Last week, during the holidays, I sent an email to people on my mailing list… I encouraged them to make their PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT a priority. Some replied thanking me.⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣⁣If you are not aware, no one climbs the high ladder of greatness without personal development — and it starts WITHIN.⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣One of the books that have really shaped great people and myself is “As a Man Thinketh” by James Allen.⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣Hear what the author says about personal development. The following words are his;⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣
⁣⁣⁣You cannot travel within and stand still without. Here is a youth hard pressed by poverty and labor; confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of refinement. But he dreams of better things; he thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life; the vision of a wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources. ⁣⁣⁣

“You cannot travel within and stand still without.” ⁣⁣⁣

Very soon so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside, and, with the growth of opportunities, which fit the scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever. Years later we see this youth as a full-grown man. We find him a master of certain forces of the mind, which he wields with worldwide influence and almost unequaled power. ⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣⁣

⁣In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities; he speaks, and lo, lives are changed; men and women hang upon his words and remold their characters, and, sun-like, he becomes the fixed and luminous center round which innumerable destinies revolve. He has realized the Vision of his youth. He has become one with his Ideal.⁣⁣⁣
⁣

⁣⁣⁣
If you need to read this book, go get it for free here.

P. S.⁣⁣⁣
I’m sharing this book because it’s in the public domain. Sharing of other people’s work is still prohibited here.