"Laugh together. The more laughter, the better the quality of life. So focus on subjects that make you both laugh. That, too, will make you feel present. It’s impossible to laugh without being present. Your mind must be where you are if anything is going to be funny. People who laugh cannot have negative thoughts at the same time."
-- Ichak K. Adize
"Men don’t fail; they give up trying.” Often it is not the wrong start but the wrong stop that makes the difference between success and failure. To quit while we’re ahead would be silly; to quit when we’re behind is even sillier. It requires will to hold on a little longer. It requires wit to know that the measure of success is not the luck, the breaks of the game, but the conquest of failure. 'The trouble with most of us,' it has been said, 'is that we stop trying in trying times.' There is wisdom even in puns."
-- Elihu Root
"The Life Principle as it flows through you takes the shape of the mental mold which you prepare for It. Let us take the analogy of water, which will take the shape of any vessel into which it is poured, yet it ever remains the same H2O, regardless of the shape and size of the container. Your thoughts, imagery, and mental patterns mold, fashion, and shape your life."
-- Joseph Murphy
"Self-confidence comes from proving your belief in yourself by your little achievements and your small successes as you go along. Self-esteem gives you permission to believe that you have something inside of you that should be developed. That in itself creates motivation for you to seek, to learn, to read, to role model, to discover, because you believe that you’re worth more than your present circumstances. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from. You’re as good as anybody else—no better, but as good."
-- Denis Waitley
"We think about our goal as we have our morning coffee and breakfast, while we’re in the shower, and it comes to us again and again during the day. We are on course. We are moving toward the fulfillment of our current goal. And it is often the last thing we think about as we drop off to sleep. It is our aiming point. And people with aiming points tend to reach them."
-- Earl Nightingale
"Success must be enjoyed. It may be won with tears but it must be crowned with laughter. Otherwise the effort may be worthwhile—it may be good or even great—but for the individual without the inner laughter, which is known by another name as satisfaction, there can hardly be success."
-- Og Mandino
"People with goals on which they have set their hearts and minds are always moving toward those goals. Even while we sleep, our deep minds are working on the project. That’s why we often awaken, early in the morning, with the solution to a problem that had repeatedly resisted our conscious attempts to solve it the day before."
-- Earl Nightingale
"Eliminate temptations that are obstacles to being present. All kinds of screens—from TV screens to smartphones to tablets—populate our lives everywhere. Even when you go to restaurants to eat, often there are TVs blaring, and you cannot avoid looking up to see what’s going on. People eat or drink as they watch screens around them. Screens have invaded homes, too. I have visited families who installed them in their dining rooms so they can watch TV as they eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner. With smartphones and tablets, people can double- or triple-task simultaneously: eating, speaking on the phone, and watching TV. No wonder people often can’t remember what they ate or exactly what they said or were told."
-- Ichak K. Adize
"Man must take charge of his own mind and not permit others to govern it for him. Creed, dogma, tradition, superstition, fear, and ignorance rule the mind of the average man. The average man does not own his own mind. It does not belong to him. It is often ruled over and governed by the rank superstitions of others."
-- Joseph Murphy
"Part of knowing your purpose is knowing what your life work is. What is it that gives your life a sense of meaning and purpose? Once you find that, it puts you in your power place."
-- Les Brown
"Without a goal we are much like the man with a boat and nowhere to go. Goals give us the drive and energy we need to remain on the track long enough for their accomplishment. Like the captain of the ship about to leave port, we should be able to tell anyone our next port of call—and perhaps the one after that too."
-- Earl Nightingale
"The first constant factor is purpose. One must know that in whatever he does he is moving forward toward a goal. Aimlessness is the worst enemy of success. One can hardly feel successful in a bog. But as long as one has purpose he feels that his energies and creative thought are taking him somewhere, and there is satisfaction in the journey just as there is despair whenever we feel, as we often insightfully put it, that we are “getting nowhere.”"
-- Og Mandino
"The profile of a wealthy person is this: hard work, perseverance, and most of all, self-discipline. The average wealthy person has lived all his adult life in the same town. He’s been married once and is still married. He lives in a middle-class neighborhood next to people with a fraction of his wealth. He’s a compulsive saver and investor, and he’s made his money on his own. Eighty percent of America’s millionaires are first generation rich. (Doesn’t sound like opportunity is dead to me.) Put all your excuses aside and remember this: You are capable."
-- Zig Ziglar
"Success is a by-product of sheer determination and hard work. It’s as if the subconscious has been so intensely programmed that it somehow supercharges the conscious mind and body on a regular basis, and this is what carries the person across the finish line of any all-consuming desire. It was Sullenberger who said, “We need to try to do the right thing every time, to perform at our best because we never know at what moment in our lives we will be judged.”"
-- John Paul Carinci
"Merely thinking positively doesn’t actually move us forward in our lives. We also need to acknowledge obstacles and hindrances that must be overcome. This grounding is beneficial because it moves us toward action. We start the transition from being dreamers to doers."
-- John F. Westfall
"Motivation is not something you are born with. The feeling that you are energized and want to do something cannot be relied upon to always be there. Mastering motivation is building the capacity to do what matters most to you, even when a part of you does not feel like it."
-- Julie Smith
"Remember, too, to invest in your health, even if you haven’t done much of that in the past. As I explained earlier, your health massively changes your ability to enjoy all kinds of experiences. So it’s well worth your while to spend time and money improving or at least maintaining your health, whether by joining a ritzy gym (the kind you actually look forward to visiting), hiring a personal trainer, or following along with fitness videos."
-- Bill Perkins
"Inventors are the most driven individuals because they must do the seemingly impossible. They invent something or improve something in a manner that hasn’t been done before. All along the way the inventor experiences failed attempts. Sometimes those failed attempts number in the thousands, but that doesn’t deter the inventor. He welcomes failure, realizing that each new failure brings him closer to his breakthrough, the successful completion of the invention."
-- John Paul Carinci
"No matter how badly things seem to be going, they can usually get better when we change the way we perceive them. This is something I’ve known deep down since I was very young. Even in my teens, I remember paraphrasing a Chinese proverb to a friend who was sad and down in the dumps. ‘We can’t prevent the birds of sorrow flying over our heads,’ I told her. ‘But we can stop them making nests in our hair.’ That’s how I lived my life and it’s a message I will continue to pass on."
-- Camilla Sacre-Dallerup
"Adaptive coping style. That means confronting problems directly, appraising them honestly, and dealing with them directly without excessive rumination, unhealthy emotional reactions, or avoidance behavior."
-- Arthur C. Brooks
