The 50th Law - 50 Cent [89]
CREATE A SENSE OF DESTINY
In the year 1428, soldiers stationed at the garrison at the French town of Vaucouleurs began to receive visits from a sixteen-year-old girl named Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc). She was the daughter of lowly peasants from a nearby poor village, and she repeated to these soldiers the same message: she had been chosen by God to rescue France from the desperate state it had fallen into. In the previous few years, the country had become overrun by English invaders, who now held the French king hostage in England. The English were on the verge of conquering the key French city of Orléans. The Dauphin, heir to the French throne, was languishing away at a castle in the country, choosing to do nothing. Jeanne had had visions from various saints who explained to her precisely what she must do—convince the Dauphin to give her troops to lead to Orléans, defeat the English there, and then lead the Dauphin to Reims, where he would be crowned the new king of France, to be known as Charles VII.
Many people in France at the time were having such visions, and the soldiers who listened to Jeanne could not help but feel skeptical. But Jeanne was different from the others. Despite the soldiers’ lack of interest, she kept returning with her usual message. Nothing could discourage her. She was fearless, moving unescorted among so many restless soldiers. She spoke plainly, like any peasant girl, but there was not a shred of doubt in her voice, and her eyes were lit up with conviction. She was certain of these visions and would not rest until she had fulfilled her destiny. Her explanations of what she would do were so detailed that they seemed to have the weight of reality.
And so a few soldiers came to believe she was for real and set in motion a chain of events. They convinced the local governor to allow them to escort her to the Dauphin. The Dauphin eventually believed her story as well and gave her the troops she requested. The citizens of Orléans, convinced she was destined to be their savior, rallied to her side and helped her defeat the English. The momentum she brought to the French side continued for well over a year, until she was captured and sold to the English and, after a lengthy trial, burned at the stake as a witch.
The story of Jeanne d’Arc demonstrates a simple principle: the higher your self-belief, the more your power to transform reality. Having supreme confidence makes you fearless and persistent, allowing you to overcome obstacles that stop most people in their tracks. It makes others believe in you as well. And the most intense form of self-belief is to feel a sense of destiny impelling you forward. This destiny can come from otherworldly sources or it can come from yourself. Think of it in these terms: you have a set of skills and experiences that make you unique. They point towards some life task that you were meant to accomplish. You see signs of this in the predilections of your youth, certain tasks you were naturally drawn to. When you are involved in this task, everything seems to flow more naturally. Believing you are destined to accomplish something does not make you passive or unfree, but the opposite. You are liberated of the normal doubts and confusions that plague us. You have a sense of purpose that guides you but does not chain you to one way of doing things. And when your willpower is so deeply engaged, it will push you past any limits or dangers.
BET ON YOURSELF
It is always easy to rationalize your own doubts and conservative instincts, particularly when times are tough. You will convince yourself that it is foolhardy to take any risks, that it is better to wait for when circumstances are more propitious. But this is a dangerous mentality. It signifies an overall lack of confidence in yourself that will carry over to better times. You will find it hard to rouse yourself out of