How to Free Your Mind and Stop Being Programmed | Earl Nightingale's Insight in 14 Minutes

All kinds of studies have been made regarding motivation. What motivates people to do the things they do, live the way they live, achieve the things they achieve? And while there's certainly no pat answer to so large and complicated a question, I believe the overriding force which motivates us as individuals is a thing I call choice of environment. Some people make this choice consciously, but But I'm certain the great majority of people make the choice unconsciously as a result of environmental conditioning. Now, when I've finished here, I'd like you to answer this question for yourself: Have I chosen my present environment as a matter of deliberate decision, or am I in my present environment as a result of not having thought much about it? As an example, let me repeat the statistics regarding the financial condition of men reaching age 65. We're often astonished when our insurance man tells us that of 100 young men who all start even at age 25, by the time they would reach 65, 40 years later, only 1 is well-to-do financially, 4 are financially independent for the rest of their lives, 5 are working, 36 have died, and 54 are flat broke. If a working man saved only a dime out of each dollar he earned, And if he never made more than $6,000 a year, he would save $24,000 by the time he reached age 65. At going interest rates, it could amount to over $58,000. Why do only 5 men out of 100 achieve financial independence during their lifetimes? Why are only 5 motivated to achieve financial independence, something which almost everyone will tell you he wants to achieve? Now it's right here that we begin to see motivational forces at work. Motivation, to my mind, is closely linked to environment. Our reaction to environment can be said to be the tendency to act, think, and talk like the people by whom we're surrounded. Since only 5% achieve financial independence during their lifetimes, the odds are 95 to 5 that in any given case an individual is surrounded by those who do not stress the importance of financial independence. People are not broke at 65 because they've been denied the opportunity to achieve financial independence, but rather because they've conformed to a group which does not stress its importance. They have conformed to their environment, and I'm only using financial independence as one rule of thumb. These people can be said to be the individuals who do not choose their environment but simply go along with the environment in which they find themselves. Now, this would be fine if the statistics were reversed. If 95% of the people could be said to be successful, the odds would be excellent if we just went along with the crowd. In that event, selecting an environment might not be too important. But this is not the case and never has been. If an individual does not choose of his own volition the environment in which he would like to live and raise his children, the chances are about 95 to 5 that neither he nor his children will live in an environmental climate offering the maximum of success and enjoyment of life. Let's take a hypothetical case and call him an average man in the free world. Although there's no such thing as an average man, the trouble seems to be that we act as though we're average. In the case of this so-called average man, from the time he's born until about age 25, most of his life is spent in doing what others have told him to do. As a child, it's his parents, and they mold him much as a potter molds clay. He talks as his mother and father talk. He thinks the way they think. If they think something's bad, he thinks it's bad. He grows up in their religious faith and very probably ultimately in their political party. If they have deep-rooted prejudices, he will naturally adopt them as his own. When he reaches school age, he'll begin to emulate the other children. He laughs at what they think's funny and conducts himself as they conduct themselves. To a youngster in school, the most important thing on earth is to be liked. The craving for esteem in the eyes of our contemporaries is the deepest craving of the human being, and he'll do what the others do. He'll dress as they dress, drag his feet as he walks if they drag their feet. He wants to belong, to be liked. Do you remember what Willy Loman said in Death of a Salesman? He said, the important thing is to be liked. Willie Loman had never grown up. Of course it's important to be liked, but this is only one part of life. To Willie, it was everything, and his ignorance of life and of the world brought him frustration and despair. But to a boy in school, on the average, being liked and doing what the other boys do is the most important thing in the world. And this vice-like pressure of conformity lasts from 12 to 16 years. Out of school, our young man goes into military service. Here again, he's gripped by a vice of conformity far greater than he'd ever known in school. He still acts like the other fellows and talks and thinks like them, but now he even looks exactly like them. Same shoes, clothes, actions, everything. He becomes a unit in a thing called national defense. And while this is the way things have to be, the effect of standardization is, of course, enormous. Now let's say our young man is 25, out of school, out of service. He goes back to his hometown. Unless he's married, in which case he usually goes to live in his wife's hometown. Let's say he's still single. For the first time in 25 years, he finds himself on his own. He must make a decision as to what to do, and it's a little frightening. One day he's standing on a corner not knowing just what to do when he's met by an old friend from his school days, and the friend asks, what are you doing? Nothing. Well, why don't you come down and go to work where I work? It's a good job that pays regular, 40-hour week, fringe benefits, the whole thing. So he does, and that's often the end of him. By taking the job suggested by his friend, he's still going along with the gang, but he's also giving less attention to the selection of a career than he would give to selecting a necktie. On the job, what's the most natural thing in the world for him to do? It's to continue to go along with the gang. He's been doing it for 25 years. Why should he change now? So on the job, he looks around to see how the other fellas are doing their work, and he begins doing his the same way. You see, no one's told him that he's living in the golden age that mankind has been dreaming of and building toward for thousands of years. No one has told him that from now on out, what happens to him will be in his hands. Not his parents, not his teachers, not the military, not his associates, but it's all up to him from here on out. He has before him perhaps a half century or more in the greatest age the world has ever known. Now, what's he going to do with his golden years? The first thing our young man does on his new job is to watch how the other men are working, and he works the same way. He doesn't want to stand out, to be different. And now, with a steady job, he can marry his girl, which he does. He then often goes out to a large suburban development and buys a house that looks like every other house on the street for as far as the eye can see. This makes him feel comfortable. He belongs. What he actually does is disappear again, as he did in the classroom and in the service. Now here's the American dream we're always hearing about: a steady job, a wife, a little house in the suburbs, a new car, the biggest paycheck, and the highest standard of living the world has ever known. A wonderful start in life. Now again, what does he do with his life? Well, he works 40 hours a week. This leaves him 72 hours a week when he's neither working nor sleeping. 72 free hours a week, almost twice the time he spends on the job earning a living for his wife and subsequent children. What does he do with his free 72 hours a week? As a rule, he'll do the same thing the other fellows are doing with their free 72 hours a week. He doesn't do much of anything with them. On a typical afternoon, he quits work right on the dot and drives his little car to his little house. He goes into his little kitchen, kisses his little wife, and says, "I'm tired." In many cases, he says this because he used to hear his father and grandfather say it in the days when men actually worked hard enough to get tired. The wonderful technological and social advances which have given him freedom from backbreaking toil and grinding poverty permit him to keep just that much more energy and good health. After dinner, as likely as not, he'll devote the rest of the evening to watching television. In this way, he's able to lose himself in worlds he must believe to be more interesting than his own. What he's actually doing is watching other people earn excellent incomes in the pursuit of their careers while he doesn't make a nickel. And while his most valuable possession, time, is slipping silently away. All too frequently, our young man does not see his television set as one of the wonderful near-miracles of our age and as a tool for further enriching his life. Instead, he uses it as a soporific means of escape from a world he's come to think of as dull and average. All too frequently, he doesn't know how fortunate he is. He doesn't realize that for the first time in all the difficult centuries of man, He no longer needs to work from early in the morning until late at night, 6 days a week, just to earn barely enough to keep his family alive. He has free time, lots of it, and he takes for granted a great many luxuries which are the wonder and envy of 94% of all the human beings on Earth. Furthermore, he can actually decide for himself what he wants to do with his life. He knows how to read and write, and all the books in the English language are available to him at his public library for free of charge. In short, he often takes for granted all the wonders that have been given him. And with all of this, he lives a minimal existence, doing no more than he has to in order to get by without too much discredit, hoping that times remain good so that he can keep his job. He thinks it's only natural that his company, his town, and his nation should continue to improve, expand, and advance, but somehow it isn't necessary for him to do likewise. Why does he live this way? Because it seems to be the way the rest of the fellows are living. If they're living that way, it must be all right. Here's a case of mass motivation, of playing follow the leader without knowing where the leader is going. We know that our young man has tremendous abilities and potentialities intrinsically his own. There is no other human being on Earth exactly like him. We know there are within his job wide fields of interest which, if he knew about them, would change his life to one of excitement and make him a real contributor in the economy instead of a feeder. He walks down a narrow road, right in his own job, and stretching clear to the horizon are the rich sunlit fields of opportunity. But between him and these fields, there's a tall hedge which shields them from his view. This hedge is called conformity, and until he breaks through, cuts his way through that thorny barrier, he will never see nor know the joys of living fully extended. But how can we do this? Well, first, we must begin to think. We must look at ourselves objectively for what we really are: distinct individuals with unlimited opportunity for development in the free world. Second, we must ask ourselves some questions. Do I want to be like the people I'm emulating? Are these the people I want my children to be like? I know they're good people, but do they know where they're going? Are they successful? Are they as successful in living as I want to be? If I continue to go along as I have in the past, where will I be 5 years from now? Am I operating at or near peak efficiency? Am I really a pro, or have I been doing just enough to get by? Am I devoting a part of my leisure time each day to thinking of ways and means by which I can increase my contribution, realizing as I do that my rewards in life will always be in exact proportion to my service? Am I following an intelligent course for improving my mind, and increasing my knowledge, or do I think I already know enough? Now, I expect my company and my country to improve with the passing of each year, but what am I doing personally to keep pace with this improvement? Have I thought much and told my children about how lucky we are to live in a free society in which we can go where we please without having to ask for passes, work where we please and at the job of our choice, vote and worship as we please and say what we please? Am I aware of the responsibilities that go with freedom? The responsibility to produce as much as I can so that my freedom may be maintained. The responsibility to become so effective as an individual that even if times should become bad for a while, I could go right on providing for my family through the crisis. Third, when I get up in the morning, do I know exactly what it is I'm working toward? Have my life and my work a clear direction and a worthwhile purpose, or am I simply marking time and going along with the crowd? Am I motivated by what I really want out of life, or am I mass motivated? Harry Emerson Fosdick once wrote, no horse gets anywhere until he's harnessed. No steam or gas ever drives anything until it's confined. No Niagara has ever turned into light and power until it's tunneled. No life ever grows great until it's focused, dedicated, disciplined. You see, it is actually easier to win. All we have to do is know some of the rules and then follow them. P.G. Hamilton wrote, a strong life is like a ship of war which has its own place in the fleet and can share in its strength and discipline, but can also go forth alone to the solitude of the infinite sea. We ought to belong to society and have our place in it, but be capable of an individual existence outside of it, and it's never too late. For with a purpose, a goal, a man will frequently do more and travel farther in a year than he might otherwise in a lifetime without one.

To watch the official version of Earl Nightingale's The Strangest Secret, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

I'd like to tell you about the strangest secret in the world. Not long ago, Albert Schweitzer, the great doctor and Nobel Prize winner, was being interviewed in London. And a reporter asked him, "Doctor, what's wrong with men today?"