Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk — and to act.

It is no exaggeration to say that every human being is hypnotized to some extent either by ideas he has uncritically accepted from others or ideas he has repeated to himself or convinced himself are true. These negative ideas have exactly the same effect upon our behavior as the negative ideas implanted into the mind of a hypnotized subject by a professional hypnotist.

Skill in any performance whether it be in sports in playing the piano in conversation or in selling merchandise consists not in painfully and consciously thinking out each action as it is performed but in relaxing and letting the job do itself through you. Creative performance is spontaneous and ‘natural’ as opposed to self-conscious and studied.

Study the situation thoroughly, go over in your imagination the various courses of action possible to you and the consequences which can and may follow from each course. Pick out the course which gives the most promise and go ahead.

We act, we behave, and we feel the vibration that we're in at the present time according to what we consider our self image to be. And we do not deviate from that pattern. The image you hold of yourself is a premise, a foundation (idea) on which your entire personality is built. This image, not only controls your behavior but your circumstances as well.

Fully 95 percent of our behavior, feeling, and response is habitual.

You are embarking on the greatest adventure of your life - to improve your self-image, to create more meaning in your life and in the lives of others. This is your responsibility.