by Jim Rohn
Have you ever wondered how to turn
nothing into something?
First, in
order to turn nothing into something, you’ve got to start with some ideas and
imagination. Now, it might be hard to call ideas and imagination nothing; but
how tangible are those ideas? That is a bit of a mystery. I don’t believe that
ideas that can be turned into a hotel, ideas that can be turned into an
enterprise, ideas that can be turned into a new vaccine or ideas that can be
turned into some miracle product, should be called nothing. But tangibly, you
have nothing. Interesting! Think of it, ideas that become so powerful in your
mind and in your consciousness that they seem real to you even before they
become tangible. Imagination that is so strong, you can actually see it.
When I built my first home for my
family in Idaho all those years ago, before I started construction, I would
take my friends and associates out to the vacant property and give them a tour
of the house. Is that possible? Is it possible to take someone on a tour
through an imaginary house? And the answer is, “Yes, of course.” “Here is the 3
car garage,” I used to say, and my friends would look and say, “Yes, this
garage will hold 3 cars.” I could really make it “live”. I would take them on a
tour throughout the house… “Here is the fireplace, and look, this side is brick
and the other side is stone.” I could make it so real… “Follow me through the
rest of the house. Take a look through the picture window here in the kitchen,
isn’t the view great?” One day, I made the house so real that one of my friends
bumped his elbow on the fireplace. I mean, it was that real. So, the first step
of turning nothing into something is to imagine the possibilities. Imagine ALL
of the possibilities. One of the reasons for seminars, sermons, lyrics from
songs and testimonials of others is to give us an idea of the possibilities; to
help us imagine and to see the potential.
Now here is the second step for
turning nothing into something, you must BELIEVE that what you imagine IS
possible for you. Testimonials like, “If I can do it, you can do it” often
become a support to our belief. And we start believing. First we imagine it’s
possible. Second, we start to believe that what’s possible is possible for us.
We might also believe because of our
own testimonial. Here is what your testimonial might say, “If I did it once, I
can do it again. If it happened for me before, it could very well happen
again.” So we believe not only the testimonials of others who say, “If I can do
it, you can do it. If I can change, you can change. If I can start with
nothing, you can start with nothing. If I can turn it all around, you can turn
it all around.” Then we also have the support of our own testimonial, if we’ve
accomplished something before. “If we did it once, we can do it again. If we
did it last year, we can do it this year.” So those two things together are
very powerful. Now, we do not have actual substance yet, although it is very
close.
Again, step one is to imagine the
possibilities. Step two is to imagine that what is possible is possible for
you. Here is what we call step two - faith to believe. In fact, one writer said
this, “Faith is substance.” An interesting word: “substance”, the powerful
ability to believe in the possibilities that are possible for you. If you have
faith to believe… that faith is substance, substance meaning “a piece of the
real.” Now it’s not “the real”, it’s not this podium, but it is so powerful
that it is very close to being real and so the writer said, “The faith is a
piece of, the substance of”. He then goes on to call it evidence, substance and
evidence. It is difficult to call substance and evidence “nothing”. It is
nothing in the sense that it cannot be seen except with the inner eye. You
can’t get a hold of it because it isn’t YET tangible. But it is possible to
turn nothing, especially ideas and imaginations, into something if you believe
that it is now possible for you. That substance and evidence becomes so
powerful that it can now be turned into reality.
No comments:
Post a Comment