1

The
Magic
Word

7
 1
Notes
The Magic Word

H
ello this is Earl Nightingale, and I’d like to
tell you about the magic word. The experts
call it the most important word—as far as
the results we get from life are concerned—in this or
any other language. And the magic word is
ATTITUDE.

Attitude is defined as “the position or bearing as

indicating action, feeling, or mood.” And it is our
actions—feelings—or moods—which determine the
actions, feelings, or moods of others toward us, and
which control, to a surprising extent, our success or
failure.

Here is where we have the first opportunity

to add some real heat to this powerful program.
Consider this: you live simultaneously on three
planes ... 1) you are a spiritual being; 2) you
have a marvelous mind; and 3) you live in a
physical body.

1. SPIRITUAL - THOUGHT ENERGY

NON PHYSICAL

2. INTELLECTUAL IDEAS

3. PHYSICAL THINGS OR RESULTS

Earl explained that attitude is our “position

or bearing as indicating action, feeling or mood.”

Think of what he said ... attitude is ACTION,

FEELING or MOOD. That would indicate
attitude is expressed by both your mind and your
body.

Now, we THINK in pictures or images ... we

certainly have an image of our BODY, but we

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The Magic Word (continued)

Notes
do not have one for our MIND. No one has ever
seen the mind ... and where there is no image
there is confusion. The image is what brings
order to the mind. This is why Solomon said,
“Where there is no vision, the people will
perish.”

It was after years of serious study that I

stumbled upon this beautiful truth. Without an
image of the mind, your understanding of
attitude will very likely be distorted. However,
that does not mean you will not be successful
in life. You could have a great attitude and
become highly successful ... yet, not understand
exactly what attitude is and how it has affected
your success in life. A person in this position is
frequently referred to as an unconscious
competent. When this is the case, a person’s
success would be non-transferable. Since their
success has its foundation in their attitude and
since they do not have a clear understanding
of what attitude is, they would be unable to
explain their cause of success to another person
... possibly even a loved one. Situations like
this are not uncommon.

Before we help you in forming an image of

the mind, let’s continue with Earl Nightingale’s
description of the magic word.

It is, then, our attitude toward life which will

determine life’s attitude toward us. Now, what does
this mean exactly? Everything operates on the law of
cause and effect. Everything we say or do will cause
some effect. Now, we’re charged with producing
causes ... the effects, or the rewards of our actions,
will always take care of themselves. That’s why I say
success can be guaranteed, and will come to us every
time if we live in a certain way. Good attitude—good
results. Fair attitude—fair results. Bad attitude—bad
results.

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Lead the Field

Notes
Earl explained, “Everything operates on the
law of cause and effect.” That was correct,
however, we are going to expand upon that.

Dr. Wernher von Braun who is considered

the father of space exploration stated, “The
natural laws of the universe are so precise that
we have no difficulty building a spaceship that
we can send to the moon, and we can time the
landing with the precision of a fraction of a
second. He also said these laws must have
been set by someone. Everything in life is
controlled by law. Cause and Effect is just one
of the laws.

Earl recognized that everything was

controlled by law. In the final lesson he quotes
Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, “Let him learn
a prudence of a higher strain. Let him learn
that everything in nature, even dust and
feathers go by law and not by luck ...”

The law has been described as the uniform

and orderly method of the omnipotent God. In
other words, the law is God’s modus operandi.
There are seven laws. I found it amazing how
well Earl included all of the laws in “Lead the
Field.” As we come to them, they will be brought
to your attention ... which will heighten your
level of understanding and give you greater
control over your life.

As we return to “Lead the Field,” that is

exactly what Earl Nightingale is suggesting.

You see, each of us shapes their own life. And

the shape of it is determined by our attitude, the
attitude we hold most of the time! Sounds simple,
doesn’t it? But, it’s not quite that easy. For most of
us, learning this new habit takes time. But once it’s
mastered, our daily lives will become as changed as
if we walked out of a dark tunnel into the bright clear
light of day.
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The Magic Word (continued)

Notes
A person with a poor attitude toward learning, for
example, in school or afterward, isn’t going to learn
very much until they change their attitude. I know
you can think of examples of this in your own life. If
we take the attitude that we cannot do something, we
generally will not do it. An attitude of failure—and
we’re whipped before we start!

So, we know, then, that what we receive from life,

what we accomplish, or fail to accomplish, is due in
large measure to our overall attitude.

W i ll i am Ja mes of H a rv ar d said the gr eatest

discovery of his generation was that “HUMAN BEINGS
CAN ALTER THEIR LIVES BY ALTERING THEIR
ATTITUDES OF MIND.”

In virtually every seminar you attend and

every self help book you read, William James
is quoted.

“HUMAN BEINGS CAN ALTER THEIR

LIVES BY ALTERING THEIR ATTITUDES OF
MIND.”

That sounds pretty simple doesn’t it?

However, it is not very easy, it can’t be ...
otherwise more people would do it. Why don’t
they?

The answer is obvious, they don’t know how.

James was right, a change in attitude will
change your life. However ... teachers tell that
to students .. doctors tell it to patients ... sales
managers tell salespeople and counsellors tell
couples who are having trouble ... just a change
in attitude is all you require.

The person in question will agree and they

desperately want the good that is promised to
them. What is the problem? Attitude is a mind/
body thing, and we were given no image of the
mind.
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Lead the Field

Notes
What I am going to share with you now, I
found after nine years of searching. It has been
the single most valuable concept I have ever
learned ... for me, it brought all the pieces of
the puzzle together. It is an image of the mind.
It was originated by Dr. Thurman Fleet (circa
1934) in an attempt to show patients how they
could heal their body by controlling the activities
of the mind.

This drawing will eliminate confusion and

give you a model to begin working with as you
proceed through this program. To help you
personalize this image, permit the large circle
... the mind, to be your head, and the smaller
one to be your body. Mind is movement and as
such, is in every cell of your body. However,
you must have an image to have order. So,
your head will represent your mind.

CONSCIOUS MIND

SUB-CONSCIOUS
MIND
(This model of the mind and
body was originated by the late
Dr. Thurman Fleet of San
Antonio, Texas, in 1934
BODY [circa]. Dr. Fleet was the
founder of Concept Therapy.)

CONSCIOUS MIND—THINKING MIND

The conscious mind is the part of you that

thinks. Visualize the top half of your head as
your conscious mind. Your free will lies in this
part of your mind. You can accept or reject any

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The Magic Word (continued)

Notes
idea. No person or circumstance can cause you
to think about thoughts or ideas you do not
choose. This is important because the thoughts
you choose will eventually determine your
results in life. As you accept a thought, it is
impressed upon your Sub-Conscious mind.

SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND—
CONDITIONED MIND

This part of you functions in every cell of your

body. However, for our image, the bottom half
of your head will represent your sub-conscious
mind. Every thought or word your conscious
mind chooses to accept, this part must accept
... it has no ability to reject.

This part of you operates in an orderly

manner. “By Law” it expresses itself through you
in feelings and actions. Any thought you
continuously impress upon your subconscious
over and over becomes fixed in this part of your
personality. Fixed ideas will then continue to
express themselves without any conscious
assistance until they are replaced. (Fixed ideas
are more commonly referred to as “habits.”)

BODY—INSTRUMENT OF THE MIND

The body is the most visible part of you. The

body is the physical presentation of you, the
material medium; it is merely the instrument of
the mind, or the house you live in. The thoughts
or images that are consciously chosen and
impressed upon the sub-conscious, must move
your body into action. The actions in which you
are involved determine your results.

No. 1—Thoughts, No. 2—Feelings, No. 3—

Actions, No. 4—Results.

To change results—change thoughts,

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Lead the Field

Notes
feelings and actions. Keep it simple.

To develop a good attitude toward the world in

general—each of us must first develop a good attitude
toward ourselves. We can’t give to others something
we don’t have, so it’s the attitude we take toward
ourselves which determines our attitude toward
others—which radiates to the world around us.

When you see someone with a poor attitude toward

others, you can be sure they have a poor attitude
toward themselves. They don’t like themselves.
They’re unhappy about something. A happy person
reflects their happiness in their attitude. A person with
a poor attitude most of the time is unhappy and
frustrated most of the time ... and they’re a human
magnet for unpleasant experiences. When they come,
as they must because of their attitude—they reinforce
their poor attitude, thereby bringing more problems
and so on. (That person becomes a self-generating,
doom-fulfilling cycle.) But for the person with a good
attitude, the same principle holds true in reverse.
Expecting the best—that’s what they get most of the
time.

Now, why would a person persist in a poor attitude

... expecting the worst? Well, we’re so familiar with
ourselves that we tend to take ourselves for granted;
we tend to minimize what we can accomplish—the
goals we can reach—and for some equally strange
reason, we believe others can reach heights which
we cannot! We tend to overlook the fact that there is
enormous undeveloped potential within each of us—
a great reserve of talent and ability which we habitually
fail to use.

There are millions of human beings living narrow,

darkened, frustrated lives—living defensively—simply
because they take a defensive—doubtful attitude
toward themselves and, as a result, toward life in
general.

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The Magic Word (continued)

Notes

“ENERGY
IS”

YOU CHOOSE
YOUR THOUGHTS
(Intellectual Mind)

YOUR THOUGHTS
CAUSE
YOUR FEELINGS
(Emotional Mind)
which

CAUSE ACTIONS
YOUR R
Attitude is the reflection of a person. (What’s going
on on the inside shows on the outside.) One’s attitude
is incalculably powerful. It can bring about marvelous
results for us. But we must train it, patiently, day by
day.

Now, for just a minute, let’s talk about people—

successful people—who go sailing through life from
one success to another and who, when they
occasionally fail at something, shrug it off, and head
right out again.

No matter what a person does—whenever you find

a person doing an outstanding job and getting
outstanding results, you’ll find a person with a good
attitude. These people take the attitude toward
themselves that they can accomplish what they set
out to accomplish; that achievement is the natural
order of things; that there’s no good reason on earth
why they can’t be competent—successful. They have
a healthy attitude toward themselves ... and as a
natural result ... toward life and the things they want
to accomplish.
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Lead the Field

Notes
Because of this, they achieve some remarkable
things and come to be called successful, outstanding,
brilliant, lucky and so on. They are quite frequently
no more brilliant or talented than the majority of the
people by whom they’re surrounded ... but they have
the right attitude. They find their accomplishments
not too difficult simply because it seems so few others
are really trying ... really believe in themselves.

Successful people come in all sizes, shapes and

colors, and in widely varying degrees of intelligence,
background, and education. But they have one thing
in common, they expect more good out of life than
bad; they expect to succeed more often than they
fail—and they do.

When you want something worthwhile, take the

attitude that there are a lot more reasons why you
can have it, than why you can’t. Set out to earn it—
go after it—work at it—ask for it—and nine times out
of ten, you’ll get it.

Now, think about this.

Our environment, the world we’ve created around

ourselves, is really a mirror of our attitudes. If we
don’t like our environment, we can change it by
changing our attitudes. The world plays no favorites;
it’s impersonal. It doesn’t care who succeeds and who
fails; nor does it care whether we change or not. Our
attitude toward life doesn’t affect the world and the
people in it nearly as much as it affects us.

It would be impossible to even estimate the number

of jobs which have been lost, promotions or good
grades missed, sales not made, marriages ruined by
poor attitudes. But you can number in the millions
the jobs which are held though hated, the marriages
which are tolerated but unhappy, the parents and
children who fail to understand one another—all
because of people who are waiting for the world and
others to change toward them, before they’ll change,

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The Magic Word (continued)

Notes
instead of being big enough and wise enough to at
least make a test which will prove where most of the
trouble lies ... in our own poor attitudes.

THOUGHT
ENERGY
IS

YOUR
THOUGHTS
BECOME AN
IDEA

IDEA CAUSES
EMOTION

Condition
Vibration is Circumstance
expressed Your action
Emotion through Environment causes a
alters ACTION REACTION
vibration Results which
alters your

All right, so a successful attitude will help to bring

us the success we seek. But just how does a person
get this kind of attitude?

The easiest and most effective means of forming

a good attitude habit is to begin conducting yourself
as though you have a good, positive, expectant
attitude toward life. If you’ve never tried it, you’ll be
amazed at what happens. Remember that actions
trigger feelings, just as feelings trigger actions.

Not long ago, I read a line which went: “Life is dull

only to dull people!” This is true. It could also have
read: “Life is interesting only to interesting people.”
Or, “Life is successful only to successful people.”

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Lead the Field

Notes
You must first become mentally ... from an attitude
standpoint ... the person you wish to be.

A famous restaurateur was asked by a newspaper

reporter one time: “When did you become
successful?”

And he replied, “I was successful when I was

sleeping on park benches. I knew what I wanted to
do, and I knew that I’d do it.” You see, his attitude
had been one of success, of expecting success, long
before the material, the tangible rewards of success
had been earned.

The great German philosopher Goethe put it this

way: “BEFORE YOU CAN DO SOMETHING, YOU
MUST FIRST BE SOMETHING.”

SmellTaste
Hear
See Touch
RESULTS
CAUSE
THOUGHTS

THOUGHTS STIR
EMOTIONS

Emotion Vibration
causes causes
vibration Results

Chances are you know people who seem to be

what others call “lucky.” All kinds of wonderful things
happen to them—and they give the impression of
happily sailing through life having a wonderful time
and accomplishing more in a year than most people
do in five.

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The Magic Word (continued)

Notes
If you will conscientiously go about the test I’m
going to recommend, and concentrate on it every day,
you’ll find yourself beginning to join this small, happy,
and extremely productive group of people. You’ll find
yourself becoming “lucky,” as they say, and most of
your problems will take care of themselves.

Of this you can be sure—the results will be nothing

short of amazing. Now, here’s the test.

Act toward the world—everything and everyone,

with an attitude calculated to produce the results you
want. That is, if the result you want is more success
in what you’re doing, act as though you are already in
possession of that success. If you want others to treat
you with admiration and respect, treat others with
admiration and respect ... first.

Results
you want

Feel yourself
with the result
you desire

BODY

TREAT EVERY PERSON AS THE MOST

IMPORTANT PERSON ON EARTH. Do this for three
excellent reasons:

1. As far as a person is concerned, he or she is

the most important person on earth.

2. Because this is the way human beings ought to

treat each other.

3. By treating everyone this way, we form an

important habit.
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Lead the Field

Notes
There’s nothing in the world that men, women and
children want and need more than self-esteem, the
feeling that they’re important, that they’re needed, that
they’re respected. They will give their love, their
affection, their respect—and their support—to the
person who fills this need.

Have you ever noticed that the higher you go in

any organization of value, the nicer the people seem
to become? You see, the bigger the person, the easier
it is to talk to them—to get along with them—and to
work with them. Do you know why? It’s because they
have a good attitude, and the people with the best
attitudes just naturally rise to the top. They don’t have
a good attitude because of their position, they have a
position as a result of their attitude.

Cosmic or Divine Consciousness The Law of Vibration

states there are
millions of levels of
vibration. As you

LEVELS raise your level of

conscious-ness, you
OF mentally move on to a
higher frequency of
AWARENESS thought and are
operating with a
higher level of aware-
ness. Your level of
awareness is always
Self Consciousness reflected in your
results.
Simple Consciousness

The people with the best attitudes are the

same people who operate with a fairly high level
of awareness. Think of it this way, science and
theology are the only points of reference to
which you can go, in search of information with
respect to your true potential. Both of these
areas clearly indicate that nothing is either
created or destroyed, which would indicate all
the knowledge there ever was or ever will be is

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The Magic Word (continued)

Notes
100% evenly present in all places at the same
time. All the power there ever was or ever will
be is 100% evenly present in all places at the
same time. In other words, the way to fly an
airplane has always been here. The Wright
brothers merely became aware of the principles
governing flight. Edison merely developed a
higher degree of awareness when he created
the incandescent light. It was awareness that
took us out of a cave and put us in a
condominium.

An animal operates with a simple

consciousness. The animal knows and yet
knows not. They have senses: they can see,
hear, smell, taste and touch. They’re aware of
their objective world but not their subjective
world. The next level of consciousness is self-
consciousness. That’s where you and I operate.
We not only have sensory factors to deal with
our objective world, we have intellectual factors
that permit us to deal with our subjective world.

Then you have the higher level that theology

would refer to as “Divine” consciousness,
“Christ” consciousness or possibly “Krishna”
consciousness, depending upon your religious
persuasion. Science might refer to this level of
consciousness as “Cosmic” consciousness.

As a person raises their level of conscious

awareness, it’s expressed in their behavior and
results. Individuals who work for $25,000 per
year, are not necessarily working for $25,000
because they want $25,000, they’re working for
$25,000 because they’re not aware of how to
earn $50,000. People suffer from headaches
because they’re not aware they can eliminate
the headache: it’s their head, they made it ache,
and they can make it stop. Individuals with a
lower level of consciousness react to conditions
or circumstances; those with a higher level of

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Lead the Field

Notes
awareness would respond. The higher the level
of consciousness, the greater the awareness of
the laws that govern the universe. They know
that the thought energy they send into the
universe dictates what will return.

Act toward others and the world at large in exactly

the same manner that you want the world, and others,
to act toward you. For example, treat the members of
your family as the persons they really are: the most
important people in your life. Carry out into the world
each morning the kind of attitude you’d have if you
were the most successful person on earth. And notice
how quickly it develops into a habit. Almost
immediately, a change will be noticed. Irritations that
use to frustrate and annoy disappear. When some
less informed person gives you a bad time, stay on
the track. When someone cuts in front of you with
their car, or acts in any other manner that shows their
ignorance and lack of courtesy, don’t permit yourself
to drop to their level. Don’t let their unhappiness make
you unhappy.

When you begin to develop better attitudes, you

should realize you’ve already placed yourself on the
road to what you seek. You are well on your way to
joining the top three percent of the people. You’ve
prepared the ground and planted the seed—you have
made of yourself an embodiment of that which you
seek.

Now in summing up, here are a few points to keep

in mind:

First, it’s our attitude at the beginning of a task

which, more than anything else, will bring about its
successful outcome.

Second, our attitudes toward others determine their

attitude toward us. We’re interdependent. The
success we achieve in life will depend largely on how
well we relate to others.

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The Magic Word (continued)

Notes
Third, before you can achieve the kind of life you
want, you must THINK, ACT, TALK AND CONDUCT
YOURSELF IN ALL OF YOUR AFFAIRS as would the
person you wish to become.

Fourth, the higher you go in any worthwhile

organization, the better the attitudes you’ll find.
Attitudes are not the result of success. Success is
the result of good attitudes.

And, finally, the deepest craving of human beings

is for self-esteem; to be needed, to feel important, to
be appreciated. When you treat every person you
meet as the most important person in the world, both
of you will benefit.

To make these important principles a habit-knit part

of your life, here are some suggestions.

Since your mind can hold only one thought at a

time, make those thoughts constructive and positive.
Look for the best in people and ideas. Be constantly
alert for new ideas you can put to use in your life.

Don’t waste time talking about your problems, or

your poor health—unless you’re talking to your doctor.
It probably won’t help you. It cannot help others.

Radiate the attitude of well-being and confidence,

the attitude of the person who knows where they’re
going. You’ll find good things happening to you right
away. Lastly, treat everyone with whom you come in
contact as the most important person on earth. Start
this habit, practice it consistently, and you’ll do it the
rest of your life.

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