WE HAVE THE ABILITY TO CHANGE SOMEONE'S LIFE

We Have the Ability

to Change Someone’s Life

Words have the power to destroy or heal. When words are true and kind,

they can change the world.

—Buddha (Siddhārtha Gautama)

(ca. 6th century B.C.E.) Founder of Buddhism

"How powerful are words? Can words, spoken or read, really

change someone’s life? Can words have a lasting effect, or are they lost

in a split second?

It dawned on me one day that I could possibly change someone’s

life with mere words, either spoken or written. In fact, we all can! How

powerful is that? With the pen I am holding at this moment and any

scrap of paper I might write on, my words could have an immense effect

on someone’s life. Words that are read are a very powerful means of

communication. My thoughts written down can translate into positive

thought impulses in the mind of another person. These thought impulses

can then propel that person forward into some sort of action, or change

their present direction.

Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.

—Pearl Strachan Hurd,

Mid- to late 20th century poet

80

An All-Consuming Desire to Succeed

Words spoken have started wars, have initiated truces, have begun

many a fight, and have been the cause of many murders. Words have

broken up many relationships and have started other ones. Words. Mere

words. A supreme example of the power of words is the Bible.

The Bible

The best gift God has given man is the Bible. It is by all odds the most

influential book (or rather collection of books) in existence. The Old and

New Testaments have held men together spiritually through the centuries.

Three hundred and fifty years ago

1611, fifty-four devoted English scholars and churchmen, assigned to the

task by King James I, gave to the English-speaking world a monument of

noble prose, on which so many of us have been brought up. The Bible has

been translated into more than 1,150 languages. In short, the Bible has had

the most dramatic career of any book in the world.

[this piece was written in 1661], in

—Abraham Lincoln

Words can inspire many a reader. Words also can motivate a writer

to write thousands of words himself—perhaps even in just one sitting. I

have been influenced by certain word-related subjects to the point that

I could not stop writing, while at other times I had writer’s-block. I

have read the words of the greatest motivators, such as Og Mandino in

his great self-help book,

been motivated to great action for many years after reading W. Clement

Stone and Napoleon Hill and their masterpiece self-help work,

through a Positive Mental Attitude.

(1809-1865), 16th President of the United StatesThe Greatest Salesman in the World. And I haveSuccess

At a seminar in 1977, I met a great motivator and Olympic

champion, Bob Richards. He was giving a motivational speech to all the

agents of a life insurance company I had begun working for. I was only

twenty-one and was struggling to make sales. After his speech, Richards

took a few minutes to talk with me. He told me to go out and buy a

copy of

Success through a Positive Mental Attitude.

Well, the rest is history. I devoured that book, as well as other

motivational books and tapes, and it changed my life forever.

Words spoken can change someone’s life. Now, thirty-five years

later, I am still in the life insurance business, I am running my own

successful agency, and I am still practicing self-help techniques. So now

I feel compelled to give back to society. I want to change the lives of

young and old alike and to help people in foreign countries. I have

had my first self-help book,

published worldwide. There’s no greater feeling than when someone

tells you that the self-help book you wrote changed his life for the better.

We each have the power to motivate through the written word,

the spoken word, and even mere acts of kindness. So try it out today.

See if you can make someone’s life better than before. Try to motivate

someone to greatness. Make it one of your new goals. Watch how your

enthusiasm becomes contagious.

The Power of Being Different, translated and

I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a

word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move

around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning

like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take

on other meanings as if they had the right to be young.

—Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), Poet, philosopher  C-JOHN PAUL CARINCI from the book An All-Consuming Desire To Succeed