Here are some interesting questions you might want to try answering. One: If you could completely change places with any other person in the world, would you do it? And who would that person be? Two: If you could work at any job you could choose, would that work be different from the work you're doing now? Three: If you could live in any part of the country you want to live in, would you move from where you are now living? Four: If you could go back to age 12 and live your life from that point over again, would you do it?

Studies indicate that the great majority of people, even though they have a certain amount of dissatisfaction with their present lives and don't seem to be as happy as they might be, will answer "no" to all four questions. A person often feels when he's accomplished everything he's worked and struggled for so long to achieve, he finds himself depressed more and more of the time. He has a fine job and an excellent income, a beautiful home, a wonderful spouse and children. In fact, everything is finally just as he'd planned it for so many years. And for no reason that he can put his finger on, all the fun and enthusiasm has strongly disappeared. He's listless and unhappy, and he can't think of a single reason why.

This has become a common modern malady, especially in retirement, and it's what so often happens when a person runs out of goals. This is when the game of life begins to go to pot, and the person needs to remind himself of the basic rules for successful, enthusiastic living. And the first rule is that a human being must have something worthwhile toward which he's working. Without that, everything else, even the most remarkable achievements of the past and all the trappings of worldly success tend to turn sour. Achieving our life goals can be compared to opening our presents on Christmas morning and watching those we love open theirs. We look forward to the day, plan, and work toward it. Suddenly it is there and all of the presents have been opened, and then what?

Well, we must then turn our thoughts and attention to other things. The successful novelist begins planning his next book before he completes the one he's working on. The scientist always has something new and challenging to turn to when he completes a project. The teacher has a new class coming up. The young family has children to raise and get through school, the new home to buy, the promotion to work for.

But for millions who reach their 40s and 50s and find they've done all they set out to do and that there are no new challenges to give them stimulus and direction, there often comes the most trying time of their lives the search for meaning, for new meaning, and it must be found if the old interest and vitality are to be restored to their lives, if they're to achieve renewal as persons.

If you understand this, even the search for new meaning can bring new interest into your life. You've got to say to yourself, "All right, I've done what I've set out to do. Now I must find something new and interesting to do."

Earl Nightingale

As a Depression-era child, Earl Nightingale was hungry for knowledge. From the time he was a young boy, he would frequent the Long Beach Public Library in California, searching for the answer to the question, "How can a person, starting from scratch, who has no particular advantage in the world, reach the goals that he feels are important to him, and by so doing, make a major contribution to others?" His desire to find an answer, coupled with his natural curiosity about the world and its workings spurred him to become one of the world's foremost experts on success and what makes people successful.

Earl Nightingale's early career began when, as a member of the Marine Corps, he volunteered to work at a local radio station as an announcer. The Marines also gave him a chance to travel, although he only got as far as Hawaii when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Earl managed to be one of the few survivors aboard the battleship Arizona. After five more years in the service, Earl and his wife moved first to Phoenix then Chicago to build what was to be a very fruitful career in network radio.

As the host of his own daily commentary program on WGN, Earl Nightingale arranged a deal that also gave him a commission on his own advertising sales. By 1957, he was so successful, he decided to retire at the age of 35. In the meantime, Earl had bought his own insurance company and had spent many hours motivating its sales force to greater accomplishments. When he decided to go on vacation for an extended period of time, his sales manager begged him to put his inspirational words on record. The result later became the recording entitled The Strangest Secret, the first spoken word message to win a Gold Record by selling over a million copies.

In The Strangest Secret, Earl had found an answer to the question that had inspired him as a youth and, in turn, found a way to leave a lasting legacy for others About this time, Earl met a successful businessman by the name of Lloyd Conant and together they began an "electronic publishing" company which eventually grew to become a multi-million dollar giant in the self-improvement field. They also developed a syndicated, 5-minute daily radio program, Our Changing World, which became the longest-running, most widely syndicated show in radio.