Fear Not

Now that I have touched upon a “technique” which will help you acquire greater wealth, let me offer this further word of warning. If you want to have money, one thing you should never, never do, is worry about whether or not you will get the money you desire, or whether you will keep it. Let me elaborate. In the Bible, Job, the great sufferer of biblical times, makes the following remark: “Behold, the thing I fear has come to visit upon me.”

Now, stop and ask yourself —if you will—what those biblical words mean to those of us concerned about money today. Well, one thing they certainly mean is that if we insist upon constantly worrying about not having enough money, or if we habitually worry about losing the money we do have, then we are absolutely guaranteed not to worry in vain. For just as surely as Job was afflicted by his many maladies, so too shall we be afflicted by the lack or the loss of money. To take a more contemporary example, let us again consider the tragic case of “poor old Mr. Chapman.” As you will recall, he was the elderly gentleman who never spent any of his hard-earned savings.

But the question is, “Why didn’t he?” Most likely it was because he was afraid that if he spent his money, he would become poor and hence would be forced to live like a pauper. The irony was, however, that because of his fear, he lived like a pauper anyway! Or, to be more biblical about it, “The thing that he feared most came to visit upon him.” In a later chapter you will be given a fuller explanation of the paradox of why we attract into our lives the very things we least desire. But for now, suffice it to say, worrying about money is always extremely counterproductive. This principle holds true, even if you rationalize your worry with the old platitude that you are “just saving a little for a rainy day.” I must put forward one other caveat at this time: if you really want to significantly increase the amount of money you are presently earning, the first thing you must do is learn to pay substantially less attention to what others around you are saying and substantially more attention to what that “quiet voice” that speaks within you, is saying. Put more prosaically: you must strive to become much less susceptible to influences outside of yourself and much more inclined to trust the instincts and feelings that lie within you. Let me elaborate. Most people who fail to accumulate enough money to live in the style they choose are the same people who are most easily influenced by other people’s opinions.

For instance, they are often the people who let the writers of economic doom and gloom—whether in the newspapers or on news broadcasts —do their thinking for them. But, as Napoleon Hill pointed out in his great book, Think and Grow Rich , opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth. In fact, almost everyone has a flock of them ready to be foisted upon anyone who is willing to accept them. Therefore, if you know you have been unduly influenced in the past by other people’s opinions, make up your mind right now— before you read any further—that from here on in, you are going to heed your own counsel, while keeping an attentive ear open for God’s counsel. Remember, if you do, there is absolutely no reason why you cannot become financially successful within a very reasonable period of time.