Let's gain a greater understanding of how inner happiness is the foundation necessary before lives can be changed. We must remember that if we are chasing after happiness, we will never find it. If we are seeking after God, we will find endless joy.

The Napolean Hill Foundation recently released one of its audio clips to Success Magazine. Napolean Hill and W. Clement Stone corroborated together and published their works. W. Clement Stone is one of the legends of the success movement in America that changed the mindset of those seeking to achieve their goals. As the former editor of Success Magazine, he shared success principles with an entire generation of Americans.

During their studies, Stone and Hill asked many people who did not consider themselves successful, what held them back. The reasons they gave tell the tragic story of the causes of failure, such as:

* I never really had a chance to get ahead;

* My father was an alcoholic;

* I was raised in the slums and that's something that you can never get out of your system;

* I only had a grammar school education.

These people are all saying in essence that the world has given them a raw deal. They are blaming the world and circumstances outside themselves for their failure. They start out with a negative mental attitude. With that attitude, they are handicapped.

Stone and Hill discovered that even though discontented people tend to blame outside circumstances for their failures,the real reason is internal. They are not happy. These people had failed to develop a clear picture in their minds of the world they would like for themselves. They could not initiate change.The starting point of all achievement is definiteness of purpose.

Through their study of the lifetime experiences of hundreds of the most successful persons our nation has known, W. Clement Stone and Napolean Hill learned that achievement results from the application of 17 success principles. A brief overview of these principles include:

1. Positive mental attitude 2. Definiteness of purpose 3. Going the extra mile 4. Accurate thinking 5. Self discipline 6. The master mind 7. Applied faith 8. A pleasing personality 9. Personal initiative 10. Enthusiasm 11. Controlled attention 12. Teamwork 13. Learning from defeat 14. Create a vision 15. Budgeting time and money 16. Maintaining sound physical and mental health 17. Using natural law or cosmic habit force

Stone is quoted as saying, "As long as you live from this day forward, you can analyze your every success and every failure. That is, if you imprint these 17 principles indelibly in your memory, you may develop and maintain a permanent positive mental attitude by making it your responsibility to adopt and apply these 17 principles in your daily living. There is no other known method by which you may keep your mind positive. Analyze yourself courageously now. Learn which of these 17 principles you have been using and which of them you have been neglecting. Life never leaves us stranded. If life hands us a problem, it hands us the abilities to overcome that problem. Our abilities vary of course as we are motivated to use them.

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