AP 0142: What Is Your Opinion of “Positive Thinking” Techniques?

AskPat 142 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 142 of AskPat. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen to the show.

Of course, before we get started I want to thank our sponsor which is 99designs.com. It's the world's largest graphic design marketplace. It makes it easy to get a design that you love within a very short timeframe, about seven days, also for a relatively inexpensive price. If you go to 99designs.com/pat you'll get a $99 Power Pack of services for free today.

Now, lets get to today's question from Michael.

Michael: Hi Pat, my name is Michael Costanzo. I have a blog called Rags to Riches. You can find it at MCostanzo4.WordPress.com and my question is regarding the movie The Secret, if you ever seen it and the book, Think and Grow Rich—if you have ever read or seen that and if you use any of the techniques taught in them. If so, could you please just talk a little bit about it; what you found to work or not work? Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks.

Pat Flynn: Michael, thank you so much for your question. It's an interesting question because there's been a lot of talk about these books. Actually its funny because I've just noticed a lot more people talking about them lately for whatever reason. For those of you out there who don't know what these books or this movie is, first one, The Secret is by an author named Rhonda Byrne. She got pretty famous by becoming an author who got on the Oprah Winfrey show and became a New York Times Bestseller where it remained on that list for 146 consecutive weeks. This book called The Secret is about—it's similar to The Law of Attraction claiming that positive thinking can create life-changing results such as increased wealth and health and happiness and those sorts of things.

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill was actually published in 1937. This sort of goes along with his earlier work, The Law of Success and again, it goes with a lot of things happening internally in your mind to create actual results in your life.

I have read Think and Grow Rich and I think it's great. There's some parts of it that I use. There's some parts that are kind of just weird and interesting to me. I have not read or seen The Secret although I do want to check it out just because a lot of other people have as well. It has attracted a great deal of controversy; I've heard and it's been parodied a lot in several different TV programs which is quite interesting.

But, just to talk about these things really quick, not just one specifically but just in general these types of books and these types of things. It might sound a little woo-woo, to some of you. Like a little wee or whatever, just think something is going to happen and it will. There is something to be said for that. You can't just think about a million dollars and then all of a sudden there's going to be a million dollars just sitting there in your house. That's not how it works. There are things that go along with positive thinking that create actual results. It's not a direct result of thinking, but it's because of what happens when you positively think of something.

What it breaks down to, I believe, is a quote that comes from Henry Ford, one of my all-time favorite quotes. You've heard it here on AskPat before. It is “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right.” Meaning, if you don't believe something's going to happen, then it's not going to happen. If you're always angry of course other people are going to be angry around you, but if you have positive thinking, if you have desire and faith and persistence, those are the things that will drive you forward and allow you to have those things that you really want. How many times have you heard entrepreneurs say, “I just hustled for it. I wanted it. I wanted it so bad and I wouldn't stop until I had it. Until I succeeded.”

Just thinking about these things isn't going to give you the answers, but thinking about them gives you the power to go out and find the answers and do what you need to do to make things happen.

So let me talk about some of what's going on in Think and Grow Rich because I have read that myself and I use some of those things. There's thirteen sort of steps that are listed in the book. You can actually find—there's videos of Napoleon Hill actually reading off a lot of this book. It's public domaine I believe.

The first one is desire. Talking about individual desire and then also the second one is faith. Things like that are really important. Organized planning is actually another one. I've taken that to heart as well as far as planning and being organized to get to where I want to be. Being decisive and being persistent. Those are obvious things. I think the biggest thing that I took away from this book and the biggest thing that I always reference on the Smart Passive Income Podcast and on this podcast as well and even when I talk in person is “Chapter Ten, The Power of the Mastermind.” This is a really genius idea. This is 1937 when he's talking about this, but getting to talk about your goals and your values and your aspiration with other people who have those same kind of ideals or are striving to big things as well. You can get together with those people and talk to them and have them hold you accountable and learn from them and learn from each other. It's just . . . if you want to talk about a secret, that's a huge secret right there. If you want to become successful, you cannot do it alone. That's why I really appreciate that portion of the book, but there's a lot of other things that go along with it as well. I'm not going to get into the details. You can check it out yourself, but I think the idea here . . . this is going to be a shorter episode than usual, but the idea here is, think positive and positive things will happen. That's just seriously the way it is and do what you can to make sure you're continually thinking positively and being motivated. That means surrounding yourself with people who are also positive and motivated. That means understanding what your goals are and what the next steps might be so that you don't get lost. Understanding what it looks like at the end of those steps that you have to take so that you have something to look forward to, so you can know that something's better on the other end. Just having faith in yourself and knowing that you have that specialized knowledge that you have to get there. If you don't know it, go find it and ask it.

There's a lot of things out there that are sort of woo-woo, but I think in terms of really succeeding, you really have to believe that you can. If you don't, then you won't.

So, Michael, thank you so much for your question today. Again, those two books, or the first one was actually turned into a movie as well is called, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Then the other one is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. You can get both of those on Amazon and check them out if you'd like.

Michael, an AskPat teeshirt is headed your way. So, look out for an email from my assistant about that very soon, within a week. For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page. I'm taking questions all the time.

Of course, I want to thank today's sponsor which is, 99designs.com. Again, that offer can be found at 99designs.com/pat to get a $99 Power Pack of services for free today which will allow you to upgrade whatever design you're looking for, and to get more people involved in the design of whatever it is you're looking to do. I've used it myself in the past. It's been great. From logo design to web themes and things like that. A lot of talent on there and you can get it at an affordable price. Also, fast turn around as well. Like I said, seven days for that contest to run. What's cool is you can also get your friends, your family, people in your audience to get involved and sort of vote to see which of the submitted designs they like the best.

Thank you again for taking the time to listen to the show. A review on iTunes would be extremely helpful if you have the time. Lastly, as always, I'm going to end with a quote. Today's quote is from Seth Godin. He says, “Don't find customers for your products, find products for your customers.” Boom. Thanks so much and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat.