Million Dollar Habits

Million Dollar Habits – Page 309 
character or personality of a friend or relative as if it were a personal attack on me. 
You should do the same. 
Never Give Up 
Another quality of character and leadership that seems to be indispensable for great 
success is 
the habit of persistence and determination
. Napoleon Hill wrote, 
“Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.”
Earlier in this book, I explained the Law of Belief, and the fact that your deeply 
held beliefs become your realities. You always act in a manner consistent with the 
way you believe inside, your self-concept. In my estimation, your level of 
persistence is the true measure of your belief in yourself, and your ability to 
succeed. 
Imagine that there was a “Belief Store” just like a “Computer Store” in your 
neighborhood. You could go down to this belief store and buy a belief and program 
it into your subconscious mind, just as you would load a new computer program 
onto your hard drive. If this were the case, and you could buy any belief that you 
wanted, what would be the best belief for you to purchase to program into your 
subconscious mind? 
In interviews with more than 500 successful men and women, the researchers 
found that they all had one particular belief in common. Each of them absolutely 
believed that they were destined to be great successes in life. They believed that 
everything that was happening to them in the short-term was part of a great plan to 

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Million Dollar Habits – Page 310 
ultimately make them successful. They held to this belief through every storm of 
life. It eventually became unshakable. They saw the world in terms of inevitable 
success and personal greatness. And as a result, their beliefs became true. Each of 
these great men and women went onto accomplish wonderful things with their 
lives.
The Big Payoff 
The good news is that the more you persist in the face of disappointment, 
disillusionment, setbacks, obstacles and temporary failure, the stronger you 
become as a person. The more you persist, the more you come to believe in 
yourself. And the more you believe in yourself, the more you will persist, no 
matter what happens. Each of them, persistence and belief, reinforces the other 
until you ultimately become unstoppable. 
Earlier in this book, I emphasized the importance of self-discipline in developing 
the habits that lead you on to happiness, health and great achievement. The truth is 
that 
persistence is self-discipline in action
. Each time you discipline yourself to 
persist, especially when you feel like quitting, both your ability to discipline 
yourself in subsequent events and your strength of persistence increases. Each 
reinforces the other. 
We know that your level of self-esteem, 
how much you like and respect yourself,
lies at the core of your personality. How much you like yourself determines how 
positive and optimistic you are, how resilient you are in the face of adversity, the 
size of the goals that you set for yourself, how well you get along with other 

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