Golf Balls in the Rough - Seek and You Will Find

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." - Matthew 7:7, The Holy Bible

When I was a kid, we lived on the edge of a golf course. As the sun went down, the stream of golfers would cease, and sometimes my brothers and I would go out to the course to comb the high rough for lost golf balls. In the hour before darkness, we could harvest a couple dozen golf balls.

Even though I was the oldest and the best golfer among my brothers, I rarely found the most balls. After weeks of coming up short, I asked my next younger brother how he did it. Here's what he said: "I just expect them to be there wherever I look. And there they are."

To be honest, I didn't know what he was talking about. I just figured that he was lucky and didn't really know how he did it.

But one evening, I decided to trying doing what he said he was doing. I scanned the rough expecting golf balls to be wherever I looked. The result amazed me. I was finding more golf balls than ever.

I never forgot that experience. I didn't understand the physiological or neurological reasons for it, but I trusted that if I focused my attention on the result I was seeking, it would improve the chances of success.

Later in life, I realized that focusing on the desired result actually helped me do the things I needed to do to achieve it.

Still later, when I became interested in how the brain works, I understood that attention is selective. There's too much going on in the world around you to take it all in. So if you direct your attention to certain things, you're better able to ignore irrelevant information and do a good job of perceiving what you're focusing on.

Seek and you will find. Keep your eye on the ball.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use image purchased from fotolia.net)

Larry King's Oprah Winfrey Interview - Talking about "The Secret" and "The Law of Attraction"

Larry King has announced his retirement! What a milestone. Like a lot of people, I'm remembering some of my favorite interviews.

One of them featured Oprah Winfrey, in which she surprised viewers by giving her candid opinions about "The Secret" and "the law of attraction."

I've always believed that you can't create a positive future for yourself if you habitually think negative thoughts about your future. You need to keep what you desire in mind if you want to create plans to achieve that and carry out the actions that will get you there. Of course this cause-and-effect principle is no "secret." Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, Stephen Covey....yes, virtually everyone who has written about success during the past 100 years has built his philosophy on this principle.

What's new in "The Secret" seems to be the way proponents cross over the line and declare that simply visualizing your success has the power to engage the universe to make it happen for you.

In this Larry King interview, Oprah Winfrey tells a fascinating story about how she landed the supporting role in Steven Spielberg's movie, "The Color Purple," which launched her career. She gives the law of attraction, the core principle of "The Secret," an enthusiastic but qualified affirmation.



Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

OPTIMISM - Jack Canfield Being Realistic About Positive Thinking

Fans of The Secret and the "Law of Attraction" talk alot about believing that the world will conspire to make a positive thinker successful. I totally agree that visualizing success and  being optimistic are needed to prepare for success. But I also believe that positive thinking isn't enough. You also have to follow through with action. You have to do the work.

This one-minute video by Jack Canfield does a great job of presenting a practical, grounded view of the power of optimism.



Jack Canfield is the founder and co-creator with Mark Victor Hansen of the legendary best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul book series.