Have you heard of The Strangest Secret? It’s a wonderful record album from 1956, written and recorded by Earl Nightingale (1921-1989), one of the leading personal development experts and New Thought writers of the 20th century. He also had a good voice and was a radio broadcaster, hosting a daily radio show (Our Changing World) that was heard on several stations across the United States and far beyond.
I’ve learned many lessons from this timeless recording. It offers a proven way to become successful, the most important (and often quoted) message being: “we become what we think about”. Our current thoughts are shaping our future reality, so we should be thinking the right thoughts! We have to think positive to create positive (and focus on what we want, instead of that what we don’t want).
Nightingale paints a picture of 100 men, starting with the same resources and idealism at the age of 25. However, according to statistics, by the time they’re 65 years old, things are really different as just “one will be rich” and “four will be financially independent”. From the other 95, a majority of “54 will be broke”. So, eventually, only 5% of all people will become financially successful.
“People with goals succeed, because they know where they’re going”
He defines success as “the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal”. Meaning that anyone who decides to deliberately work towards a predetermined goal, doing what he or she wants to do, is successful. An obstacle is conformity: doing what most people (the unsuccessful 95%) are doing; feeling controlled by external forces; being externally directed (instead of internally focused).
“All we have to do is create”, Earl Nightingale says, indicating that action is not the main part of success. Over the years, he has noticed that some people work hard and hardly achieve anything, while others don’t work hard and almost achieve anything! And, he observes, someone who is successful tends to remain successful, while someone who is unsuccessful tends to stay unsuccessful.
His explanation is that “people with goals succeed, because they know where they’re going” and, more specifically, because they think about desires and goals (like where to go and what to accomplish). The key to success (and failure!) is that “we become what we think about” (as we will attract what we think about). To support this thesis, he quotes several historic achievers & philosophers:
“A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.”
— Marcus Aurelius
“Everything comes if a man will only wait. I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment.”
— Benjamin Disraeli
“A man is what he thinks about all day long.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. / We need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real, and it will become infallibly real by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterise belief. / If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich; if you wish to be learned, you will be learned; if you wish to be good, you will be good. Only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.”
— William James
“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
— Bible, Mark 9:23
“This is one of the greatest laws in the universe. Fervently do I wish I had discovered it as a very young man. It dawned upon me much later in life, and I found it to be one of the greatest, if not my greatest discovery, outside of my relationship to God. And the great law briefly and simply stated is that if you think in negative terms, you’ll get negative results. If you’ll think in positive terms, you will achieve positive results. That is the simple fact which is at the basis of an astonishing law of prosperity and success. In three words, believe and succeed.”
— Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt”
— William Shakespeare
“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”
— George Bernard Shaw
(I’ve written these quotations exactly as he reads them on the recording, so these citations could be slightly different from their original source, e.g. partly adapted for narrative reasons.)
Nightingale continues with a good example, comparing the human mind with fertile ground to explain why we become what we think about. Like a farmer can decide what to grow on his land, we can choose what to create in our lives as we can deliberately choose thoughts, planting mental seeds every day. “The mind, like the land, will return what you plant; it doesn’t care what you plant.”
“The human mind”, he says, “is the last, great, unexplored continent on the Earth. It contains riches beyond our wildest dreams! It will return anything we want to plant. As you sow, so shall you reap.” The author states that we often don’t use our mind that deliberately, as we don’t see the mind as valuable. That’s because the most valuable things in life don’t have a price tag!
“Our mind, our soul, our body, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our intelligence, our love of family, children and friends… all these priceless possessions are free”, Earl Nightingale states. “The things that cost us money are actually very cheap, and can be replaced at any time. But the things we got for nothing, we can never replace.” I couldn’t agree more…
“The very law that gives us success is a two-edged sword”
His advice is to use our mind more often (and more deliberately, by focusing on what we do want). “Plant your goal in your mind. It’s the most important decision you’ll ever make in your entire life. Work steadily toward your goal, and it will become a reality. It not only will; there’s no way that it cannot — that is a law”, he says in reference to (what we know today as) the Law of Attraction.
Nightingale also talks about visual imagination: “Think about your goal in a relaxed, positive way. Picture yourself in your mind’s eye as having already achieved this goal; see yourself doing the things you will be doing when you’ve reached your goal. Every one of us is the sum total of his own thoughts; he is where he is because that’s exactly where he really wants to be.”
He explains that our thoughts are creating our reality (through the Law of Attraction). “What you think will mold your life and determine your future. You’re guided by your mind. We must control our thinking. The very law that gives us success is a two-edged sword. The same rule that can lead a man to success, can lead him into the gutter. It’s all in how he uses it; for good or for bad.”
“As you believe, so shall it be done”
Earl Nightingale calls this phenomenon “the strangest secret in the world” because, while it’s mentioned in the Bible and has been proclaimed by famous people for years — so it’s no secret at all — strangely enough, very few people learn, understand (and apply) this success principle, which is why it virtually remains a secret. He once attended a speech of late newspaper editor Grove Patterson, who said something significant.
“(…) People are basically good. We came from someplace, and we’re going someplace. So we should make our time here an exciting adventure. The architect of the universe didn’t build a stairway leading nowhere. And the greatest teacher of all, the carpenter from the plains of Galilee, gave us the secret time and time again: as you believe, so shall it be done… unto you.” ( Part 2 )
Listen to Earl Nightingale | The Strangest Secret | Audio MP3 (1956 Original) | Part 1:
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Image: Record middle label sticker of Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret (credit: Columbia Records)
