“Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.”  Harry S Truman

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”   George S. Patton

“Never waste a minute thinking about people you don’t like.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower.

“Give to another human being without the expectation of a return.”
Bill Bradley

The Terror Barrier By Bob Proctor

The first ten years of my life were spent in Owen Sound, Ontario. It’s a small town a few hours north of Toronto. I can vividly remember spending the summer days with my family at Harrison Park where there was a really great swimming pool. I would watch as the older kids went up the ladder to either jump or dive off the high diving board. They were having a great time. Wanting to be accepted by the older kids, I too went up the ladder … reluctantly, but I climbed it.

I will never forget the terror that gripped my mind and body when I looked down. Unfortunately, all the coaxing in the world wouldn’t have been sufficient to get me to jump off that board! There was no way I could do it. Feeling defeated, I climbed back down the ladder trying desperately to hide my embarrassment.

That was the first time in my life that I can recall coming up against the Terror Barrier. Unfortunately, not only did I lose out on the excitement and thrill that would have been gained by jumping … I also lost a little self-respect.

If you think back, you will probably be able to recall the first time you came face-to-face with the Terror Barrier. Did you step through it to freedom or back into safety, imprisoned by your own fears?

The Terror Barrier is a real entity.  Now, I could waste a lot of breath telling you that the Terror Barrier is a figment as gauzy and hazy as the smoke from an extinguished campfire. But you’ll tell me differently, because fear can feel like a very real entity. What you think in your head is often acted out in your body – when faced with their Terror Barrier, people will actually break out in a cold sweat, find themselves covered in sudden hives, and even feel their hearts palpitate. Your perception is your reality! That’s how soundly your paradigms of “no” and “it can’t be done” are grounded in your Mind. Your comfortable mind will do anything it can think of to back you away from the “danger” of the unknown, just as it had me backing down those diving-board stairs.

In James Allan’s classic, “As A Man Thinketh,” he mentioned that fear can kill a person faster than a speeding bullet. While coming up against your Terror Barrier might not kill you physically, it certainly kills something inside you – like it did that day I stood on the diving board.

How to be a wrecking ball on your own Terror Barrier. Here’s great advice I picked up from a magazine I subscribe to:

1. Bulldoze through it scared. That’s right … just keep marching, no matter how badly your feet want to stay rooted to the ground. Refuse to permit this negative demon to control you, your emotions …your future.

2. Remember – the Terror Barrier rears its ugly head every time we attempt to make a major move in life into an area we have never traveled before. It’s as natural as day and night. Where before you used to let it stop you cold, now you can simply shrug and tell yourself, “Oh, there it is again. Well! This must really mean something great to me!”

3. Then, further remind yourself that it might be an unknown, but the other side of that Terror Barrier will have you that much closer to your goal. I’d encourage you to fall in love with THAT feeling of accomplishment, get wrapped up in it! I often say that if your goal doesn’t scare and excite you at the same time, you’re going after the wrong goal!

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” That is excellent advice. By following her advice you will liberate yourself from the crippling emotional state that the Terror Barrier causes.

Do it scared. Begin to visualize yourself successfully being a wrecking ball on that Terror Barrier of yours. Mentally see yourself winning. Remember, perception IS reality!

I still experience the Terror Barrier myself! For the first 26 years of my life, I withdrew from anything that I truly feared. I reasoned that it really didn’t matter … I really didn’t need that or want to do that anyway. Then with the encouragement of a very good friend, I made a decision to step out and face my fears and I have been free ever since. That certainly doesn’t mean I don’t fear things from time to time … I do … I just don’t let the Terror Barrier stop me from doing or having what I really want to do or have.

Here are a couple of lines I picked up years ago, lines I repeat to myself over and over again whenever the Terror Barrier rises up in front of me.

“Fear knocked on the door, faith opened it, and lo – there was no one there.” Quite simply put, face the thing you fear with all the light and consciousness and enthusiasm you feel for that goal of yours – and fear will duck for the shadows.

In my business, I have been very fortunate to travel the globe and work in countries all over the world. I could not even guess at the number of times I have sat with men and women who came face-to-face with their Terror Barrier … wanting to go ahead but not being able to. These were people with unlimited potential … who could have succeeded at anything they seriously wanted to do … but didn’t because they let their fear rule the day. Is that Terror Barrier holding you back? Do what I did … do what many people do around you every day …crash through. The compensation is incredible. Step out and be all that you are capable of being!

Take the risk! © Bob Proctor/LifeSuccess Productions. Replicate only with copyright in place on all pages herein.

My dictionary tells me that to risk is “to expose oneself to the chance of loss.”

Another piece of literature I was once given (author unknown) suggests that:

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out for another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying.

To hope is to risk despair.

To try is to risk failure.

You may avoid suffering and sorrow if you don’t risk, but you simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love or live. The greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing … does nothing and has nothing. Only a person who risks is free. What causes individuals to shy away from taking a risk, even if it is a low risk and will give them something they really want? Well, certainly high on most people’s list would be fear of loss, failure and perceived humiliation if the loss were to occur.

But why would we automatically think that we would fail at something? Why wouldn’t we first TRY and see, and then if we did initially fail, learn from that experience and move on?

What causes us to have these thoughts of inferiority? Since risk-taking is not a subject taught in school, it would lead me to believe that a person’s fear of taking risks might stem back from before they can even remember. When you were a child taking your very first steps it wasn’t uncommon to hear one of your parents or guardians say, “Be careful, you might fall.” Or, “Don’t do that, you’ll ….” Though some of this is rhetoric and you don’t really think you’ve paid much attention to it, it actually begins a pattern of “playing it safe” deep in our minds. Think of how much better equipped we would be to face life’s challenges and succeed if we had repetitively heard, “Take a chance and don’t worry about falling, because you’re going to fall … probably quite often. Falling is an important part of learning.” Many of the greatest lessons you’ll receive in life are going to come from falling … from your failures.

So you’ve taken a risk and failed. What next? Failing will never MAKE you a failure unless you quit. Unfortunately, very few people heard that when they were small. The vast majority of our population has been mentally programmed to play it safe. In my seminars I have often said that a little baby is a natural born risk taker. The baby never considers the consequences of falling when he or she is learning to walk. Falling is acknowledged as a natural consequence to learning to walk. I guess you could call it a calculated gamble; it’s a prerequisite to mastering a myriad of motor skills required to get you on your feet and moving. It’s a natural progression in movement.

Why then, wouldn’t we stop to consider that any movement into unchartered territory should be viewed with the same consideration? Why is it that we do not see the process of reaching our goals as having steps similar to the ones the baby must take in order to learn to walk? There will be some stumbling and falling in the learning process, but success can only be reached when we are prepared to take those steps – all of them – even the ones where we may fall down. The real win is the confidence and experience we acquire, which translates into new opportunities for growth, enjoyment and expansion in all areas of our life. When I was in school, I participated in track and field. Pole-vaulting was my specialty; it was the one event I seemed to excel at. I clearly remember knocking that bar flying more often than I cleared it. I also remember I was not very enthusiastic when that happened. Knocking the bar off left me with a feeling that because I had failed, I was a failure. I had failed and as I remember, no one advised me of anything different. In retrospect, it would have been an excellent opportunity for one of my teachers to help me understand one of life’s greatest lessons. But, it never occurred there on the field and it would be many years before I learned the truth – the hard way.

The four-letter word you should ban from your vocabulary While we’re still on the topic of children, I’ll throw up another caution flag. There’s a four-letter word that most parents use around their children so frequently, that the children pick it up and, before too long, it is buried in the treasury of their sub-conscious mind. That four letter word is CAN’T. This word has done more damage than a lot of other frowned-upon four letter words put together. I know of some forward-thinking parents who have literally banned that word from their children’s vocabulary! Can’t is a word that paralyzes any constructive progress. It switches your mind into a negative frequency. It is a four-letter word that will open your mind to a never ending flow of logical, practical reasons that will enable you to justify why you are not able to do something you sincerely want to accomplish. The only alternative to that four-letter word is its polar opposite – I CAN. “I can” is far more important than IQ. You don’t necessarily have to be very smart to win … but you must be willing!

When it comes to risk, reaching the goal is not success … Success is moving toward the goal. When I was knocking down the cross bar in my pole-vaulting days, I was attempting to reach the goal. I was stretching, giving it everything I had. That could hardly be considered failing. Every time I tried to clear the bar, I was risking being ridiculed by the other kids. I risked having them laugh at me when I missed … and they did laugh. However, every time I ran down the field and lowered the pole into the box, attempting to vault myself over the bar, I was challenging myself. Taking risks is absolutely essential when you want to reach a goal.

Remember, the key purpose of goals is growth! When you challenge yourself, you bring more of yourself to the surface. If you knock the bar flying today, at least you will know you are challenging yourself; you’re a success!

Make a decision right now to change your attitude abut risk. If you dream of living your life in a really big way, you must accept risk-taking as a very real part of the apprenticeship you must serve. Decide this very moment there will be no more playing it safe … no more “saving it for a rainy day” type thinking in your life. When people get caught up in the habit of saving for a rainy day, that is generally what they get … a rainy day. I clearly remember the first time I heard Earl Nightingale, often considered “the father of motivation,” speak. Earl was telling a story about a farmer who, while out walking in a field, looked down and saw a tiny pumpkin growing on a vine. Nearby, he spotted a small glass jar. The farmer reached down and placed the tiny pumpkin inside the small. jar. The pumpkin continued to grow until it filled the inside of the jar, beyond which it could not grow. There are a number of people like that tiny pumpkin. They stuff themselves into a predetermined “space” of life. They limit themselves and refuse to take a risk. They never truly test the strength of their abilities. Remember, you will never get to second base if you keep one foot on first. Too many people go through their entire lives playing their cards close to their chest. They never step out and bet on the surest thing in the world … themselves.

The risk is only at the beginning! If you hope to accumulate great wealth or achieve high goals, history records that the first few steps have a high degree of risk. You must turn your back on safety and security. To make it big, you must take big risks. You will very likely have to put yourself in a highly vulnerable position. It is also worth remembering that you cannot ALMOST take a risk. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.” Follow her advice. Liberate yourself from the crippling emotional state of fear and enter into a world of freedom – a world that allows for risk along the path of achieving great things!

Sowing And Reaping

“There is no such thing as luck. Nothing ever happens by chance. Everything, good or bad, that comes into your life is there as the result of unvarying, inescapable Law. And the only operator of that law is none other than yourself. No one else has ever done you any harm of any kind, or ever could do so, however much it may seem that he did. Consciously or unconsciously you have yourself at some time or other produced every condition, desirable or undesirable, that you find in either your bodily health or your circumstances today. You, and you alone, ordered those goods: and now they are being delivered. And as long as you go on thinking wrongly about yourself and about life, the same sort of difficulties will continue to harass you.

For every seed must inevitably bring forth after its own kind, and thought is the seed of destiny. Yet there is a simple way out of trouble. Learn how to think rightly instead of wrongly, and conditions at once begin to improve until, sooner or later, all ill-health, poverty, and inharmony must disappear. Such is the Law. Life need not be a battle; it can, and should be a glorious mystical adventure, but living is a science. EMMET FOX

“You can have everything in life you want if you’ll just help enough other people to get what they want!” — Zig Ziglar