Benjamin D. Yeagar – Assessments

As a Man Thinketh

Assessment by Benjamin D. Yeagar (Liberia)

1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in this book?

The Main idea the author is trying to put forward in this book, is to clearly states to readers that a man thought is the most powerful instrument that the human body possesses because it has the power to shift his life in every aspect such as, character, circumstances, health of the body, purpose, achievement, vision and tranquility of his disposition. Considering the fact our thoughts affect every aspect of our life, it is imperative that we govern our thought in a very careful way and avoid anything that corrupts our thinking because they will in the final analysis affect our lives and environment.

The author also puts forward in this book how the body is only a vehicle the thought uses to accomplish its goals and if the thought consents, the body follows or executes what the thought tells it with no hesitation therefore, the body is the frame while the thought is the engine that instructs it to execute it desires. There is no doubt that the body is only dirt and without the thought is useless in accomplishment. Finally, the author crafts beautifully in this book that the thought is the master of the human entity and if not properly managed, it can be a like a while dog that gets uncontrollable which will evidently lead to self-destruction. In nutshell, the author states in this book a man is actually what he thinks not the things that happen outside that make him but on his inside.

2. What were the seven ideas which were personally most important to you and why? List these seven ideas followed by an explanation after each as to why it was important to you. Use personal examples from your own life.

a. A person’s life is an outcome of his thought.

I have always known that life cannot be explained by chances and luck instead, we are the outcome of our thoughts however; this book has reinforced that belief in a most profound way that better helps me to deeply appreciate the fact that a man is not an outcome of his circumstances and environment but his thought processes.

What makes this even more profound is the fact that I am from Africa where there are not many opportunities available for many folks who are not closed to the elites of society however, with this information, I understanding now that my thought really impact me rather than thinking that people should be responsible to create the kind of environment I desire, I should try to govern my thought properly which will eventually create the kind of ideal environment I envision to see.

b. I have learned that the law of cause and effect applied to the thought process.

Being an African and growing up close to mother nature and underdeveloped society, I was taught that behind most things that happened to us in life have spirits that are responsible rather than being taught that my thought had to a greater extent more influence on me than spirits. This belief system made me to excuse human responsibility which made me not to use my thought properly and effectively to create the right environment I had desired. Considering the fact that the law of cause and effect applied to the human thought, I will better appreciate a proper governance of my thought process in training it in the right direction.

c. I have also learned that through the power of thought, I am my greatest destroyer or maker not another person.

This is quite profound, in a World where people shift blame for misfortune, this truth is liberating because it places on my shoulder the greatest responsibility of my making or unmaking. Contrary to popular belief that tells us people are our enemies, environment and circumstances, this book states clearly I am my enemy based on the way I govern my thought.

d. This book has also taught me that I am the gardener of my mind and what I put there determines what I get out.

How many times I have thought of events as being the greatest determiners of my destiny with the truth of the mind being a garden and me being a gardener, I can now decide what kind of seed I will plant in my garden so that it does not only benefit me but other people around me and in addition to that, I will seek to weed out every seed that I have planted there about myself, the environment, people and future so that those bad seeds don’t affect the good seed I am now desiring of putting there. I must not only putting good seed but also seeking to continually water those seeds so that they will blossom in such a way that it will benefit me, my family, community, Nation and this one Global Village.

e. One of the lessons I have also learned in this book is that thought and character are one.

For me, among the entire lesson I have learned at this stage in this book, this is the best because it establishes clearly we cannot separate our thought from our behavior which I wished I had known when I was little younger. How many times I had wished to be better and do the best thing but only to end up doing it the other way around because my thought didn’t change instead, I was only concern to change my behavior and not my thought. Behaviors are only the product of the human thought and not the other way around. If I can really change my thought, then I can change my life, environment, family and circumstances.

f. I have also learned as a person who believed in prayer, that my thought affects the answer to my prayer.

This truth is mind boggling because I teach people to pray effectively however, now that I know that people thought affects their prayer life I will seek to it that I inform them the impact of their thoughts on the answer they received from God because they have to harmony their prayer with their thoughts, it has also taught me a great deal of lesson which is; I need to work on my thought life which affect my prayer because answer to any prayer must harmonize with the right thought and actions and not the other way around.

g. The final lesson I have learned is that failure is only conquered when we conquered doubt and fear.

This statement summarizes the book for me in that physical aspect of life is more prevalence than the unseen aspect. I have been conditioned in an environment where adversity and misfortune are believe to be the out of other people attacks on me instead of me be told that the greatest portion of my achievement rest on my own making or unmaking or I was not told that my thought governs the thing that comes to me or leave my life. This is not actually a new truth however, it has come in a more profound way and liberating manner. When you grow up in a society where everything is place on fate instead of thought and personal responsibility, you actually lean on that belief and never tried to see your thought as the architect of your life.

3. How will these ideas or lessons help you in a practical way, both in your daily personal life in helping you to create a better World? If so, how?

The lessons I have learned in this book will help in a very useful in a personal way in that it will help me to govern my thought properly and use it in a more impactful rather than allowing it to run wild and uncontrollable. Secondly considering the fact that I teach people how to think differently about themselves, society and the environment they grow up in, these lessons will be uses as a tool for me to shape the many lives that I talked to every month. Thirdly my country Liberia just ended a 14 year war making it to be in great need of transformation so I intent to use these ideas to start a National Mental transformation program for myself and the close circle of friends around me as a person of influence.

4. Quotes: Are there any statements which the author made that particular got your attention? If so, please quote them and comment as to why they are important to you.

“That man is the master of thought, the molder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny.”

This statement is important for me because it clearly states that my thought is what shapes my character, condition, environment and destiny and not any external factors that people, society, the environment or location places on me.

“That he is the maker of his character, the molder of his life, and the builder of his destiny.”

This statement reinforces to me that I am the architect of my life in that the direction my thought takes is what my life will take which in the final analysis that is what my destiny will turn out to be.

“Circumstances does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.”

This statement for me it will leave an everlasting impact on me because henceforth, I will have to accept the fact my circumstances do not make me but they reveal my real disposition and that will make me to take my eyes off external forces and place them on myself and be a more responsible person.

5. Is there anything in the book that you do not understand or are unclear about, or are there ideas which you disagree with and, if so, why?

Personally, I fully agreed with everything written in this book because it based on accurate explanation and proper research work by the author but most importantly the aphorism that the writer used in this book is Bible based and as a teacher who studies human behavior, I fully consent to the material in this book. In addition to that, the way the writer exposes the material in this book is great and really plain and concise so there is no need for any misunderstanding on my part.

6. Did the book contain exercises for the reader to complete? If so, did you complete all of the exercises and did you find them helpful?

The book had assignments/exercises and I did complete them. Every exercise in this book was helpful for me and they have really transformed my life in every aspect. The information in this book is life changing and I believe it will make me not only effectively in my personal life but also in my professional life.

7. Was there anything you read in this book that you would like to comment on that was not covered in the previous questions? If so, please comment.

Well, I think the assignment questions were well –written in that they help the reader to do a complete summary of the book covering every major area and the most important ideas put forward in the book.

Please rate the following questions on a scale from 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.

A. How interesting was it to read?                                10
B. How helpful were the contents?                                9
C. How easy was it to understand?                                10
D. Would you recommend it to others?                        10
E. What is the overall rating you would give it?          10

 

 

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Assessment by Benjamin D.Yeagar (Liberia)

1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in this book?

The main ideas this book puts forward to readers are these according to my own understanding. The first idea I see in this book is this that naturally society, environment, family, physical looks would always try to put limitations us and because we normally have these fears, we are crippled and limited by other people expectations and plans for our lives thereby denying us from exploring our true selves.

The second idea I see we should never fail to discover ourselves or true self even if people around us do not believe in us and the things we are doing as long as we know what we are doing doesn’t harm anyone and violate the law of nature.

Thirdly, the writer in this book puts forward to us the lesson of breaking tradition because it was traditional for the Seagull to fly low and scratch for leftover food however Jonathan saw life differently in that he saw life not just about flying low and finding food but becoming our true self and perfecting that true selves of our existence without limit even if there are obstacles, we must overcome those and push ourselves beyond the limit that nature and people placed on us.

Fourthly, the book puts forward the lesson of perfection, though Jonathan was good at flying, however he did not fail to keep pushing himself and learning better which eventually prepared him to be a teacher so, when we stop learning, we stopped becoming leaders.

Fifthly, I see the lesson of love demonstrated in this book in a much more profound way. It is seems to me though he was ostracized, by the flock because of his desire to discover himself, he did not fail to return to his old home so that he might be able to teach other seagulls who were willing to join to explore themselves for me, this is a great idea because hatred, vindictive and anger never gets anyone anywhere in life so we must be willing to let go of people who have hurt and help them to see life differently. It is important to always come and teach other people the things we have learned so they too can discover themselves in every way possible.

This book says it clearly and succinctly that there is no limit that nature and the Earth placed on us except the one we place on ourselves according to our thinking and acceptance of people’s opinion about us. We can all be what we want to be only if we are willing to discover within ourselves what we were made to be and seek to develop that without limit.

2. What were the seven ideas which were personally most important to you and why? List these seven ideas followed by an explanation after each as to why it was important to you. Use personal examples from your own life.

a. Life should not be lived just to eat and survive.

This lesson for me is gain changer because when you live in a society where most people just live on the average, that means, the only purpose for living is to eat and sleep which is quite unfortunately; many individuals in my nation live according to this mentality and personally this has been a serious challenge for me over the years because every time you I have tried to do things differently, I have faced fierce resistance and hostility from people and society and this has sometimes lower my speed in great way thereby affecting my impact and blocking my potential.

b. My reason for living is not just to eat.

I learned from this statement that most people only lived to eat which should never be my motivation in this life. While I appreciate food, and I know it is wonderful, it should never be my motivation for life because life is more than eating and drinking. It is important to have a higher purpose for existence and not just eating. I must seek to change the World by giving it all my best without allowing comfort to be the things that drive me. I am seeking now to really search deep inside of me to bring out that part of me that the World is yet to see and that would mean, I have to push myself beyond the normal limits people sets on me or my gifting.

c. I have learned to be exception and set records in whatever I have chosen to do.

I learned from this statement that if I can practice towards self development, I can achieve anything that I have set my heart to do which in turn, will make to stand from among the crowd and thereby making me a leaders in whatever field of life I have chosen.

d. I have learned not to just be normal since it would make everyone happier.

This statement teaches me great lesson because it tells me this is how many folks think in conventional society which is, life according to people expectation and that would make them happy not according to self-discovery and becoming what we were made for. I have learned if we allowed our friends and family to make to believe that the only purpose of living is to make other people happy and accept normal life than we will never really touch the World and leave greater impact.

e. I must not accept poverty mentality and limitation.

Life with contentment is great but not at the detriment of developing self and becoming the best and leaving an impact that makes this World a better place. I have learned that there is no limit to what I can be and do if only I can pursue that real me and develop it through practice and perfection.

f. I have learned that I should never decide to be normal and move with the crowd.

This lesson is a great because it tells me that criticism and fears could lead me to believing that normal life is my lot in this life and if I ever accept that, that means I will leave the Earth without any meaningful contribution instead, I will decide to not live as the normal human and average person on the Earth but live above the ordinary and seek an extra-ordinary life.

g. I have learned that the highest purpose of life is to have a higher purpose and have a reason for living.

This is a great lesson for me because life without a higher purpose is not worth living because that would mean living life just at the margin and it is important that I find a higher purpose for living in a more responsible way that would break me out of the normal and set me apart from the everyday routine of life.

3. How will these ideas or lessons help you in a practical way, both in your daily life and helping you to create a better World? If so, how?

These ideas and lessons will help me in a practical and daily life and helping to create a better World in the following way:

With the knowledge that there are no limitations in this life except the ones I allow people, society and myself to place on myself, I think that will really free me from some of the cultural , geographical, mental and societal limitations I have long placed on myself. I will seek to explore real person inside me through self-development so that I can expand my horizon which will make me to create a better World around me.

I will add these materials to my resources material and begin to teach them immediately to other people who cannot access them or better still, introduce other people this program so we can create coalition that will break the chain of limitations over our society. I think if I can teach everyone around me these ideas, then I think that will help me make positive contribution to society. I will seek to immediately apply these ideas to every aspect of my existence, professional and private life. I am inspired to actively start using these materials to launch a National Mental transformation program in my Country Liberia since have an information deficit here because of the civil War.

4. Quotes: Are there any statements which the author made that particularly got your attention? If so, please quote them and comment as to why they are important to you.

“Must fly home to the Flock and be content as I am, as a poor limited seagull.”

This statement is important to me because it reflects general thinking of many individual in our World today. Just be the normal and average guy and never go beyond the convention thinking and behavior. If this how life is live then, we will never go beyond our limitations and the obstacles that life brings to us. I accept the idea of breaking limitations and pushing myself beyond life’s limits.

“He felt better for his decision to be just another one of the flock.”

On the surface, it feels better to be like everyone else but in reality it is costly because the World only celebrates people who decided to stand from among the crowd. This statement is important to me because it really allows me to see life differently because I have an internal struggle that keeps pushing me to be like every other person. Henceforth, I vowed to step out of the ordinary way of thinking, talking and acting.

5. Is there anything in the book that you do not understand or are unclear about, or are there ideas which you disagree with and, if so, why?

I perfectly understood everything the writer wrote this book because these are truths that resonate with me. Being a student of English and Literature I can easily identify with the allegorical language the writer used in the book and I really enjoyed reading it.

6. Did the book contain exercises for the reader to complete? If so, did you complete all the exercises and did you find them helpful?

The book did contain exercises for the reader to complete and I did do everything as required and the exercises were very helpful to me and I believed they have better equipped me to more effective at the things I do as a motivational speaker and teacher.

7. Was there anything you read in the book that you would like to comment on that was not covered in the previous questions? If so, please comment.

Well, I really do not have any major opposition to any of the things written in this book because they are written in plain and concise so there is no extra comment I can make concerning the book and the lesson it teaches.

Please rate the following questions on a sale from 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.

A. How interesting was it to read?                                 10
B. How helpful were the contents?                                 9
C. How easy was it to understand?                                 8
D. Would you recommend it to others?                         10
E. What is the overall rating you would give it?           10

PsychoCybernetics
Assessment by Benjamin D. Yeagar (Liberia)

1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?

Maxwell Martz insists in this book that we are all built with the success mechanism however; our personality needs to be worked on because to a large extent, it influences how much and to what extent we succeed in life. He also stated that if our self-image is distorted, scared and inferior, it would affect our drive to succeed unless we are total healed from those distorted, scared and inferior Self-image. He also insists in the book that psychology robs humanity of its soul makes us to think we are only machine and electrons.

2. What were the seven ideas which were personally most important to you and why? List these seven ideas followed by an explanation after each one as to why it was important to you. Use personal examples from your own life.

i. Beauty Is Skin Deep

This for me says a lot about the human proclivity because Human by nature focuses on the utter aspect of life and as a human I am not exempt from this so personally speaking, I have to see a beautiful mind and attitude is more important than physical outlook in life because that would alter much about my life and the people I attract in life.

ii. Self Image

This is one of the most important lessons for me because as an African, I grew up in an extremely marginalized society where people were programmed to think in certain ways and not independent for themselves so I grew up with a particular self–image which is, I have to travel to some distant land to be able to succeed and that affected my self-image because it made me to see certain races as superior and that was also reinforced by the scar of slavery which my Continent has experienced for many centuries and its impart is still felt everywhere. So, by reading the lesson on self image, I have now realized that my environment and past experiences in life should never be the determining factor in my life. This book has also taught me a vital lesson which is, self–image affects my personality and behavior which will eventually affects my response to people and my circumstances. If I can change my self–image, I will change my personality and behavior.

iii. Discovering the Success Mechanism

The success mechanism is a built in goal striving principles that is, built into every individual which can be learned and mastered. The success mechanism is like a child learning a new thing and when it is repeated, he/she masters it and it becomes part of that child. This is very important to me because as a person, I hate to repeat things because that violate my impatience and not only that, I also realized that the reality that success is built into everyone and with the right tool and methods, we can harness that at anytime and anywhere gives me a great solace.

iv. Imagination

This lesson has taught me something very important which is, our imagination determines what we are in actuality. Most times as a Liberian and an African, it is easy for me to blame external circumstances as the root cause of everything I experienced in my life but I have gotten to understand that the human imagination is the key to success in his life. I have also learned that my imagination is to a large extent influenced by my past experiences in life which at most times is bad and if I cannot effectively alter it, it would affect my present and my future. This has also taught me that my opinion of myself is very important than the opinion of others in my life.

v. De-hypnotize or Change your Belief:

To change my life, I need to change my belief about myself either by what I have told myself or people have told me. Wrong belief can affect a person life more than the external things that happen to him. As person I need to change my belief system if I will have to change my life and help other people theirs as well. Wrong belief has a way of shaping our future because it gives information about ourselves which are necessarily true and the best we can do is to dehypnotize ourselves which will enable us to break from it enslavement. I have come to believe that certain things I was told are just cultural and have no truth in them fundamentally.

3. How will these ideas or lessons help you in a practical way, both in your daily personal life and in helping you to create a better world? If so, how?

These lessons will help me in many practical ways by me allowing them to be demonstrated in my personal, family, professional and academic life. I also believe that by putting these lessons into practice, I will surely begin to see outstanding results in my personally life which will also affects other areas of my life. As a public speaker, I believe these practical lessons are strong personal and human development nuggets and by putting them into my teaching and applying them personally, it will impacts my teaching and personal life in many ways.

4. Quotes: Are there any statements which the author made that particularly got your attention? If so, please quote them and comment as to why they were important to you.

“It was as if personality itself had a face. This is nonphysical. Face of personality seemed to be the real key to personality change. If it remained scarred, distorted. Ugly or inferior, the person himself acted out this role in his behavior regardless of the changes in physical appearance.”

This quote for me is revolutionizing because it hits you to the core as you come across it. I believe working on the nonphysical face of my personality, I would be able to change many things in my personality which would affect my environment and circumstances. As an African and a human being, I am always tempted to accurse people and the circumstances of my life as being sole responsible for the problems I go through as a human being but with this recognition of the nonphysical face of my personality, I can now work on changing and repairing that distorted part of my personality so that it would have a direct result on my environment and circumstances.

“The self-image is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self-image and you change the personality and the behavior.”

The self-image as being the key to human personality and human behavior, is big reliever for me because I do most of teachings about change and personal/human development so I think this quote has helped me in many ways because I would focus on working on people self-image which in turn will impact their behavior. I many fight to change people behavior without changing their self-image which has made me to have little result in my pursuit as public speaker.

“Expand the self-image and you expand the area of the possible. The development of an adequate, realistic self-image will seem to imbue the individual with new capabilities, new talents and literally turn failure into success.”

This has tremendous lesson imbedded into it because it clearly tells me that real success is only achievable when we develop and expand our mind because it is in our mind that the possible of success resides. No matter what possibilities that would be available to me, if my mind is closed and locked, I can only achieve little or nothing at all so the best investment I can make as a person is invest on my self-image.

5. Is there anything in the book that you do not understand or are unclear about, or are there ideas which you disagree with and, if so, why?

In general, I did not see anything much that I disagreed with because Dr.Maltz hits the nail on the head however, I believe in many ways, that while our self–image will change many things about us, it cannot change our heart because that is only capable of changing by divine impartation so I stand by this conviction that improvement into psychological techniques may help us in ways but ultimately we can be only guarantee permanent change when we are redeemed by God. The reason said this is this man fundamental problem is Spiritual while the mental and physical part can play some roles, ultimately we are only sure of a lasting and eternal change when we spiritually change.

6. Did the book contain exercises for the reader to complete? If so, did you complete all of the exercises and did you find them helpful?

The book contains exercises however, I just read through them and did not do them since I had other things on hand to do.

7. Was there anything you read in the book that you would like to comment on that was not covered in the previous questions? If so, please comment.

Well, there were many things I read in the book that I would like to comment on however, time may not permit me to be able to comment on everything but one of the main things that caught my attention is, Dr. Marltz constant used of Bible references and many quotations from individual across difference fields and experiences that assured me of that fact that we do not have hide our conviction when we write to audiences that might be people of faith as long as we do not try to impose our faith on them and second part is the fact that he read many other material to establish his thesis in a well-researched manner and to be objective as much as possible.

Please rate the following questions on a scale from 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.

A. How interesting was it to read? 8
B. How helpful were the contents? 7
C. How easy was it to understand? 5
D. Would you recommend it to others? 8
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 8

Keys to Success
Assessment by Benjamin D. Yeagar (Liberia)

1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?

The central idea Napoleon Hill puts forward in this books is as followed: Hill states in the Keys to Success that there are 17 principles that govern success and these are things or conclusion he arrived at after studying hundreds of individuals from different fields and walks of life and he states anyone who practices these principles, would succeed no matter what life brings his/her way. Hill states that the first of these principles are Definiteness of Purpose which is the starting point and he insists once a person can ask this question, “where he is going”, it becomes the beginning of achievement.
Hill further states in the book that these Principles are the essence of the action and attitudes of everyone who has ever had lasting accomplishment. One of the key quotes he uses in this book is this “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, your mind can achieve it.” The Author states if one consistently practices these Principles over an extended period of time, he would arrive at success because the Universe would embrace and reward him. Hill also states that we can create our own success when we stop blaming people for the things we think they have done to us.

2. What were the seven ideas which were personally most important to you and why? List these seven ideas followed by an explanation after each one as to why it was important to you. Use personal examples from your own life.

The book had many ideas that one could write about but for the sake of this study, I would highlight the seven most important ones the stood up for me and these are selected sections of the 17 Principles of success that was elucidated by the author.

i. Definiteness of Purpose

The first idea that stands up to me in this book is the first Principle which is, Definiteness of Purpose. This idea stood up because I teach people on purpose or the reason they exist and one of Central statements on purpose is, that we all were born with a purpose and the circumstances we are born into, the family we came into do not determine our purpose. I even emphasized that the school system does give us purpose but only enhances our purpose because purpose is solely divine ingenuity. The reason this idea is important for me is because without purpose, we shall abuse life and that covers every aspect of life. As human beings, if we do not discover our purpose, we are prompt to abuse ourselves, nature and our fellow human beings. Definiteness of purpose allows us to focus on specific issues at specific time so we are not easily distracted.

I was encouraged by the author when he puts forward the advantages of definiteness of purpose which are specialization of a particular field and be good at it, budgeting of time which for me is extremely powerful because I live in a part of the World where people’s time are not respected or value so it is easy to fit in that mood of not valuing your own time since other people around you do not value their time but I have learned through this principle that time and money need to be adequately budgeted. Alertness of opportunity was another eye-opener because while I may be seeking opportunity elsewhere, it is important for to realize that opportunity might just be closed to me but I have not have been alerted to it so I am learning now to see the challenges of life as an opportunity that can change my life.

Decision-making Capability- this one has been one of my major challenges because it hits me hard sometimes that I know what should be done but I am unwilling to take the right decision which could mitigate the problem. All of the remaining ones such as cooperation, faith, success consciousness are valuable tools for me because at some point in my life, I have practiced these but were not intentional and I have to be intentional this time around.

ii. The Mastermind Alliance

The Mastermind Alliance is such a wonderful idea because I believe it means you build a network of people around you that would think in the same direction as yourself so that you and those people can have a common objective that you are moving towards to achieve. I have come to realized through this principle that nobody succeeds alone and we all have to build a mastermind alliance with people for us to achieve great things

iii. Assemble an Attractive Personality

For me, I consider this to be one of the basic ingredients of success because our personality determines whom we attract or whom we repel. People may see that we have great vision and aspiration for life but if our personality does not match up to those visions and aspirations, it would drive people rather than attract them. I believe every person who wants to be great must develop an attractive personality. I think we all need to learn this principle because while some might be easily learned, some might take time to learn and master and we have to constantly try our best to keep learning them.

iv. Use Applied Faith

This is one of the master pieces of this book because most writers today would probably not include infinite Intelligence as one of the ingredients of Success because we are now taught to discard infinite Intelligence but I like the way the writer clearly tells us that to succeed, we need to believe in a power higher than ourselves which allows to harmonize the Universal powers. While I believe faith is an action and not just passive, I appreciate the way the writer reinforces this because sometimes I think prayer would remove my responsibility but this chapter has taught me faith is a state of mind that leads us to take appropriate actions which can make us to achieve. While I agreed with his statement on faith which is having faith without putting it in a supreme being, I believe having faith in a supreme is not also wrong and we all can seek to discover what works best for us to succeed. I also appreciate the fact that faith can help us overcome many hurdles that normally come our way such as doubts, disbelief, overcoming fear and replacing that fear with faith so we can arrive at our goal.
v. Going the Extra Mile

This was liberating for me because I have always known that rendering more services and doing the things others do not do open doors of opportunity to you that talents and gifting might not be able to do but the author even puts it more succinctly than I preciously saw it. The reward of compound interest is mindboggling because it really swept me off my feet because these are simple steps that anyone can practice that would bring rewards as easy as it might not look like. I also like the two laws that he emphasized under this principle which are: The Law of Compensation and the Law of Increasing Returns. I also appreciated the equation put forward under this Principle which is: The quality of service rendered plus the quantity of the service rendered plus the mental attitude in which it is rendered equals your compensation in the World and the amount space you will occupy in the hearts of your fellow man.

vi. Enforce Self-Discipline

Enforce self- Discipline for me is probably one of the strongest principles in this book because it covers every aspect of our existence such as sex, eating habit, thought process, goal. I believe most people living in this World would have avoided failure if this principle was constantly adhere to because it sets the boundaries to the things we can do and the one we cannot do. While it has it external aspect, I believe the mental aspect is more profound because what we cannot control mentally, we cannot control physically.

vii. Think Accurately- PMA

Accurate thinking, sounds easy but it seems we are all born in environment with certain belief system and biases so in that sense, we can easily ignored fact and based our judgment on mere opinions. I believe accurate thinking help us to separate facts from popular opinion which will help us make sound judgment about situations, ourselves and people. We have to base our decision on the two fundamentals which are Inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning.

3. How will these ideas or lessons help you in a practical way, both in your daily personal life and in helping you to create a better world? If so, how?

I believe these ideas will help me in many practical ways such as making me a better husband to my wife, father to my children , strong leader to the people I lead and a law abiding Citizen in the World. As a person who teaches people human and personal development, these are wonderful tools that I would contextualize to my setting so I can teach it to my people which will in turn make them better citizens of the World.
If I can succeed in doing this, I believe we all can be better citizens of the World and make it a better place than we met it.

4. Quotes: Are there brief quotes from the book which really got your attention? If so, please list and comment on them.

There are many quotes I could list here but I would just list few of the ones that really struck me and they are as followed.

“Definiteness of purpose encourages you to specialized, and specialization leads to perfection.”
This quote for me, it is very special because when you live in a society like mine where expertise is not really appreciated, you sometimes want to have many options of career thus, leaving you to be non- special at a field where you are perfect but this will help me to develop myself more in my area of my chosen field and I will keep developing myself so I can be perfect at whatever I do.

“Find your burning desire and you will be able to achieve success.”

This is powerful because I believe no institution can teach you how to find your burning desire instead, it has be based on self-motivation. It is a profound state and it touched me really hard.

“There is no scarcity of opportunity. There is only a shortage of imagination.”

This is a great quote because I live in a Society where imagination is becoming more and more of a scarce commodity and to add to that woe, our Government and school system does not encourage imagination so all we do, is to rehearse other people’s idea and that for me makes us to see no opportunity but only problems. I am stretching my mind to imagine a better life and World at my disposal.

5. Is there anything in the book that you do not understand or are unclear about, or are there ideas which you disagree with and, if so, why?

Basically, I didn’t really come across any difficulty however there are few things I disagreed with and the chief among these is the fact that the author insists we can have good behave once we change our mind but my concern is what about the human heart because I believe that is the real seat of evil and the mind only processes the evil but the heart is chief architect of it while the body executes it. I believe while changing our mind might help us to overcome certain things, jealousy, anger and certain vices can only be remove from our life when our heart is transformed.

6. Did the book contain exercises for the reader to complete? If so, did you complete all of the exercises and did you find them helpful?

The book contained some exercises but the reader only read through them. The reader is planning to start putting some of these exercises into practice as soon as possible.

7. Was there anything you read in the book that you would like to comment on that was not covered in the previous questions? If so, please comment.

Basically, everything in this book was covered in my answer section so there is nothing more I would like to say or write here.

Please rate the following questions on a scale from 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.

A. How interesting was it to read? 8
B. How helpful were the contents? 9
C. How easy was it to understand? 10
D. Would you recommend it to others? 10
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 9

Success through a Positive Mental Attitude
Assessment by Benjamin D. Yeagar (Liberia)

1. What is the main idea that the author is trying to convey in the book?

The book’s authors insist on what to do and how to do it when it comes to tapping and using your subconscious mind to achieve success. The authors formulate in this book how to use, neutralize, control or harmonize with your passions, emotions, instincts, tendencies, feelings, moods, and habits of thought and action to achieve success.
The book insists and postulate on strong principles of psychology, physiology and various motivational theories which are time tested and when applied by anyone, it would yield success. The book also listed some positive attitudes that everyone should possess and Negative attitudes that we all should avoid because Negative attitude can impede success. Finally, the book states we can always turn around any adversity to use it for our own good no matter how bad that situation portrays itself once we have a Positive Mental Attitude and it says success lies within us and not in anyone or anywhere and all we have to do, is to discover the most important person on earth which is each of us individually and that success is achieved and maintained by those who keep trying with Positive Mental Attitude. At the end of the book, the authors did use the 17 Success principles test book called Success Quotient Analysis (SQA).

2. What were the seven ideas which were personally most important to you and why? List these seven ideas followed by an explanation after each one as to why it was important to you. Use personal examples from your own life.

There are many wonderful ideas in this book but I would like to just highlight few that stood up for me because time won’t permit for me to list everything here.

i. Meet the most important Living Person.

This is one of the ideas that had an impact on me in this book because it reminds me of the fact that the most important person is me and not anyone else close or far from. If I had known this fact earlier in life as a teenager, it would change me in such a tremendous way. Now that I am aware of that fact and knowing this invisible talisman and the power that lies within, I will empower this person to attract wealth, success, happiness and health. I intend to emulate S.B. Fuller who though came from a disadvantage background, was able to overcome those disadvantages and thrive in such a way to achieve his dream. I was also encouraged by the three sources of his inspiration which were from books especially, the Bible, Think and Grow Rich and The Secrets of the Ages.

ii. You Can Change your World

I was struck by this idea because as a person, one of the things I have tried doing over the years, is to change my World but little did I know there are certain repellents I need to avoid because if not, they could impact me in a negative and success would be an illusion for me. The reason this idea is important to me, because it tells me explicitly that success is within me because Success is mostly psychological and not entirely physical so in other to change my World, I must first change myself then my World would change.
I am person of faith but my fault is the fact that I fall short on many of these 17 Principles because I do not do them with intentionality but I am bracing myself to practice these 17 principles with great urgency and Intentionality. I have also decided to avoid Negative Mental Attitude because they would repel success and people from around me.

iii. Has the World Given you a raw deal?

This is an impactful statement because it speaks to the fact that we are all prone to blame others and that blame doesn’t have any limit. I am fond of blaming the World, my environment, Country, it leadership because of the many things I see. This idea clearly presents to me no need to blame anyone around me or the circumstances of life outside of me for my failure. This statement shows me not to excuse myself and I take responsibility and live with a Negative Mental Attitude. I can’t blame my heredity or environment and expect to succeed because when I operate in Positive Mental Attitude, I can turn any situation around and use it to my benefit. I am not handicapped as a person but can only operate with a Negative Mental Attitude.

iv. Definiteness of Purpose is the Starting Point of all Achievement

I read about this idea in the last assignment in Keys to Success but combining it with PMA, have shared another light on it because it tells me that success is a combination of many ingredients and when I can get all those together, success will be inevitable for me.
If can clearly determine my definiteness of purpose, success will embrace me at all cost.
I was also inspired by Robert Christopher story because it shows me that my goals can be achievable one I am definite about my purpose. The World has never given anyone anything on a platter not even successful people, but they beat the odds to get what they wanted based on PMA and definiteness of Purpose.

v. Clear the Cobwebs from your Thinking

A straight thinking, clear thought process and accurate thinking are all imperatives for success. Mental cobwebs hinder success and impedes us from becoming our best.
Faulty thinking always result into faulty behavior and when we do not clear things from our thinking that impedes success, it would be impossible for us to success. I have to do everything possible to rescue myself from faulty thinking by dealing with emotions, feelings, passions, habits beliefs and prejudices that entangle my thinking. I am now understanding that I have full control over my thought and no one can control it except I give that person the authority or permission to do that. I am now making a determination to make maximum use of reasoning because it is an important component of logic and I believe it would help me in my desire to succeed.

vi. Something More
There is something more than failure, temporary defeat and hardship, disappointment and it is that something more that gets me going every day. I have always known that success has huddles but this idea of something more has ignited my resilient and tenacity because no matter what lies ahead, I can always forge ahead and push myself to get that which I want. A Negative Mental attitude sees defeat, failures instead lessons to be learned and move ahead to get that which I desire. Knowing Universal laws and applying them are two different things so it is important for me to apply those things I have learned and use them to be where I want to get in life. Something more is what takes anyone beyond where someone else has stopped to get to success in fact, I consider it as the extra energy, time, discipline, resources and taste we can add to an endeavor to get ahead in life and achieve what we want.

vii. Sitting for Ideas

Dr. Elmer Gates discovery of “Sitting for Ideas” is real shocker to me because this is my first time to come across such idea. I know it would be a challenge for me to master it, but I would develop a habit of practicing this and see how it turns out for me because knowing that I live in a noisy environment with many distractions, I think this is still possible. I think if I can effectively develop my creative thinking ability, this habit would be possible. This is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard. I believe our World would be a better place if we all could use our mind effectively and tap into our creative ability.

3. How will these ideas or lessons help you in a practical way, both in your daily personal life and in helping you to create a better world? If so, how?

In more practical ways, I intend to incorporate these ideas into my life family, Church, profession and marriage because these are time tested ideas which I believe when apply, would yield me the results I need to get ahead in every sphere of my life. In my daily life, I am developing Positive Mental Attitude by allowing myself to see the good in every adversity and I believe as I do this, it would impact my relationship in a more meaningful way. As apply these principles to my life, I believe my career will thrive, my family flourishes and my profession will improve rapidly which in term, will help me to create a better World. As a motivational speaker, teacher and a Pastor, I believe my professional life will take another turn and the World around me would be better because of these ideas.

4. Quotes: Are they any statements which the authors made that particularly got your attention? If so, please quote them and comment as to why they were important to you.

“If a man is right, his World will be right.”

This is a powerful quote because it points to me the first person I need to fix before my World can be fixed is me and it starts with my mind or Positive Mental Attitude

“His body was paralyzed but his mind was unaffected.”

What I need to succeed is my mind and not necessarily my body because if my mind is in good condition, my body will obey it so good mind is the key to succeed and the body will follow the mind’s instruction.

“What the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind of man can achieve with PMA.”

The key to success is the conception of the mind because once the mind accepts something, the body will go after it as well.

5. Is there anything in the book that you do not understand or are unclear about, or are there ideas which you disagree with and, if so, why?

Personally, I understood everything I read in the book and they were self-explanatory

6. Did the book contain exercises for the reader to complete? If so, did you complete all of the exercises and did you find them helpful?

The book had exercises however, I only read through them so I can personally apply them to my personal life. The various exercises where extremely helpful because they added extra taste to the book.
7. Was there anything you read in the book that you would like to comment on that was not covered in the previous questions? If so, please comment.

One of the amazing things about these books is that they always attribute success to some Infinite Power which is really interesting to me because as society advances, many folks talk about success but do not consider that Component of success anymore. I am encouraged by their strong religious conviction. I believe if every success was backed by strong conviction of religion, morality and ethics, it would make the World a better place.
Please rate the following questions on a scale from 1 to 10. Ten is good and one is poor.

A. How interesting was it to read? 9
B. How helpful were the contents? 9
C. How easy was it to understand? 8
D. Would you recommend it to others? 9
E. What is the overall rating you would give it? 8

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