Peter Daniels - Part I

Thank you, Pastor.

I'm delighted to be here.

I trust you're going to be able to understand my accent.

I have some problems with yours.

Well, you talk about food and you call it chow.

That's Chinese.

You talk about the great prairies and that French.

You talk about the corrals and that Spanish.

And when I meet you, you say, there you go, and I haven't gone anywhere at all.

You have no idea what it's like for a state old Baptist to come into a place like this and meet with Texans.

But everything is bigger, wider, taller, deeper.

I cannot resist the urge to tell you that in Australia we have a farm called Victoria Downs.

You call it a ranch, we call the farm.

It's bigger than the entire state of Texas.

One farm.

If we hear any more bragging, we'll cut it in halves and have two farms bigger than the entire state.

Now that's stretching it somewhat.

But it's a fact, it's bigger than the entire state of Texas, one cattle farm.

Australia has about the same land mass as the United States.

We have the largest camel population on the face of the earth, wild camel population.

We export them to Saudi Arabia.

We have the largest wild horse population in the world, the largest wild goat population in the world, the largest wild pig population in the world, the largest wild donkey population in the world, and of course the largest wild crocodile group in the world.

And when you go into crocodile country, you need to understand that a crocodile can run faster than you can over land.

So you always take a friend with you.

Now I don't know what the pasture has shared with you, but uh let me give you just a little bit of background.

I'm 68 years of age.

My wife, Raveen, and I have been married for 47 years to each other.

We have uh we have three children and and eight grandchildren who think I'm the fourth member of the Trinity.

I've uh I've never gone through formal schooling.

I've never passed a grade at school.

I came from a third-generation welfare recipient family.

I had four fathers and two mothers, and most of my relatives had free board and lodgings with King George VI.

I meant they're in jail.

My inhibition as a young man was to be flyweight boxing champion of the world.

I'd had a fight on every street corner.

I went to school as a normal child went to school, but I went later than other children because I was suffering from the debilitating disease called diphtheria, which was prevalent during the Great Depression years.

And when I arrived at school, they tried to do some educational assessment on me, and they said, Well, this kid, he's just one brick short of a load.

He's not playing with a full deck.

His elevator doesn't go to the top floor.

And they thought I had brain damage, and they were going to put me with a group of brain damaged children.

Until along came a teacher called Miss Phillips.

I've often thought in retrospect that she could kick-start a jumbo jet.

She'd make the rock of Gibraltar look like a marshmallow.

She said, He's not brain damaged, he's just plain stupid.

And for three years she punched me, she kicked me, she slapped me, she didn't get any sense into me, in or out of me, and she used to get me by the chin and wrap my teeth and say, Peter Daniels, you're a bad, bad boy, and you're never going to mount to anything.

That became a self-fulfilling prophecy because at 26 years of age, I was an illiterate bricklayer.

I had great problems in comprehension.

I have acute dyslexia.

Great problems in articulation.

But on May the 25th, 1959, as an illiterate bricklayer, I went along to a Billy Graham Crusade in Adelaide, South Australia, where I live.

And when I heard the gospel in clear terms for the first time, I suddenly realized that I was equal with all men before God.

And I reasoned that if I was equal with all men before God, I no need to accept inequality with anybody.

I was a son of a king.

And God had gave me a dream at that time, a very simple dream.

As a young man.

It was to see how much money one human being could give away in their lifetime for a poppy.

I mean, if I had to shared it with anyone, they'd take me off to the funny farm.

I I I I didn't know anyone that had gone to high school.

I didn't even know anyone that was in business.

Be careful who you share your dreams with.

Well, I didn't know what to do.

Um I I prayed about someone read out to me the words of Joel, I will restore unto you the years the locusts had eaten.

And there was a return medical missionary from Indonesia for 15 years for two and a half hours every Saturday morning on my knees.

He taught me Bible and prayer and faith.

But that didn't help me in business.

It gave me character, stability.

And so what I'm about to tell you is the true story.

You can check it up, you can talk to people and so on.

But I went down and purchased three dictionaries.

And I started pointing to words, and I asked people what they meant, and I checked with two or three other people to make sure the first one told me the truth.

You've seen Crop a lot of Dundee.

I went through those dictionaries frontwards and then backwards until I understood every single word.

See, uh, I don't know what's happened to us.

I have business interests throughout the world, but wherever I go in Christendom, there's a something missing.

We we want someone to sponsor us.

We want someone to give to us.

We're not supposed to be the receivers, we're supposed to be the givers.

I need to tell you, I'm not part of the wealth cult.

I think it's disgusting.

You give because God is God.

I remember Rabina and I, we get we had to reach up the touch bottom.

I mean, we tithed, we gave, and offerings and gifts, and for twelve long years we were poorer at the end than what we were at the beginning.

But God rewards faithfulness.

God rewards faithfulness.

And so I kept pointing to words.

I put one one dictionary next to my bed, I put one in the bathroom, that's a good place to read.

I put one in my excuse for a motor car.

Now I need to tell you about this motor car.

It was a 1937 Ford V8 Clubman sedan that had been rolled three times.

The windows were missing from the sides, and we kept the doors on with wire.

And it wasn't the gasoline that bothered me, it was how much oil this confounded thing used.

You see, if I drove it very carefully, I could get 14 miles to the gallon of oil.

And if anyone showed any disrespect for my motor car, I'd wait till I got within three feet of the rear bumper bar, then I'd put my foot on the clutch and slap it on the accelerator and I would baptize them in oil.

Well, I kept pointing to words until I went through the dictionaries frontwards and then backwards until I understood every single word.

I then read 1,500 biographies.

Now, I haven't got polygrip, I said 1,500.

I then studied law, accountancy, philosophy, theology, modern ancient history, politics, and economics.

I found the mindless like a muscle and it could be developed.

Then I went into business.

Lost everything.

I want a tender, that'll clear your sinuses.

I paid it back and went into business a second time.

Lost it again.

I mean, you learn nothing new from the second kick from a horse.

I paid it back and went into business the third time.

My wife said to me, Peter, just get a job.

I mean, you sure God's talking to you?

I mean, just get a job.

I want some steady money coming in.

Peter, just get a job.

She said, here we are, winter's coming.

Peter needs Peter Jr.

needs a sweater for school and Grammy shoes, and I'm pregnant again.

You spend all this money on books.

I don't see anything happening.

On our 33rd wedding anniversary, I bought her a 49-carat opal with 33 diamonds on.

I mean, this thing's so big.

When she walks, you've got to walk like this.

I said, you haven't complained about the books I bought lately.

Well, I went to business the third time and lost it again.

What do you do when your dreams start to fade?

You reach for one more dream.

My friends, as Bible-believing Christians, we should never give up, let up, or shut up until God takes us up.

I don't know what's happened to us, we've become a bunch of wimps.

I mean, we talk about faith, sing about faith, read about faith, pray about faith, and go and get the job of the most security in it.

It's a contradiction of fact.

We ought to be the greatest entrepreneurs in history.

We believe the unbelievable.

We believe a virgin birth.

We believe the resurrection.

We believe that this Bible is inerrant in its original form.

I mean, what's happened to us for crying out loud?

We become a bunch of wimps.

I mean, we we're we're living in one of the greatest economies in the history of the human race.

And we say that God doesn't want us to have any money.

What's happening?

I've met some Christians even in this country that say they're not interested in money.

I say, give it to me.

They change immediately.

I've said to my wife, if anything happens to my brain, psychologists tell me I have a very unusual brain.

A couple of people have paid me a million dollars, one even in this country for 10 minutes.

Advice, I guess, uh, you know, God's got a sense of humor.

And uh I've said to my wife, if anything happens to this brain, which can write a best-selling book in 15 hours or long hand without any reference material and no corrections, usually worth five million when I finish.

The concepts that uh I've created because I've never had the disadvantage of going to university.

I said, if anything happens to this, well, I get doctorates from university to make them look good.

Uh I said, if anything happens to this brain, for goodness sake, get me a Christian brain at the perfective brain implants.

He said, Why?

I said, Well, it's never been used.

I mean, for goodness sake, when we come to church, we live in parked outside.

We we don't we don't study our Bible, we we give it a cursory look.

Uh several years ago I I spoke to some of the greatest theologians about time, and I asked them this one question: what was the value of the gold, frankincense, and myrrh that was given to Jesus in his birth in today's currency?

They said that hadn't questioned that hadn't been asked for 2,000 years.

I said, Well, I'm asking it now.

They said it's a monstrous job just trying to track that down.

I said, I'll pay.

They said, we'll do it.

Two years.

Have you any idea the value of that?

I mean, we like talking about Jesus being poor in the manger and all this sort of thing.

Well, he received it when he was 22 months old.

There was an army that came with him, it's historical fact now, they've discovered this, that came down from Persia.

Part of the army was 1,000 bowmen.

A very unusual group.

They had short horses and they would attack in a circle, and when they reached a pivotal point, the Arabs would go all day.

They could defeat an army ten sizes size.

The historical fact is that Herod had his army away fighting a battle and he thought they were going to lay siege to the city.

That's why he invited them in.

Jesus was not poor.

And again, I have to repeat, I'm not part of the wealth cult.

I think it's disgusting.

But surely, if God has put us at this time in space and put you in one of the wealthiest countries the world has ever known, surely, surely you ought to go out and earn as much as you can and do what no one else in history will do, and that is to give it away to evangelize the world.

That's why he's put you here, that's why he's put me where I am.

Have you got any idea what it was worth?

Try 240 million American dollars.

And Jesus was not ordinarily rich.

He could turn the water into wine, he could multiply the loaves and fishes.

If he hit his toe, a lead of archangels would come down and rescue him.

People say, Oh, yes, but his parents had a uh the gay gave a poor offering.

Of course they did.

Study Hebrew.

You find that uh under Hebrew law, if they'd have touched his heritage, they'd have been stoned to death.

And uh and what happened to her?

Well, of course, it went with the bankers until he reached his age of immaturity.

Read the story of the talents.

In Jesus' time, there were two talents.

There was a standard talent and a royal talent.

A standard talent was 30 kilos of gold, a royal talent was 60 kilos of gold.

What was Jesus talking about?

We've got to get our act together in some of these things.

I wish I wish you could be with our researchers and see some of the material we come up with that uh that our theologians haven't even scratched the surface.

And over the last 40 years we've been digging deep into some of these issues that need to be brought to the surface as Bible-believing Christians.

When the Ark of the Covenant came back to the people of God, it did not come back to the priests or the religious leaders or the prophets, it came back to a man called Abinadab.

And he and his son looked after it for 20 years.

We've researched him through the Jewish synagogues.

He was a famous entrepreneur.

All of Jesus' disciples were business people.

I mean, it's time for us to get off our blessed assurance.

I mean, it's time for us to get our act together.

Well, anyway, I went to business the paid it back and went to business the fourth time and built one of the largest real estate corporations of kind in our nation with offices in Singapore and Hong Kong.

We sold those out some years ago.

Today we're involved in many areas of business around the world were very unusual.

We had no overdraft, no loans, no mortgages.

At times we lent at banks.

We're um very heavy in uh in um in gold.

Uh we did some films uh a few years ago and uh we won the Golden Globe Award on Economics, and we're in the top 10% of advisors in economics in the world.

Now, God has a sense of humor.

God gave me another dream as a young man to change the world in my lifetime, and within the next 10 or 15 years, I trust and the providence of God I'll be able to pull a switch that'll change the world for 300 years.

They say that's a crazy comment to make.

How can one person change the world in their lifetime?

Or let me hate to remind you in biblical times, Abraham changed the world in his lifetime, Moses changed the world in his lifetime, David changed the world in his lifetime, Gideon changed the world in his lifetime.

In more modern times, a man called Mahatma Gandhi was what he called Satayagraha, which was soul force.

He broke the chain to colonial power, he changed the world in his lifetime.

Henry Ford changed the world in his lifetime when he said the world moving by the automobile, and Roger Bannister changed the world in his lifetime when he ran the first four-minute mile, and he proved that the absolute human endeavor is yet to come.

The last great English bulldog, Sir Winston Spencer, Leonard Churchill.

He changed the world when he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

In the field of human conflict, with so many owes, so much of so few.

So let us brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth would last for a thousand years, then would still say this was their finest hour.

In the Battle of Britain, he changed the world.

Barkham Beethoven changed the world in our lifetime as they expanded our consciousness in the area of symphony and song.

And Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr., he changed the world when they're on Capitol Hill before the television audience of the world, when he gave that famous speech.

But by the content of the character, I have a dream today.

And so we got out at the very early hours of this morning.

Scratched ourselves, got our act together, and came here to talk to you after traveling ten thousand hours.

It was this question.

What is this dream that you have?

What is this dream that you have for many of you who was alive and well when you're a little younger?

You go for a swim at the beach or the lake, or you'd stand in front of a wood fire on a cold winter night or under the starry heavens on a hot summer night.

You lay in the sand.

You do what men and women in all ages have done, you would contrast that picture of what you are against what you would like to become.

Or during the next 36 hours or whatever time I'll be tonight, tomorrow night, we'd like to try and turn on that dream issue.

See, because dreaming is not a waste of time.

When you dream, you're on a perfect guideline creating something out of nothing.

You know, I I struggle sometimes to wonder what I should say to people in America.

I uh I I really struggle.

Because you see, you say our nation during the 40s.

The Japanese were coming in, had already showed Sydney Harbor, they're bombing Darwin, I'd already printed the currency.

As a kid, I sat on a curb and I saw the Australian infantry go past.

Oh just a bunch of guys, they didn't have a prayer.

Our army was over in the Middle East fighting Rommel.

And there we were, trying to get our act together and suddenly the Americans came.

I sat on the same curb and the Americans went past.

It took four hours for the convoy to go past.

And every GI waved to me and they asked me if I had an older sister.

You know, I I I think of that often.

You saved our nation during the 40s.

I wish you could know how much we love you for that.

I wish you could know how much we love you for that.

You you sent Billy Graham.

My my elder son says to me, Dad, you know, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I I wonder where we would be today if the American people hadn't uh hadn't sent Billy and uh hadn't come under the the power of the gospel.

He said, when I think about that, I cannot go back to sleep, Dad.

I just can't go back to sleep.

Then when as a young man I tried to get my act together, I uh I tried to come to grips with things and I got hold of Doug Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

I got the W.

Clement Stone book.

You know, so that the success system that never fails.

I read Frank Vector's book, How I Raise Myself from Failure to Success.

And see again the Americans come.

That's why I keep coming back.

I've been here about 80 times and I'll keep coming back and I'll keep talking to you.

I'll keep letting you know that there are people in the world that love America as well as people that hate her.

But there's never been a nation in the whole history of humankind that has been as benevolent as the United States of America.

Our governor at one time criticized America, and he and I were on the front page of the newspaper for 12 days while I ripped.

His guts out.

See, there's never been a nation like America, and I don't like the other options that are available around the world.

I want to share some concepts with you tonight.

Some of them may be stale.

But I think we need to understand that growth or success, call it what you will, comes from three very simple factors.

First of all, the climate of the times in which we live.

And surely, surely, we live in the most exciting time in the history of the world.

As I walk up and down to my international headquarters, I have 6,000 years of history on my office wall.

I'm a student of history.

For 40 years I've been a student of history.

Why do I study history?

Because the thing that we've learned from history is that we will not learn from history.

And here we are in this incredible world today.

The climate of the times in which we live has to be the most exciting in history.

The Berlin Wall is gone.

All of you ought to write a letter to the Kremlin and thank them for field testing communism.

It didn't work.

There's a lot of criticism out there about the church, you know, people tell us, and they're partly right.

Christians are lazy, they're not ambitious, they tell lies, they can't keep the marriages together, their kids are running off the rails.

Well, part of that is right, and we've got to get our act together there.

But let me tell you, the gospel in the Christian church is still the silent, unsung hero of every generation.

And if your nation or my nation were to close down the work that the gospel is doing in our countries and care for the age and education and for those people that can't help themselves, and the captains of industry, the trade union movement, and everyone else would find that the nation would collapse and be in chaos within 90 days.

The climate of the times in which we live.

Most exciting time in history.

Secondly, what you personally are prepared to do is a service to others.

For 40 years I've heard Christians say, Oh, I want to be a servant leader.

Now there's your child time to be a servant leader.

Go out and start a business.

Get off your blessed assurance.

I mean, we sing on with Christian soldiers and we never go into battle.

We talk about leadership and we couldn't lead a group in silent prayer.

I mean, have a look behind and see if anyone's following.

For crying out loud, you know, leadership for Christianity is not optimal, it's mandatory.

We're told we are the light of the world, which means we should lead the way.

We're told we're salt, which we means we should penetrate everything.

We're never told we're going to be a majority, we are a minority.

The majority is always wrong.

It is the minority that's right.

The majority may confirm what is right, but they never initiate what is right.

And thirdly, what you're personally willing to sacrifice along the way.

And let me tell you, you don't have to sacrifice your family.

It's a lie of the devil.

You don't have to sacrifice your family.

Our family is so close, I think if I had a headache, one of my grandchildren could take an aspirin and I'd feel fine.

And by the way, Isaac, my youngest grandson, told me to tell you something.

He said, You tell them, Poppy.

And he sang me this song.

And it went something like this: if you're black or if you're white or if you're in between, God loves you.

If you're tall or if you're short or if you're fat or lean, God loves you.

He loves you when you're happy, he loves you when you're sad, he loves you when you're very good and even when you're bad.

No matter what you look like, no matter what you do, God loves you.

A hallelujah.

God loves you, a sucker too.

You tell him, Papa, you tell him.

I mean, if Isaac was here, he would sing it himself for you, and you you'd get the full blast of it.

But you see, two out of those three statements depend on you.

Success is not a demand on life, it is a biggest response to life.

And I listened to the economists on CNN and and and so on trying to talk up or talk down or try to manipulate the economy, you're not going to be able to do that.

Wake up, America, you're terrifying the life out of everyone.

Uh, according to your your politicians, and if they're if I don't know whether they're any better than ours or not, we have a saying in Australia, how do you know if your politician is lying?

His lips are moving.

But uh according to your politicians, you owe six trillion dollars.

And let's get it in perspective.

Our researchers say it's nearer 19 trillion.

We'll take your word for it, six trillion.

Um, tongue in cheek, we'll take that.

Uh but if it's only six trillion and and and we we started paying off at a dollar a second of every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year, and we started 150 years ago, we'd have to go 159,000 years to pay your bills.

If America collapses, the whole world collapses.

And you can kiss goodbye to evangelism maybe for 50 years.

For goodness sake, America, get your act together.

You are the leader of the world.

And the way to get your act together is for individuals to get their act together.

I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said if you had to get a hundred economists and lay them head to toe on the ground, they wouldn't even reach a conclusion.

But the mainstream world economists have come together for the first time in history, and they have said there are five essentials necessary for success as we funded towards now the 21st century.

The first one is a rich, modern, highly productive agricultural base.

The second is a rich base of energy-bearing materials, the third is an abundant supply of non-energy-bearing materials, the fourth is a highly developed technology, and the fifth is a highly educated and sophisticated population.

And of all the nations of the world, all the emerging nations in the entire universe, there's only three nations on the face of the earth that have every one of these.

One is Canada, one is Australia, and the other one you've guessed it is the United States of America.

You see, with the limitation of other countries and the enormity of the opportunity before us, the position that we're in here this evening must inflict upon us commitment.

We've been through the industrial age, the automotive age, the jess age, the space age, the electronic age, and many believe now that we're in the age of the cortex.

Many believe that the human mind is on the periphery of its greatness.

It is the last great unconquered area of mankind.

And now is the time to cut the feathers from our mind and allow it to glide as it was divinely designed to do so.

But you've got to use some principles.

One of the things that I I notice as I travel around the world and uh uh for a number of years, uh, well, for the last 40 years I've been involved in Christian work.

I I helped Bob Schuller for 21 years, uh, raise his money, build the Christian cathedral, and uh and so on.

I mean, Bob's a pain in the neck.

All geniuses are a pain in the neck.

And uh uh the Hagai Institute of Advanced Leadership Training, I uh we would fly in up to 65 world leaders at a time in Singapore and train them in advanced leadership techniques, people like the Chief of Endepal, nuclear physicists, major generals of armies.

And that's that's why I always carry this with me, a cookie cutter.

Because, you know, one of the things that I one of the things that I've found is that uh, you know, when you get a bunch of leaders together, you expect them to be gregarious and hospitable and get on well with one another.

No, they fight like cat and dog.

You see, you can't make leaders with cookie cutters.

You can't make leaders with cookie cutters.

Cookie cutters are rigid with no flexibility.

All leaders have peculiarities.

And uh, you know, what are we what are we doing?

For goodness sake.

Do you realize there's not one Christian institution on the face of the earth?

Not one school, not one Christian college, not one Christian university that teaches Christians to own the corporations.

All it does is teach them to be an employment fighter for godless corporations, that's all.

And for goodness sake, when are we gonna wake up?

And we carry a lot of passengers, too.

We've got to stop this.

When the ride's free, more people take the ride.

You know, uh, I'm it's the same here as it is in England and in our country and elsewhere.

You know, we we have people within our midst that say, well, uh, you've got to help me because I've been rejected.

Well, for goodness sake, grow up.

And I rejected every woman in the world when I married my wife.

Everyone's been rejected.

I mean, what's this?

Oh, you don't know how I've been brought up.

I've I I had a terrible time.

I wasn't brought up, I was dragged up.

I mean, we're we're we're looking for excuses to blame why we we don't have to perform like you do.

It's a stickness that's right through our uh our churches.

Dr.

Alfred Adler, the great Austrian psychiatrist, understood this and he spoke of what he called the life-like neurotic.

He said it is a categorical demand of the patient's lifespan that he or she should fail through the guilt of others and thus be free from responsibility.

In other words, if I can blame the system, or if I can blame the way you're treating me, well then I have a free ride.

My Bible doesn't teach me that, it teaches personal accountability.

Or I know some people have problems and they need psychiatric help and so on, but it's in the it's so minute.

And it's in the and and it'll only work if they start in the beginning God.

The English psychologist, Dr.

Hans J.

Einzek, analyzed Nyheam reports covering 7,000 psychiatric cases, and he found the rate of cure or improvement with psychiatric help at 64%.

He compared that to a spontaneous recovery rate, that is for individuals who received no therapy at all, and that was 66%.

Some of our psychiatrists might be driving us crazy.

The Canadian psychiatrist, a psychiatrist, Dr.

Raymond Price, spent 17 months studying Nigerian witch doctors, and his conclusion was that their therapeutic results are about equal to those obtained in the North American clinics and hospitals.

And for those of you who feel too old, oh, I hate being with people my own age.

I mean, they're always glorifying the past.

It wasn't that good, I was there.

Well, they say, you know, you know, oh, I'm too young, I have mental or physical handicaps that prevent me from success.

Everybody's got handicaps.

I'm colorblind.

I used to sell paint.

But let me hasten to remind you that at a hundred years of age, Grandma Moses was painting masterpieces, that in 94, Bertrand Russell was active in national peace drives, that in 92, Rubenstein gave one of his greatest recitals in New York Carnegie Hall.

That at 89 Albert Schweitzer was head of hospitals in Africa, that at 88 Conrad Adner was charterer of Germany, that at 82 Sir Winston Churchill wrote the history of the English-speaking people.

That at 46, Beethoven became totally deaf and he wrote his greatest music during those latter years.

In Orange County, where we left this morning, there's a man there called Henry Discarney Jr.

He was born without legs.

He is the president of the Human Resource Center and founder of Abilities Incorporated with 13 honorary degrees and nine books to his credit.

So the question I have to ask you is, what's your problem?

You an excuseologist?

And he said the greatest discovery of my generation is you can change a life by changing your attitude.

I believe my Bible says it much better.

It says you can be born again.

And you can change completely.

Change completely.

Well, watching this club.

I guess the first principle of success, if we want to put some principles down, certainly I found in my lifetime, and I guess I've worked with some of the biggest corporate giants, some of the biggest academia giants, political giants, theological giants of the 20th century.

The first principle of success, in my opinion, is mastery over procrastination.

Mastery over procrastination.

If you come with me as I go into my office, and I've just got to be very frank with you, I don't work hard.

I don't even get up early.

I think if God wanted me to see the sunrise and shredded later in the day, I'll watch it on video.

Some of you people having a quiet time at five and six o'clock in the morning.

I talk to God at ten o'clock.

He's not busy then.

But as I go to my office, you'll hear me say in my motor car, do it now.

Do it now.

Do it now.

Do it now.

Build up the affirmation.

Now, Rabina and I, we we we have a very unusual relationship.

My wife and I.

I've never been out with another girl in my life.

I mean, I kissed her at 16, I didn't wash my face for two weeks.

I I drifted two miles home.

Uh we go to sleep holding hands, we wake up holding hands.

Um I wake her up every morning of her life with cafe latte and marmalade or something like that.

There's a very good reason because it's called self-preservation.

She's not responsible for anything she says in the morning until she has a coffee.

But we think differently.

And by the way, fellas, don't expect your wife to think like you for crying out loud.

She's not like you.

You were made from the dirt.

You're grubby.

You say grubby things, you do grubby things.

I mean, she's not like you.

She was built.

That's why when you first saw her, you said, man, what a bill.

And she needs some security.

Am I right, ladies?

You hear that, fellas?

Women need security.

And some of you guys are flying by the seat of your pants and not giving your coup for your family the security they need and deserve.

And the Bible tells us he that does not look after his own is worse than an infidel and has denied the faith.

And I my long suit is economics.

And don't think that I was always this way.

As a young man, I had more summons for not paying my bills than anyone else, and I could have wallpapered the whole the whole lounge out with them.

But I learned to be responsible.

And we need to look after our wives and look after our family and take a take a really sensible approach towards that, a biblical approach.

You didn't know you had it until we took it.

We gregariously gave it back.

But uh I had to go and speak at a men's group.

Now, Rabina travels everywhere with me.

If I'm chairman of the board of directors, I take my wife in.

And I make the other directors bring their wives in.

That way I get their brains for nothing.

And uh we were in person, I had to speak to a men's group, and we were in a hotel, and I said, Well, sweetheart, I'll be back at five o'clock.

They're coming to pick me up at nine.

Uh by the way, what are you gonna do today?

She said, Well, I'm going shopping.

Now, this was many years ago.

We were we were doing well, we weren't as well off as what we are today.

I said, Well, what are you gonna do today?

She said, I'm going shopping.

Oh my goodness.

I said, Well, what are you going shopping for?

She said, Peter, I'm going to buy a dress.

I said, What do you want a dress for?

She said, Peter, our son's getting married.

I need a dress for the wedding.

One dress?

Yes, one dress.

We even kissed on it.

Well, I came back at five o'clock that night and knocked on the door.

She opened it with flourish in the hotel room.

She's a little more amorous than normal.

I smelled a rat immediately.

As she put her arms around me, I looked over her shoulder and saw two boxes on the bed.

I said, Hey, what's going on here?

She said, Now hang on.

She said, There's an interesting story about this.

Always an interesting story.

She said, When you left in the morning, I went down to Hay Street.

I saw in the shop window there a dress that was perfect for Peter Jr.'s wedding.

I went in and tried it on.

It did it beautifully.

It said no credits, no returns.

I bought it.

There it is.

I said, What about the other one?

She said, Don't rush me.

I'm coming to that.

She said, I had a look at the time.

It was only half past ten in the morning.

You're not coming back at 5.30.

What am I supposed to do while you're out throwing yourself off the platform all over the city?

She said, so I caught a bus and I went to Fremantle to look at some of the old convict buildings.

And uh and by the way, Australia was built on convicts.

And we're very balanced people.

We've got a chip on each shoulder.

And um she uh said I I suddenly found myself in a shopping centre.

She said, in a beautiful shopping center.

She said, no, I walked up and down, there's pipe music coming through the amplification system.

She said, and I had some morning tea.

Uh she said it was lovely.

She said, and suddenly I was arrested by another dress shop.

And when I looked in the window, I saw a dress better than the other one.

And I knew that we'd made a commitment, and while I looked at it, I could hear the music coming through the amplification system.

She said, and suddenly, as if by magic, I thought I heard your voice.

I said, what did it say?

She said it said, mastery over procrastination.

Do it now, and I did.

But it's the single most important tool for success: mastery over procrastination.

The second principle is enthusiasm, comes from two Greek words, entheo, meaning the god within.

I have a sign in my international headquarters behind my desk that says either get enthusiastic within ten seconds or get out.

You know, some Christians you've got to sign them up with a theater light to see if they're moving.

I mean, we we we uh you know, we're raring to go and we can't go for raring.

What's happening to us, for goodness sake?

We're not taking the world by storm.

We've got more divorce, more abortion, more drugs, more delinquency in the church than any time in history.

We need to get our act together.

Islam is laughing at us.

Literally laughing at us.

We need a little bit of enthusiasm about our faith.

You see, enthusiasm is the outflowing of a pleasing personality and a contagious enjoyment for what you're doing.

Enthusiasm is not void of reason, it's clarity of plans and energy with wings.

You also need a positive mental attitude.

The Bible says, whatever things are good, report, think on these things.

A positive mental attitude means spending your creative energy on finding ways things can be done rather than exhausting your emotional and mental powers on dwelling on the ways things cannot be done.

It means turning a problem into a solution.

It means you must develop thought displacement, stand sentinel at the gate of your mind and challenge thoughts as they come in.

Also, you need to pay the full price.

I was in Chicago on my last trip, and a young lady came up to me, she said, Mr.

Daniels, I've got a dream.

Would you like to hear about it?

I said, Have I got an option?

Um she said, I want to win the world of Christ.

I said, Good, what are your demographics?

He said, What do you mean?

I said, Well, if you're going to win the world of Christ, how many cities in the world are there with a population population over 100,000?

She said, I don't know.

I said, Well, just over 3,000.

I said, Well, uh, now what's your budget?

I mean, for goodness sake.

Don't we read uh Shakespeare in Ortello, where it says, oh God, that man should use his mouth as an enemy to his brain?

I mean, we wonder why people look at us and shake their head and walk away.

I mean, we uh the Bible tells us to put a hand over our mouth.

Even a fool is considered wise if he keeps his mouth shut.

I mean, we're we're we're paying the full price means a commitment to excellence and learning how to excel in dimensions that we have never known before in our life.

Whatever God has called you to, you must know your stuff inside and out, saturate yourself with it.

There is nothing that will put a spring of confidence in your walk and in your performance like being sure that you definitely, concretely, and specifically know what you're doing.

As a young man, I knew I had to do something, and because I I'd never gone through formal schooling, um, psychologists tell me I have an unusual mind because I read differently than you are up until three years ago.

I'd read 5,362 biographies alone.

Why?

Because the bulk knowledge of the world is doubling every ten years, and if you're not twice as smart as you were ten years ago, you're going backwards.

And we are the ones, we are the ones that are supposed to lead the world.

We are the minority.