Free Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement by Brian Tracy

were looking for.
    Finally, on a side street of Florence, partially overgrown with weeds and covered with dirt, he found a huge slab of marble lying on wooden trestles. It had been hauled down from the mountains years before and had never been used.
    Michelangelo had walked past this street many times, but this time he stopped and looked more closely. As he walked back and forth studying the block of marble, he actually envisioned the statue of David and saw it in its entirety.
    ■ GREAT SUCCESS REQUIRES
    LONG, HARD WORK
    The sculptor quickly arranged to have workmen haul the block of marble to his studio some distance away. He then began the long, hard job of hammering and chiseling. It took him two solid years of work to create the rough outline of the statue. He then put his hammers and chisels aside and spent two more years polishing and sanding before the statue was complete.
    Michelangelo was already famous as a sculptor, and the news that he was working on a major commission for the Medicis spread all over Italy. When the day came for its first public viewing, thousands of people came from all over Italy and gathered in the main square. When it was unveiled, the crowd stood gaping in awe. It was breathtakingly beautiful. People cheered. Women fainted. The audience was amazed at the incredible beauty of the enormous statue.
    Michelangelo was immediately recognized as the greatest sculptor of his age.
    Afterward, when Michelangelo was asked how he was able to create such a masterpiece, he replied by saying that he saw the David complete and perfect in the marble. All he did was to remove everything that was not the David .

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    CHANGE YOUR THINKING, CHANGE YOUR LIFE
    ■ YOU ARE A MASTERPIECE
    There are many parallels between yourself and the David . You are very much like a great masterpiece enclosed in marble as well. But the marble that envelops you, and most other people, is the marble of small, limited thinking and excessive worry about the possibilities of loss or failure, rather than an excited anticipation of the rewards of success and achievement.
    To realize your full potential, your greatest need is to break out of your limited thinking by dreaming big dreams and imagining unlimited possibilities.You need to remove all the negative beliefs that hold you back from becoming all you are capable of becoming.
    But remember, even after the David had been released from the marble, it took Michelangelo two solid years of sanding and polishing to turn it into a masterpiece. In the same way, you also have to work on yourself, sanding and polishing, learning and practicing, for days, weeks, months, and even years, to develop and bring out all the talents and abilities that lie deep inside of you.
    ■ YOU CAN BECOME UNSTOPPABLE
    The central purpose of this book is to help you change your thinking in such a way that you become absolutely unstoppable in achieving any goal you can set for yourself.Your goal is to develop yourself to the point psychologically where you become like an irresistible force of nature.You will be like the tide coming in, or like a powerful storm that sweeps across the land.
    Your aim is to become so confident, courageous, strong, and resolute that you can set any goal for yourself with the firm knowledge that you can learn what you need to learn, and do what you need to do, to eventually achieve it. You will become so persistent and determined that nothing and no one can slow you down or alter your course.You will become truly unstoppable!
    ■ DREAM BIG DREAMS
    You begin the process of becoming unstoppable by dreaming big dreams. Since everything you create in your world begins with a ccc_tracy_3_40-51.qxd 6/23/03 2:47 PM Page 43
    Dream Big Dreams
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    thought, the bigger the dreams you dream, the bigger the goals you will achieve. All successful men and women are dreamers. All peak performers are what are called “blue-sky thinkers.”