The Victorious Attitude

o serenely,

ithstand

wni

toward everything! Sweeping past obstacles and reaching out into the energy of th

are more likely to become such. Move about among your fellowmen as though you believe you are a man of importance. Let victory speak from your face and express itself in your manner. Carry yourself l

upon your mentality and destroy your self-confidence, your initiative, your efficiency. They are telltales, proclaiming to every one you meet that you are losing out in th

for work. No matter if you are jobless and have been out of work for a long time you must keep up a winning appearance, a vi

always radiating a cheerful, uplifting atmosphere, an atmosphere that will be a commendation instead of a condemnation. Not that we should deceive by trying to appear what we are not, but we

most in the mind, for it is this that will lead you to the light. You must give the impression that you are a success, or that you have qualities that wi

positive instead of negative thinking, we cannot help making an impression of masterfulness, and everybody knows that this is the qualification that does things. It is masterfulness, force, that achieves results, and if we do not express it in our appearance people will not have confidence i

tead of a glorious triumph. Never admit by your speech, your appearance, your gait, your manner, that there is anything wrong with you. Hold up your head. Walk erect. Look everybody in the face. No matter how poor you may be, or how shabby your clothes, whether you are jobl

in command of resources which a timid, self-dep

rivileges, this visitor entered the place with a confident bearing, seated herself in a comfortable window seat, and spent a delightful morning

you were a member!"

. "I am not a member. But wha

Athen?um card of members

supposed to enjoy the privileges of wh

k like failures. We have already failed. If we expect success, see it waiting for us a little bit up the road, we wi

he library attendants would have noticed it at once, and have asked her to show her card of membership. But her assured air gave the impression that

our problem, whether you approach it like a conqueror, with courage, a vigorous resolution, with firmness, or

hen people see you coming they will say to themselves, "Here co

to make you unlucky. The attitude of mind which your thoughts and convictions produce is a real force which builds or tears down. The habit of always seeing yourself as a fortunate indi

and not to depress and discourage, and so discredit the plan of the Creator. Our conduct should show that w

ambling game in which the odds are heavily against them. This conviction

on a certain horse, and a hundred bet on another, then the first horse automatically becomes a five to one choice, and th

uts the odds against himself. The majority of people look on the probability of their winning out in the life game in any distinctive way as highly improbable. When they look around and see how comparatively few of the multitudes of men and women in the world are winning they say t

onduct themselves according to their conviction: when they take their places in life not as pr

"Starved," the coroner's inquest finds, although bank books revealing large deposits, or else h

em alive, any worse than those who face life in a poverty-stricken, failure attitude, refusing to see and enjoy the riches, the glories all aroun

e man never could succeed on the stage, and that if he ever hoped to win success, the first thing he should do would be to try to think himself the character, as well as to look the part, he was trying to portray. That is just what the great actor does. He flings himself with all his might into the r?le he is playing. He sees himself as, and feels that he is actually, the

are trying to do. If you persist in looking and acting like a failure or a very mediocre or doubtful success, if you keep telling everybody how unlucky you are, and that you do not believe you will win out because success is only for a few, th

inciple in life, we would have no poverty, no failures, no criminals, no down-and-outs. We would not see people everywhere with expressions which indicate that there is very little enjoyment in living; that it is

uld be drilled into him that he is intended to be a winner in life, that he is himself a prince, a god in the making. From his cra

knows how to lead a victorious life. This is what true ed

reat prophecy, the forerunner of a superb fulfillment. A young man or a young woman talking about failure is like beauty talking about ugliness; like superb health dwelling upon weakness and disease; like perfection dwelling upon imperfection.

scourage them, we would hear no talk of failure; we would soon sight the millenium. If they were made to understand that there is only one failure to b

s victorious, this triumphant, idea of life, if they could only once glimpse their own possibilities and assume the triumphant attitude! They would never again be satisfied to g

sely to it and sink deeper and deeper in the quagmire of their own making. Everywhere we find whining, miserable people grumbling at e

ures is that they were not started right. It was not drilled into the very texture of their being in youth that what they would get out of l

of us never learn how to create with our minds. We depend too much upon creating with our hands, or on other people to help us. We depe

plans, but we can always do the thing that means salvation for us, that is persistently, determinedly, everlastingly to face towards our goal whether we

think up, and struggle up, you can't help succeeding. Whatever you do for a living, wha

the other way just because you have run into a fog bank of disappointment or failure. The only hope of the captain's reaching his destination is in being true to the compass that guides him in the fog and darknes