第2章 INTRODUCTION

The Frog and the Princess

You are here on this earth to do something wonderful with your life, to experience happiness and joy, wonderful relationships, excellent health, complete prosperity, and total fulfillment. So, why aren't you living the life of your dreams already?

If you want to know the reasons for your happiness or unhappiness, success or lack of success, wins or losses, look in the nearest mirror. The quality of your thinking about whom you see in the mirror largely determines the quality of your life. If you change your thinking about yourself, you change your life—almost immediately.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, according to the fairy tale, a handsome prince was turned into an ugly frog by a spiteful witch. Her curse could be broken only if he was kissed by a princess, something the witch was sure would never happen.

Once upon that same time, a beautiful princess longed for a handsome prince she could marry, but he hadn't appeared in her life. One day, while walking alone in the woods by a small lake, she saw an ugly frog who was living in the woods. As the princess sat quietly by the water, thinking about her situation and longing for a handsome prince to come along, the frog hopped up to her and spoke.

He told her that he was actually a handsome prince, and if she would just kiss him, he would turn into the prince that he had been before and he would marry her and love her forever after.

The idea seemed absurd, but with great reluctance, she summoned up her courage and character and kissed the frog right on the lips.

As he had promised, he immediately turned into a handsome prince. He kept his word and married her, and they lived happily ever after.

The Moral of the Story

It seems that almost everyone has a block, or more than one, that holds him or her back from becoming a truly happy, healthy, joyful person, looking forward to each new day with excitement and anticipation.

What is the “frog” in your life that you need to “kiss” before you can achieve all that is possible for you? What are the negative experiences in your life that you need to embrace, deal with, and use to transform yourself into the amazing person you are capable of becoming?

What We All Want

The great aim of human life is to enjoy happiness and peace of mind. Every normal person wants to enjoy and experience the positive emotions of love, pleasure, satisfaction, and fulfillment.

Perhaps the greatest discovery in psychology and individual fulfillment is that the biggest obstacles that stand between you and an extraordinary life are usually negative mental attitudes toward yourself and others. Only when you learn to “kiss that frog,” continually making it a habit to seek and find something positive and worthwhile in every person and experience, will you unlock your full potential for success.

In this book, based on five thousand talks and seminars with more than five million people in fifty-eight countries (Brian), and many thousands of hours of work in counseling and psychology (Christina), you will learn a series of simple but powerful methods and techniques that you can use immediately to change from negative thinking to positive thinking and turn every problem in your life into a benefit of some kind. You will learn how to become a completely confident person and release your full potential to live an extraordinary life.

These tools and strategies have worked for millions of people all over the world, and they will work for you. Let's begin.