by Renee Scattergood

I think most of us inherently learn early on that we can manifest our desires through thought and action. I mean as infants we can’t speak, yet through our actions we can convey our needs thereby bringing our desires to fruition… in other words when we’re hungry we cry and we get fed.

Somehow most of us forget how powerful our thoughts and desires are, but I can clearly remember just knowing throughout my childhood that I could have whatever I wanted. One way or another, if I really wanted something I always got it. Even as an adult I knew I had this “power”.

In my 20’s I wanted a computer, but I didn’t have the money to buy one. So I just decided that I was going to get one for free. I didn’t know how I was going to make that happen… I just knew that it would. A few months later a friend of mine offered me a computer that she had gotten. She was selected as part of a marketing trial, which involved a free computer, but she decided she didn’t want to participate, so she gave the computer to me.

The only catch was that all my activity was being monitored, but I had free internet connection and everything. Well, a few months later, I received an email that the company doing the study was bought out by another company and they decided to end the study. We were allowed to keep the computers free and clear.

I spent my 20’s really focusing on developing my “mental powers” and in one of the classes I took, we did a simple exercise to teach people the power of their own minds. We were each given a potato and an ordinary drinking straw, and then we were told put the straw through the potato.

Most people just laughed and said it was impossible. I have to admit, I was thinking much the same thing. In fact, I never even gave it a real try while I was there, but when I got home I couldn’t get it out of my head. I watched the instructor do it, so I knew it was possible, but I just didn’t think that I could do it.

The next day my curiosity got the better of me, so when no one was around, I grabbed a potato and straw and started trying to drive the straw through the potato. The first time I did it, I broke the straw and barely put a little hole in the potato. So I grabbed a new straw and tried it again. This time it went in about a quarter of an inch… but again I broke the straw.

It seemed like an impossible task, but what came to my mind at that point was how some martial artists can break boards and cement blocks with their bare hands. If they could do that then I surely could put a straw through a potato. I started seeing it in my mind, where I wanted the straw to go… then I suddenly realized… my hand was in the way. If I put the straw through the potato, it was going through my hand too.

I repositioned my hand so that I was holding it on the side instead of from the bottom and then I took a deep breath and drove the straw toward the potato. At the same time I was envisioning it going through. Mind you… I still didn’t believe that I could do it… just that it was possible. So imagine my shock when I was standing there with a potato that had a straw straight through it. It didn’t just go into the potato… it went clean through to the other side.

That’s the day I realized that anything was possible. You don’t have to even believe you are capable of it as long as you believe it’s possible. And if you believe that it could happen and you take action… eventually it will happen for you just the way you envision it.

It’s this knowledge that keeps me going in my business. Over the last three years I have seen one failure after another, but I just feel it in my bones… just like I did with the potato and straw… success is just around the corner. I just have to keep working towards it.