Positive Thinking
WON’T Build Success!
Motivation, positive thinking, yinian, resolution, strong effort & intent — these make great ingredients in a recipe for success. But each on its own won’t do anything for you. You have to build on all of them together.
Albert Einstein had many things going against him before achieving his later successes in life: he had early speech impediments, he didn’t get along with his teachers in high school, he didn’t even graduate from high school, and he later failed his entrance exam to enter a technological institute of his choosing.
Positive thinking is all well and good, but it won’t get rid of your obstacles for you. What allowed Einstein to overcome these obstacles was his own motivation and willingness to persist in spite of any obstacle that came his way.
Sales and motivation speaker Zig Ziglar gets his message across quite clearly when he puts forth this question:
Who would you rather have operate on you, a positive thinking and enterprising individual with no previous medical training, or a competent surgeon with years of experience behind him?!
And if that’s not enough to convince you, here’s another memorable story put forth by Ziglar:
A very wealthy man wanted to see who was worthy enough to marry his only daughter, so he invited all of his daughter’s suitors to his large real estate.
All of his property and wealth, he said, would go to the man who married his daughter, if he could pass one test, and that was to swim across an alligator-infested lake.
Well, for the longest period of time, there was silence — obviously, no one wanted to put his life on the line.
Suddenly, there is a loud splash… one man is in the lake and swimming as fast as he could, with the alligators snapping close behind him. When he finally reaches the other side, he is huffing with exertion, but fortunately in one piece.
His prospective father-in-law excitedly rushes to his side congratulating him on his success and having won his daughter’s hand in marriage. What, he asked, did the young man have to say to that?
Still breathing hard from his exertions, the young man said, “Just one thing…who pushed me in?!”
Positive thinking didn’t play a major role here. This man was motivated because he had no choice …but look how his motivation pushed him to succeed!
What winning attitude can drive you to succeed? What mountain of obstacles do you have to cross that will make your success all that much sweeter?
The Sky’s the Limit!
When motivation speaker Anthony Robbins put out his two books Unlimited Power and Awaken the Giant Within I felt his passion speak out to me, particularly in the following inscription he quoted from Williams College:
Your goal the sky; Your aim the star.”
— Awaken the Giant Within, p. 162
Many years ago, when Alexander Graham Bell wanted to invent the telephone it was first met with resistance. Why would anyone need a contraption to speak into, when they could just walk over to their neighbor to speak to them in person?
Now many years later, we not only have long distance capability but also satellite and cellular telephones, instant messaging over the internet, conferencing with two or more people anywhere in the world with videos and webcams that allow us to see them in person, and even live feeds to broadcast to the public.
It didn’t take just a single idea to make this happen. Even Bell himself had his doubts that his idea for the first telephone would work, because he felt he didn’t have the technological know-how to build it.
It was a friend and scientist Joseph Henry who convinced him, that if he didn’t have the knowledge it took to build it, he needed to go out and get it!
Not just the positive thinking and the drive,
but the willingness to go all the way?
Because positive thinking and motivation
alone will not get you there!
Winning Starts With Beginning
A winning attitude, positive thinking, and yinian — the intent and visualization, — these are all great tools that can drive us to succeed, but are these enough?
We have all heard of people with great ideas, great ambitions and great designs — but that’s all they are, without the willingness to put them to work.
Without a positive attitude, the persistence to work through obstacles and put in the effort — whatever it takes — an idea will just go on the back burner, a blueprint design will just be used as kindling fuel, and an ambition will just fizzle out.
Knock, and it will be opened to you.”
—Matthew 7:7
Success comes by always taking it a step further, by not giving up, by climbing every mountain of obstacle — persistence by the sweat of your brow, so to speak. Success comes from more than positive thinking but also hard work. Genius, as Thomas Edison puts it, “is 10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration.”
Qigong/chi kung is no different. If you want to master the art of qigong/chi kung, you have to be willing to put in the practice.
Positive thinking and yinian or the yi mind power are the keys to controlling the chi, your intrinsic lifeforce, but without sufficient training and practice, you still have no chi to control.
Don’t have the time to put in six hours a day the traditional way I learned it? How about two hours? How about a half hour? Or just twenty minutes?
How much is success worth to you? If it’s just twenty minutes of your time, then you take that amount of time to do it, and make it really worth your while. Quality time is definitely much better than quantity here.
People sometimes ask me, what is the least amount of time they have to invest to succeed in qigong/chi kung. The least amount of time? How about ten minutes a week?
If you put in ten minutes a week of quality workout in qigong/chi kung, you’ll get just that: Ten minutes of quality time and effort will get you ten minutes closer to mastering qigong/chi kung.
Ten minutes of quality time is good for any goal, but of course twenty minutes or better yet, half an hour a week is even better. That will give you twice or more the result you’ll get out of ten minutes.
How about half an hour of quality time every day? How about one hour? Or two?
What I’m trying to say here is positive thinking aside, you get as much as you put in. It doesn’t matter if it’s just ten minutes or several hours…
Don’t have the time? Make time. Don’t have the knowledge? Go educate yourself!
Here’s positive thinking with an attitude:
More than ten years ago, a friend of mine had been studying English for three years on a student visa in Canada, and could not make any progress beyond the E.S.L (beginner’s English as a Second Language) stage. He asked me what to do.
I told him “Fake it until you make it — go put your English to work!”
Since he had had special training as a tai chi instructor in China, I helped him get started teaching tai chi chuan.
Fluency in English? He didn’t even have enough to communicate, let alone teach. But I told him, “Assume you have, and just prepare to teach the class accordingly.
Definitely, he had his share of linguistic obstacles, but with my occasional translation, his persistence and sincere desire to help his students, he began to make rapid improvement.
Six months later, he was speaking fluently, and several years later, he graduated from university. Now, he is a Canadian citizen and successful businessman making $60 thousand in Canada.
How’s that for success!
Live your passion. Be the best you can be and develop a winning attitude: Build on your motivation, positive thinking, and yi mind power. Add persistence and the willingness to work hard and do whatever it takes,
…and I will see you — no, better yet, — I’ll join you at the top!