The Golden Mailbox
Newsletter

CLICK HERE TO READ LAST WEEKS ARTICLE ON: Using Visualization To Change Your Mind Set

Many years ago I lived in Georgia. We were "YANKEES" in every sense of the word. We had never even heard of "THE WAR". (If you are a Yankee you will not know what that means either.) I loved living in the South. I learned so many life's lessons from those wonderful people. Here is one of them.

One night my wife and I went to visit a friend. We were carrying on a normal conversation and having a wonderful time. We kept hearing dogs barking out back of his house. They were so loud it was irritating. But we did not say anything. On the way in the house I saw he had an unusual rack on the back of his truck. I had noticed that almost everyone in the town had a pickup truck with a back on it like that. They had lots of little doors in it. That came up in our conversation but I still did not say anything about the barking dogs. I asked about his truck out front with the odd rack on the back. I asked if he raised pigeons. He just laughed. He said that there in the South almost everyone went out hunting raccoons at night. They called it "COON HUNTING", and the dogs then of course were "COON DOGS". They were his pride and joy. He said the reason for the unusual box on the back of almost every pickup truck was so they could put one dog in each cubby hole and off they went hunting. Almost everyone had the dogs.

I kept hearing dogs bark. I knew enough about dogs to tell it was a group of hunting dogs. Finally I ask our friend why on earth those dogs kept barking and barking. It sounded like there were about 20 of them. What he then told me changed my life.

My friend said that when ever they were going out hunting for the night, they did not feed the dogs all day. I ask him why. He said:

"A HUNGRY DOG NEVER LOSES THE TRAIL"

I really did not realize the significance of what he said until a year later when I was a student at BYU. One of the teachers told us that if we would always come to a test fasting (going with out eating food or drinking water for 24 hours) that we would do much better on the test. When he said that, those immortal words came back into my mind that my friend from the South had said. "A HUNGRY DOG NEVER LOSES THE TRAIL".

I have spent a great deal of time in my life helping people overcome bad habits and set goals that helped them improve their lives. One of the things that I have found that causes people to have a hard time breaking bad habits and achieving new goals is will power. Many times people struggle with will power. They want to do it. They know it is right to do it, but they just do not have the will power to change.

I would like to propose to you that there is a power in fasting. It is something that most people have never even thought of trying. Who has ever known anything about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and not have heard about the power of his fasting. The Bible says that both Moses and Jesus fasted for 40 days. Most of us seem to know about fasting, but just have never considered doing it.

I am not proposing that you go on some 40 day cleansing fast. I am only sharing with you a life's lesson that I have learned. When I have something very hard to do, I have found that if I will fast for 2 meals (24 hours) before hand, it helps me focus. It clears my mind. Above all it builds my will power. I have adopted a fasting program to help me in my life. I fast one day every month. I do it on the first Sunday of each month. I can tell you that it does more to help me build will power, over come bad habits and stay focused on what is right for me than any other single thing I do.

I have taught this principle to many people. Most people immediately say that they can not go without eating without getting head aches or becoming dizzy or getting stomach cramps or ...... well the list goes on and on. Yet when I ask them later when they are not thinking about fasting if they have ever been so busy at work that they just simply forgot to eat breakfast and even lunch, most of the time they say yes. I do not think I have ever met anyone who has normal health that has not had that experience of missing two meals with out noticing because they were so involved in something. They have become so engrosed in something, so busy, so stressed with a deadline, so in a hurry that they have gone 2 meals (24 hours) without eating and did not even notice it. Have you had that experience?

Why didn't they get a headache that day they forgot to eat? Because it was not going with out food (commonly though of as starving). It was forgetting to eat. Much of the pain and suffering that is associated with not eating is psychological. That is why it works so well in overcoming bad habits. It is psychological. It makes you choose between something you want over something you need. Giving up some lesser pleasure for a greater reward. There is a power that can come in choosing to not eat, no matter how hungry you get, to show yourself that you can have and do have will power.

There are of course many people who can not go without eating because of medical conditions like diabetes, pregnancy, or many other like things. If you have never fasted before you may even want to ask you doctor first if it will hurt you. However, be aware that there are many studies in medical journals that show that it actually helps your body to not eat for 24 hours about once a month.

If you are in good physical health you may want to try this little experiment. When you have something really hard to do, you have a really big decision to make, or you are really having a hard time with self control over some thing or other; try fasting about it. Try going without eating for 24 hours, then for a couple of hours before you eat or drink anything again, go somewhere where you can be totally alone and just meditate. You may be really surprised what comes into your mind and the feelings of control that you will experience as you sit there alone feeling the feelings.

I hope you will ever remember my life's lesson:

"A HUNGRY DOG NEVER LOSES THE TRAIL"

(If you are wanting to try fasting and you are concerned in any way about your health, ask your doctor first to be sure it is OK for you to do it.)

Your outrageous goal setting, millionaire making friend

Cordell Vail, W.B.

Back to Newsletter Archive