill