But, on the contrary, when you employ this new and creative concept, “I can do all things through Christ,” then you develop a new mental slant. Emphasize and re-emphasize that positive attitude and you will finally convince your own consciousness that you can do something about difficulties. When at last your mind becomes convinced, astonishing results will begin to happen. Of a sudden you discover that you have the power you would never acknowledge.

I played golf with a man who was not only an excellent golfer but a philosopher as well. As we went around the golf course the game itself drew out of him certain gems of wisdom for one of which I shall ever be grateful.

I hit a ball into the rough, into some high grass. When we came up to my ball I said in some dismay, “Now just look at that. I certainly am in the rough. I have a bad lie. It is going to be tough getting out of here.”

My friend grinned and said, “Didn’t I read something about positive thinking in your books?”

Sheepishly I acknowledged that such was the case.

“I wouldn’t think negatively about that lie of yours,” he said “Do you think you could get a good hit if this ball were lying out on the fairway on the short grass?”

I said I thought so.

“Well,” he continued, “why do you think you could do better out there than here?”

“Because,” I replied, “the grass is cut short on the fairway and the ball can get away better.”

Then he did a curious thing. “Let’s get down on our hands and knees,” he suggested, “and examine the situation. Let’s see just how this ball does lie.”

So we got down on our hands and knees, and he said, “Observe that the relative height of the ball here is about the same as it would be on the fairway, the only difference being that you have about five or six inches of grass above the ball.”

Then he did an even more whimsical thing. “Notice the quality and character of this grass,” he said. He pulled off a blade and handed it to me. “Chew it,” he said.

I chewed, and he asked, “Isn’t that tender?”

“Why, yes,” I replied. “It certainly does seem to be tender grass.”

“Well,” he continued, “an easy swing of your number-five iron will cut through that grass almost like a knife.” And then he gave me this sentence which I am going to remember as long as I live, and I hope you will also.

“The rough is only mental. In other words,” he continued, “it is rough because you think it is. In your mind you have decided that here is an obstacle which will cause you difficulty. The power to overcome this obstacle is in your mind. If you visualize yourself lifting that ball out of the rough, believing you can do it, your mind will transfer flexibility, rhythm, and power to your muscles and you will handle that club in such a manner that the ball will rise right out of there in a beautiful shot. All you need to do is to keep your eye on that ball and tell yourself that you are going to lift it out of that grass with a lovely stroke. Let the stiffness and tension go out of you. Hit it with exhilaration and power. Remember, the rough is only mental.”

To this day I remember the thrill, the sense of power and delight I had in the clean shot that dropped the ball to the edge of the green.

That is a very great fact to remember in connection with difficult problems—“the rough is only mental.”

Your obstacles are present all right. They are not fanciful, but they are not actually so difficult as they seem. Your mental attitude is the most important factor. Believe that Almighty God has put in you the power to lift yourself out of the rough by keeping your eye firmly fixed on the source of your power. Affirm to yourself that through this power you can do anything you have to do. Believe that this power is taking the tension out of you, that this power is flowing through you. Believe this, and a sense of victory will come.

Now take another look at that obstacle that has been bothering you. You will find that it isn’t so formidable as you thought. Say to yourself, “The rough is only mental. I think victory—I get victory.” Remember that formula. Write it on a piece of paper, put it in your wallet, stick it up on your mirror where you shave each morning, put it over the kitchen sink, put it on your dressing table and on your desk—keep looking at it until its truth drives into the depths of your consciousness, until it permeates your whole mental attitude, until it becomes a positive obsession—“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

What may seem to be a difficult proposition is, as I have pointed out, hard or easy in proportion to how we think about it. It may be said that three men vitally affected the thought processes of Americans—Emerson, Thoreau, and William James. Analyze the American mind even to this late date and it is evident that the teachings of these three philosophers combined to create that particular genius of the American who is not defeated by obstacles and who accomplishes “impossibles” with amazing efficiency.

A fundamental doctrine of Emerson is that the human personality can be touched with Divine power and thus greatness can be released from it. William James pointed out that the greatest factor in any undertaking is one’s belief about it. Thoreau told us that the secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in mind.

Still another wise American was Thomas Jefferson, who, like Franklin, set for his guidance a series of rules. Franklin had thirteen daily rules; Jefferson only ten. One of Jefferson’s rules was this, and I think it is priceless, “Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.” That is, go at a job or at your difficulty by the use of a method that will encounter the least resistance. Resistance causes friction in mechanics, therefore it is necessary in mechanics to overcome or reduce friction. The negative attitude is a friction approach. That is why negativism develops such great resistance. The positive approach is the “smooth handle” technique. It is in harmony with the flow of the universe. It not only encounters less resistance, but actually stimulates assistance forces. It is remarkable how from early life until the end of your existence the application of this philosophy will enable you to attain successful results in areas where otherwise you would be defeated.

For example, a woman sent her fifteen-year-old son to us. She said she wanted him “straightened out.” It annoyed her to no end that her boy could never get over 70 in any of his studies. “This boy has a great mind potentially,” she declared proudly.

“How do you know he has a great mind?” I asked.

“Because he is my son,” she said. “I graduated from college magna cum laude.”

The boy came in very glumly, so I asked, “What’s the matter, son?”

“I don’t know. My mother sent me to see you.”

“Well,” I commented, “You don’t seem to be burning with enthusiasm. Your mother says you get only 70’s.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s all I get, and,” he added, “that isn’t the worst of it. I’ve even received less than that.”

“Do you think you have a good mind, son?” I asked.

“My mother says I have. I don’t know—I think I’m awful dumb. Dr. Peale,” he said earnestly, “I study the stuff. At home I read it over once and then close the book and try to remember it. I repeat this process about three times, and then I think that if three times doesn’t get it into my head how am I ever going to get it into my head? And then I go to school thinking maybe I have it, and the teacher calls on me to say something, and I stand up and can’t remember a thing. Then,” he said, “examinations come along and I sit there and just get hot and cold all over and I can’t think of the answers. I don’t know why,” he continued. “I know that my mother was a great scholar. I guess I just haven’t got it in me.”

This negative thought pattern combined with the inferiority feeling stimulated by his mother’s attitude was of course overwhelming him. He froze up in his mind. His mother had never told him to go to school and study for the wonder and glory of learning knowledge. She was not wise enough to encourage him to compete with himself rather than with others. And she was constantly insisting that he duplicate her success in scholarship. Little wonder that under this pressure he froze mentally.

I gave him some suggestions that proved helpful. “Before you read your lessons, pause a moment and pray in this manner, ‘Lord, I know I have a good mind and that I can get my work.’ Then get yourself relaxed and read the book without strain. Imagine you are reading a story. Do not read it twice unless you wish. Simply believe that you got it on the first reading. Visualize the material as soaking in and germinating. Then next morning, as you go to school, say to yourself, ‘I have a wonderful mother. She is very pretty and sweet, but she must have been an old bookworm to get those high marks. And who wants to be an old bookworm anyway? I don’t want to become magna cum nothing. I only want to get through school creditably.’

“In class, when the teacher calls on you, quickly pray before answering. Then believe the Lord will at that moment help your mind to deliver. When an examination is given, affirm in prayer that God is releasing your mind and that the right answers are given you.”

The boy followed these ideas, and what marks do you think he got the following semester? Ninety! I am sure that this boy, having discovered the amazing workability of the “I don’t believe in defeat philosophy,” will employ the amazing power of positive thinking in all the affairs of his life.

I could use so many illustrations of the manner in which men’s lives have been revamped by these procedures that this book would grow to unwieldy size. Moreover, these are incidents and experiences out of everyday life that are in no way theoretical, but are entirely practical. My mail is literally filled with testimonials sent by people who, having heard or read accounts I have told of victorious life experiences, have felt moved to relate similar occurrences in their own lives.

Such a letter came from a gentleman who tells about his father as follows. I know several people who have used the plan in this letter with amazing results.

“My father was a traveling salesman. One time he sold furniture, another time hardware, sometimes it was leather goods. He changed his line every year.

“I would hear him telling Mother that this was his last trip in stationery or in bed lamps or whatever it was he was selling at the moment. Next year everything would be different; we would be on Easy Street. He had a chance to go with a firm that had a product that sold itself. It was always the same. My father never had a product that sold. He was always tense, always afraid of himself, always whistling in the dark.

“Then one day a fellow salesman gave Father a copy of a little three-sentence prayer. He was told to repeat it just before calling on a customer. Father tried it, and the results were almost miraculous. He sold 85 per cent of all calls made during the first week, and every week thereafter the results were wonderful. Some weeks the percentage ran as high as 95, and Father had sixteen weeks in which he sold every customer called on.

“Father gave this prayer to several other salesmen, and in each case it brought astounding results.

“The prayer my father used is as follows:

‘I believe I am always divinely guided.

I believe I will always take the right turn of the road.

I believe God will always make a way where there is no way.’”

The head of a small firm who had a great many difficulties in establishing his business told me that he was immeasurably helped by a technique which he invented. He had trouble, he said, with the tendency to “blow up” a small difficulty into a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. He knew that he was approaching his problems in a defeatist attitude, and had common sense enough to realize that these obstacles were not so difficult as he made them appear to be. As he told the story, I wondered if he did not have that curious psychological difficulty known as the will to fail.

He employed a device which reconditioned his mental attitude and after a time had a noticeable effect on his business. He simply placed a large wire basket on his office desk. The following words were printed on a card and wired to this basket, “With God all things are possible.” Whenever a problem came up which the old mechanism of defeat began to develop into a big difficulty, he threw the paper pertaining to it into the basket marked “With God all things are possible” and let it rest there for a day or two. “It is queer how each matter when I took it out of that basket again didn’t seem difficult at all,” he reported.

In this act he dramatized the mental attitude of putting the problem in God’s hands. As a result he received power to handle the problem normally and therefore successfully.

As you finish this chapter please say the following line aloud: “I don’t believe in defeat.” Continue to affirm that until the idea dominates your subconscious attitudes.