Daily Inspiration #58
Napoleon Hill
Planting Seeds

Napoleon Hill (born Oliver Napoleon Hill; October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) was an American self-help author. He is well known for his book Think and Grow Rich (1937) which is among the top 10 best selling self-help books of all time. Hill's works insisted that fervid expectations are essential to improving one's life. Most of his books were promoted as expounding principles to achieve "success".
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Napoleon Hill...

I really can't say enough about this guy.

His work was amazing and has inspired so many other people it's just awesome.

While I could pick quote after quote from him, I just picked this one for today.

"Think twice before you speak, because
your words and influence will plant the seed of
either success or failure in the mind of another."

We are very powerful beings.

We create and destroy on a whim so easily we often take it for granted entirely.

We've talked a lot about what we can do better or worse in our own lives, yet how are we affecting others?

The first thing I should say here is that you cannot shape in someone else's reality.

You can only influence.

Meaning, you cannot actually create experiences for them as they can.

You can however, and you do, influence them.

Every word we speak to another, about another or near another is influence that they now have to choose what to do with.

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Every thought we have about someone is also a great influence on them.

We are all part of a great mastermind of consciousness and each thought we add to that consciousness lays influence.

I'm sure we have all had experiences where after talking to someone they have went and done something we had not intended then made it known that it was from something we said.

Our influence can be uses as a weapon just as easily as it can be used to heal.

How many of you can recall a very powerful moment in your life that resided in another persons single word or sentence.

A word or sentence so powerful that it changed your life forever.

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I would wager a great many have, I know I can recall moments such as this.

The fact that every person has the free will to choose how to respond to another persons influence makes it so you never truly know how a person will react to something you say, think or do.

However, like does attract like.

So one can assume that if we speak to others in negatives and ill feelings, always speaking of the bad that is happening around us, that they will in turn be influenced negatively.

The same could be said for always speaking positively.

Zig Ziglar, in his book See You at the Top, had a story called "Kick the Cat", or "Don't Kick the Cat".

I will merely summarize.

A business executive has a meeting with his team and tells them that while he wants them to follow all the rules, he will set the example for them to be on time and work hard.

The next day he gets stuck in traffic and all types of crappy things happen to him on the way in.

He arrives late.

He's so upset that he blows up on his second in command.

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Who, in turn, does the same to many of the people below her in the company.

Which, of course, made them lash out as well.

Long story short, one of the people affected was a woman in the call room that had always been a great employee.

After work she went home and it came out on her husband, who in turn let it out on their son.

The son, not knowing where to put his frustrations for being so unfairly hurt, kicked the cat.

Our influence is far more powerful than we realize!

We must be mindful of what energy we send out, be it verbally, physically or simply through thought.

That energy ripples out from us, bouncing across all those that choose to absorb it.

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This negative energy that resulted in the cat being kicked could have easily been positive energy that ended up feeding a hungry person, healing a wound or mending a broken heart.

So the next time you notice you are kicking the cat, or that one is about to be kicked, change it!

Be the light that disperses that influence.

Give a warm smile, share a hug or say a kind word.

And remember what Napoleon Hill expressed so long ago.

"Think twice before you speak, because
your words and influence will plant the seed of
either success or failure in the mind of another."

Thanks for reading,
Michael David
@michaeldavid

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