Tony Williamson

Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought

- Napoleon Hill

The secret of unleashing the vast powers within you is the ability to unlock the immeasurable powers of the mind. Most people who are wealthy today were not born rich; they achieved their wealth through a process of thinking.

Success in life is not placed upon your head like a crown inherited in a line of royalty. Success is the offspring of thought. But so is failure. Both failure and success are children of the mind, and so are poverty and wealth. It does not matter how many times you failed, or how often you went bankrupt, your thought processes can lead you again to rise from failure to success, from bankruptcy to riches, from sickness to health, from a shattered marriage to conjugal happiness.

The Bible says, "As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he". (Prov. 23:7) This means that we are in essence what we think, just as we are in health what we eat, except that the mind has a far more powerful influence in your life than food on the body.

The engine

Your mind is not only the steering wheel of your car, the rudder of your ship, but it is simultaneously the engine of your vehicle, the thrust of your rocket. Your body is subject to your mind. W. Clement Stone was right when he said, "You are a mind with a body." The thoughts you think are powerful, life-directing, life-transforming. They can heal or hurt, they build up or tear down. They have powerful, transcendental, long-term effects on your life. Thinking is your greatest gift and it has the most profound influence on your life. Marcus Garvey, if he did anything for us, inspired us to think, to alter our state of being by altering our state of mind.

Radio talk shows have revolutionized the thinking process of the average Jamaican. Our government must be commended on the freedom of speech it allows. You may criticize Wilmot Perkins as much as you like, but Perkins is doing for the common man what Garvey did for diminished Blacks - he forces us to think. Perkins is fearlessly iconoclastic and you can never assume which position he will take. He is a thinker, and whether right or wrong, his conclusions come out of searching, searing, surprising and sometimes savage questions that take the unprepared, unwary caller off guard, disarming him. If Perkins does nothing else, he does this: he teaches you to think for yourself.

Thinking takes place every second of your conscious life. It drives decision-making. The car you drive, the wall upon which you lean, the chair in your living room, the position of the corner on which you sit or stand to sell fruits or The Gleaner, the man you married, the radio station which you tune into, the job you now have - all were first ideas in the mind. Your physical circumstances are largely an expression of the thoughts of your mind. Your thoughts drive you, they direct you, they lead you to forgiveness or revenge, to love or to hate, to sickness or to health, to poverty or to riches.

WHAT YOU THINK UPON GROWS WITHIN YOU

Former South African President Nelson Mandela holds Amnesty International's 'Ambassador of Conscience' Award at his office in Johannesburg, November 1. Nelson Mandela led South Africans in paying tribute to former President P.W. Botha, the defiant face of apartheid who doggedly clung to white rule and refused to free Mandela from jail. - REUTERS

Whatever you allow yourself to think about persistently becomes big in your life. This is true whether your thoughts are good or evil. As the thing grows and magnifies itself in your life, it drives you relentlessly, inexorably toward the achievement of that thing. Your persistent thoughts become self-fulfilling, a creative vision, for good or ill. A creative vision can be good - like the Mahatma Ghandi's vision of an independent India, like Nelson Mandela's vision of a just South Africa for all, like Martin Luther King's, "I Have A Dream". Or persistent thoughts can yield nightmares of destructive achievement, like Hitler's vision of a super race of Arians, resulting in the destruction of six million Jews, or Jim Jones' suicidal implosion in the jungles of Guyana.

But can you control your thoughts? Can you decide what you think? Find out as you follow this series.

Tony Williamson is an international motivational speaker, sales trainer, author and lifestyle consultant. He can be contacted at: tonywilliamson_57@yahoo.com