Our greatest power, according to author J. Martin Kohe in his book Your Greatest Power, is the power to choose. This book was written in 1953 and, in my opinion, is one of the all time personal development classics. Your Greatest Power sold 250,000 copies and Mr. Kohe conducted hundreds of seminars on the powers of choice during the 1950’s. I believe his ideas are even more valuable today than they were in the fifties.
In this first decade of the 21st century, we face hundreds, nay thousands, more choices than previous generations did. Nevertheless, most of the main choices – the choices that determine our success – are the same. For example, we can choose to:
- Be positive or negative;
- Be happy or sad;
- Be caring or mean;
- Be enthusiastic or dull;
- Be ambitious or lazy;
- Be goal-directed or adrift;
- Be green and growing or ripe and rotting;
- Focus on what we can do or what we can’t do;
- Help or hurt;
- Build up or tear down;
- Keep the main thing the main thing or do the wrong things;
- Act our way to a new set of feelings or be frozen with procrastination or fear;
- Take responsibility for our actions or make excuses;
- Look for ways to learn and improve or be satisfied with the status quo;
- Have fun or be glum;
- Unleash someone’s potential or squash it;
- Do our best or settle for good enough;
- Encourage or discourage;
- Help people be right or point out how and why they are wrong;
- Expect, encourage & embrace change or resist change.
J. Martin Kohe quotes:
“The greatest power a person possesses is the power to choose.”
“Let us choose to believe something good can happen.”
“You possess a potent force that you either use, or misuse, hundreds of times every day.”
“Yes, we are all different: different customs, different foods, different mannerisms, different languages, but not so different that we cannot get along with one another; if we disagree without being disagreeable.”