Belief precedes everything: Failure, begets failure, and an unwillingness to do something, anything, a focused direction, a massive surge of energy, a way out, a back door escape route, an audacious, adamant commitment to sail and soar, to scourer the mind and kick out the negativity, a resolve so paramount, so true, so clear, nothing, can stop a determined mind. 

So create what you will, but remember the greatest excuse you have is the one you hold too dear in your heart and mind, the one that you believe to easily, too readily, the one that slaps you down with your own hand, with your own weak will, the one that is afraid, and uses every rationale, every limitation in the small mind to stop you, to hinder you, to give you reasons to fail, to stop, to lick your wounds.

When success is really but a decision, and failure is a decision too and both are alarming real, if you believe them, if you give them power in your life, in your mind, in the soft part of  who you believe you are, can be, will be.

The greatest excuse for you, to limit what you can do, is tucked away nicely in your brain, and will surface when the obstacles arise, when you need it to stop, but it quietly hinders you—that “quiet desperation,” that gives you some kind of twisted reasoning to feel horrible and helpless and condemned to mediocrity.

The strangest secret, discovered by the father of ideas, the human who coined the phrase, who lived an extraordinary life, was Earl Nightingale.

And you too can get on board with this ideal, this formula for success and happiness, and resolve to begin anew more intelligently, with élan and elation, and never, ever, ever, use the greatest excuses you have adopted as your own to limit your happiness, your success, your sky is the limit, your own brand of blue sky thinking, to genuflect at the feet of what is possible, and go for it, go do it, become it, have it, read it, underline it, so you too can: “Get The Message To Garcia.”

And remember the greatest excuse that holds you back in anything you are doing, is what you believe in your head: It is too hard.  I’m too busy.  It’s not my thing.  I am not able, not healthy enough.  I don’t have the talent or skill, don’t know enough.  I’m too old, too young, don’t have enough money; the government won’t let me.

The strangest secret to overcome it all, to manufacture your own reality, to live your highest aspirations, to fly, to soar, to clamor to the top, to wonder, to stay in awe, to guffaw, that will combat and negate and dissolve and solve and resolves every challenge is simply this: You become what you think about.  Guard your sacred mind.

Change what you think, and you change your world.