Page 37 - How To Get Rich

Negativity is also a form of fear, and fear can be paralyzing. On the
golf course, I’ve heard great athletes tell me that they can’t putt. They can
hit a ball three hundred yards right down the middle of the fairway, but
they can’t finish the hole by putting the ball three feet into the cup.

Recently, I played with a man who is terrified of putting. He hit a
magnificent 235-yard shot and was seven feet from the cup. Then he
looked over at me and said, Now the hard part begins.
Another friend, also a great golfer, is paralyzed by his fear of losing
his ball. Each time we played a hole near a lake, he would look down and
say to his ball, I have a feeling I’ll never see you again.
I have told these two guys that they must start thinking positively or

they will sabotage themselves.
Very often, negative thinking stems from low self-esteem. You have to
work on this yourself. Maybe you’ve received a lot of hard knocks. I’ve
learned to deal with them because I get knocked a lot. Quickly see them
for what they are—knocks. But you don’t have to open the door unless you
choose to. I’ve gotten to the point where I see knocks as opportunities and

as an insight into whoever is doing the knocking.
One way to chase low altitude away is to think about how fortunate
you already are and how much you still have to look forward to. You can
better your best day at any time. Very surprising things can happen, but
you must—and I repeatmust— be open to them. How can you fly if you’ve
already clipped your own wings?
I don’t have time to encourage as many people as I would like to, but

whenever it seems appropriate, I recommendThe Power of Positive
Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, one of my father’s favorite books, and
mine, too. Some people may think it’s old-fashioned, but what Peale has
written will always be true. He advocates faith over fear. Faith can
overcome the paralysis that fear brings with it.

I can remember a time when I had a choice to make, when I was
billions of dollars in debt. I had to take one of two courses of action: a
fearful, defensive one or a faithful, riskier one. I carefully analyzed the
situation, realized what was causing the uneasy feeling of fear, and
immediately replaced it with blind faith, simply because I had nothing else
to go on at the time. Then I resolved that as long as I remained positive
and disciplined, things would work out.