How Successful People Think: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life pdfdrive com

5. Continually Check Your Motives
François de la Rochefoucauld said, “What seems to be generosity is often no
more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to
secure a great one.” The hardest thing for most people is fighting their natural
tendency to put themselves first. That’s why it’s important to continually
examine your motives to make sure you’re not sliding backward into selfishness.
Do you want to check your motives? Then follow the modeling of Benjamin
Franklin. Every day, he asked himself two questions. When he got up in the
morning, he would ask, “What good am I going to do today?” And before he
went to bed, he would ask, “What good have I done today?” If you can answer
those questions with selflessness and integrity, you can keep yourself on track.

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GIVE WHILE YOU LIVE
In the fall of 2001, we all witnessed a demonstration of unselfish thinking
unlike anything we had seen in the United States for many years. Who can forget
the events of September 11, 2001? I had just finished teaching a leadership
lesson when my assistant, Linda Eggers, came into the studio to announce the
tragic news. Like most Americans, I remained riveted to the television all day
and heard the reports of the firefighters and police officers who raced into the
World Trade Center towers to help others, never worrying about their own
safety.
In the days following the tragedy, millions of Americans expressed a great
desire to do something that would help the situation. I had the same desire. My
company was scheduled to do a training via simulcast on September 15, the
Saturday following the tragedy. Our leadership team decided to add a one-and-a-
half-hour program titled “America Prays” to the end of the simulcast. In it, my
friend Max Lucado wrote and read a prayer, expressing the heart’s cry of
millions. Franklin Graham prayed for our national leaders. Jim and Shirley
Dobson gave advice to parents on how to help their children deal with the event.
And Bruce Wilkinson and I asked the simulcast viewers to give financially to the
people injured on September 11. Amazingly, they gave $5.9 million, which
World Vision graciously agreed to distribute to those in need. Unselfish thinking
and giving turned a very dark hour into one of light and hope.
Less than two weeks after the tragedy, I was able to travel to Ground Zero in
New York City. I went to view the site of the destruction, to thank the men and
women clearing away the wreckage, and to pray for them. I can’t really do
justice to what I saw. I’ve traveled to New York dozens of times. It’s one of my
favorite places in the world. My wife and I had been up in the towers with our
children many times before and have wonderful memories of that area. To look
at the place where the buildings had once stood and to see nothing but rubble,
dust, and twisted metal—it’s simply indescribable.
What many Americans didn’t realize is that for many months people worked
diligently to clean up the site. Many were New York City firefighters and other
city workers. Others were volunteers. They worked around the clock, seven days
a week. And when they came across the remains of someone in the rubble, they
called for silence and reverently carried them out.
Since I am a clergyman, I was asked to wear a clerical collar upon entering the
area. As I walked around, many workers saw the collar and asked me to pray for

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them. It was a humbling privilege.
American educator Horace Mann said, “Be ashamed to die until you have
won some victory for humanity.” According to this standard, New York
City’s firefighters are certainly prepared for death. The service they perform
is often truly heroic. You and I may never be required to lay down our lives
for others, as they did. But we can give to others in different ways. We can
be unselfish thinkers who put others first and add value to their lives. We
can work with them so that they go farther than they thought possible.