If you’re like me, you’ve sometimes wondered why there’s so much trouble in life.  You’ve wondered what causes the stress, anger, depression, and loneliness that we often see in ourselves and other people.  There is a specific cause of these things – and the purpose of this Internet Seminar is to reveal that cause to you and to explain in detail how to remove it from our lives so we can have new courage, hope, and purpose.

     Let’s open the seminar by talking about the problem of being “successful.”  When I was a boy growing up, my parents used to talk about something they called “The Secret of Success.”  I can still see my father standing in our kitchen after work, talking to my mother about The Secret while she stirred the evening meal on the stove.

     When I reached my teen years, it seemed as if a new book, radio program, or record album came out every month promoting The Secret.  For example, I can still remember the book Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, and the record album “The Strangest Secret Ever Told,” by radio personality Earle Nightingale.

     At that time, I had an uncle who was an executive with a large insurance company and whose hobby was racing sports cars.  As I reached adulthood, this uncle wanted me to go to work for him.  At one point in our negotiations, he sent me a tape recording on The Secret.  He personally believed in The Secret and practiced it in his own life.  As it turned out, I never went to work for that uncle, but he had a great influence on my life.  His ideas swayed my thinking well into my thirties – until I finally discovered that The Secret doesn’t work.

     What was The Secret that my parents and my uncle believed in and practiced?  The Secret said that “success” in life is measured by money, social status, and tangible possessions (such as yachts and sports cars) – and that people can have all the money, status, and possessions they want if they simply “visualize” such things and “believe” that they have them.  The Secret said that our “subconscious minds” have miraculous “creative powers,” and that the more we think about money, status, and possessions, the more our subconscious minds act as “magnets” to attract such things to us.

     All these years later, this same “Secret of Success” is still being taught today on radio, TV, and the Internet.  But today they don’t call it The Secret anymore.  Today, The Secret is hidden in glamorous real estate, advertising, marketing, and personal power schemes – and you have to read between the lines to find it.  However, regardless of whether The Secret is openly taught, or is buried in glamorous personal power schemes, I eventually discovered that there’s a big catch to it.

     The big catch to “The Secret of Success” is simple:  It’s not based on Spiritual experiences.  In other words, it’s not based on God.  The opposite is true.  The Secret says, in effect, that our “subconscious minds” are gods and that by extension we are gods.  However, that’s not true.  If you watch the news or look in a mirror, you know people aren’t gods.

     What I’ve learned over the years is that the real secret of success is in Spiritual experiences – not money, status, or possessions.  Years ago there was a bumper sticker that read, “He Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins.”  But that cute saying isn’t true.  There are some things in life that are much more precious than money, status, and possessions – and they are the real secret of success.

     To summarize:  There is a secret of success.  But it’s not the false one I was taught as a youth.  So the goal of this Internet Seminar is to reveal the true secret of success to you.  Our goal is to show you that there are some things that are far more precious than silver and gold.  But before we talk about the true secret of success in greater detail, let’s recognize the needs we have that make the true secret of success so necessary for us.

     Several years ago, 2,400 of the most intelligent and respected psychiatrists in the world met in San Francisco for the International Psychoanalytical Congress.  The purpose of their meeting was to decide what the world’s most pressing human problems are and to decide what to do about those problems.  After a week of meetings, the 2,400 delegates – who included university professors, government researchers, authors, and specialists from every area of private practice – reached the following four conclusions about you, me, and the world in which we live:

       1.  People are breaking more moral codes today and having more trouble with human relationships than at any other time in the history of the world.

       2.  The troubles that people are having all over the world are the same for everyone – regardless of their language, culture, and religion.

       3.  The causes of all this worldwide pain are:  loneliness, depression, fear, hate, lust, greed, envy, selfishness, and sexual perversion.

       4.  The solution to this global agony – the 2,400 delegates decided – is to have everyone, everywhere lie down on a couch and allow their fantasies to emerge.[1.  Greensboro (North Carolina) News & Record, “People’s Troubles Are The Same Everywhere,” August 3, 1995.]

     Now, I don’t know about you, but I agree with the findings of this elite psychiatric group.  I agree that people’s problems all over the world are the same – and that people have more problems today than at any other time in history.  I also agree that the causes of all this trouble are loneliness, depression, fear, hate, lust, greed, envy, selfishness, and sexual perversion.

     However, I disagree with the solution the elite group reached – and I think you do, too.  Because there aren’t enough psychiatrists in the world (and psychiatric couches in the world) for everybody on earth to lie down for therapy.  And, even if there were enough psychiatrists and couches, I still don’t the elite group’s solution would work.  Why not?  Because I don’t think allowing people’s “fantasies to emerge” is the real cure for loneliness, depression, fear, hate, lust, greed, envy, selfishness, and sexual perversion.  Do you?  In fact, I think that many of the world’s troubles are caused by people allowing their fantasies to emerge.  Don’t you?

     I think that many of the troubles in the world are caused by people fantasizing about money, status, and possessions.  And if that’s true, then the the psychiatrists and their couches are as meaningless as the false “Secret of Success” that my parents and uncle talked about when I was young.

     All that leaves us with a big problem.  We’re left with the overwhelming desire that all people have for their personal needs to be met.  But how?  What’s the real solution to satisfying our deepest inner needs?

     The answer is the second “Secret” that we’re going to talk about in these seminar sessions:  Real success only comes from Spiritual experiences – that is, it comes from Spiritual growth toward God.  Said in reverse, the true cause of all the loneliness, depression, fear, and hate in the world is a lack of Spirituality in people.

     Now, since real success only comes from Spiritual growth, in Part 2 of this session we’re going to be even more honest about why people’s lack of Spirituality causes all the trouble on our planet.  So let’s turn to Part 2 and be totally open about what it takes to be successful in life.