Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude... Faith that Prevails

by Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com

Success through a Positive Mental Attitude by Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone is the civilization rebuilding sequel to Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Hill originally wrote the Laws of Success in 1928, after 20 years of research as recommended by Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest men in the world. Then 7 years later he wrote his wealth building classic, Think and Grow Rich.

Stone picked up Think and Grow Rich in 1937 as America was digging its way out of a great depression. He distributed copies to all of his sales representatives. In 1951, Stone met Hill and they collaborated on Success through a Positive Mental Attitude. A life and business revitalizing work unprecedented in its long term contribution to the growth of wealth in America.

S. B. Fuller was one greatly influenced by Think and Grow Rich. Believing that poverty was only a mind set, of which he grew up in, Fuller followed the principles of Think and Grow Rich and bought a company of cleaning aides. He had no money to start. He sold soap for 12 years and saved all he could while living very frugal. His belief was that desire is the first step to obtaining wealth. He did, in buying a company for $150,000 and getting his final stage of the investment late into the night right before the offer expired.

He said three books highly influenced his life as he established the Fuller Brush company.The three books were the 1) Bible, 2) Think and Grow Rich, 3) and The Secret of the Ages. Fuller said, " you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by trying. Success is achieved and maintained by those with a Positive Mental Attitude."

Success with a Positive Mental Attitude has these precepts outlined throughout.
Develop inspirational dissatisfaction. With PMA and desire you can do better.
With a positive mental attitude, you live life believing that every adversity has a seed of an equivalent or greater benefit. Greatness comes to those who have a burning desire to achieve high goals. Success is achieved and maintained by those who try and keep on trying with PMA. To become an expert achiever in any human activity takes practice, practice, practice.

Man's greatest power lies in the power of prayer.

Apply a positive mental attitude with the 17 success principles, of which PMA is the first.
1. Positive Mental Attitude
2. Definiteness of purpose
3. Going the extra mile
4. Accurate thinking
5. Self-discipline
6, The master mind (harmony of two or more minds)
7. Applied faith
8. A pleasing personality
9. Personal initiative
10. Enthusiasm
11. Controlled attention
12. Teamwork
13. Learning from defeat
14. Creative vision
15. Budgeting time and money
16. Maintaining sound physical and mental health
17. Using cosmic habit force (universal law, i.e., Spiritual power)

Create a positive picture of your future along with a definite purpose. What is your goal? What do you really want? When you fix this in your mind, it pushes into your subconscious mind. Then Universal Law goes to work for you. And things you want begin coming your way. You naturally start heading in right directions. Work becomes fun, with less stressful effort and results start mounting up. So with PMA all along you way, you begin attracting wealth.

When faced with a problem that involves another person, "I must first clear that up. This then opens the way for other benefits to make their way to me. Honesty is inherent in PMA. "Negative passions, emotions, feelings, habits, prejudices need to be cleaned from the mind, and these negative mental attitudes converted to positive mental attitudes. It takes positive, conscious auto suggestion to train your subconscious to be ready to receive the wealth that will come its way. You can then do anything, if you believe you can.

So what the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve through PMA.

With a Positive Mental Attitude we move from complaining or blaming to problem solving and idea innovation.
When faced with a problem use PMA...
1. Ask for Divine guidance. Ask for help in finding the right solution.
2. Engage in thinking time for the purpose of solving the problem. Remember that every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater opportunity, when you maintain a positive mental attitude.
3. State the problem, analyze and define it.
4. State to yourself enthusiastically... "that's good."
5. Ask yourself some specific questions: What's good about it? How can I turn this adversity into a seed of equivalent or greater benefit;or how can I turn this liability into a greater asset?
6. Keep searching for answers until you find at least one answer that can work.

The key to motivating yourself is hope. Hope is the desire of the expectation of obtaining something that is desired and belief that it is obtainable. Motives that inspire human action are self-preservation, love, fear, sex, life after death, freedom of body and mind, anger, hate, recognition and self-expression, and material gain.

Keep your mind on the things you should and do want and off the things you shouldn't and don't want. Practice the personal action starter, "Do It Now!"

Motivate others by motivating yourself. Give them inspirational books and activity knowledge. Stories of others and increasing the knowledge of the product or service helps others stay motivated. The more we learn and skills we acquire, the more we want to put them to work.

The shortcut to success is to think always with PMA and apply it to all the 17 success principles. When you master the 17 success principles with PMA, success is inevitable.

You attract wealth by giving of what you have. The more you give, the more it reciprocates in a greater number back to you. Write your goals, give yourself a deadline, set high standards, aim high and use PMA along the way. Take the first step, and apply PMA in difficulties as well as when things go well.

If you don't have money for an investment, you can use PMA and OPM, other people's money, to secure money you need. OPM is the way to acquire wealth. You must operate with the highest personal ethical standards with OPM.... that's with integrity, honor, honesty, loyalty, consent and the Golden Rule.

Riches beyond your wildest dreams will come when you have a Magnificent Obsession. Your magnificent obsession is developing an obsession to serve others. Share yourself without expecting a reward, payment, or commendation. Keep your good turn a secret. Try as you will to avoid payment for your good deed... blessings and rewards will be showered upon you. Share what is good and desirable and withhold what is bad and undesirable. Be part of a great cause.

There is something better than making a living, it is making a noble life. Anything in life worth having is worth working for. Money is not evil but the love of money is. The evil is not using money for noble things. What you share with others will multiply, what you withhold will diminish.

HIll and Stone show how PMA gives you endless energy, brings good health and contributes to living longer, attracts happiness and living with a sense of happiness, and it rids guilt feelings. Listen to advice and count your blessings. Character can be caught and taught.

They provide a test on your own success quotient. With a positive mental attitude you awaken the giant within you. The highest ideal of man is the will of God. Hill and Stone conclude Success through a Positive Mental Attitude with a biography of must read books to stay in the positive frame of mind. The first recommendation is the Bible followed by 64 other titles. When you need to sharpen your PMA, read a good inspirational, self-help book. They constantly recommend, in about every chapter of Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude, to read PMA inspired books and constantly taking action on the thoughts you get when reading them.

This is an inspiring work with a never ending influence since written in 1960 and will probably remain as a constant re-read to have the power of a positive mental attitude working in your life. Just picking it up and reading a chapter, renews a spirit of belief and hope and action to make a difference in life and the world. Note the Napoleon Hill Foundation website:
http://www.naphill.org/
And their outline of the 17 success principles...
http://www.naphill.org/points/

Faith That Prevails
God wants us to live with a stubborn positive mental attitude. The Bible calls it faith. The Belief and Knowing something will turn out good even though the resulting image is still in the mind. But even though the positive image of the outcome we want is in the mind, we just know it will happen that way.

It is equally important to dispel the thoughts that are destructive, non-productive. We must not only expel them but literally kill it. As Jesus said that we must die to the world of criticism and defeatism, and live in faith and hope for things greater than what He did will prevail. Jesus said there will be problems in the world, but to be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world. Have Faith in Jesus working on your behalf.

Smith Wigglesworth wrote about Faith that Prevails, online at
http://www.smithwigglesworth.com/sermons.htm#ftp

Faith in God's Spirit at work in and around you, and throughout the universe, is the other dimension beyond the mental ability and capability, which is beyond comprehension. Here are Wigglesworth's views on Faith from Faith That Prevails, a positive mental belief in Spirit and its tremendous power at work in us.

"Without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is rewards them that diligently seek him." "I can see that it is impossible to please Him on any line but faith, for everything that is not of faith is sin. God wants us to see that the plan of faith is the ideal and principle of God. In this connection I love to keep in my thoughts the beautiful words in the 2nd verse of the 12th chapter of Hebrews: "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." He is the author of faith. God worked through Him for the forming of the world.

"All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." And because of the exceedingly abundant joy of providing for us so great salvation, He became the author of a living faith. And through this principle of living faith, looking unto Him who is the author and finisher of our faith, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even by the Spirit of the Lord. God has something better for you than you have ever had in the past. Come out into all the fullness of faith and power and life and victory that He is willing to provide, as you forget the things of the past, and press right on for the prize of His high calling in Christ Jesus."

"In Mark 11:24 we read, "What things you desire, when you pray, believe that you received them, and you shall have them." The previous verse speaks of mountains removed, difficulties cleared away. Veneering won't do. We must have reality, the real working of our God. We must know God.

We must be able to go in and hold converse with God. We must also know the mind of God toward us, so that all our petitions are always on the line of His will. As this like precious faith becomes a part of you, it will make you so that you will dare to do anything. And remember, God wants daring men, men who will dare all, men who will be strong in Him and dare to do exploits.

How shall we reach this plane of faith? Let go your own thoughts of defeat, and take the thoughts of God, the Word of God. If you build yourself on your own imaginations you will go wrong. You have the Word of God and it is enough. A man gave this remarkable testimony concerning the Word: "Never compare this Book with other books. Comparisons are dangerous. Never think or never say that this Book contains the Word of God. It is the Word of God. It is supernatural in origin, eternal in duration, inexpressible in value, infinite in scope, regenerative in power, infallible in authority, universal in interest, personal in application, inspired in totality. Read it through. Write it down. Pray it in. Work it out. And then pass it on."

"I want to tell everyone about the Lord's healing power. Have you no tracts on this subject?" "Matthew, Mark, Luke, John--they are the best tracts on healing. They are full of incidents about the power of Jesus. They will never fail to accomplish the work of God if people will believe them.

"All lack of faith is due to not feeding on God's Word. You need it every day. How can you enter into a life of faith? Feed on the living Christ of whom this Word is full. As you get taken up with the glorious fact and the wondrous presence of the living Christ, the faith of God will spring up within you. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." (Rom. 10:17)

"Humanity is a failure everywhere. But when humanity is filled with divine power, there is no such thing as failure; and we know that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a failure. There are two sides to this Baptism: the first is, that you possess the Spirit; the second is that the Spirit possesses you.

This is my message at this time--being possessed by the Baptizer, and not merely possessing the Baptizer. There is no limit to the possibilities of such a life, because it has God behind it, in the midst of it, and through it. I see people from time to time very slack, cold, and indifferent; but after they get filled with the Holy Spirit they become ablaze for God.

Surely, this is the ideal and the purpose of this great plan of salvation for man--that we might be filled with all the fullness of God, and become ministers of life, God working mightily in us and through us to manifest His grace--the saving power of humanity.

So you will find out that, with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, you will be in a position to act when you have no time to think. The power and working of the Holy Spirit is of divine origin. It is the supernatural, God thrilling and moving one with the authority and power of almightiness, and it brings things to pass that could not come to pass in any other way.

"It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me." I believe that God wants to make real to us all this ideal of humility where we so recognize human helplessness and human insufficiency that we shall rest no more on human plans and human devices and human energy, but continually look to God for His thought, for His voice, for His power, for His all-sufficiency in all things.

A man filled with the Holy Spirit is no longer an ordinary man. A man can be swept by the power of God in the first stage of the revelation of Christ so that from that moment he will be an extraordinary man. But to be filled with the Holy Spirit, he has to become a free body for God to dwell in, and to use, and to manifest Himself through.

So I appeal to you, you people who have received the Holy Spirit, I appeal to you to let God have His way at whatever cost; I appeal to you to keep moving on with God into an ever increasing realization of His infinite purpose in Christ Jesus for His redeemed ones until you are filled unto all the fullness of God. The child of God must catch the vision anew every day. Every day the child of God must be moved more and more by the Holy Spirit. The child of God must come into line with the power of heaven so that he knows that God has his hand upon him.

Here it is, the blessed Word of God, the whole Word, not part of it, no, no, no! We believe in the whole of it. We really have such an effectiveness worked in us by the Word of life, that day by day we are finding out that the Word itself gives life; the Spirit of the Lord, breathing through, revealing by the Word, giving it afresh to us, makes the whole Word alive today. Amen. So I have within my hands, within my heart, within my mind, this blessed reservoir of promises that is able to do so many marvelous things.

God is making people hungry and thirsty after His best. And everywhere He is filling the hungry and giving them that which the disciples received at the very beginning. Are you hungry? If you are, God promises that you shall be filled.

Seek this vision from God, and keep it ever before you. Pray the prayer that the apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers, as recorded in Ephesians 1:17, 18, 19, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power is to us who believe."