The 15-Minute Daily Habit That Will Change Your Life Forever! | Earl Nightingale

At the beginning of this series, I made the statement that I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, that it's none of my business nor anybody else's business. I want you to remember that as you listen to this message and realize that what I say here is meant only as a suggestion. I've said the same things to my son and daughter because I know how important this is. I'm sure you'll agree that we acquire the skills of living successfully through knowledge. Knowledge properly applied is power, and knowledge is available to all of us. The degree of a person's ignorance will determine his place in the world. Everybody is born ignorant and must for a time live in ignorance. But remember this: anyone who remains ignorant has only himself to blame. An illiterate person in our society is in the lowest level of our social heap. From that starting point, think of society as a pyramid with a broad base gradually rising to a high point. We know that the great majority of people are to be found in the bottom large layers of this pyramid. The higher you go, the smaller the layers, and the higher up on the educational and economic scale. At the very peak of the pyramid, you'll find the world's most brilliant people. We may not have the native equipment to reach the topmost pinnacle, although we certainly might, but we do control as individuals where we will live between the very top and the bottom. We can most assuredly get into the top 5%, let's say the top 5 layers of the pyramid, and from this lofty vantage point, we can live well and successfully all the days of our lives. It isn't that we want to be over anyone necessarily. It's just having the ambition and good sense to want to live as best we can. The higher you climb on a pyramid, the further you can see, the fresher the air, the better the view, and the less crowded it becomes. One of the most important ladders leading to the top is called knowledge. The more we know, the higher we move. But where does a person begin? No one person can know everything. In fact, our store of knowledge is growing far too fast for anyone to keep up with it. It's like walking into the Library of Congress with its tens of thousands of volumes and trying to decide on which single book to begin with, knowing that even if you lived a thousand years, you couldn't read them all. Fortunately, The answer to this problem is known. A person begins with a study of his language and then to his general area of interest. Two steps in that order that can move us high on the pyramid. First, the language. In our case, English. Not one person in 100 knows that it's our ability to use our language which will determine our place on the social pyramid and which controls to a great extent the amount of money we will earn during our lives. A person may dress in the latest fashion with quiet good taste and present a very attractive appearance. So far, so good. But the minute he opens his mouth and begins to speak, he proclaims to the world his level on our pyramid. Shaw's play Pygmalion, later adapted into the musical comedy My Fair Lady, is an extreme example of what I'm talking about. Our use of the English language is the one thing we can't hide. Many years ago, the graduating class of a large Eastern university was given an examination in English vocabulary. The tests were graded into groups of 5% each, the top 5% and so on to the bottom. At regular intervals during the next 20 years, questionnaires were sent to the surviving graduates asking them their occupations, incomes, and so on. Without exception, those who scored highest on the vocabulary test were in the top income group, while those who scored lowest were in the lowest income group. Blake Clark, in an article titled "Words Can Work Wonders for You," writes: Tests of more than 350,000 persons from all walks of life show that more often than any other measurable characteristic, knowledge of the exact meanings of a large number of words accompanies outstanding success. In this article, he mentions the work being done in this field by scientist Johnson O'Connor and gives O'Connor's best illustration of the importance of vocabulary. Tests were given to executive and supervisory personnel in 39 large manufacturing plants. The results showed that every one of the men tested rated high in the basic aptitudes that go with leadership. Differences in their vocabulary ratings, however, were definite and dramatic. Presidents and vice presidents averaged 236 out of a possible 272 points. Managers averaged 168. Superintendents, 140. Foremen, 114. Floor bosses, 86. In virtually every case, vocabulary correlated with executive level and income. Children with the best vocabularies get the best grades in school. A salesman in his 50s who was in the bottom 5% in vocabulary worked himself into the top 45% and is now vice president of his firm. An encouraging fact to keep in mind, the article goes on, is that when we master one word we find that we have added several others. It's as if the new one is a nucleus of thought around which whirl numerous related ideas that now also enter our ken. Deliberately learning 10 new words, we pick up probably 90 more almost without realizing it. You see, understanding our language is the key to studying and learning everything else. Literally millions of people are being held back in life simply because they've never taken the time to learn their own language. Let's face it, from the earliest times, the favored class of people has always been the educated class. They've been recognized instantly anywhere by the simple expedient of speaking a few words. Our language, more than anything else, determines the extent of our knowledge. You see, everything in all the vast storehouse of knowledge has a name, a label. These names, these words, make up the language. The more words we know and can properly use, the more knowledge we have. Of this you can be sure. A person's knowledge and his language go together. It is almost impossible for one to be larger than the other. Now, studying the English language as well as learning new words, that is, learning the parts of speech, what they mean, and how they should be constructed into sentences, all depends on your present knowledge. Right now, mentally rate yourself on the use of the language. Would you say your rating would be excellent, good, fair, or poor. If you rated yourself excellent, you're in the top 1/10 of 1% of the population. If you said good, you're definitely already in the top 5%. If you rated yourself fair, get a good book on English at your bookstore. And if you rated yourself as poor, take a home study course in English. Many excellent courses are available. Impress on your youngsters the importance of knowing their language. There are probably about 300 million people on Earth who speak English as their main language. Couple this with the number of people who know English as a second language, and you come up with the impressive fact that more people speak English than any other language, with the possible exception of Chinese. English literature, from Chaucer to Eliot, from Shakespeare to Hemingway, is the richest and most extensive on Earth. So when you're studying English, you're studying one of the world's greatest and most interesting subjects. If you think you don't have time to study, listen to what Louis Shores had to say about this. Each of us must find our own 15-minute period each day for reading. It's better if it's regular. The only requirement is the will to read. With it, you can find 15 minutes no matter how busy the day. That means you will read half a book a week, 2 books a month, 20 books a year, and 1,000 in a reading lifetime. It's an easy way to become well-read. Yes, it is an easy way to become well-read, well-educated, and it takes just 15 minutes a day. Now let's get to the second point: our area of interest. Everyone has something in which he's interested. We should read about things we should know to help us in our careers, whether a person is a salesman, doctor, architect, or housewife. Once we have a regular program going along to improve our knowledge of our language, we should begin a systematic study of the field which interests us most and which will help us reach our goal just that much sooner. This is reading for profit. And we should read for pleasure as well. Each of us should know something of world history, the history of our own country, and the story of man himself. In the world of today and tomorrow, a good home library is vital. Those without it are going to find themselves seriously and unnecessarily handicapped. Books are not an expense item, really. They're an investment, and one of the best on Earth. They pay us dividends out of all proportion to their small cost, not just in pleasure and knowledge but in cash. As T.V. Smith has written, books extend our narrow present back to the limitless past. They show us the mistakes of the men before us and share with us recipes for human success. There's nothing to be done which books will not help us to do better. Trying to live without constantly expanding our knowledge is to close our eyes not just to the whole purpose of life, but to the facts of life as well. Never before has the world moved as rapidly as it's moving today. We must make up our minds to move with it, to stay with it, to grow and prosper with it. Not just because it's the best way to our goals, but because it's the way to really enjoy living, as the skilled athlete enjoys his sport. So often a person will live in the shallows from force of habit, or because those around him are wasting their time, without realizing that only a thin screen of reeds separates him from the fine, deep ocean beyond. He can sail to any port of his choosing, if you will only take the time and expend the effort to build a good boat. Now let me make an important point. The person who knows where he's going and who's made up his mind to get there is going to make the grade regardless of his education. If an education is necessary to the accomplishment of his goal, he'll get it. I know an Italian who came to this country penniless and who still can't speak English above the 4th grade level, who's made millions. As I've mentioned before, Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence and determination, but I think it's important to succeed in every department of our life, and becoming well-educated is one of the most vital. What good is a large material success if a person has remained too ignorant to enjoy it or to intelligently administer it? Now let's recap. Knowledge is power. The more our knowledge, the more power we can exercise over our lives and our futures. Think of human society as a pyramid composed of layers, beginning with the broad base and narrowing to a pinnacle at the top. Pick the place on the pyramid you're going to shoot for and start climbing. Since there's far too much knowledge for any one person to assimilate, where can we start? First, with our language, and next, with our general area of interest— two subjects which can keep us growing and interested for the rest of our lives. Remember that our vocabulary is is the one thing we cannot hide except by silence. Let's bring it up to the point where it can do the job for us we want it to do. To a surprising extent, our ability to use our language, our vocabulary, will determine our income and our future. Let's spend at least 15 minutes every day reading something not only interesting but calculated to stretch our minds a little more. Remember that a mind stretched by a new idea can never again return to its original dimensions. It's estimated that the average person adds only 5 new words a year to his vocabulary. That's not nearly enough for this day and age. We should add that many a week. And finally, realize that leaving school is just the beginning, the commencement of our days and years of learning. For with wisdom will come kindness, patience, love, understanding, and success as a person. It's almost never too late to begin. 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?"