Blaise Pascal

Are you
Sure?





What I learned from Blaise Pascal.

You may ask are you sure?

or

Why Should I...

Why should I discipline myself to work harder during challenging times even if the results appear not to be bearing immediate fruit? Why should I call on more people, put in longer hours and drive myself to the bone when it doesn’t look like it's working? Why not just coast and wait for things to get better?

Well I kind of look at it like Pascal’s Wager.

Pascal's Wager (or Pascal's Gambit) is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should "wager" as though God exists, because by so living he has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

An atheist visited the great rabbi and philosopher Martin Buber and demanded that Buber prove the existence of God to him. Buber refused, and the atheist got up to leave in anger. As he left, Buber called after him, "But can you be sure there is no God?" That atheist wrote, forty years later, "I am still an atheist. But Buber's question has haunted me every day of my life." The Wager has that haunting power.

So when people ask me –

Can you be sure this hard work stuff will pay off?

I think of Pascal’s Wager and say – I don’t know...

But you have a lot to gain and nothing to lose by believing it will.

When we consistently do the things that we know we should do we have everything to gain and nothing to lose. It sets a character that stands apart – it differentiates and distinguishes you from the crowd.

I have found that believers are more compelling, engaging and productive than cynics and they certainly make better salespeople.

• Work every day as if you were applying for the job.
• Call on more people and do the things that others won’t.
• Sell to them and talk to them as if you were going to have the customer in your home for dinner every night for the rest of your life.
• Think thoughts, take actions and speak to every person as if you don’t mind it all showing up on the front page of the newspaper every day.

Me - I'm sure there is a God.

And -I'm sure working hard and doing the right thing will pay off.

That's what I learned from Blaise Pascal.