WILLPOWER

THE INTEGRITY OF THE SOUL

PETER J DANIELS

Willpower The Integrity Of The Soul
By Peter J Daniels

Text Copyright © 2010 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

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World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation
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Email: mail@wces.vu
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Other involvements:

www.havilahbullionbank.ch
www.peterjdaniels.com
www.grahamdaniels.vu
www.gabrielcall.com
www.danel.ch

To contact the author – Peter J Daniels:

peterjdaniels@peterjdaniels.com
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Phone: +61 8 8423 3060

EDUCATIONAL BOOKS

authored by

PETER J DANIELS

www.peterjdaniels.com

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH RICH ©1984 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

HOW TO REACH YOUR LIFE GOALS © 1985 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

HOW TO BE MOTIVATED ALL THE TIME © 1985 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

HOW TO HANDLE A MAJOR CRISIS © 1987 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

HOW TO HAVE THE AWESOME POWER OF PUBLIC SPEAKING © 1988 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

MISS PHILLIPS, YOU WERE WRONG…a formula to handle rejection. © 1989 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

GLOBAL SURVEY INTO MULTI LEVEL MARKETING © 1992 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN DYNAMIC MISSION STATEMENT THAT WORKS © 1994 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

LIVING ON THE EDGE (autobiography of Peter J Daniels) © 2003 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

A CHRISTIAN CODE OF CONDUCT – the missing link © 2009 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

WILLPOWER – the integrity of the soul. © 2010 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

authored by

PETER J DANIELS

www.peterjdaniels.com

DESTINY OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM (major tutorial program with diploma) © 1989 World Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies Foundation

authored by

GRAHAM K DANIELS

www.grahamdaniels.vu

THE WAY I SEE IT… “a world view on fortune, family and future” © 2006 Graham Daniels

PETER J. DANIELS

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STATESMAN

Dr Peter Daniels is a man who gets things done with a minimum of fuss, whether they are international business or his many Christian involvements.

Often referred to as “a Christian business statesman to the world”, he conducts all his affairs with a sense of urgency and completion.

He is progressive, yet conservative, determined, but not foolhardy, and has a futuristic global mindset and gives hands-on attention to daily duties.

The substance and scope of his many books and success programs express his unique business acumen and his debt-free lifestyle.

His rags to riches life story, Living on the Edge, and other information about him and his benevolence can be found on the website www.danel.ch

FOREWORD

God has privileged me with rich fellowship with Dr Peter Daniels from the early days following his dramatic conversion when by faith he received our Lord Jesus Christ. His stonemason and bricklaying skills, plus his lack of a normal education, did not apparently prepare him for his broad-spectrum ministry of preaching, lecturing and writing. However, God’s Spirit has fashioned this man with extraordinary intellectual and spiritual perception. He deeply loves his Saviour and willingly submits to his Lord. He has emulated Joshua, who said, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

His growing grasp of the Word of God qualified Peter Daniels for business life, initially with recurrent failure, until his momentous transition into the real estate world. Christian leaders have recognised God’s unique presence with Peter Daniels, while the commercial world has acknowledged his extraordinary abilities. He has followed Caleb, who was not daunted by opposition in the Promised Land and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it” (Numbers 13:30).

Decisiveness has always featured in Peter Daniels’ resilient fight for truth and righteousness.

I warmly commend the studious reading of this excellent book.

Harrold Steward, MB BS (Adel)

ROMANS 7:15-25

For what I am doing, I do not understand.

For what I will to do that I do not practice;

but what I hate, that I do.

If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with

the law that it is good.

But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that

dwells in me.

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing

good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how

to perform what is good I do not find.

For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the

evil I will not to do, that I practice.

Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I

who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the

one who wills to do good.

For I delight in the law of God according to the

inward man.

But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

I thank God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

PREFACE

Have you ever lain awake at night and, while, looking at the ceiling, wondered what your life could have been? Have you ever contemplated what, but for a deviation here or and obstacle there, you would be doing now and how your life would have been different? Have you ever examined the decisions you have made and those you should have made? Have you ever considered why certain decisions were made? Why you did this or did not do that?

What was the motivation that brought you to where you are today, and why are you not somewhere else?

Did you have some great grand plan for your life? And if so, does it still exist? In other words what was… is… or could be the force that directs your life?

Some would say circumstances, others would say the climate and the times in which we live… but could it be choice?

Maybe you trust in God or providence to guide you. If so, how is this guidance received and what compass do you use to differentiate between stop and go?

I think we all understand that God has never robotised the mind of man - in fact you can think or do whatever you want so long as you don’t violate the laws of God or the rights of your fellow man. Taking charge is paying more attention to your conscience than to your feelings, circumstances, opposition or opportunities. Taking charge is having the courage to exercise your God-given difference, which means that you can dare to dream, dare to do and dare to finish the job.

Think about it for a moment. In a sense, we all wear masks, we are many people. I am the man that I make out I am, I am also the man that my family believes I am, I am the man in private that I really am, I am the man that I seek to hide from you, and somewhere inside I am the man that I would really like to be. All these different men I am to different people and under different circumstances depend on one single factor, and that is the way I adjust my conscience to allow me to reveal what I am to those who meet me.

You don’t have to be old to look back over the days gone by and to review the happenchance of events, trying to reconstruct the course of things in different ways and measure them by different scales of value. In doing so, you can try to conduct some kind of moral searching review to make sense of it all and to come to grips with the fluid movements of your conscience.

But we generally try to escape from what in all good conscience should have been done.

It is your life. Take ownership. Accept responsibility. Stop finger-pointing and be scrupulously honest with yourself. Develop a “no let out” conscience that rejects all false justification or the sloppy imitation of some one else’s behaviour.

The great Aristotle said, “We become brave by doing brave acts.” Being courageous is not a thought it is an act of the will and the body. A contemporary of Aristotle called Demosthenes would shave off half the hair on his head when he made a commitment to himself as a constant reminder of his pledge to do what he had committed to do.

I sincerely believe that we honour God and ourselves when we carry out our personal, mental and verbal commitments. But we strengthen the chains of dishonour when we refuse to take our commitment in a vice-like grip and demonstrate it to the world.

After all is said and done, a great deal more is said than done. The Bible says a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways and asks who can know him. In a sense, it is saying if we don’t keep our commitments then we cannot even trust ourselves.

One of the reasons we don’t take charge of our lives is that we want someone else to point the way ahead, and if we follow that line of thinking, we tend to lose our sense of responsibility.

To reflect on your life, ask yourself the question, “Am I now the person that I really want to be? Or have my dreams lost their potency - have my dreams been swallowed up by bad decisions and debt and money problems? Have my dreams disappeared because of neglect, or am I bound by the rusty shackles of the past, or am I simply mothballed by fear.

The great philosopher Rollo May spoke of the “cowardice of conformity”.

There is a higher law than objectivity, situation ethics or reason, it is called conscience. Many of the great thinkers, philosophers and writers throughout history have had much to say about it. Tennyson spoke about conscience and called it “a still small voice that spoke to me”. Saint Augustine said, “Conscience and reputation are two things, conscience is to yourself, reputation is to your neighbour.”

Another great thinker called Victor Cousin said, “He who loses his conscience has nothing left worth keeping.”

Is your God-given conscience dictating your movement through life or are you adjusting your conscience to adapt to your weaknesses? In business, we would put it in different terms. We often ask the question, “Are you a wandering generality or a meaningful specific?”

Your willpower harnessed to your character will make the difference.

20 May 2010

CHAPTER 1: THE WILL DETERMINES THE INTEGRITY OF THE SOUL

Since time began, mankind has continually struggled with conflicts in the mind. Our needs and wants are affected by the shifting sands of our emotions, fears and desires and the uncertainties of life. We all face the struggles of life until the day we die.

As Christians we boast about the power of the Holy Spirit we possess, we flaunt our faith in preaching and in song, we challenge unbelievers with the doctrine of everlasting life, and we emphasise a glorious virgin birth that the world calls a figment of our imagination. Yet in reality our fear threshold is easily reached, and when our claims are challenged our boldness is often reduced to timidity and our long-term plans are either nonexistent or mysteriously vague. Meanwhile, our unity resembles that of an army in retreat, rather than an army in advance, and we often compete with one another rather than co-operating.

We Christians, as a body of people, try to present ourselves as confident in our beliefs and competent in our responsibilities, but as individuals, we appear to be punch-drunk and confused about our personal plans and purposes. We use fashionable “Christianese” in our speech in an effort to explain our faith and actions, but we avoid numerical measurements, timetables and clarity, seeing these as an affront to spirituality.

These problems are not new, as they were prevalent in the early church and have haunted Christians through two millenniums. The underlying mindset is so entrenched in our psyche that we either excuse it or ignore it. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews understood this problem, and in chapter 11 he reminded his readers of the greats of old, who because of their willpower and obedience, did miraculous deeds and acts of faith and whose names are recorded in the hall of faith.

By their faith, these men and women exercised their will never to despair, never to retreat, and never to give in to unbelief. They were an inspiration and example to those who were struggling at that time, just as they have been to others down through the centuries.

Sixteen people of faith are mentioned by name in Hebrews chapter 11 - Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel - and others are anonymous. They did great acts of heroism and endured horrific trials, and some experienced torture, violent death and martyrdom. Nevertheless, they persevered in faith and “hung in there”, sometimes not experiencing deliverance during their lifetimes. The Bible says, “the world was not worthy of them”. Because of their faith, they exercised their willpower even when nothing made any sense and there was no relief in sight. They did not waver or hesitate to stand firm, because they knew that through their faith and willpower they could persevere and so be victorious at the final curtain.

Daniel’s three friends believed and told King Nebuchadnezzar that their God was able to save them from the fiery furnace, and added, “but even if he doesn’t you may be sure we will not worship your god”.

Willpower is the indispensable companion of faith, and faith provides the spiritual and biblical foundation for willpower.

High achievers in any field of endeavour have a strong willpower and are often misunderstood and accused of being arrogant by those who overlook the very important principle that “the will determines the integrity of the soul”.

Mohandas Gandhi called the power of the will satyagraha which means “soul force”. When he faced the might of the British Empire that was oppressing the Indian people with unjust laws, Gandhi stood resilient, unshaken and unmoved. He stood all alone against an overwhelming power and said defiantly: “You may throw me into prison and I will not strike a blow; you may torture me and even break my bones, but I will not retaliate; you may even kill me, but then what have you got? You have only my body, you do not have my obedience.”

Diminished or absent willpower in any individual is very sad to behold because, for that individual, nothing is final or solid, everything is unstable, there is no principle or anchor for life except blind unreliable instinct and situation ethics. Willpower must be developed in the secret corridors of the mind, where we find dreams, fantasies, hopes, opinions, and thoughts about how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us.

It is here that our integrity dwells and it is here that our personal value system is developed. Strangely enough, this reveals itself by our professed beliefs and the way we outlive the secret commitments we make to ourselves in terms of measureable results and timeframes.

We may tend to keep commitments that have been made publicly, exposed or written down provided they can be fitted into the confines of our secret value system, which often has justifiable “let-out” clauses, which we have used before, and which we will use again in the future.

Integrity in relation to our personal willpower can be measured at several levels. For instance, the integrity we practice with someone we respect, admire or love can be quite different from the integrity we practice towards someone we dislike or a business or sporting competitor or an overbearing government official. We may even base our value system on what we consider to be the limits of what we can get away with to obtain an advantage.

A strong willpower overcomes the restraints, blockages and hindrances that stand in the way of the fulfilment of an objective, and in the long run and the final analysis, commitment to oneself may have a deeper meaning than anything else.

At times, we all miss the mark of our high calling, but a continual breakdown of our willpower is inexcusable. It robs us of all satisfaction and makes us less than we were designed to be in a world where more is expected of those who claim to have a Christian faith.

A lack of willpower is high on the list of causes of failure in achievement, whereas a strong willpower enables us to exceed our good intentions, extend our ability, and eventually push through the thick clouds of academia. Without willpower we become cowards, hiding in the shadows, without examining our lives for inconsistencies, and living by clichés and false predictions.

A weak willpower usually hides in the obscurity of conformity, and within that sphere it remains smothered in the shadows, where performance and discipline are seldom required. To be real, our integrity needs to be demonstrated by visible and impacting action, which requires an act of the will and measurable goals. Without some kind of measurable applications, we will live lies that feed on human hope and trust in make-believe, and we will seek solace in the company of likeminded sympathetic people.

Willpower allows you to stand erect and brace yourself with confidence against an unsettled vacillating world. It enables you by your steadfast personal resolve to draw others towards you, who will find security in the power of your reputation.

Many times in my long life I have seen men and women of stature, fame and prominence destroyed because of a lapse of discipline that ruined their reputation, destroyed their authority and, at times, left them financially impoverished and friendless.

We all need to be on guard against bad choices and inappropriate behaviour and involvements. We must stand sentinel at the gate of our minds, challenging thoughts as they enter and measuring those thoughts by their possible consequences, if we want to avoid ongoing problems and painful outcomes. Guard your reputation against your own frailties and seductive opportunities. Assess everything against the highest possible value system, bearing in mind that repair is a poor substitute for prevention.

Never overlook the fact that your reputation will be continually scrutinised, and you need to be on guard against any infringement of your value system from within or without. There are several practical ways in which we can do this, and I would now like to share with you a method for protection against intrusion or damage that I have used in my own life.

During my early struggles to get my life into order, I did several things that were very helpful. From time to time, I would be involved in discussion with other young men who were aspiring to become successful, and often the conversation would focus on goals and objectives and the means to attain these, together with principles, plans and purposes. Often, during our tense and sometimes fanciful discussions, we would ask each other questions to test our goals, plans and purposes against our ideas and principles, trying to gain insights that might assist us in our struggle to build something of consequence in our own lives.

My very strong work ethic seemed to be at odds with my lack of ability and understanding, and I made an almost reckless commitment to study and learn from more experienced older men. I found this gave me a sense of caution that is still with me today. Also, while others were searching for the principles of success, I created a list of the things I was prepared to fail in, so that as my first and highest priority, I could protect my reputation as a husband, father and Christian business man. My ability to adhere to the list of things I was prepared to fail in was to be tested on many occasions.

I struggled with disappointments and failures, but most dangerous of all was success and the measure of fame that followed. I was to discover that power and ambition can easily create a breeding ground for deceit.

I was always prepared to fail rather than deny my faith or become unfaithful to my wife or be disrespectful to my family, and these things were put to the test during the many years that followed.

I give the credit for the results that have been achieved over the years to an unfailing Saviour, who through the Holy Spirit gave me the will to keep the faith, irrespective of circumstances and cultural changes. I can now see and say with all confidence that the will determines the integrity of the soul. For you, it will be the same. Now could be the time to take serious stock of your own integrity and willpower and to do what you need to do in terms of keeping to timeframes and refraining from justifying exceptions. You should always under commit and over perform and keep sensible reserves in all things as a preparation for delays or errors or being let down by someone else.

My final advice, as I close this chapter, is never enter a contract, make a commitment, or offer your endorsement unless you have complete and absolute understanding of the situation; otherwise, you could be taken down a road you do not want to go. In the full and final analysis, however, you need to understand that the more you insulate yourself against risk, the more you insulate yourself against success.

CHAPTER 2: THE WILL IS A LONELY COMPANION

Some years ago I was invited to speak at a Bible college to students who were being prepared for ministry as pastors and missionaries. These very lively young people were eager and hungry to learn, and as a Christian businessman, I was invited to share with them my thoughts on the power and burden of commitment.

During a very enthusiastic question time the conversation moved to more mundane subjects, such as being late for meetings and how long one should wait for the latecomers to arrive before starting a meeting. While all this was taking place, one young lady remarked that some mornings she found it difficult to hurry and needed more time to prepare, and almost as soon as she said that, two others in the group spoke up and said they had the same problem. At that point they looked to me to provide some input. Looking directly at the young lady who had spoken first, I challenged them by saying, “Now you have heard that other students feel the same way as you do about finding it difficult to arrive on time, doesn’t that make you feel better?” To which they all replied with an emphatic “Yes”. I then said to them, “Now that you have some other people in agreement with you, hasn’t that taken the obligation away from you to make the correction?” The slow, quiet and thoughtful response was, “Yes, I guess it has.”

Our willpower is not always in disagreement with others, but when it is in disagreement, the will stands alone and does not require any agreement other than the assurance of a clear conscience and a firm conviction. To stand alone creates no anguish in oneself if you are captured by a thought, situation or challenge that encompasses your inner being to the point that you can clearly see what is right and what needs to be done. In my recollection of history, greatness has never been produced by a committee or a group of people who generated an idea, discovery or change without first being stimulated by one who stood alone and in doing so was a provocateur to others.

In a group, you can experience relationships, comfort, a sharing of burdens, a listening ear, a conversational sounding board, a refreshing pause to reminisce, and the interaction of human company.

However, a remarkable strength is developed when you stand alone, because standing alone demands that you rethink your position, flush out any lingering doubts, and create new and undeveloped strategies. Winston Churchill stood alone for six years as a radical parliamentary alarmist against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement, and at that time many of his friends and colleagues distanced themselves from him, claiming he was a warmonger, who was past his time and should quietly retire.

Churchill was so sure of his stand and the claims that he was asserting that he cleverly and persistently became stronger on his own than he probably would have done if there had been a group behind him. As a matter of fact, for the most part, his parliamentary colleagues were so tired and weary by his persistent claims that it came to the point where they tried to have him removed from parliament.

If Churchill had not stood his ground alone as he gathered and sought ever increasing information and evidence, he would never had become the Prime Minister of Great Britain and one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century.

Be sure of your ground, examine your motives, accept that phone calls may not be returned, and letters and emails may not be answered. Remember that the minority almost always initiate what is right; whereas the majority may confirm what is right, but they rarely initiate it.

Sometime ago my son and I were driving from our country estate down to the city and during our time together we recalled the very clear predictions we had made ten years earlier in respect to the coming worldwide recession. We were convinced that the United States of America’s economy would collapse and many banks and institutions would become insolvent, and that the catastrophic effects would be felt by the rich middle class and the poor throughout the entire world.

Our predictions were so clear and mathematically accurate that my son and his friend produced an award winning film called Millennium Money based on all the predictions that would eventuate over the next ten to twelve years. On that beautiful drive down to the city, only a few months after the beginning of the economic fallout and with much more to come, I remarked to my son, “This is one time I feel there is no pleasure in being right.”

If you do have sufficiently strong willpower and convictions, you are going to be lonely even in a crowd, because it is not an absence of people that makes you lonely, it is an absence of others who share your perspectives, plans and measurable goals. Being alone in the confines of your will sets you apart and removes you from the suffocating conformity of the masses, where thoughts and progress are limited, individuality is stifled, and the will of the individual is smothered.

Business leaders and developers only come on the scene after an individual has created a theme, produced a product, or declared a commitment. That is why it all has to start in the mind of an individual who has an unshakeable will and is prepared to stand alone. The history of the Christian church is filled with stories of individuals who stood alone, only to be martyred, ridiculed or scorned, but through it all, set a high standard of conviction and achievement as they obeyed their heavenly calling. Wyclif, Luther, Calvin and, in more recent times, Spurgeon, Whitefield and Moody were all men who stood alone and performed remarkable deeds against public opinion and very often against the orthodox church of their day. They faced unpopularity, resentment and opposition, as they stood alone against unimaginable odds.

When you stand alone, it is important that you study and research what you are doing or are about to do, because in some cases, it seems that the preference for being alone has very little to do with the will, but rather represents an unwillingness to face criticism or correction. Many times, on large issues, I have been prepared to go on television to debate my point of view and even, at times, to confront an angry crowd. This made me reexamine my facts and opinions in minute detail to make sure I was not just being bullheaded or unwilling to accept that I was wrong.

Some years ago, my personal position on some issues created an interesting television one-hour special. As I sat in a television studio, confronted by almost fifty people opposing me, I was questioned, and it seemed as if I was being interrogated before a national television audience on questions covering many political, religious, social and financial issues of the day. I have generally found such occasions stimulating, and this was no exception, because the opposition came from people of a multitude of ages and ethnic and cultural backgrounds, which made it relatively easy for me to break them up into groups that soon opposed each other. They wavered because their will was fluid and neither reasoned nor strong.

Many great thinkers are left alone to ponder their thoughts and consider their actions because they are thinking the unthinkable and even the unimaginable. For many years, as a Bible student, I was convinced that Jesus was not as poor as many people had portrayed Him to be and that many of His disciples were in business, and yet I was scoffed at by some very pious believers. When I paid for and received research on that subject, it was not surprising to me that the gold, frankincense and myrrh given to Jesus were of very significant value, and as He was growing up, there was a considerable building boom in the area where He lived and worked.

It seemed that no one had thought to seriously investigate the wealth of Jesus for two thousand years. It would appear that the poverty mentality is more convenient to some, because if you follow that philosophy, it means you don’t have to perform, and if you don’t perform you don’t earn, and if you don’t earn you can’t give, and the devil has the upper hand.

When you think “out of the box” you are bound to be alone until your idea becomes acceptable, believable, necessary or doable. While the loneliness of the person with a strong will is beyond dispute, there are some positives. For instance, when you exercise your will, others may, through disagreement, fear or disbelief, find themselves unable to stand with you. This frees you from having to depend on their moral stance or reliability, and you are all alone to flex the muscles of your own certainty and moral fortitude without having to look over your shoulder to see if someone else feels the same way as you do.

In difficult times, it may be hard to remember that God is committed to your development, but when you stand with the saints of old, you can always be assured of the validity and reliability of the Word of God.

My friend Sir Bruce Small (now deceased) was for a time like a surrogate father to me. He was a strong Christian, who with his great vision, ability and strong will, became one of Australia’s most famous entrepreneurs and philanthropists. Sir Bruce Small built the largest bicycle manufacturing business in the southern hemisphere before he went into real estate in a very big way. One of his specialties was draining swamp lands and replacing them with waterways and canals, thereby creating building sites which were to become premier desired locations in Australia.

In the 1960s a severe credit squeeze hit Australia. Money was hard to get and banks were reluctant to lend, but Sir Bruce persevered, though almost alone. He introduced a better product, majored on his considerable marketing skills and, at the same time, had an upbeat attitude, a smile on his face, and an encouraging word for everyone he had contact with.

Unfortunately the credit squeeze lasted for several years, but Sir Bruce remained resilient and optimistic while all those around him were talking gloom and doom and urging him to quit. Some years later, when he was to become one of the wealthiest men in our country, he thanked the banks for sticking with him during that long and difficult financial journey, and he told them that sometimes he had “hung in there by the skin of his teeth” and that he could easily have gone bankrupt several times.

The banks were shocked as they realised the truth of that statement and told him that, because of his strong will and his cheerful disposition, they had thought everything was fine and that there was no problem, and therefore they believed he was a good risk.

So what is the lesson? Simply that the will is a lonely companion. But it can also be a faithful companion and an inspiring friend when you internalise its power through wise and careful management.

As I come to the close of this chapter I want to leave you with some sound and tested advice. There will come times when you are numerically overwhelmed, ostracised, marginalised, without friends and outvoted. You are all alone with your will and your convictions, undisturbed by crowds or supporters, your spirit is down, your mind is blank, and your body is exhausted. You have done all you can and there is not one stone left to turn over. It is then that you need to affirm in a loud and confident voice the following words based on Ephesians chapter 6 verse 13, “Having done all, I will stand.” Then, in time, you will see everything fall into place, and you will become a greater you and develop a better perspective.

CHAPTER 3: THE WILL DEVELOPS ITS OWN POWER FORCE THAT INCREASES IN ADVERSITY

It is amazing how the will develops an unseen, irrefutable power by just being what it is, irrespective of the size or reputation of an individual. Issues can be variable, the opposing forces massive and stakes considerable, but they can be, and often are, subdued and conquered by willpower. The interesting thing is that you cannot see it, touch it or package it, and rarely can you subdue it. The power of the will can be activated by words, actions, threats or silence, and yet we find it hard to create and difficult to change. It can determine matters of life and death or simply determine to keep a timeframe. Through the power of the will, we have conquered mountains, tamed rivers, built skyscrapers, gone to the moon, and healed sicknesses.

Willpower has also won wars, created fortunes, saved lives and made geniuses, and yet we still know very little about its structure or its limits. Willpower has two powerful enemies that can destroy it, obstruct it, or minimise the effectiveness of its focus; they are unfettered power and fear. The hardest willpower to enforce is the will to exercise absolute power, which can blot out mistakes, camouflage wrong and deny truth. The fear factor can cause vacillation and uncertainty, exaggerate events, and destroy plans and morale.

These two very dangerous enemies of the will can creep up on you, pounce on you, gnaw away at your strength, and play games with your imagination. They can attack you at night, when you are sick or receive some bad news, and particularly, when you are exhausted. At these times, you must avoid making major decisions or changing direction, and you must be careful in whom you confide, because at a later date what you have shared may be used against you.

The mysteries of the will are many and varied. They may disguise and hide themselves so we underestimate their power, when in fact, we would be awed by seeing their ability to double and even triple the outcomes that the status quo would expect.

How often have you observed people under stress trying to complete a task with very little success, until suddenly somebody they do not like scoffs at them, or they overhear a remark that they will never be able to achieve what they set out to do, and then they push out their chin, double their efforts and succeed brilliantly?

During my life I have sometimes seen those rare individuals in whom the intensity of willpower force grows in proportion to the size and extent of the adversity that is trying to overwhelm them. In these people, in a very real way, the will develops its own power force relative to the demands made upon it.

How can your willpower force be harnessed? I think it will be helpful for us to look at a somewhat comical illustration, which includes a great lesson. One of the most stubborn creatures known to mankind is the donkey. If the animal does not want to move you can push it, pull it, hit it, seduce it and even frighten it, but all to no avail, because you are failing to deal with the “chemistry” that makes the donkey stubborn. So this is what you do, you reach down to the ground and take a handful of dirt and some small pebbles and force these inside the mouth and onto the gums of the animal. This will irritate the donkey and make it so concerned about what is happening in its mouth that you can usually lead it wherever you want. So what is the lesson? It is simply this: if you want to succeed when you are opposing someone with a will as strong as yours, you must find an irritating distraction and get their mind off the target, then make your move very quickly.

In general terms, a strong willpower usually produces enough energy to get the job done, whereas a weak willpower seeks a scapegoat and doesn’t succeed. The level of the willpower tends to balance the scales for or against itself.

In seminars I occasionally demonstrate how the will develops its own power force in a very practical way by asking for a volunteer who is a family man, working in a menial job on a low wage. The demonstration goes something like this:

PJD:

Do you love your family?

Volunteer:

Yes.

PJD:

Have you ever earned a million dollars a year?

Volunteer:

No.

PJD:

Why haven’t you?

Volunteer:

I don’t know how.

PJD:

Do you think you’ll make a million dollars this coming year?

Volunteer:

Definitely not.

PJD:

I know you have a wife and three children, is that correct? You love them all very much?

Volunteer:

Of course I do.

PJD:

What if your wife and children were put up against a wall with a machine gun pointing at them and you were told that if you did not make a million dollars in two years then they would all be executed? And what if this was just not a demonstration but reality? Your wife and children would be looking at you pleading and feeling powerless. What would your response be? Would you, in that kind of life and death situation, make a million dollars?

Volunteer:

Yes, of course I would.

And the audience applauds.

And here is my point: most people in that kind of situation would dig deep into their subconscious and try to develop a plan to rescue their family and so somehow would create additional ability, but they would be unwilling to endure the pain involved in developing such strong willpower without a major crisis. The fact is that in simple terms “pain is weakness escaping”.

During a television interview some years ago I was asked the secret of my success, and I replied that there were many things that had contributed to my position in life. The interviewer asked me to name just one, and my answer was simple: “The willingness to endure pain.” Willpower develops its own power force, and in the process, we have to endure the pain of study, work, risk, embarrassment, failure, rejection and persistence against the odds.

The twentieth century was a time of contrasts. It included the great global economic recession in the 1930s that led to soup kitchens and bread lines in many cities around the world, but it also created incredible progress in air travel, medical breakthroughs, and landing on the moon. It stimulated great discoveries and developments in communication, including computers and personal cell phones. There were two world wars and many other conflicts in different countries for different reasons.

The twentieth century also produced some extremely powerful leaders. Two of these in particular can teach us all a relevant lesson. These two men loved their countries and distinguished themselves on the battle field. Both of them had a sense of history, and they were both incredible strategists and powerful magnificent orators. They could move nations by the spoken word and had seemingly unimaginable willpower, which they were prepared to exercise to the point of victory or death. These two powerful men came into deep and serious conflict with one another and eventually the whole world became involved - tens of millions of lives were lost, and cities and indeed whole countries were destroyed. The resolve of these two men taught us a permanent lesson that will be talked about, studied, examined and marveled at for a thousand years. Their names were Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill, and they had some marked similarities in spite of their very different backgrounds.

Adolf Hitler appeared in the most famous documentaries of that era, called The Triumph of the Will, put together by a remarkable woman named Leni Riefenstahl. The result was a breathtaking film recording the 1934 Nuremberg Nazi rally. It was a significant milestone in the world of cinema and film directors regard it as one of the most outstanding documentaries ever made. This documentary shows how Adolf Hitler, with his great mastery of language, presence and dramatic style, was able to galvanise and ignite the nation of Germany for world conquest. I have seen this film many times, and every time I see it, I am moved by the force and power of the will of this man, which is all at once infectious, frightening, over-whelming and exciting.

At the same time, on the other side of Europe, separated by the twenty-two miles of the English Channel, was another man named Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. He saw the impending danger of what was taking place in Germany and spoke out, but no one would listen to him. The awesome power of Hitler’s rhetoric and the gigantic, ever expanding military might that was being developed caused a sense of fear and awe in Germany’s neighbouring countries and elsewhere around the world. But Winston Churchill was strong and resolute and continued to speak out about it with great courage and conviction.

At that time, Churchill was marginalised by his Prime Minister and through the newspapers because he was only an ordinary parliamentarian, albeit with some prominence because of his past achievements. However, within a few short years, Churchill’s alarming speeches in parliament and the associated newspaper reports were having a big effect. He gained almost national support because of his clear and statistical predictions about the reality of what was to take place.

The final master stroke was when Churchill was appointed (not elected) Prime Minister in a desperate, breathtaking strategic short round-table discussion between three men that lasted less than half an hour. At that point, a man of destiny who had a will as strong as Hitler’s was thrust into the arena. The first major speech that Churchill made moved his own country to immediate action and reverberated around the world, uniting and strengthening the resolve of millions of threatened people and nations as never before.

Now as we compare some of Adolf Hitler’s and Winston Churchill’s speeches in a brief condensed form, you will be amazed at the similarity. In a major speech to the German people, Hitler said:

“For six years now I have been working on the building up of German defences, and I am from now on just first soldier of the German Reich. I have once more put on that coat that was the most sacred and dear to me, and I will not take it off again until victory is secured, or I will not survive the outcome. Just as I myself am ready at any time to stake my life - anyone can take it for my people and for Germany - so I ask the same of all others. There is only one watchword for this struggle: faith in this people. One word I have never learned is ‘surrender’. If we form a community closely bound together by vows, ready for anything, resolved never to surrender, then our will will master every hardship and difficulty … and I would like to close with the declaration that I once made, ‘If our will is so strong that no hardship and suffering can subdue it, then our will and our German might shall prevail.’ “

Now, in comparison, let’s look at what Winston Churchill had to say at the same time. And I quote:

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terrors. Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves for our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘this was their finest hour.’”

History records the final outcome - on the morning of 7th of May 1945 Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was awakened with the news that Germany had surrendered unconditionally, and hence the battle and the conflict between the wills of two strong men was over.

I have given you a very concise real picture of two very strong wills. The question you may well ask is, “Who had the stronger will?” Many would suggest Winston Churchill, but I don’t necessarily agree. In the beginning, his country was not prepared and was ill-equipped and had no real strategy, whereas most of the German generals were better equipped and also better trained. However, there was another very significant factor.

Winston Churchill had a “moral compass”, which guided his actions and deeds, whereas Adolf Hitler had no moral compass and his method was to tell big lies, which he thought were more likely to be believed. In the words of the great Marcus Aurelius, “Truth conquers everything.” There lies the difference. A moral compass will always provide a spotlight to guide the way, but without this bright light to guide, the will loses its authority, focus and power.

CHAPTER 4: THE WILL HAS A FUTURISTIC VIEW OF EVENTS

The frontiers of science, medicine and economics will all be conquered, but if you cannot or will not look to the future you are playing dice in the game of uselessness. Wrestling with the prospects of the future involves mental, spiritual and visionary energy. Whenever you see a motivated and driven human being, you will discover that the motivation comes from a sense of great things to come.

The Bible tells us that without vision people perish, and yet when you talk to people about their vision, if they have any at all, it is usually minor and uncertain. Madame Chiang Kai-shek is reported to have said, “We live in the present, we dream of the future and we learn eternal truths from the past.”

It is a strange quirk of life that transcends all national and cultural background which expectantly believes that the next generation will remedy the faults, failings and problems of the present. As I sit down with people of my own age, many of whom I have known for over fifty years, they talk about what the younger generation needs to do to prepare for the years ahead, but they overlook the fact that they themselves are what I call “minimalists”, which means they only do what is necessary to produce instant gratification without too much effort. That is the legacy they have left to the next generation by their own example.

While I am writing this book, the global politicians are almost at panic point as they struggle with the enormous amount of cash needed to fund the ageing population in the western world, which is growing rapidly as people are living much longer. At the same time the birth rate has fallen to a catastrophically low level, which means there will not be enough working taxpayers to provide funds for the aged. This is not new, and it did not take us by surprise. If you conduct research, this crisis has been talked about by educators and politicians for at least forty years, but no plans have been put in place to address it. It is one thing to look into the future, but it requires a different mindset to focus on the problem and create a plan to solve it.

Some years ago, my son Graham and I were asked to be guests at a board meeting of a large prominent Christian institution, and as the business of the day proceeded, it became quite obvious that the organisation was in deep financial difficulties and they were appealing to me to assist them. The amount of money required was very significant, and it appeared that the debt had been accelerating at a frightening pace, with little hope of recovery in sight. My simple response took them by surprise - I asked them to show me their twenty-year goals plan. They replied, “We do not have a twenty-year goals plan.” To which I further responded, “Then it seems to me that you will not be around in twenty years’ time, so why should anyone want to finance you?” The outcome was quite predictable – because that institution did not have any long-term future plans, it was eventually taken over by others who did. The future has no break-up point and is waiting to be harnessed, revealed and endured by dreamers and visionaries seeking to venture into the future. This is what elevates us well above the animal kingdom.

Those of us who seek to grow and are prepared to challenge the status quo will receive the rewards of progress, leaving behind those who are merely finger pointing to the extended future.

Dr Northcote Parkinson, one of the world’s great thinkers, said, “Work tends to expand to the time available for completion.” This describes the lives of men and women growing old in discontentment who have delayed following their dreams by excuses and justifications.

There is a special group of people called counsellors who assess students, recommend fields of endeavour that would be suitable for them, and advise them about their future prospects. Through this service, students are provided with a mental road map that could act as a stimulus and guide as they seek to make something of their lives in the outside world, away from the rigidity and expectations of academia. There are also people called futurologists who spend all their lives in careful study and reasoned thinking, examining history and growth patterns of the past to enable them to obtain some guidance as to how the world will be in fifty or even a hundred years’ time.

Many of the predictions made years ago have already been exceeded and some were far from being accurate, but if we don’t envisage, contemplate and plan ahead we will exist on the worn out repetitions of the past. The best is yet to be in lifestyle, energy, products and medicine; so dream about the future and how you can contribute to it and don’t expect other people to pay or even participate in your dream. It is yours, and yours alone, to fulfil.

I am saddened by people who have spent a lifetime dreaming about building an orphanage or creating some sort of helpful or benevolent organisation, but they want someone else to donate the money for it. That is why so many dreams are never realised. When we believe that God wants something to be done and He gives us a vision, I believe this includes the privilege and responsibility of financing the vision.

In biblical times there was a young man called Joseph who was called a dreamer. At times he was envied by his older brothers. Joseph dreamed of power, greatness and wealth to the point that his own father asked him the question one day, “What is this dream that you have?” We know that the lad was sold into slavery by his brothers, and later he became the Prime Minister of Egypt, while he was still a slave. Dreaming is not a waste of time because when you dream you are, in a sense, acting in God’s likeness, as you create something out of nothing - a sort of mini creation.

I was experiencing some difficulties as a young Christian when I had dreams and aspirations of what might be possible if I was prepared to pay the price. Many of my fellow church members were Bible school graduates and some of them had degrees from universities, while others were in comfortable professions. They would advise me not to get too big for my boots, and I felt humiliated and downcast until I met someone who advised me to get bigger boots because God was committed to my development.

Great men, such as Dr John Haggai of the Haggai Institute of Advanced Leadership Training stretched my thinking and pointed accurately to the needs of the future, and my friend W. Clement Stone, who built almost single-handily the Combined Insurance Company of America, was given the title by his associates and his admirers “Mr PMA”, which means Mr Positive Mental Attitude. It was my pleasure to work alongside these two men for many years and gain something of their invincible forward thinking that has changed my life forever. It was through these men and others that I was to write the affirmation card which I was to read every day for twenty-five years to affirm my life goals and keep me looking forward and upwards for a lifetime.

Some of you reading this would recall when you were younger and went for a swim at the beach and lay on the warm sand, or when you stood in front of a wood fire on a cold winter’s night, or when you stared at the starry heavens of a hot summer night and did what men and women in all ages have done, you contrasted that picture of what you were against what you would like to become. If you were ready, you would have asked yourself, “Why not me and why not now?”

I have been asked many times throughout the world, “What kept you going? You went broke three times, you have had many life-threatening physical challenges, and your background was less than helpful, so how did you become so successful?” And the answer I have given has always been the same, “I hung on to my dreams in times of desperation. I hung on to my dreams in times of frustration, and I hung on to my dreams in times of disappointment.”

Some people claim they are too busy to dream or else they are too frightened. I believe we need to spend prime time dreaming because dreaming illustrates our hidden capacities and awakens us to our abilities. We know there is nothing capricious in God’s nature and God will not give you a dream without giving you the ability to fulfil that dream. The future is for you to have dreams about - dreams that will come true. Through your willpower, you can make the unreachable become a reality … the future relates to the present and the “you” that you really want to be. The world is waiting for those with big dreams, high ideals and a life ready, willing and able to be spent. The future belongs to those rare individuals who are prepared to exercise their will and open their lives to strive for excellence through planned achievement and forward thinking. Dreaming is a logical and fulfilling approach to dynamic living. There is no future without a purpose, and there is no purpose without a future, and to be a futurist requires a certain amount of curiosity as the mind travels in thought into “tomorrow-land” and obtains a sneak preview of the future.

Unfortunately, time cannot be retrieved and the doors of the past can rarely be reopened to resuscitate old dreams - so hold fast to your dreams and combine them with the will to investigate and to do the unusual and to achieve the best you can. Dreams have always been the catalyst of mankind’s highest hopes and a reflection of our deepest needs. They arrive unexpectedly and at times disappear without so much as a trace, like slippery fish. If they are not possessed with a vice-like grip, they can slip away in a sea of forgetfulness or waft into the ether, vanishing in the cloud.

For the most part, we trade our lives for a lot less than we are worth, and then we become who we are because we accept the lie that we are not worth anything more. If we dream of the future and lock that vision in our mind by an act of the will, then it will expand and solidify in the incandescent brightness of hope.

As each day dawns, we move forward in time. Each of the days you are permitted to remain on this earth can be your greatest friend or your most bitter disappointment. Make bold moves, commit to your prepared plans, paint word pictures in respect to your expectations, and commit your plans and visions to writing so that you have a visual map to follow. Before he died, the great Winston Churchill said, “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.”

Willpower, when acted on, has a futuristic view of events from which it develops continuing direction and ultimate satisfaction because the long-term objective is its only reason for being. Without the future there is no reason to hope or believe, and as Christians, we hope and believe for everlasting life that defies logic and destroys the world-view of the finite. Continue to wrestle with your thoughts of the future and challenge your willpower to give you the tenacity, the hunger and the perception to have a futuristic view of events, individually and universally. Remember, you are needed to remould and, in some cases, re-make new paths and scale new frontiers that have so far gone unnoticed because of a lack of the will to dream.

And now we will close this chapter with one of my poems.

Dream

It seems it’s time to dream again
both wide and very high.

It seems it’s time to dream again
and be great before I die.

It seems its time to dream again
of empires great and vast.

Yes, it seems it’s time to dream again
of something that will last.

It seems it’s time to dream again
and accept God’s sovereign will.

It seems it’s time to dream again
and move from being still.

It seems it’s time to dream again
and build my life anew.

It seems it’s time to dream again.
Yes, it’s time for me and for you.

CHAPTER 5: THE WILL MUST HAVE A MAGNETIC TELESCOPE FOCUSED ON A PRE-DETERMINED OBJECTIVE

The title of this chapter presents the proposition that the will needs and indeed must have something to focus on, otherwise it has no function. We have examined in the previous chapters of this book the multi-faceted nature of the will and its supportive elements. Although I have read books of Maslow and Freud, along with many others, and spoken at length to several neurosurgeons, I find very little agreement about the functions of the mechanisms hidden deep within the human brain, which I tend to believe could be the switch that separates the do-ers from the day dreamers.

We know that intense love and hate can trigger enormous willpower and create great perseverance. We also see the evidence of focused willpower in relation to fear, revenge and trauma. What we need to examine is the willpower that develops a focus in a concentrated form so that it closes out almost everything that might minimise, detract from or cloud the object in view. The object of your will must have some strong magnetic captivating force that is so clear and so dominant in its focus that it leaves no room for error or vacillation and convinces you that the final outcome exceeds the price that it demands.

Although the objective of desire is in the future and the distance from the status quo seems very great, paradoxically, the image of the target becomes enlarged even as it is necessarily compressed in your mind’s eye. Let me take this a little further. The objective in the realisation of the will may have many more facets than could even be imagined at the beginning or it may involve obligations, timeframes and unanticipated difficulties that in the early stages cannot be easily dealt with. The will, when focused, looks through the magnetic telescope of the imagination and sees the big picture with all its facets and wonders, without seeing many of the implications and difficulties that will be experienced along the way. As an example, let me tell you a pertinent story that will provide a clearer illustration.

Nearly twenty-five years ago my wife and I felt the call of God to conduct fifty seminars free of charge in churches throughout the United States of America to assist and encourage Christians to go into business and acquire wealth to look after their families and finance the work of the gospel. We went before God on our knees. We made a very serious commitment to that country, with an upper limit of fifty churches. Our commitment was clear:

1. Speak in fifty churches in the United States of America.

2. Pay all our own airfares and accommodation.

3. Accept no honorarium, even if it is offered.

4. Let the churches film, record and sell the product for their own financial benefit.

The outcome was significantly and spectacularly different from what we had envisaged. We kept to the four principles that we started out with and finished our project in the United States within two years, but we then found that the commitment became ongoing. The objective demanded that I write books and programs, and in time, I would finally appear many times on television, meet with dignitaries in almost all echelons of life, travel to thirty countries, and grapple with different cuisine, climate and cultures. We finally conducted approximately 1,000 conferences, and as a result, probably created more millionaires in the Christian church than anyone in history has done. At the same time, we paid careful attention to our other business interests.

Some books and lectures had to be translated into other languages, and after nearly twenty-five years, at seventy-six years of age and almost to the point of exhaustion, we stopped. The question must be asked, “Why did we continue for so long?” My answer is simple, “We saw our pre-determined objective through the telescope of faith, but when we achieved this, the objective got bigger, because a magnetic force was created by those who desperately wanted what we had to give and through their prayers and persistence would not let us stop.

After that and other experiences I can say with some confidence that the magnetic objective that draws you towards it will become bigger, the closer you get. In the one illustration I have just given you - and there are many more - the vision of fifty churches developed into one thousand churches, and the two books I had written grew to number nearly twenty, along with five major success programs, which made us probably the largest supplier of Christian business material in the world. Recently in one week alone, we had twenty-seven requests for more international seminars.

To complete the picture - and we are not really sure we have reached the finishing line yet - through the original process, we are now offering training by DVD to any church in the world that wants to co-opt sufficient people to go into business. We are aiming for a minimum of one million participants so that collectively we can bring to the local churches of the world 200 billion dollars for evangelism over the next twenty-five years. Keep in mind that this started from a commitment to fifty churches, and it is only one of our many involvements.

What I have tried to convey is a backdrop of twenty-five years of exercising the power of the will, underpinned by faith. Now let me give you six dynamic principles.

1. Build your objective in word pictures and be prepared for add-ons.

2. Put all your distinctives in concentrated form down on paper.

3. Forcibly compress all elements of your final objective as a cyclone does in the eye of a storm.

4. Look at your plan from a distance and make adjustments.

5. Move as the magnetic forces of faith, will and sound preparation dictate.

6. Prepare for the long haul.

The formula that I have just given you is for a major commitment. You will find that smaller and less significant issues will only require minimal vision, belief and willpower. But if you neglect to practise the principles in the smaller issues, you are bound to find outlet clauses in dealing with the big issues. I made some strong statements in the second chapter of this book about the will being a lonely companion, and I want to emphasise that the personal action by the will is not a committee arrangement where you can defer and allocate responsibilities. The final catalyst is you, and if you start justifying omissions and failures or providing outlet clauses, you will gradually but eventually fail and finally become disappointed.

CHAPTER 6: THE WILL FUNCTIONS BY MEASUREMENTS AND QUANTIFIES PROGRESS

Figures and measurements are facts. You can try and massage them, adjust them, reduce them or enlarge them, but you will finally have to come to grips with these ironclad realities. Time can be an illusive companion as it drags, or hastens on unstoppably, or disassociates itself from your needs and plans. Nevertheless, timed measurements are essential.

Here are eight distinctives that will direct and influence your willpower.

1. Measure every day

If you don’t have a measurement how can you quantify progress? In a seminar setting some years ago at question time a man came to the central microphone and in an emphatically strong voice said, “Dr Daniels, God is not interested in numbers.” I spontaneously replied, “Then why did He write a book called Numbers?” and I went on to quote an abundance of Scriptures that gave timeframes and numbers and finished up commenting that the Hebrew language can be checked for accuracy by mathematics.

For many years I used my own mathematical measurements for my daily work, giving myself numbers for each task in terms of time quantity, quality and profit, because previously I had been foolishly “measuring” each day by the way I felt at the end of it. The result was that I broke all records for sales, new clients and monetary results in the whole of Australia in the particular field I was in. The will is a great power force when directed towards everyday activities because it enables us to eliminate wastage before redundancy results.

2. Clarify expectations

If you have no measurements or timetable, how and when do you expect to arrive at your goal? When you are preparing a project there are always expectations that need to be addressed, and this applies to hiring staff, ordering equipment, and honouring and accepting commitments in all areas of life. Your willpower becomes muddled and loses its stamina when your expectations are clouded and vague; alternatively, when your expectations are accurately conveyed, the will rises with determination and thrust to attain the anticipated goals.

Willpower is quite different from stubbornness because willpower must have a pre-determined objective that is as clear in the mind as it would be in written form. On the other hand, stubbornness is often maintained long after the facts have clearly demonstrated that an idea or plan is wrong, because it is not based on carefully measured thoughts, but on inward, ingrained and groundless impulses.

3. Eliminate obsolescence and irrelevance

We have all been in meetings where someone keeps coming back to the way things used to be and never really comes to grips with the forward movement of events. People generally get serious when faced with catastrophes or crises, and often something has to change to stop them majoring on minor issues that prevent them being captivated by the magnitude of a major overall objective.

We must be selective in what we attach our will to, with the understanding that once the will is riveted on a specific target, immense power is realised that can release all kinds of ideas and plans to enable us to overcome. Try to isolate the small issues, testing them carefully in case you have underestimated the impact they could have if major problems arise because of neglect. When the will is fully focused and events gather pace, some of the items that make up the whole seem to be no longer relevant and become baggage you could well do without. A simple way to sort out priorities is to give each facet of the object of your focused willpower a percentage score between one and one hundred, as a proportion of the whole project. This exercise alone will provide a guide for sorting things out and recognising areas of obsolescence or irrelevance that could eventually sidetrack or refocus your willpower.

4. Quantify strategic steps

I gave as principle number one, “Measure every day”. You must keep tabs on how you are spending your willpower so that you can use it wisely. The next aspect of measurement points to the need to compartmentalise each strategic step. In this book I have endeavoured to impress on you the importance and the power of the will to move yourself and others forward to a full and satisfying life. This is a step beyond those who day dream and “want to be” but usually come to the sad conclusion that dreams don’t work unless you do.

Unless each step towards your final objective is clearly set out in a strategic plan with quantitative allocations of the energy required, desire or even conviction is rarely forceful enough to provide the willpower to make your dream a reality. Quantify … quantify … quantify the amount of willpower force that needs to be applied to each step along the way, then your road to success will be smoother and easier to travel.

5. Document danger zones

One of the helpful principles I have learnt in my life is to write things down. I have proved the truth of the old saying, “The bluntest pencil is sharper than the brightest mind.” It is not so much that we forget, but rather that we neglect some crucial elements of success and achievement and do what is familiar and repetitive. We get so caught up in the process that we forget the overall plan, until somewhere down the track we may rediscover our primary motives and principles.

When I have been called in to rescue a failing business or organisation, the problem has usually arisen from a point of deviation from core values or procedures, which have been allowed to slip away, creating a precarious situation. Such a problem can creep up on you or suddenly erupt from seemingly nowhere, but from whichever direction it comes, it usually follows a lack of documentation or a forgotten conversation or the neglect of some soft points that were discovered but never expected to eventuate.

Disasters usually come upon us because of neglect or an unwillingness to think through the whole plan. Go over your plans, your objectives, and the means you will use to reach your goals in minute detail. One of the principles I adopted many years ago was to spend a full day trying to think of any ways my business could fail or how a competitor or a financial reversal could ruin it. Then I would strengthen any points of neglect and plug up the danger zones in my business and my life to prevent this from happening.

6. Identify weaknesses and strengths

Weaknesses and strengths, including strong resolve, fear, or an unwillingness to perform find their birthplace in the will, and this is where we must identify confidence or conflict in relation to the challenges that lie ahead. Napoleon Bonaparte said, “The only conquests which are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves.” But it is within this sphere that we tend to fail by the timidity we exercise in making critical analyses of reality. The best weapon we have for uncovering and identifying our weaknesses is courage, and conversely, the uncompromising humility of truth is necessary for us to discover our strengths.

Avoid any kind of exaggeration or negativity as you seek out the weaknesses of your will, and eliminate pseudo-rationale and major on the truth. When I was a young man, my willpower was related to my varied desires and fantasies. However, it was not until I faced the fullness of my folly and endured the embarrassment and pain of many failures, which I traced back to weaknesses in my willpower, that I developed some modest strengths that today are immovable.

7. Eliminate the activities that become blockages

There is a great deal of difference between activity and objectivity. On one hand, you can have an activity that is rudderless, and on the other hand, a deliberate measured involvement towards a predetermined objective. As a teenager, when I was learning the trade of bricklaying, during the lunch break the older men would tell stories about work habits and experiences.

One of the stories I will never forget was about a man who worked on the dockyards in London for forty years, continuing to do the same work. Evidently he had been told to carry a large wooden plank on his shoulder and take it to the next wharf, but unfortunately when he took it there they didn’t want it and told him to take it back. When the man returned the plank to where he got it from, they would not accept it, and so for the next forty years he walked back and forth, up and down the docks with the same plank on his shoulder. No one realised what he was doing, and he continued happily to collect his wages each week. His weeks were full of activity, and he always seemed to be busy working, but he achieved absolutely nothing. And my seniors even claimed that this was a true story!

The lesson is simple, and it is to search out and remove all blockages, time wasting and superfluous behaviour that takes the edge off your willpower.

8. Create a time-clock and ensure quantum growth

At times, I have seen work continue at its customary pace until I have added a financial incentive with a short timeframe for a task, and then, to everyone’s astonishment, it was finished well before the normal time. At other times, I have set timeframes for reports, designs and jobs to be done, only to find that they were not completed until the very last moment.

What I am suggesting here is that you watch the clock, and in the process, seek to provoke a quantum jump by adding an urgency factor and motivating yourself and others to get the job done within a specified timeframe. Don’t always accept that the allocated timeframes are best, but test them for relevance, because you may get things done more quickly or they may surprisingly take longer than originally anticipated.

Always be careful not to jump to point C without completing the work required at points A and B. Your willpower will be weakened if you do this habitually, and you will thereby nullify some of its force and stifle growth.

CHAPTER 7: THE WILL GRAVITATES TOWARDS REASON BUT IT IS NOT DOMINATED BY IT

Reason is the language of the pragmatist and undoubtedly a master key to the normal process of understanding. The will needs the strong broad track of reason to provide sound guidance as to what needs to be done. Deep questioning, which takes us behind the scene of reason, reveals a multitude of opinions, experiences and facts that form a strong basis for the belief that caused the will to respond. But there is something beyond reason that finds its genesis in an idea that produces an unconquerable hope in something greater.

Fifty years ago I started on a journey of study that mentally took me through the ages of time and allowed me to look through a window into the lives of the greats and not-so-greats in history. I read thousands of biographies of those who shaped the lives of their times, and in some cases, all of our lives for all time. Biographies provide for us a vocabulary of overcoming, as they give us insights into the lives of those who overcame incredible odds, and in doing so, set a standard of hope for us all by their steadfast will and by their belief in something beyond what could be explained by reason or touched with the hand or seen with the eye.

Many of these magnificent visionaries in many areas of life had faith that was not reasonable and did not have facts to guide them. These people believed, without tangible evidence, in an inexplicable and mysterious dimension that the Bible describes with the words, “faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen”.

Some people have dedicated their lives by an act of the will, not by their reason, but by their faith in the hand of God on their lives. They have been looking toward the outcome of an amazing belief that will continue until the end of time. If you can harness your will with your faith, and are prepared to trade your life for it, then the combination of faith and will become an invincible power.

There are people you could provide with proof, facts, examples and all kinds of substantiated reasoning, but these would never be powerful enough to overcome their internal assurance and persuade them to reject their confidence in their own convictions, which they believe are on the right track. Often during my lifetime I have had to go against public opinion and seemingly insurmountable odds, only to come out of a long and strenuous ordeal claiming the victor’s crown.

The Bible is a record of faith that stands high above a mundane and normal reasoned existence. When reason draws us towards mathematical and proven facts and the records of past achievements, we must not ignore the wisdom, evidence and guidance it offers. But if we come to the end of the trail and our inner urgings tell us there is something more, reason can lose its gravitational pull and cease to dominate, limit or control our thought processes. There comes a time in every-one’s lifetime when a thought captures the attention of the mind, and if sufficiently nourished with strong inner feelings that are repetitive and persistent, creates a sense of longing for something bigger than oneself. If captured, this thought develops into a compulsion that may finally become a great motivating obsession.

Down through the eons of time, history has told us of men and women who were captured by a thought and left behind the restraints of reason and pragmatism and soared above the elements of everyday constraints towards a magnificent obsession that was so strong it ignored reality. It pushes forward into a hitherto unproven and unexpressed realm of experience, unearthing the latent mysteries of God-given dreams and potentials, and the power of the will makes the difference between attainment and failure.

In biblical times, Joseph faced imprisonment, slavery and temptation because he had something more powerful than reason to enable him to face the temptation of the moment. He had glimpsed into the future with an inspiring God-given dream, which looked impossible at the time. All of us at some time, seek a dream that will somehow lift us up on a magic carpet towards an illusionary resting place where all will be well. But what kept Joseph from despair? It was that he believed his dream would come to pass and, by faith in his God, he willed himself to practise excellent behaviour, until despite being a slave, he became the Prime Minister of Egypt. Why don’t you develop a sense of destiny towards your highest hopes, engage in a struggle to change the world in your lifetime, and stimulate your spirit with a glimpse of God-given immortality?

W. Clement Stone, who was my friend for twenty years, epitomises a belief system and willpower consistent with sound Christian principles. Many times as we travelled together in his limousine we would talk, and he would sometimes share with me about wonderful experiences in his life. W. Clement Stone started life hard, trying to sell newspapers on the busy street corners in Chicago, U.S.A. He couldn’t continue in that way because of his small statue - bigger boys would beat him up and prevent him from earning money to take home to his struggling, single mother.

Clement Stone ignored the realities and knew deep inside that he was born to achieve, and so he continued to walk into restaurants and diners, although he managed to sell only a few newspapers before he was thrown out. Clement persevered and always went back to the same establishments, only to be shown the door, until finally the patrons and customers said to the proprietor, “Leave the boy alone.” So he finally had the restaurant market all to himself and this became his lesson in life.

Most people look only at reason, but there is another way that defies all reason. It requires a strong inner conviction and an even stronger willpower in order to follow lonely untried paths, leaving behind the contradictions and predictions that are found along the well-worn path of reason. By following his inner conviction, and pleasantly acknowledging but not accepting the advice of those who had never dared to step into the normally uncharted areas of life, Clem became one of the greatest success stories of the twentieth century, but in doing so, he faced rejection and pain as he persevered until he reached his dream.

Skeptics warn us about moving away from the well-worn path of reason, but they can be very wrong. Consider the following example. Dr Ladner, a professor at University College London, reasoned in 1830 that it would be impossible for a large steamship to cross the Atlantic because it would need more coal than it could possibly carry, yet a large steamship did cross the Atlantic in 1838. And I could quote many similar examples.

Science has made some predictions that are only waiting to be reversed by someone who has an inner unsettling feeling that reality lies in a different direction. As I travel extensively and meet wonderful people in all facets of business, government and Christian endeavour, it is hard to surprise me any more, except when I come face to face with long-standing contradictions that have been resolved by some simple but profound insight.

However, I want also to give a word of warning because I have also seen unbridled fanatical behaviour that verges on the insane, where a flight of fancy or an unreasoned journey has led to peril, and where foolishness and manic stubbornness has caused refusal to re-evaluate or assess the incomprehensible damage or exploitation of others that is occurring. History has shown us many examples.

Keep connected to your dreams and, with a profound dependence on the Word of God harnessed with a strong faith and an iron will, you can prevail.

CHAPTER 8: THE WILL HAS A CHARACTER COMPASS AND ULTIMATE BOUNDARIES

In my limited experience of those who commit crimes of unspeakable horror, strange as it seems, there are some things they cannot bring themselves to do. As bad as some of us are in our fallen nature, there comes a time and a task that is like a barrier that cannot be crossed.

We read in newspapers and see on television the acts of those who seem to have little or no conscience with respect to the consequences of their crimes on others, and yet they can weep over their own children’s misfortunes and criticise what they consider to be unnecessary acts of violence, extortion or molestation that appear to be beyond anything they would think or do. Even the mafia have a code of conduct that if broken has harsh repercussions. It would seem that character cannot exist without willpower. Character cannot be given, it must be earned, and it is reflected in the ways we earn and handle our finances, as this displays the definitive features of our moral nature.

A person of character usually has strong convictions accompanied by great actions, together with energy directed in wholesome ways. Such a person is as firm as a rock and points the way clearly ahead in times of crisis.

The will must be strengthened to achieve. Its greatest work is in the stabilisation and strengthening of character and maintaining a good public reputation. In Shakespeare’s Othello, Cassio says, “Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.”

We all need to assess our public reputation from time to time - not against the moral codes that exist in the climate of our time, but against a personal code of conduct based on the unchanging Word of God [1]. It is amazing how we excuse or justify our own motives and actions quite differently from the way we assess those of others, and how we manufacture let-out clauses for our own behaviour while we condemn other people for the same behaviour.

Some years ago, after I had finished a lecture on discipline, an extremely overweight man who always arrived late and continually let other people down after making commitments came up to me and started an interesting conversation. He shared with me the disappointment he had with his only son, who in spite of all the pleas from his father, continually got into trouble at school, was unreliable, and rarely told the truth. The father was so concerned that he asked a simple but profound question - how could he discipline his son to behave in an acceptable manner? He said he would do whatever I recommended, and he was staggered by my answer. I asked him, “Who disciplines you?”

This man had neglected to set an example of character for his son. Character provides a benchmark for all discipline. Our character is a searchlight that needs to shine brightly within the home, where it can be seen and experienced by our family [1]. It is one thing to have morals and ideals; it is quite a different matter to discipline ourselves to adhere to them in all areas of our lives.

In a work setting, among friends, or in a boardroom or a business meeting what is it that switches on your moral power to the point that you are prepared to verbalise it in friendly debate and continue, if necessary, to the point that your character is on the verge of reproach? At these times your will must exercise the courage to take a stand on anything that is an affront to your moral sensibilities.

During the twenty years in my real estate business, which operated in three countries, I would not open my door on Sundays because that was the day for church worship and family. Many of my contemporaries at that time were sure I would not succeed, but eventually they were proven wrong.

In an entirely different situation, we had a property that was very suitable by location and design for a restaurant and we had many applications for a lease, but most of them were contingent on a liquor licence being permitted. However, my convictions would not allow that, so we finally let the property without a liquor licence. In the end it failed miserably and we lost a considerable sum of money, but we kept our convictions.

Our character establishes definite boundaries for us, and, at times, can cause a loss of money and even friends. In those difficult or awkward situations we must find the courage to stand up for our convictions. Character is indispensable, and “the will has a character compass and ultimate boundaries”. The pages of biblical and secular history provide for us examples of power exercised without character, and in most cases, the power to possess or rule has been exercised by a strong will, accompanied by plans, opportunity and talent. But without character, undergirded by wholesome thoughts and a knowledge of better things, the will to enforce will cause us to fall prey to situation ethics or to the philosophy that the end justifies the means.

When the will to resist is weak and a character principle is discarded, irrespective of the consequences, the will, in its righteous might, can stimulate a person to right the wrong and bear the fallout. The discovery of a character breakdown can be dealt with. We must honestly and diligently backtrack to the point of deviation, the point where a small allowance was made in order to be friendly or accommodating, which only accelerated and expanded into an area of involvement that we would never have permitted if we had envisioned the final results. Guard your character by exercising your will to examine commitments and involvements before you make them, and if you discover something you should have omitted, then deal with it quickly, whatever the cost, and reclaim your principles before it is too late.

In my business life I have warned people to avoid partnerships unless they have ultimate control, otherwise they can be taken down a pathway that will compromise their value system. The Christian church globally needs a renaissance of values that puts a higher value on character, which can only be achieved by the exercise of the will directed by biblical faith. We cannot continue to pray for a re-construction of our values in the marketplace while we major on preaching and prayer meetings that are devoid of energetic action.

The act of the will must start from the pulpit, which has for many years majored on missions and meetings, without the courage to evaluate results by measurements and timeframes. Opportunities are running out fast, and massive changes in demographics, economics and culture may soon become frighteningly apparent. Without discipline and without any fixed moral biblically focused compass, we will pass on to our children and our children’s children a world that we failed to influence, because we were large on talking philosophy and wishing, but bankrupt in relation to backbone and character.

As you are now reading the last chapter of this book, why not make some resolution in respect to what you stand for and how you will exercise your character in the future? This is not a theoretical discussion, and I am not asking you to do what I have not done in the past or what I will not continue to do in the future. Do not wait for or even expect support, just stand and having done all continue to stand for good and decency in the church, in politics, in business and in education. Good intentions are provided for the comfort of cowards, whereas strategic action is the partner of heroes.

I believe time is short to turn things around before they reach the point of no return, and if we believe in what we proclaim as born again Christians, then it is past time for us to rise up and become activists for Christ. We must exercise our faith with balance and knowledge, by an act of the will, as we reinforce our character with the strong secure principles of God’s Word.

We must understand and develop the qualities exhibited by the saints of old. Truth is truth and will always be revealed [2]. Men and women of reputation and honour are needed at this time more than at any previous time in history.

Enforce your will to stand vigilant, as an example, while you execute your daily duties and as you involve yourself with others, and always maintain a good conscience towards all. Build your reputation to be invincible, immovable and impregnable. In doing so, you will create a character that the future generations of your family can look up to as an example.

[1] See earlier book entitled A Christian Code of Conduct.

[2] See biography entitled Living on the Edge.

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