The strangest secret in life
Picture this.
A man in the middle of the woods of northern Saskatchewan Canada found himself in a pickle…
Hundreds of people along the shore of Wollaston Lake had a huge power outage for almost 30 hours. The temperature was frigid cold. Power was out and no one knew why.
No one except for this one man.
This outdoorsman had overturned his boat on a bank of Wollaston Lake. The man, just visiting, had paddled up from a nearby river when bad weather trapped him between ice floes, stranding him. He bunkered underneath the boat on the shore and had survived several days between the frozen lake and an impassable forest.
After several days without food, water, or proper shelter, his time to live was running out, and so were his ideas on how to survive. Waiting for the ice to melt was not an option. Wandering through the forest in the frigid cold wouldn’t work. And no one was coming to look for him. He had no phone, no equipment to make a fire, and no way to send SOS signals. All he had was himself, his boat, a paddle, and an ax.
In desperation and deep thought, he finally had an idea. He found the nearest power pole and chopped it down, hoping it would take the power down in the nearest, although distant town, forcing the power company to come to investigate. He sheltered under his boat and waited.
Within 24 hours, the electrical company, SaskPower, chartered a helicopter to investigate the outage. The team found the power pole and found the stranded outdoorsman.
Bruce Zawalsky, the founder of Canada’s Boreal Wilderness Institute for Outdoor Education, was impressed. “Improvisation saved this man’s life, and that’s good. It’s pretty desolate up there. Power lines stretch across impassable lakes and rivers, trees are up to 50 feet high, and he could’ve walked for miles before finding help.”
This is a true story. And it paints a clear picture of the importance of what we think about.
There are opportunities and solutions to every difficulty in life. This is true about your health, wealth, relationships, marriage, spiritual faith, Coronavirus, the economy, political turmoil, etc.
The first 3 words in As A Man Thinketh by David Allen says “Thoughts are things.” What you think about, comes about.
An empty field doesn’t care if you plant grass or crops. If you plant grass, it brings you grass. If you plant crops, it brings you crops. And if you plant nothing, you get worthless weeds.
Your mind is the same way. It doesn’t care if you plant negativity, positivity, or nothing. If you plant negativity, it brings you negativity and doom. If you plant positivity, it brings you positivity and possibility. And if you plant nothing, you become nothing and go with whatever way the wind blows, which certainly won’t bring you to where you want to go.
Earl Nightengale (March 12, 1921 — March 25, 1989) was an American radio speaker and author, talking mostly on the subjects of human character development, motivation, and meaningful existence. He was the voice during the early 1950s of Sky King, the hero of a radio adventure series, and was a WGN radio program host from 1950 to 1956. He authored the book The Strangest Secret, which economist Terry Savage has termed “one of the great motivational books of all time.”
The Strangest Secret, he claims, is that we become what we think most about. I agree.
This year has thrown us many different circumstances. And these circumstances have many opportunities. Opportunities to grow, to think, to change.
What difficulty are you going through right now, and most importantly, what are your dominant thoughts about it? If your dominant thoughts are “woe is me,” then your life will bring you many things to woe about.
I encourage you to take some time to think about where the opportunity is that you can explore and take advantage of.
The only time we are comfortable in life is when we are coasting. And the only direction you can coast is downhill. Everything you want is uphill.
I strive every day to find things that force me to grow. They are all uncomfortable. This year has been a massive season of growth for me. I’ve made so many changes it’s unreal. None of them have been comfortable. But the good news is, the Kevin of today cannot recognize the Kevin of Q1 2020 for many great reasons.
What opportunities do you have in your current difficulties?
Always remember, you’re only one strategy away…
