The Two Envelopes You Receive At Birth: Success and Failure
Possibly the most powerful and specific intruction on the topic of personal success is this short section of video by Napoleon Hill that he recorded back in the day.
His squeaky voice, thick glasses and comic appearance mask the great thoughts enclosed inside his books “The Law of Success” and “Think and Grow Rich”.
The two envelopes are read to illustrate that whatever a person chooses to do in life is irrelevant, only that whatever that thing is, it must be clearly defined and pursued with all of one’s energy.
The single most major decision we have to make in life is to decide what that purpose is.
As Andrew Carnegie said, “Put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket.”
It is the only way to master life and it doesn’t matter what your situation is.
His statement of “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” is actually not totally correct. Instead of the word can he really means does.
The point being, that it is a natural law, it isn’t a law of possibility but of certainty. It is unavoidable, that whatever our life is, is a direct result of what we have thought it into being.
So, to discover where we are in life, and how we are doing, we can take a peek into those two envelopes and answer honestly each category.
Riches:
- Sound Health
- Peace of Mind
- Labor of Love
- Free of Fear and Worry
- Posivtive Mental Attitude
- Riches
- (I would add> Great Relationships)
Penalties:
- Ill health
- Fear and Worry
- Indecision and Doubt
- Frustration and discouragement
- Poverty and Want
- A whole flock of evil emotions, jealousy, greed, hate, anger, superstition
- I would add > Loneliness)
The law of attraction is what people claim to be the force that is at work in life, but I challenge that, because the fact is that really everything is equally accessable to everyone right now.
It isn’t a matter of attraction it is a matter of allowance. It is a matter of opening the doors to what you want and not to what you don’t want.
As the sun equally shines on everyone, so does opportunity. Everyone lives on the same earth and has the same amount of time. Admittedly there are areas of the earth where these principles remain untold, so it is possible that many people aren’t getting it told to them with this specificity.
Still, the law holds true. Whatever you think, you get, whether you know it or not.
It is a matter of opening the door to the one thing you want, and closing the doors on everything else.
Not an easy thing to do, especially when it means giving up those things we may hold close to us, even those things which we think we do not want, but hold on to, because they have become a part of our life for so many years.
I know for me, this single lesson is an epic fact of life.
We have a profound choice to make in life and the task is to make it and make the most of it.