The “As If” Success Principle—Part Two

The “As If” Success Principle—Part Two

Part Two

We are all designed to suc­ceed

Man was cre­at­ed to suc­ceed. It is not auto­mat­ic, but is ours by choice.  To accom­plish this, Knowl­edge and wis­dom can be gained through prayer.  The great­est speak­er of pure truth that ever lived, Jesus said, “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh find­eth; and to him that knock­eth it shall be opened.”   Pray believ­ing for knowl­edge and wis­dom and then stay tuned to receive guid­ance for your life jour­ney.  We can choose or NOT choose to gain the knowl­edge and apply it.  Devi­ate from our human design and fail­ure is the con­se­quence.  We were all cre­at­ed to suc­ceed.

The Unseen

The con­cept of as if imag­ing is based on the eter­nal prin­ci­ple of look­ing at the unseen rather than the seen.  We can learn the pow­er­ful con­cept of look­ing at the un-seen as well as the seen.  How can you look at some­thing when it is not real?  You have to use one of the many fea­tures our cre­ator includ­ed in our design.  You start this process by using your imag­i­na­tion to bring images into your mind’s eye.  Words also cre­ate and rein­force images.  Focus on the same image over and over, speak­ing aloud to your­self what it means to you, what you expect until it is plant­ed into your heart.  Dai­ly, at appro­pri­ate times, then day in and day out repeat this, adding prayer, until the unseen becomes real.  This is a uni­ver­sal truth that suc­cess­ful peo­ple have used since time began.  Napoleon Hill called the eter­nal prin­ci­ple “auto-sug­ges­tion” when he said, “FAITH is a state of mind which may be induced, or cre­at­ed, by affir­ma­tion or repeat­ed instruc­tions to the sub­con­scious mind, through the prin­ci­ple of auto-sug­ges­tion.”  What he said is true, but he left out WHY it is true.  God’s word says faith comes by hear­ing and hear­ing by the word of God.

While the “auto-sug­ges­tion” con­cept is real, we must remem­ber faith is a spir­i­tu­al pow­er and comes from the heart NOT THE MIND.  Of course our faith begins in the mind, but intel­lec­tu­al faith is not all pow­er­ful.  Words of desire com­bined with images por­tray­ing what is desired will enter one’s sub­con­scious as “seeds of real­i­ty.”  And when prop­er­ly nour­ished with faith, will begin to grow in our heart.   We must focus on the desired unseen.  We must NOT look at an unde­sir­able as it is “poi­son” to your grow­ing seed.  When we want to be healthy we should NOT speak or image ill health.  Admit­ting you are ill is not the same as using words that con­done or enforce the ill­ness.  You can image good health while admit­ting to an ill­ness.  I believe we can choose to NOT OWN an ill­ness.  Grow and accom­plish by devel­op­ing pos­i­tive words, images, and actions.

A True Sto­ry of “AS If Imag­ing”

Here is a short true sto­ry of how I learned to use the “As IF Suc­cess Prin­ci­ple.”  In the lat­ter half of the 1960’s I was employed by a Build­ing Con­trac­tor “Com­ley Fin­er Homes, Inc. in Arkansas.  I was hired as a “trou­ble shoot­er” by my old­er broth­er Tom who owned the com­pa­ny.  His sin­gle fam­i­ly hous­es were tak­ing far too long to con­struct from start to fin­ish; some­times 6 or sev­en months.  It was announced to his exist­ing employ­ees, sup­pli­ers and con­trac­tors that I was an “expe­d­i­tor.”  Tom hired me because I was trained by the USAF SAC in mate­r­i­al expe­dit­ing in the years lead­ing up to Viet­nam.  I locat­ed, and expe­dit­ed orders for air­craft parts to help keep the US air­craft fly­ing to and from Viet­nam.  I tracked the orders dai­ly until arrival.  So, for our asso­ciates I was an expe­d­i­tor, for Tom I was his trou­ble shoot­er.

In the weeks and months fol­low­ing my employ­ment as expe­d­i­tor I dis­cov­ered many prob­lems while I spent time mak­ing sure mate­ri­als were on the job when need­ed. I also spent time inves­ti­gat­ing and research­ing to find prob­lems so I could present, not just the prob­lem, but a solu­tion as well.  I was taught to nev­er present a prob­lem with­out a solu­tion,   Tom, liked my efforts and began to ini­ti­ate solu­tions.  It was not long, then, that I was pro­mot­ed in two ways.  One, I was tak­en in as a part­ner in the firm, and two, being a part­ner I should be super­in­ten­dant.

I was per­son­al­ly moti­vat­ed to suc­ceed so I was eager­ly seek­ing out knowl­edge per­tain­ing to home build­ing and to super­vis­ing peo­ple.  When a devel­op­er of cours­es in self-improve­ment, sales­man­ship, cor­po­rate train­ing, pub­lic speak­ing, and inter­per­son­al skills, Dale Carnegie agent, came to town with cours­es relat­ed to man­ag­ing peo­ple.   I was quick to attend.  Dale Carnegie offered a large selec­tion of self improve­ment sem­i­nars.   I was blessed in that I was able to spend some per­son­al time with the instruc­tor of the four major areas of train­ing.  I attend­ed all. I also read Carnegie’s books.   When they came to town they would always come to our office to vis­it with me and my broth­er Tom; usu­al­ly over break­fast or lunch.  Also, in casu­al cof­fee social­iz­ing I ben­e­fit­ed from per­son­al one on one advice from the instruc­tor.

Though time has blurred my mem­o­ry of the instructor’s name, I will nev­er for­get that time in my life.  I often had cof­fee with the instruc­tor; one day I was dis­cussing the chal­lenges I faced in con­struct­ing of homes in a prof­itable time line.  I was speak­ing neg­a­tive­ly say­ing how I did not know how I would reach that goal.  He said to me, “Oh, Jim, don’t you remem­ber the ses­sion where we learned the truth of “act enthu­si­as­tic and you will become enthu­si­as­tic?” While I nod­ded yes, he added, “As I told you in class, add imag­ing, so you see your­self as being enthused and you will become enthused even faster.  You can start out in small ways.  Then you can use this imag­ing act­ing as if method to accom­plish oth­er goals.”  Then, he held his hand up between us, as if to keep my atten­tion and fin­ished with, “There are two forces that will work togeth­er for your ben­e­fit. When you do this repeat­ed­ly and add a sim­ple prayer to your imag­ing you acti­vate spir­i­tu­al forces on your behalf.”

He was a Chris­t­ian and shared Spir­i­tu­al knowl­edge with me often.  What he told me that day was that I could know the things that are freely giv­en to us of God.   He intro­duced me to Carnegie’s books as well oth­er books such as, “Dis­cov­er­ing the Pow­er of Pos­i­tive Think­ing” by famous author, Nor­man Vin­cent Peale, and “The Mag­ic of Believ­ing” by Claude M Bris­tol.

I began learn­ing to apply these prin­ci­ples.   I was a will­ing stu­dent so I soaked up the knowl­edge offered me in those years.  I learned to improve my words and actions to line up with my goals, and to ask for Devine help and guid­ance.  Those as if lessons from the instruc­tor stuck with me.   I began imme­di­ate­ly to apply that prin­ci­ple, and oth­er truths, to all areas of my life, as well as to my respon­si­ble job of home build­ing.  The sin­gle great­est chal­lenge to reduc­ing the time of con­struc­tion was in per­son­nel and con­trac­tors show­ing up and show­ing up “on time.

As I learned to visu­al­ized suc­cess [visu­al­ly act­ing as if], my enthu­si­asm to be a suc­cess­ful builder became con­ta­gious.  As I improved my peo­ple skills our con­trac­tors, sup­pli­ers, and employ­ees caught the enthu­si­asm from me.  I was became blessed with new insights [thoughts and an eter­nal nudg­ing] of how to improve these areas, so that over a two year time peri­od I changed our home build­ing out­put from 6 or sev­en months to 3 months [90 days] for small­er homes, and 4 months for larg­er homes.  Improved time spent on con­struc­tion also improved prof­its mak­ing that a very suc­cess­ful time in my life.

Suc­cess doesn’t depend on who you are, or your assets, it comes sole­ly as you think, as you speak, and as you act from the ABUNDANCE OF YOUR HEART.

Fol­low me next time for part three of The “As If” Suc­cess Prin­ci­ple.

The truths described here are many and are truths that can be ver­i­fied in the KJV of the bible.  Quo­ta­tion marks, ital­ics, bold­ing, and under­scor­ing I use for empha­sis.

REFERENCES and SOURCES of True Knowl­edge are many.  These are only a few.  The Sources and ref­er­ences here are by no means all that are avail­able.

BIBLICAL:

2 Cor 4:17, 18¹⁷ For our light afflic­tion, which is but for a moment, wor­keth for us a far more exceed­ing and eter­nal weight of glo­ry; ¹⁸ While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are tem­po­ral; but the things which are not seen are eter­nal.

1 Corinthi­ans 1:28²⁸ And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God cho­sen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

1 Corinthi­ans 2:12¹² Now we have received, not the spir­it of the world, but the spir­it which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely giv­en to us of God.

 Matthew 21:21 ²¹ Jesus answered and said unto them, Ver­i­ly I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this moun­tain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

Mark 11:23 ²³ For ver­i­ly I say unto you, That whoso­ev­er shall say unto this moun­tain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have what­so­ev­er he saith.

Proverbs 1:7 ⁷ The fear of the Lord is the begin­ning of knowl­edge: but fools despise wis­dom and instruc­tion.

Romans 10:17 ¹⁷ So then faith cometh by hear­ing, and hear­ing by the word of God.

Matthew 7:8  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh find­eth; and to him that knock­eth it shall be opened.

Matthew 21:22 And all things, what­so­ev­er ye shall ask in prayer, believ­ing, ye shall receive.

FAMOUS PHILOSOPHERS and oth­ers

Dale Carnegie

Nor­man V. Peale

Willie Nel­son

Denis Wait­ley

Claude M. Bris­tol

Napoleon Hill

Pla­to