Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, called the most influential Protestant clergyman in the United States, has gained enduring fame as pastor of Marble Collegiate Church since 1932; author of numerous best-selling books; editor of Guideposts magazine; radio and television commentator. His distinguished career began over 60 years ago in Ohio when he took a job as a door-to-door salesman.

In the intervening years, he has become most widely recognized for his major literary contribution, The Power of Positive Thinking, which has become one of the top best sellers of all time in over 30 languages. It is surprising to many that Dr. Peale’s insights into positive thinking were developed during the years when he himself suffered from a severe lack of self-esteem. In his own words, “I was filled with self-doubt.”

In this exclusive interview, Dr. Peale looks back at the important people and events in his life that catapulted him into the positive arena and allowed him to help so many others to achieve their goals and realize their dreams.

PSP: How do you define motivation?

Dr. Peale: To stimulate action to achieve a certain goal or objective. It’s to bring a person alive and get him or her involved in the pursuit of an enterprise.

PSP: Who first motivated you when you were just starting out?

Dr. Peale: Well, as a boy I was very shy. I also had a pretty well-developed inferiority complex. I was filled with self-doubt. But my mother was a very dynamic motivational person. She told me, in no uncertain terms, that I must have a higher opinion of myself as a child of God.

PSP: Did she always talk to you in terms of the spiritual nature of things?

Dr. Peale: Yes, she did. She told me that I could be what I wanted if I knew what I wanted to be and if I would believe in myself and in the Lord as helping me. To my mother I owe the simple notion, “You can if you think you can.”

PSP: Once you left your parents’ influence was there anyone else who had a motivating influence on you?

Dr. Peale: Well, I had decided that I wanted to be a newspaperman. I worked for a time on the Friday, Ohio Morning Republican which is now called the Findlay Carrier. The editor and owner of that newspaper, Mr. Heminger, had a son named Lowell. Now these two men used to tell me (and remember I was just filled with self-doubt at that time) that I could write if I believed that I could and if I would only forget myself and become interested in the stories that lay embedded in the lives of other people.

PSP: That sounds like good selling advice as well.

Dr. Peale: Yes, it certainly is. I owe these two men a great deal for that advice.

PSP: Where did you work after that?

Dr. Peale: Next I went to work for the Detroit Journal. I worked under an editor named Grove Patterson, one of the best of that era. One day I went in to see him and I said to him, “Mr. Patterson, how are you?” He said right back, “I am terrific!” Then he said, “And if I weren’t I wouldn’t tell you so because I am determined that I will be terrific.” Next he said, “So should you also because you’ve got a hesitant streak and I want to see you overcome that.”

PSP: So he was also interested in motivating you to go beyond your own self-doubt.

Dr. Peale: That’s exactly right. He told me, “You can become a good newspaperman if you think you can.” And then he would send me out on rather difficult assignments to prove his theory. He helped to build up my own self-esteem and he also taught me how to write.

PSP: So the message you were getting from your mother and your mentors in the newspaper business was the same one. You can if you think you can.

Dr. Peale: It’s a powerful message and in most cases it proves to be right.

PSP: And the challenging and difficult assignments you were given helped you to grow.

Dr. Peale: That’s right. I remember when I went to work for Patterson, he asked, “Have you had any experience in newspaper work?” I answered, “Oh, yes, I was associate editor of my college paper.” “Well,” he said, “Will you please repeat after me? I know absolutely nothing about journalism!” and I said, “Yessir!”

PSP: And did you learn something after that?

Dr. Peale: Well, that was a valuable experience because first he wiped the slate clean and then he taught me the essentials of writing and how to reach people. He took a big sheet of white paper and put down on it just a pencil dot. Then he asked me, “What is that?” “That’s a dot,” I said. He said, “No, that is a period, the greatest literary device known to man. Never write past a period.”

PSP: That rule could apply equally well to talking and telling. Once you’ve made your point, stop.

Dr. Peale: It’s a good rule to keep in mind in public speaking as well. He also told me, “If you can always use a simple word instead of a complicated one. For example, use get rather than procure. And remember to always write for the ditch digger. In that way, the ditch digger and the college professor can both understand you.

PSP: Have you felt these lessons were helpful even though you didn’t pursue a career in journalism?

Dr. Peale: Even though I didn’t continue in that field, we do have a magazine, Guideposts with 4.5 million subscribers, so I got printers ink on my fingers a long time ago and never washed it off.

PSP: I remember reading about when the building housing your magazine offices burned down and you lost all your subscriber files.

Dr. Peale: That’s right. The fire burned all 20,000 of our subscriber names. At the time I thought it was a disaster. But it turned out to be a helpful and positive thing because Lowell Thomas announced on his radio show what had happened. He told about what Guideposts was all about and its inspirational and motivational message he asked all the subscribers to write to us with new information. He also asked anyone who is interested in such a publication to write to us as well. The result was that we doubled our subscribers because of that “disaster.”

PSP: Is that hesitant streak you had in your youth still something you have to overcome?

Dr. Peale: I’ve gotten it under control but if I’m standing backstage waiting to be introduced to an audience I still have twinges that go through me.

PSP: How do you handle that?

Dr. Peale: I say to the Lord, “Help me to forget myself and go out there and help everybody in that audience. I know you’re going to do that.” Then I go out and start talking and pretty soon I do have a normal attitude. I don’t think one ever completely eradicates the self-doubt feelings but as long as you can control them, I think that is satisfactory.

PSP: It sounds like if you lose yourself in the tasks, you don’t have the time or energy to think about yourself and your doubts.

Dr. Peale: That’s true. I also remember an old actor I knew in Hollywood telling me about all of his self-doubt and inferiority feelings. He overcame these feelings by loving the people in the audience. He described it as sending out love vibrations to the audience and to certain people in the audience and when he started doing that his ability to perform seemed to increase.

PSP: Did he give you specific ways to do that?

Dr. Peale: He said, “When you’re going to speak to an audience, send out goodwill love thoughts.” I was impressed with that and I have never gone on stage since without doing that. I try to embrace the whole audience with love thoughts.

PSP: What advice would you give to a sales manager who has to motivate other people?

Dr. Peale: He or she has to get motivated first. It is important to believe in what you are doing not just casually but wholeheartedly and enthusiastically. A manager has to think, sleep, and dream the job he or she is doing. He’s got to believe in the potential of other people. If he builds up other people, he will build himself up. If he does that, the more he will be affected as he affects other people. I think that the greatest thing in motivation is enthusiasm and a belief in what one is doing. A manager should certainly say, “It can be done and you can do it.”

PSP: So the positive expectations of other people are extremely powerful.

Dr. Peale: That’s a good phrase you’ve just used. My wife is a perfect example of what you just said. She has been a very positive motivating force in my life. She’s a very busy woman herself and really runs Guideposts and The Foundation For Christian Living. She directs about 600 people who work for us in these two organizations. But she will almost always go with me to speaking engagements. She lets it be known that she expects me to deliver on a high level. If I don’t, she tells me so but always in a positive way. She’ll say something like, “I think at this point you might have handled this matter a little more expeditiously.”

PSP: You mean instead of telling you to get to the point, she uses positive phrasing like “expeditiously.”

Dr. Peale: That’s right and it helps me to know she is down in the audience. I know she believes I can do a good job.

PSP: She motivates the motivator.

Dr. Peale: Absolutely.

PSP: What techniques can salespeople use to motivate themselves?

Dr. Peale: A salesperson on the road is alone. The feeling of aloneness can siphon off his or her motivation. I think such a person can stay motivated by carrying good motivational books and tapes on business trips. By constantly saturating his mind with motivational material, he fills his mind with positive thoughts, then goes to sleep with them on his mind, and they soak into his subconscious so that when he gets up the next day he starts out positive. Then if he would say a few affirmatives, which I always like to do…

PSP: Like what?

Dr. Peale: Such as: “I feel good this morning. I am going to have a great day today.” Then a salesperson might review in his mind the people he is going to be seeing that day, and say, “I’m going to help Mr. Jones today.” “I’m going to do something constructive for Mr. Smith. ” If the salesperson is religiously minded, he or she might say, “Dear Lord, you’re going to be with me all day long today and you’re going to help me and you’re helping me now. “

PSP: And then…

Dr. Peale: And then go out and get busy! I once knew a very successful salesman named Judson Sayre who used to begin each day by saying, “Think a good day, believe a good day, get going and make it a good day!”

PSP: It sounds like you feel that self-affirmations and positive affirmations make a big difference in getting out of the doldrums.

Dr. Peale: Affirmations are one of the most powerful forms of self-direction I know. “Oh, I wish I felt better today.” That’s not affirmation. But if you say, “I feel good today and I thank God for it and I’m going to have a great day,” your subconscious mind will listen to this strong statement and will react in a positive way. I’ve done this 10,000 times and I couldn’t get along without it.

PSP: These positive affirmations sound like a controlling influence on your emotions.

Dr. Peale: Absolutely. Affirmation is the assertion of strength and that the power inherent in you is operating.

PSP: Have you seen this work in other cases than your own?

Dr. Peale: I was in India last year and went to dinner at the home of a very successful man who runs a large rubber business. He showed me the bookcase in his bedroom and it was a complete library of the largest and best collection of motivational and inspirational books I have ever seen. He told me that all of those books were in his mind and that by these books he had been able to build up his large business. He invited 60 top professional and business leaders to dinner and they all told me what a fine man he was and how much everyone respected him and were inspired by him. He had gotten all of that out of books that teach positive affirmation.

PSP: Then in summing up, if you learn how to control your attitudes, you can make yourself into a success.

Dr. Peale: That’s right, attitude is very important. The wrong attitudes repel and the right ones attract.

PSP: If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?

Dr. Peale: I’m 87 now and if that information hadn’t been published in newspapers and if no one ever asked me, I would never think about it.

PSP: You feel the same as if you were 50 or even 30?

Dr. Peale: That’s right! I do more work now by far than I did when I was 40 or 50.

PSP: How many hours a day do you work?

Dr. Peale: My wife and I get up in the morning around 5:30 and have breakfast by 6:30. Then I work in my home office and after that I go to either the office in New York City or the one in upstate New York depending on where we are. I work until the office closes and then carry work home. We usually take a swim or a two mile walk, and after dinner we go to bed early.

PSP: That sounds like a twelve hour work day.

Dr. Peale: That’s about right. I wouldn’t be happy any other way. I can’t imagine stopping work and going to Florida and sitting under a palm tree.

PSP: Or playing golf…

Dr. Peale: Oh, that would be the worst condemnation I could possibly imagine.

PSP: Your work schedule sounds motivating because you accomplish a lot.

Dr. Peale: Yes, to me there’s excitement in attacking something and doing it well and finishing it up and then going for something else.

PSP: What was your most motivating experience?

Dr. Peale: That’s kind of a hard question because I’ve had a lot of them. But one I’ll tell you happened when I was a young man, and still had not gotten those self-doubts that we talked about under control. I was the pastor of a church in Brooklyn, New York. I was in my twenties. It was Memorial Day, a Sunday afternoon, and I was to deliver an invocation to an audience of 50,000 people in Prospect Park to honor “Gold Star Mothers.” These were all women who had lost a son in the war – several thousand of them – and I was Protestant chaplain of The American Legion for Kings County, New York.

PSP: What is an invocation?

Dr. Peale: An invocation is a short prayer of about two minutes that opens a meeting. But when I got there, I saw that the program had me listed not for an invocation but for an address. The main speaker of the day, I saw, was General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and I was to go just before him. I went into a panic. I went over to the head man and protested that I was only supposed to give a two minute convocation and couldn’t possibly give a speech. I told him I just couldn’t do it.

PSP: What happened?

Dr. Peale: Well, General Roosevelt heard the conversation and he said to me, “Look at those women out there – who are they?” I said, “Well, they’re Gold Star Mothers, general.” He said, “Why are they called Gold Star Mothers?” And I said, “Each of them lost a son in the war.” And he said, “Do you mean to tell me that as a minister of the Gospel, you haven’t got anything to say to those women? Now, son, you’re bigger than that. You’ve got something to say to those women that they need to hear, haven’t you?” Well then he went on, “You can do it and I’m going to sit right here behind you pulling for you and you’re going to make a fine speech to those women and all the rest of these people will listen to what you have to say. You love your country and you love those women and they’re just simply mothers longing for the touch of a little boy’s hand that they’ll never see again.”

PSP: Did you manage to give the speech?

Dr. Peale: I had a few moments to sit there and put something together and I got up and did the best I could. When I sat down, General Roosevelt clapped his hand down on my bony knee and said, “Son, you rang the bell. I’m proud of you. Now always remember that when you speak, you’ve got somebody out in front who needs to hear what you’ve got to say.”

PSP: General Roosevelt seems to have made a lasting impression on you.

Dr. Peale: I recently received the award of the General Roosevelt Association, along with General Chuck Yeager. A lot of the Roosevelt family were present at the dinner and I told that story. That dinner was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I will always love the memory of General Roosevelt. He was Teddy Roosevelt’s oldest son and he died on the beaches of Normandy in World War II.

PSP: Thank you.