"If they had listened can you imagine our world today."

“But what is it good for? Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM commenting on the microchip in 1968.

“We don’t like your sound and guitar music is on the way out.” Decca Records rejecting the Beatles in 1962.

“This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” Western Union internal memo in 1876.

“Hey we’ve got this amazing thing, even built it with some of your parts, and what do you think of funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary and we’ll come work for you.” And they said, “Hey we don’t need you. You haven’t even finished college yet.” Hewlett Packard rejecting Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, founder of Apple Computer about their idea of a personal computer.

“You will go broke trying to run a store on five and ten cent sales.” People trying to convince F.W. Woolworth not to go ahead with his plans for Woolworths Five and Dime.

Vision takes guts. Positive living takes discipline. Negativity is everywhere. There is no legal protection against those who, either by design or ignorance, poison the minds of others by negative suggestion.

Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich once said, “ This form of destruction should be punishable by heavy legal penalties because it may and often does destroy one’s chances of acquiring material things through their success.”

People with negative minds tried to convince Thomas Edison that he could not build a machine that could record and reproduce the human voice. “Because” they said, “no one else has ever produced such a machine.” Thomas Edison knew that the mind could produce anything the mind could conceive and believe, and that knowledge was the thing that lifted him above everyone else.

Doubting Thomas’s scoffed when Henry Ford tried out his first crude built automobile on the streets of Detroit. Some said the thing would never become practical. Others said no one would pay money for such a contraption. Ford said, “I’ll belt the earth with dependable cars,” and he did. His decision to trust his own judgment piled up a fortune for generations to come.

Protect your mind. Be guarded with your thinking. Positive thinking begets positive feelings begets positive actions, begets positive circumstances, begets positive opportunities, and so on and so on. This is a discipline that many of us find hard to do because there is negativity and doubting Thomas’s all around us. Negativity is toxic. It squelches great thinking. And mediocrity will attack brilliant thinking every time.

People who do not succeed have one distinguishing trait in common. They know all the reasons for failure, and have what they believe to be airtight alibis to explain away their own lack of achievement. You know…the list of “If onlys…..

It’s time you stopped listening to the conditioning you grew up with. It’s time you stopped listening to the world around you and realized just how perfect, how ingenious, how creative, and how fantastic you are. It’s time to realize that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to, and with vision, passion, and of course, a plan, you can succeed at anything you put your mind to.

You are an amazing human being. You are here to accomplish great things. You are here to grow, to be inspired, to create and to be happy, joyful, and prosperous beyond your wildest dreams. When you decide to change your thinking and picture your reality as you dream it and find the passion that sets your mind on fire, then your soul will shine, the nay-sayers will have no impact on you and you will create wondrous things and help multitudes of people and feel fulfilled, satisfied and alive.

Have a great day.

Ken