Chapter Sixteen ~ HOW TO RAISE YOUR ENERGY LEVEL ~ Pilot No. 16
 

How is your energy level today? Did you wake up eager to face the tasks ahead? Did you push your chair back from the breakfast table with the feeling that you were rarin' to go? And did you plunge into your work with enthusiasm?
You didn't? Perhaps for some time now you just haven't had the vim and vigor you think you should have. Perhaps you feel tired before the day begins, and drag through your work without joy.

If so, let's do something about it!

Vernon Wolfe, track coach at North Phoenix High School in Phoenix, Arizona, is an expert who can show us what to do. He is one of the outstanding coaches in the country. Under his tutelage, several North Phoenix students have broken national prep school records.

How does he train these stars? Wolfe has a double prescription. He teaches them to condition both their minds and their bodies simultaneously.

"If you believe you can do it," says Vernon Wolfe, "most of the time you can. It's mind over matter."

You have two types of energy. One is physical, the other is mental and spiritual. The latter is by far the more important, for from your subconscious mind you can draw vast power and strength in time of need.

Think, for example, of the great feats of strength and endurance you've read about people performing while under the stress of intense emotion. There is an automobile accent and a husband is pinned under the overturned car. In her moment of fear and determination, his tiny and frail wife manages to raise the car enough to free him! Or the insane person, his mind dominated by his subconscious running wild, can break, lift, bend, and smash with a force he never could hope for during periods of normality.
 

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In a series of articles for Sports Illustrated, Dr. Roger Bannister told how he first broke the four-minute mile on May 6, 1954, by training both his mind and his muscles to accomplish this long-sought dream of the athletic world. For months, he conditioned his subconscious into the belief that the record, which some people claimed was unattainable, could be achieved. Others thought of the four-minute mark as a barrier. Bannister thought of it as a gateway which, if he once passed through, would open the way to many new records for himself and other milers.

And of course he was right. Roger Bannister led the way. In a period of little more than four years after he first set a four-minute mile, the feat was performed 46 times by himself and other runners! And in one race, at Dublin, Ireland, on August 6, 1958, five runners ran the mile in less than four minutes!

The man who taught Roger Bannister the secret was Dr. Thomas Kirk Cureton, director of the physical fitness laboratory at the University of Illinois. Dr. Cureton has developed revolutionary ideas concerning the body's energy level. They apply, he says, to both athletes and non-athletes. They can make a runner run faster and the average man live longer.

"There is no reason why," Dr. Cureton says, "any man can't be as fit at 50 as he was at 20 providing he knows how to train his body."

Dr. Cureton's system is based on two principles: (1) Train the whole body. (2) Push yourself to the limit of endurance, extending the limit with each workout.

"The art of record-breaking," he says, "is the ability to take more out of yourself than you've got. You punish yourself more and more and rest between spells."

Dr. Cureton became acquainted with Roger Bannister while running physical fitness tests on European athletic stars. He noticed that Bannister's body was wonderfully developed in some ways. For example, his heart was 25 per cent larger than normal in relation to his body size. But, in other ways, Bannister wasn't as well developed as the average man. Bannister took Cureton's advice to develop his whole body. He learned to condition his mind by taking up mountain climbing. This taught him how to overcome obstacles.

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Equally important, he learned to break big goals down into little ones. Roger Bannister reasoned that a man ran a single quarter mile faster than he ran the four quarters of a full mile. So he trained himself to think of the four quarters in the mile separately. In his training, he would dash a quarter mile, then jog a lap around the track to rest. Then he would dash another quarter mile. Each time, he aimed to run the quarter in 58 seconds or less. Fifty-eight times four equals 232 seconds, or three minutes and 52 seconds. He ran to the point of collapse. Then he would rest. Each time, the point of collapse was pushed back a little. When he finally ran his great race, it was in three minutes, 59.6 seconds!

Dr. Cureton taught Roger Bannister that "the more the body endures, the more it will endure." Beliefs about "overtraining" and "staleness," he says, are myths.

But he emphasizes that rest is as important as exercise and activity. The body needs to rebuild in even larger quantities what has been torn down in exercise. That's how strength, vitality,, energy are developed. The body and mind both recharge themselves during periods of rest and relaxation. If you don't give them a chance to do so, severe damage and even death can result.

Is it time to recharge your battery? There's no glory in being the richest man in the graveyard. You don't want to be the best scientist, doctor, executive, salesman, or employee lying prematurely under the most ornate headstone. A loved mother, wife, father, son, or daughter can bring happiness. Why then, bring grief, instead? Why be confined to a mental sanitarium or lie embalmed six feet under a blanket of beautiful green grass simply because a needless drain damaged a battery that wasn't recharged?

The small child doesn't know when he is excessively tired. But he surely shows it in his behavior and actions. The adolescent may realize he is over-fatigued, but refuse to admit it even to himself. Then sexual, family, scholastic, and social problems may seem unsolvable and unbearable. They may motivate him to temporary or permanent destructive acts acts that injure himself and others.

When your energy level is low, your health and your desirable characteristics may be subdued by the negative. You, like a storage battery, are dead when your energy level is zero. What is the solution? Recharge your battery? How? Relax, play, rest, and sleep!

How to tell when your battery needs recharging. Here is a checklist to help you determine your present energy level. You can use it whenever you feel that your energy level is slipping. If you are a well-balanced person, your battery may need recharging when you act and feel:

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________Unduly sleepy or tired.
________Tactless, unfriendly, suspicious.
________Querulous, insulting, hostile.
________Irritable, sarcastic, mean.
________Nervous, excitable, hysterical.
________Worrisome, fearful, jealous.
________Rash, ruthless, excessively selfish.
________Excessively emotional, depressed, or frustrated.

PMA demands a good energy level—and vice versa! When you are fatigued, your usually positive, desirable feelings, emotions, thoughts, and actions have a tendency to turn negative. When you are rested and in good health, the direction is changed back to positive. Fatigue often brings out the worst within you. When your battery is charged and your energy and activity level is up to standard, you are at your best! That is when you think and act with PMA!

If your feelings and actions indicate that your better qualities are being subdued by those which are undesirable and negative, it's time to recharge your battery!

Yes, to maintain your level of both physical and mental energy you need to exercise both your body and mind. But there is a third factor. Your body and mind both need to be fed properly. You help to maintain your physical body by taking in quantities of wholesome, nutritious foods. You maintain your mental and spiritual vigor by absorbing mental and spiritual vitamins from inspirational and religious books.

Vitamins necessary for a healthy mind and body! George Scarseth, Ph.D., Director of Research for the American Farm Research Association in Lafayette, Indiana, tells about a village on the seacoast of Africa. The village is more advanced than a community of similar tribes in the interior. Why? Because its inhabitants are physically stronger and more mentally alert they have more bodily energy than the interior tribesmen. The difference between the tribesmen on the coast and those living inland stems from a difference in diet. The village tribesmen in the interior do not have a sufficient amount of protein whereas those on the coast obtain quantities from the fish they eat.

In his book, Climate Makes the Man, Clarence Mills writes that the United States Government found some inhabitants of the Isthmus of Panama excessively sluggish in their mental and physical effect. the subconscious mind is like a better. From it,  you can obtain tremendous surges of mental and spiritual energy which often transmute themselves into physical vitality. These jolts of energy will go to waste of we permit them to be short-circuited by needless negative emotions. Bys used constructively, this energy cam multiply itself many times, just as a powerhouse generator produces vast amounts of useful power.

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activity. A scientific study disclosed that both the plant and animal Me, on which they depended for food, lacked the B vitamins. When thiamine was added to their diet, the same people became more energetic and active.

If you suspect that your diet is deficient in certain vitamins and elements so that your energy level is depressed, you should do something about it. A good cookbook can help you, and there are government pamphlets available at low cost. If the condition persists, have a physical checkup.

Like your body, your subconscious mind will accept and absorb mental and spiritual vitamins without effort. But, unlike your physical body, the subconscious will digest and retain unlimited quantities. Unlike your stomach, it never becomes stuffed! It will take and hold as much as you feed it and still hold more!

Where will you find these mental and spiritual vitamins? In books such as those recommended in Chapter 22, "The Amazing

William C. Lengel illustrated this point beautifully in an article for Success Unlimited magazine. Lengel, editor-in-chief of Crest Books and Premier Books for Fawcett Publications, described how energy is wasted through needless "worry, hate, fear, suspicion, anger, and rage."

"All these waste elements," he says, "could just as easily be transformed into power-producing units."

To illustrate his point, Mr. Lengel drew a picture of an electrical power plant: ". . . the open mouths of the furnaces, the red flames roaring inside, the water in the steam gauges bobbing at proper temperature level, the steam driving the pistons turning the great generators, the copper commutators golden surfaces revolving so fast they seem motionless, green and blue sparks flashing from under the brushes, thick cables hooked up to the switchboard, carrying the electric current throughout a city for thousands of useful purposes.

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"Then the other side of the picture," Lengel continued. "Same plant, same boilers, engines, generators. The only difference being that the switchboard was dark and the heavy cables, instead of being hooked up to the switchboard were stuck down into a barrel of water while the workmen ran tests on the plant. All of the power is, in effect, wasted. Not an elevator able to run, not a machine able to operate, not a single bulb able to light."

And Lengel concludes that in the same way "a failure uses up as much energy in his work at failing as a successful person uses in winning success."

Tommy Bolt, the golf champion, used to waste his energy that way. If he sliced a ball or missed the green, he would let go with a fit of temper. Frequently, he'd become so angry that he'd wrap a golf club around the nearest tree.

Then, in 1958, he read the famous prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. It changed him into a man who directs his energy into the most fruitful channels. The prayer gave Tommy new peace of mind and ever since then he has carried in his pocket a card imprinted with a portion of the prayer. It reads:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Man is the only member of the animal kingdom who, through the functioning of his conscious mind, can voluntarily control his emotions from within, rather than be forced to do so by external influences. He alone can deliberately change habits of emotional response. The more civilized, cultured, and refined you are, the easier you can control your emotions and feelings if you choose to do so.

Fear, for example, is good under certain circumstances. If it were not for fear of water, many children would drown. However, it is entirely possible that you are wasting your mental and spiritual energy in this or other misdirected emotions. If so, you can throw a switch to direct the energy into useful channels. How? By keeping your mind on the things you do want and off the things you don't want. Your emotions are immediately subject to action. Therefore, get into action. Substitute a positive feeling for the negative one. For example, if you are fearful and want to be courageous, act courageous!
If you want to be energetic, act energetic. But make sure, of course, that your energy is expended to a good and useful purpose.

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Dawn Fraser of Australia gives us a wonderful case in point. Born on the "wrong side of the tracks" in Balmain, a waterside suburb of Sydney, Dawn had an anemic body. But she had a king-size determination to become a great swimming champion. She became the world's fastest woman swimmer. She was good. But sometimes she wasn't quite good enough to satisfy herself.

While flying home from the Cardiff Empire Games, she read a book. It was Think and Grow Rich. "I found Napoleon Hill's formulas for success most inspiring," she says. "I began thinking about our defeat by the English girls in the medley relay when, in the freestyle leg, I swam 60.6 seconds. That was six-tenths of a second faster than my own world record, but still not good enough to give us the 12-yard start we needed. "I wondered whether I had given everything in me on that final lap."

Dawn Fraser began thinking about the dream she'd had for so long-to become the first woman to swim 100 meters in less than 60 seconds. "The Magic Minute," she called it.

"If I could have made that final leg in the magic minute, we might have won," she thought.

"From that moment the old hope of cracking the minute became a burning desire with me. Call it a controlled obsession if you like. I made it my major ambition and formed a plan of positive action with the magic minute as my goal. As Mr. Hill advises, I decided to go the extra mile-mentally as well as physically."

In addition to training her body, Miss Fraser now conditions her mind as well. Although she has yet to achieve her "Magic Minute" as of this writing, she has cracked record after record. Athletic coaches throughout Australia have been attracted to study Napoleon Hill's teachings, according to Thomas H. Wyngard, an Australian newspaperman.

"Top coaches, in their search for methods that will give their champions just that little bit extra over and above their regular scientifically devised training program, are finding new inspiration in the doctrines of the great American expert," Wyngard says.

"They are adapting Napoleon Hill's technique of mental approach to what is, essentially, a physical problem. Some have taken the PMA Science of Success course so they may apply the principles correctly."

Is it time for you to recharge your battery? Have you now begun to apply the principles presented in Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude? Are you ready to become a champion? If so, you will want to learn how you can enjoy good health and live longer the subject of our next chapter.

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11
Pilot No. 16
THOUGHTS TO STEER BY
HOW TO RAISE YOUR ENERGY LEVEL
 

1. How is your energy level at this moment?

2. What is your most important source of physical, mental, and spiritual energy?

3. How can you apply the principles Dr. Thomas Kirk Cureton taught to Roger Bannister so that you'll have extra energy to achieve your own goals?

4. Do you push to the limit of your endurance then rest and try again?

5. Is it time to recharge your battery?

6. How can you avoid or neutralize fatigue?

7. Are most of your meals based on well-balanced diets?

8. Do you take spiritual and mental vitamins daily by reading inspirational books?

9. Is your energy being directed toward useful channels? Or is it being short-circuited and wasted?

10. "A failure uses up as much energy in his work at failing as a successful person uses in winning success"

11. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

12. When is the emotion of fear justified? Unjustified?

13. To be energetic, act energetic!

KEEP YOUR MIND ON THE THINGS
YOU WANT
AND OFF
THE THINGS YOU DON'T WANT