The Strangest Secret – by Earl Nightingale – Daily Listening

So, are you curious to know what is the strangest secret of the world? Let’s lend Earl Nightingale’s explanation by starting out with a story. Nobel Peace Prize awardee, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, was once interviewed in his home in London. He was asked with a short but provoking question, “what is wrong with men today?” To which the good doctor answered, “Men simply don’t think.”

The reason is simple, men tend to forget to utilize or take advantage of everything that is already available to them. For thousands of years, men have worked to develop better systems, technologies, and processes, but for some reason, a lot of us fail to use these to its full potential.

This can be illustrated by another example. Let’s say there are 100 men, all at the age of 25 years old. Like most young people, these men dream of becoming rich or successful one day. They dream big and have high hopes and aspirations for the future. But even if these men get an equal start at that point in life, their situations would differ after a few decades. 

By the time these men would get to 65 years old, only 1 would most likely be rich. 4 will be financially independent, 5 will still be working despite their old age, and all the others will be broke. Now think about it. Out of 100 men, only 5 are living a comfortable life at that late stage in life. So, what happened? What happened to the enthusiasm and motivation during their prime?

Many of us have different definitions or ideas of success, but one thing that is the more or less universal definition: Success is a progressive realization of a worthy ideal. If a person is working towards a predetermined goal and knows how to achieve such a goal, then that man is a success. If not, then that person is a failure.

Also, a lot of us think that the opposite of courage is cowardice. In Rollo May’s book, “Men Search For Himself,” he identified that cowardice is not the opposite of courage. The opposite of courage is actually conformity. And that’s the problem with society today. Many are simply lost and afraid to do something new or untested. As a result, these people conform to trends, fads, or whatever is the acceptable standard of the community as of the moment.

Now, this is why millions of seniors in America are broke. At 25, they started working and supporting a family—as typically expected by society when you reach that age. However, for some reason, after reaching the age of 65, these people failed to become truly financially independent. They have to rely on a social safety net for their needs, while some have to keep working in order to survive. 

What went wrong? After all the available opportunities, and being fortunate enough to live in a rich and abundant country like the United States, these people failed to make their money or assets work for them. Well, they may not have known it, but that is actually a result of conformity. 

People don’t consciously know it, but millions of people simply conform to the standards that are set by society and by public systems because they don’t know any better. They don’t know what else to do, where they are headed, and they believe that their life is mainly shaped by their personal circumstances and external forces that are not in their control.

If you ask 20 men about why they go to work every morning, the majority of them would tell you that it’s simply because they need to. They wake up, go to work, and collect wages. And that’s it. There’s no other goal at the end of it all. There are no bigger ideals that they are working for other than just doing their jobs and keep a roof up their heads.

On the other hand, a successful person is someone who knows what they do, and how best to accomplish their goal within a certain period. For example, a teacher who is aspiring to be a principal is working and studying his/her way to a master’s degree to get that promotion. Now that’s a success. 

If a wife and mother want to become a stay-at-home wife and mother and is actually doing a great job at keeping house is also a success! A successful person is working for his dream or has already achieved a dream job or position because he/she knew that it is what they wanted to do. Success is anyone who deliberately pushes and performs a predetermined job because that’s what he/she decided to do. However, only 1 out of 20 or 5 out of 100 could do that!

If you want to know more about this and learn about the strangest secret of the world, then listen to the whole thing right here!

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