Our Changing World

Earl Nightingale & Nightingale-Conant

Weekly insights into success, personal development, and the power of positive thinking from one of the most influential voices in the field of motivational broadcasting.

  1. 2 days ago

    America’s Hidden Crisis: Illiteracy, Poverty, and Lost Opportunity

    When we read of poverty and unemployment, we often wonder how these ugly statistics can persist to mar an otherwise healthy and affluent society. One of the causes can be found in an area that has received far too little publicity. Did you know that there are 10 million adults in this country over the age of 25 who are completely or functionally illiterate? Adult men and women who can neither read nor write constitute a severe economic, social, and moral problem, and 7 million of the 10 million non-readers are native-born Americans. The problem of illiteracy that plagues this country became apparent during the Second World War, when 600,000 men were rejected for military service because of their inability to read and write. During the Korean conflict, 300,000 were rejected for the same reason. Current national statistics show that about 11% of American adults are functionally illiterate. Think of that. And that comes to about 11% of our adults who are not qualified to even look for work. Men and women who can't read street signs, the signs on buses or subways, who can't read the help-wanted columns of the daily papers, who can't read a job description or an application for employment or a tax form or get a driver's license. A high national level of illiteracy reduces national wealth and weakens technological progress. It's been estimated that in the next four or five years, there will be 15 million of our people who will be technologically unemployable because of their inability to read and write. And while this is a serious national problem, think of how serious a handicap this is to the person. Even in cases of unskilled labor, large companies generally do not employ personnel who are functionally illiterate. And while we have modern medicine, foods and equipment to prevent disease, these are not being used by 11% of the adult population because they can't read. The person who cannot read newspapers, magazines or books is completely cut off from written communication in society. He can't read a menu in a restaurant. He's completely lost in a strange town or city. An illiterate wife and mother has a very difficult time because she can't read price signs, can labels, cookbooks or baby formulas. This is, of course, not a new problem. At one time, illiteracy was the rule rather than the exception. Since 1870, census takers have asked each person interviewed if he could read or write or both. To be classified as literate, he had only to answer yes. At one time, particularly when our society was largely agricultural in nature, it didn't make too much difference whether a person could read or write or not. But today, this is certainly no longer true. And these figures relating to illiteracy give us real insight to the unemployment and poverty problems that still plague us. Recent surveys have shown that low educational level is the single most widespread cause of poverty. It is a characteristic of 67% of the nation's low-income families. In 1954, the United States Congress chartered the Board for Fundamental Education to operate through the states to combat illiteracy. If you're interested in this problem, contact the Department of Education of your state or your local Board of Education. I'll be back in a moment. There's an old Latin proverb which goes, the life of an illiterate man is death. The problem of illiteracy in our country demands attention and lots of it right now. This is Earl Nightingale, and thank you.

  2. 26 Jul

    Your Next Port of Call: Earl Nightingale on Goals and Direction

    I had the good fortune to be raised near a harbor. As a kid, I used to spend hours down in the docks watching the ships loading and unloading. They'd bring in cargoes from all the distant and romantic ports all over the world. I used to stand there with a faraway look in my eyes, envying those sailors who were so fortunate. They traveled over the distant horizon to places I could only imagine or read about in my geography books. I hung around so much that some of the mates and skippers finally recognized me and actually invite me aboard once in a while. I guess you can imagine the heaven that was for me. And they'd take me from the engine room to the fo'c'sle and finally to the place I liked best, the navigation bridge. The bridge had the best view, but much more than that. It was here that the ship was controlled and steered into all those distant places I'd dreamed of. Once I was even invited to lunch, and I didn't get over that for months. It's strange how something like that can have such an overwhelming fascination for a youngster and exert such an influence over his life. As soon as I was old enough, I was on a ship, and I sailed to quite a few of those distant deep-water ports. But no matter how long the trip, I never got tired of sailing and watching the sea in all its different moods. Entering a distant port, even if I'd been there before, was always a brand-new thrill. As the years have gone by, and trying to figure out why I like ships so much, I think I've come up with the answer. Ships operate during their entire lives the way men should, but so few do. Maybe you've never thought much about it, but at any given moment a ship is 100% successful. That is, it's either sailing to a predetermined port of call, or it's in port getting ready to sail to another one. A ship is smart. It knows it can only reach one port of call at a time. You never see any doubt or confusion, or trying to do more than one thing at a time. You can climb up to the navigation bridge of a big, far-sailing ship and ask the captain where he's going, and he'll tell you instantly and in one sentence. How many people do you know who can do the same thing? It seems that most people want so many different things, most of which they're not really sure of, that they're like the guy who jumped on a horse and rode off in all directions at once. What they ought to do is recognize the truth and success of a ship. Pick one port that's important, sail to it, then rest and refit for a little while, and then sail to another important port. In this way, in not too many years, a man can set and reach his goals one by one, until finally he's got a tremendous pile of accomplishments in which he can take pride, he's got all the things he wants, just because he had sense enough to realize he could do well one thing at a time. There's one other point that fits in here, and maybe it's the most important of all. If a ship tied up to a dock for some reason had no place to go, it'd stay there until it fell apart from rust and disuse. Ships don't start their engines till they have some place to go, and here again it's the same with men. This is why it's so important that each of us should have a port of call he wants to reach, a goal, a place to get to that we feel will be better than the place in which we now find ourselves. If we don't, we might never cast off. We might never know the thrill of sailing a pre-charted course to a place we can't see for fully 99% of the journey. But we know it's there, and we know that if we keep sailing toward it, we'll reach it. I'll be back in one minute. If someone came up to you today and asked you what your next port of call is, that is, where you're going, could you answer him in one sentence, like the captain could on the bridge of his ship? If not, maybe you'd better give it some thought. This is Earl Nightingale. Thank you.

  3. 19 Jul

    Remove the Friction: Earl Nightingale on Serenity and Inner Strength

    Modern medical research has found that the old adage, "sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me," is all wrong. Psychosomatic studies have found that man is hurt far more by names than he is by all the sticks and stones of life. Today, scientists are in agreement that the old biblical admonition is correct when it says, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that keepeth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." Man feels in competition with people and in conflict with the world about him. His fears, resentments, angers, and so forth come because he feels that the instability of life around him is threatening his very existence. But if he can catch the vision that life is lived from within out, that it's not so much what happens around or to him as what happens in him that counts, then he can set his own pace, live his own life, meet things and people objectively without fear or resistance. He can become as healthy, as prosperous, as happy as he wants to be. Anybody who knows anything at all about mechanics knows that friction is the enemy. Railroads use steel wheels on steel rails simply because this reduces friction to the minimum. An engine works best when it's properly lubricated, when a film of oil prevents metal from wearing against metal. Airplanes go faster than earth or sea-bound carriers because there's less friction in the air than on the ground or in the sea. And the same idea will work for you and me. The better job we can do to remove friction from our lives, the more serenely and smoothly we'll move through our days, and the more quickly and effortlessly will we achieve our goals in life. I read where, on December 9th, 1914, the great Edison Industries in New Jersey were destroyed by fire. Edison lost two million dollars and much of a life's work. And though many tried to comfort him, he said, "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew." And just three weeks later, his company delivered the first phonograph. He knew that life is lived from within out. The fire was on the outside. Why take it inside? Some men of medical research even go so far as to say that man has within him a health-maintaining force sufficient to keep him alive and healthy almost indefinitely if it were not for the destructive effect of uncontrolled emotions. Each of us would do well to try to develop more serenity in our lives, to see ourselves and our work and our world objectively, calmly. As James Allen put it, "The calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows how to adapt himself to others, and they in turn reverence his spiritual strength and feel that they can learn of him and rely upon him. The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. He's like a shade-giving tree in a thirsty land or a sheltering rock in a storm." I'll be back in a moment. Yes, the strong, calm man is always loved and revered. He is like a shade-giving tree in a thirsty land or a sheltering rock in a storm. And we will be serene to the extent that we remove the friction from our lives. This is Earl Nightingale, and thank you.

  4. 12 Jul

    Earl Nightingale’s Four Steps to Remembering How to Succeed

    You know, everything in nature has two sides, a good and a bad, depending upon the point of view. The rain that waters and fertilizes the crops also brings devastating floods. The fire that warms our homes and cooks our meals can cause widespread havoc when out of control. Think for a moment about the good and the bad sides of memory. It's believed that our subconscious minds remember everything that ever happened to us, every sight, taste, touch, sound, and smell, every emotional experience. But our conscious memories are short. It's good that our memories are short. We forget the bad, and that's good. We forget our failures, our mistakes, our foolishness, the pain we've caused, the opportunities we've missed, the love we failed to give or receive when it was needed. These pass from our conscious memories as from a filter to which they cling for a while, only to be cleansed away by the flow of time. But we also forget, to our pain, the good, and that's bad. We forget the principles, the systems, which, if we but lived by them, result in our achieving the things we want to achieve. So then, just as we forget the bad, we also forget the good. We can literally forget how to live successfully. If through some diabolical condition we were constantly reminded of all our past failures and mistakes, we'd live in a constant state of gloomy despair, a hell on earth. Our conveniently forgetful minds, however, save us from this. But if through some marvelous agency we could be constantly reminded so that we never forget the principles and systems which work to our benefit and the benefit of society, we would live in a constant state of purposeful enthusiasm, expectation, and hope. We'd go from one success to another all the years of our lives. Our world would be filled with the rewarding side of living, of accomplishment and good cheer. Well, the world's most successful men and women manage to do just this. They manage to arrange their minds and materials so that they are regularly reminded of the vital principles they need to remember in order to live successfully. They make certain that they never forget how to live well, and they do this through four vital steps. One, information, knowledge. They never stop learning. They never stop studying the kind of information calculated to make them more effective at what they've chosen to do with their lives. Two, a plan, a plan for putting this knowledge to use and a plan for their lives, a definite goal toward which they're always working. Three, reminding, a program to regularly remind them of the information they've learned. They realize how easy it is to forget unless they are constantly reminded. And four, inspiration, the motivation to put the knowledge and the plan into action and thereby produce results. And with this four-point program, they move steadily ahead month after month, year after year. I'll be back in a minute. Four steps to greatness. One, information, knowledge. Two, a plan for putting this information to constructive use. Three, constant reminding of what they know and where they're going. And four, the inspiration and motivation to keep them on the track. This is Earl Nightingale, and thank you.

  5. 5 Jul

    Why Happiness Follows Achievement: The Joy of Doing Work Well

    Hello again. I'm going to ask you a very tricky question; however, it's important that you try to answer it the moment I ask it. I'm going to ask you a question that everyone should have given a lot of thought to and can answer immediately and in one sentence, but I might add that it's a question only a few people out of a thousand can answer. At any rate, get ready, and let's see how well you do. Here comes the question: What do you want more than anything else in the world? Time's up. Now, the chances are you answered one of three things: health, wealth, or happiness. Of course, if you happen to have a particular problem at the moment, you may have thought of that, but let's take the three that statistics prove most people want: health, wealth, and happiness. Now about health. Well, that's a tricky one. It can depend on a lot of factors such as the parents you pick, the state of your emotions, and so forth. We leave that one where it belongs, in the your doctor. Number two, wealth. This can be earned through knowledge, a lot of thinking, a lot of hard work, and yes, anyone can solve this one if he makes it his major goal in life and is willing to spend from 12 to 18 hours a day for a number of years in earning it. All he has to do is make up his mind that that's what he wants and then be willing to sacrifice just about anything for its achievement. As William James of Harvard put it, if you would be rich, you will be rich. If you would be learned, you will be learned. If you would be good, you will be good. But wish then for one thing exclusively, and don't at the same time wish for a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly. But now let's talk about number three, happiness. Here's where most people get fooled. Happiness cannot be sought directly as an end in itself, or it will forever elude you. You see, happiness is not a cause; it's an effect. It always comes as a result of doing something well, and the experts say that it's not really happiness that we're after at all. It's joy, and joy only comes from achievement. Let me give you an example. If you make a perfect golf shot to the green, it makes you happy. But the happiness came as a result of the perfect golf shot. So, if you want to be happier on a golf course, give it a lot of practice so that you'll become a better golfer. Theoretically, happiness on the course should follow. And it's the same with life. If you want to be happy or experience maximum joy from life, you've got to become better at this business of living. And joy never comes from pure receiving; it only comes from contributing or giving. If you think back, of course you're probably already way ahead of me, you'll remember that you've been happiest-that is, you've experienced the greatest joy-right after you've accomplished something really worthwhile. People frequently find they experience an emotional letdown, a feeling of uneasiness on a Sunday evening or Monday morning. It's because frequently on weekends we don't do very much. This hits men more than it does women because women are usually just as busy on weekends as they are during the week. Crazy as it may sound, kids are usually happier during the school term than they are during summer vacation, although they'll never admit it. Human beings need something worthwhile to do constantly, or they start losing out in the happiness department. I'll be back in just one minute. The next time you start feeling uneasy or depressed, dig into your work. If you're a housewife, clean out that closet or tear into the kitchen and start to work on an exotic recipe. You'll be surprised how many problems work can solve.

  6. 28 Jun

    Stop Killing Time: Seeing Life’s Beauty Before It’s Too Late

    Hello. Some time ago I read a story that had a very profound effect on me. With my customary brilliant memory, I can recall neither the name of the book nor the author. Maybe you'll recognize it. Anyway, it was about a young man who was to be hanged for committing some crime. This was way back, the early days. The young man didn't sleep at all during his last night on earth, and dawn found him standing at his cell window from where he could see over the prison walls to the countryside beyond. At the first sign of the beautiful rosy-fingered dawn, as Homer used to call it, a change began in the young man. Suddenly he became tremendously interested in seeing the first faint rays of the sun touch the leaves of the trees. He noticed the rich brown earth and the bright green of the fields, and as he gripped the bars of his cell and stared intently at the scene which had been played every morning for countless centuries, tears started down his cheeks. He realized that he was seeing the glory and the magnificence of the world and all it meant for the first time in his life, and as the muffled footsteps of the jailers could be heard on their way to take him to the gallows, he was still at his cell window, transfixed by the unspeakable beauty of the sunrise. The beauty and the wonder of life had been there all along. He had simply waited until it was too late to enjoy it, and I doubt if he's been the only one. All of us have a tendency to waste time. Maybe it's because we don't realize that it's one of the few really precious things we'll ever own until we're in danger of losing it. Let's take the average, if there is such a thing, the average working man, for instance. He works 40 hours a week. Now this leaves him 72 hours a week when he's neither working nor sleeping. This is supposing he sleeps a full eight hours every night. 72 hours of time every week. This is almost twice the time he spends on a job that supports his whole family. Think what he could do with just a part of this time. But what does our average man do with it? Well, as a general rule, he doesn't do anything at all with it. You've heard the expression, I'm just killing time. Well, that's what he does with it. Home on a typical evening, he eats dinner and then goes into the living room and turns on his escape box. The screen lights up and people and horses begin moving around on it, and from then on he's through for the next four or five hours. He spends all this time in front of a TV set watching other people earn excellent incomes in the pursuit of their careers while he makes not a nickel and only gets red eyes and a hollow head for his efforts. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. Nothing wrong, that is, if you're so bored and discouraged with your own world that you have to devote all of your free time escaping to other worlds you must feel are superior to your own. I think television stands as one of the world's greatest developments. But as Ben Franklin used to say, everything in moderation. A part of that free time should be devoted to becoming great where you are, studying ourselves, our job, our industry, and above all to the job of becoming a fairly rational intelligent human being. A good way to spend the next dull evening might be to catalog all the books in your house and find out how many you still have to read. As for me, I only watch the great shows on TV, the ballgames and the fights. I'll be back in a minute. If you find you can hardly wait to lose yourself in some route of escape every time you don't have something to do, it might be time to sit down and have a long talk with yourself and ask yourself such questions as, where am I going? What is it I really want? And who am I?

  7. 21 Jun

    Your Most Valuable Tool: Building Vocabulary for Success in Life

    Hello. Do you know what your most valuable tool is when it comes to getting along with other people and getting what you want from life? Well, it's the most obvious thing in the world, and I suppose one of the most overlooked. It's your ability to use your language. It's a strange and unfortunate thing, but the great majority of folks have just about the same vocabulary as adults as they had in the 8th or 9th grade. They unnecessarily cripple themselves in this most vital aspect of successful living. Words are the tools with which we express our thoughts and desires to others, and the more tools we have in this toolbox, the more jobs we can handle. And it's no news to anyone, I suppose, but the way you use the English language is an immediate tip-off to just about anyone as to how well you're educated. In the old days, and not so old at that, people used to go around poo-pooing what they called book learning. I guess this is a hangover from the dark ages when people were suspicious of anything they didn't understand. I can remember as a kid hearing older folks complain about the younger generation spending too much time in book learning instead of going out and getting a job, any job, the way they had to do. All knowledge is stored in books. The more you read, the more knowledge you acquire, and knowledge still is, and always has been, power to the person who has it. And the use of the language, more than any other single thing, is a barometer of a person's knowledge. One time at a leading Eastern university, they gave a vocabulary examination to the graduating class. Then they kept track of them. And after 5, 10, 15 years and so on, checked to see how these surviving grads were doing. Without a single exception, the ones who scored highest in vocabulary were doing best out in the world. That is, they had better jobs and were making more money and so on. And here again is a subject anyone can learn, but very few do. There are lots of wonderful books on English and vocabulary in every bookstore and library, but again it smacks of work so most folks just slip along using a horse-and-buggy vocabulary and wondering why they're traveling at a horse-and-buggy pace. One of the really funny aspects of our society is the number of people who will poke fun at those who speak with a foreign accent. Whenever you hear a foreign accent, it means the person can speak at least two languages. The ones who laugh as a rule can't even speak their own, and have a vocabulary you could toss into the ear of a gnat. If you'd like to improve your vocabulary, simply get a good book on English, a good dictionary, and make sure you know the pronunciation key and what the little symbols mean, and then study the language an hour a day and read a lot. Whenever you come to a word you're not sure of, look it up and then write it down along with its meaning. Usually this will help you remember it. And then start working your new words into your vocabulary, but only when you're sure they fit. For an American to not know his language is just like a plumber who doesn't know what his tools are for. He's not going to be trusted with very important jobs, is he? This is an interesting and vital aspect if we'll just spend a little bit of time every day or every week for a few months to learn it. I'll be back in just one minute. If a person would just set aside one hour a day for study, six days a week, it would come to 312 hours a year. You know, it wouldn't take long to be an expert at just about anything with that kind of a program, would it? And the time will pass anyway, whether we use it or not. Thank you.

  8. 14 Jun

    Four Pages a Day: The Hard Work and Rejections That Make a Writer

    Have you ever thought you might like to become a writer? Here's something a lot of people could do and very successfully, but not very many will and you know why? It's because becoming successful as a writer is just about the hardest work in the world. Outside of writing my own radio programs, I've never done too much of it. I tried to hire writers for my radio programs one time, but it just never worked out. They didn't write things I was interested in. But I guess I had one of the finest writing teachers who ever lived. He was Professor W.S. Campbell, who for so long headed up the writing department of the University of Oklahoma. I didn't go to that fine school except for the writing course, which has probably turned out more successful writers than any other in the country. Dr. Campbell is dead now, but he had a formula that was sure fire. The first thing you had to do, aside from getting a generally good education, was to pick the magazine you wanted to write for, if magazine writing was what you wanted. Then you'd have to read every issue of that magazine you could find. In this way, you could discover the kind of stories the editor of that particular magazine liked. Then you study the ads, because the ads and the stories were naturally slanted toward the same market. Then you just had to start writing stories similar to the ones you'd been reading and sending them in. Of course, they'd come bouncing right back time after time, but gradually you'd be getting better as a writer, and eventually you might get a note of encouragement from the editor along with your rejection slip. And finally, when you had enough rejection slips to paper the walls of a good-sized barn, you'd have a story accepted. From then on, usually you were in and could call yourself a professional writer. The big thing seemed to be to write about things in which you were intensely interested, things which moved you emotionally. You know, if you'll sit at your typewriter and pick out four double-spaced pages every day, just four pages a day, you'll finish a full-size book every 90 days. That's four complete books every year, or 40 books in the next 10 years. Of course, writing a book and having a book published are two indistinctly separate things, but of one thing you can be absolutely positive. The editors of magazines and the publishing houses will read your manuscripts, and if you show any promise, they'll tell you so. They're searching constantly for new writers because that's where their bread and butter comes from. Don't ever believe people who tell you it's who you know. It's nothing of the sort. Actually, writing can be a wonderful profession if you're qualified and willing to devote the same number of years to it that you'd have to devote to anything else in order to become successful. A good writer can work any place in the world. All he needs is a typewriter and a post office. He can sit out on the patio and have his coffee at 10 in the morning if he feels like it, and he can enjoy whatever fame he can earn. But at some time, he's got to go into that room, close the doors, put a piece of paper into the typewriter, and perform what the writers themselves call the hardest work on earth. Like having a baby, the joy comes after it's all over. A sort of humorous aspect of our society is the number of writing clubs where the members meet to talk about writing, but who, for the most part, never quite get around to doing the actual work. I'll be back in just one minute. If a writer waited around for a wisp of inspiration to come floating through the window, he'd eventually petrify in his chair. Inspiration comes from work. It has hardly ever been the other way around. Why don't you write a book? All you have to do is decide to spend three or four hours a day in front of a typewriter until it's finished.

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About

Weekly insights into success, personal development, and the power of positive thinking from one of the most influential voices in the field of motivational broadcasting.

Information

  • Creator
    Earl Nightingale & Nightingale-Conant
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    20
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Our Changing World

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