Happy New Year 2009
Happy new year. As a present for you, here are the best quotes, in my humble opinion, from the book “Napoleon Hill’s Golden Rules: The Lost Writings”
The principles of success will work for you as they have for others, regardless of education, heredity, or environment. But if you take the belief you are destined to fail and that you cannot do anything to prevent it, you will surely fail. The choice is yours and yours alone.
The R2A2 Formula
The formula will tell you not only what to do but how to do it. If you are ready to use the R2A2 formula, here are two principles that will assure your success:
1.      Recognize, Relate, Assimilate, and Apply principles, techniques, and methods from what you see, hear, read, and experience that can help you attain your goals. This is called the R2A2 formula. The R2 stands for Recognize and Relate and A2 for Assimilate and Apply.
2.      Direct your thoughts, control your emotions, and ordain your destiny by motivating yourself at will to achieve worthwhile goals.
Remember that the second part of the formula is the most important point. This part many people hurry over and tend to avoid. These are the same people who make excuses or blame others for their lack of success. Without action the material will not be worth the price you pay for any self-help book.
One of the most important fundamental principles of psychology, through which the human mind functions, is the tendency of the mind to want that which is withheld, prohibited, or hard to acquire. The moment you remove an object out of reach of a person, that moment you set up in that persons mind a desire for that object. The moment you forbid a person to do a thing, that moment that person strongly desires to do the very thing it has been forbidden to do. The human mind resent being forced to do anything. Therefore, to plant an idea in person’s mind in a such a way that it will remain there permanently, it must be so presented that the person welcomes and readily accepts it. All competent salesmen are familiar with this principle, and practice the habit of so presenting the merits of their services, goods, or wares, that the prospective buyer is scarcely aware that the ideas he is forming are not originating in his own mind.
To begin with, search diligently until you find the particular work to which you wish to devote your life, taking care to see that you select that which will profit all who are affected by your activities. After you have decided what your life work is to be, write out a clear statement of it and then commit it to memory.
Several times a day, and especially just before going to sleep at night, repeat the words of this written description of your life work, and affirm to yourself that you are attracting to you the necessary forces, people, and material things with which to attain the object of your life work, or your definite aim in life.
Bear in mind that your brain is literally a magnet, and that it will attract to you other people who harmonize, in thought and in ideals, with those thoughts which dominate your mind and those ideals which are most deeply seated in you.
Then, if it is true that men are constantly seeking the companionÂship of those whose ideals and thoughts harmonize with their own, can you not see the importance of so controlling and directing your thoughts and ideals that you will eventually develop exactly the kind of “magnet” in your brain that you wish to serve as an attraction in drawing others to you?
If it is true that the very presence of any thought in your conscious mind has a tendency to arouse you to bodily, muscular activity that will correspond with the nature of the thought, can you not see the advantage of selecting, with care, the thoughts which you allow your mind to dwell upon.
Every idea held in the mind through prolonged, concentrated through takes on a permanent form and continues to affect bodily activities according to its nature, either consciously or unconsciously. Autosuggestion which is nothing more or less than an idea held in the mind, through thought, is the only known principle through which one may literally make oneself over, after ant pattern he or she may choose.
There is but little that is strictly impossible when the human mind sets itself to a task with that grim determination that knows no defeat.
Real power come only through intelligently organized and properly directed efforts.
The display of egotism is an unpardonable weakness, in either a writer or a speaker
Your author gives the same care and attention to the details of his definite aim in life as he would to the plans of a skyscraper if he contemplated building one. Your achievement in life will be no more definite than were the plans by which you attained your objective.
Who is wise enough to either affirm or deny the statement that there is a law of the universe through which we attract to us that which we believe in life that we can attain through this same law; that we receive that which we demand, providing the demand is possible of attainment and is based upon equity, justice, and a clearly defined plan.
Person who takes the time to build a definite plan that is sound and equitable, that benefits all whom it affects, and then develops the self- confidence to carry it through to completion cannot be defeated.
This much I do know, however; I know that my outward bodily action invariably harmonizes with and corresponds to the nature of the thoughts which dominate my mind, the thoughts which I permit to drift into my mind, or those which I deliberately place there with the intention of giving them domination over my bodily activities.
My own experience has proved conclusively that character need not be a matter of chance! Character can be built to order just the same as a house can be built to correspond to a set of previously drawn up plans. My own experience has proved conclusively that a man can rebuild his character in a remarkably short length of time, ranging all the way from a few weeks to a few years, depending upon the determination and the desire with which he goes at a task.
What I really took into consideration was my own character, knowing as I did that every transaction was influencing my moral fiber, and that character is nothing more or less than the sum total of one’s habits and ethical conduct. I knew that I could no more afford to keep that $20 without first having earned the right to it than an apple merchant could afford to place a rotten apple in a barrel of sound ones prior to storing the barrel away for the winter. I gave back the $20 because I wanted to convince myself that no material could find its way into my character, with my knowledge, except that which I knew to be sound. I gave back the money because it offered a splendid opportunity for me to test myself and ascertain whether or not I possessed that brand of honesty which prompts a man to be honest for the sake of expedience, or that deeper, nobler, and more worthy brand which prompts a man to be honest that he may grow stronger and more able to render his fellowmen service that grows out of a desire to be all that he tells the other man to be.
I am convinced that if a man’s plans are based upon sound economic principles; if they are fair and just to all whom they affect; and if the man, himself, can throw behind those plans the dynamic force of character and belief in self that grows out of the transactions which have always satisfied his own conscience, he will ride on to success, with and by the aid of a tremendous current of force which no power on earth can stop, nay, a force which but few can correctly interpret or understand.
You cannot organize your individual faculties except through the use of the principle of auto-suggestion, for the simple reason that you cannot vitalize or give dynamic force to your faculties, your emotions, your intellect, your reasoning powers, or your bodily functions, without collecting all of these together, co-relating them, and working them into a plan.
No plan, great or small, can be developed in your mind except through the principle of auto-suggestion. The mind resembles a rich garden spot in that it will grow a crop of outward, physical, bodily activity which corresponds exactly to the nature of the thoughts that dominate the mind, whether those thoughts are deliberately placed there and held until they take root and grow, or merely drift in as so many stragglers, taking up their abode without invitation.
There is no escape from the effects of one’s dominating thoughts, there is no possibility of thinking of failure, poverty, and discouragement and at the same time enjoying success, wealth, and courage. You can choose that which holds the attention of your mind; therefore, you i control the development of your character, which, in turn, helps to ermine the character of people whom you will attract to you. Your n mind is the magnet which attracts to you those with whom you associate most closely, the station in life you hold. Therefore, it is within your province to magnetize that mind only with thoughts that will act the sort of people with whom you wish to associate and the ion in life to which you are willing to attain. Auto-suggestion is the very foundation upon which and through which an attractive personality is built, for the reason that character grows to resemble the dominating thoughts that help in the mind, these, in turn, control the action of the body. When you make use of the principle of auto-suggestion, you are painting a picture or drawing a plan for your subconscious mind to work by. After you learn how to properly concentrate or fix your attention on this process of plan building, you can reach your subconscious mind instantly, and it will put your plans into action, Beginners must repeat over and over again the outline of their plans before the subconscious mind will take over the plans and form them into reality. Therefore, be not discouraged if you do get results on the spur of the moment. Only those who have ted mastership can reach and direct their subconscious mind instantaneously.
 In closing this lesson, let me remind you that back of this principle auto-suggestion is one important thing which you must not overlook, and that is strong, deeply seated, highly emotional desire. Desire is the very beginning of mind operation. You can create in the physical reality practically anything you can desire with deep, vitalized emotion.
Deep desire is the beginning of all human accomplishments. AutoÂsuggestion is merely the principle through which that desire is communicated to your subconscious mind. Probably you do not have to go outside of your own experience to prove that it is comparatively easy to acquire that which one strongly desires.
In the little town where I was raised there lived an old lady who constantly complained that she feared death from cancer. As long as I can remember, she nursed this habit. She was sure that every little imaginary ache or pain was the beginning of her long-expected cancer. I have seen her place her hand on her breast and have heard her say, “Oh, I am sure I have cancer growing here.” When complaining of this imaginary disease, she always placed her hand on her left breast, the spot where she believed the cancer would attack her.
As I write this lesson, news comes that this old lady has died of cancer on the left breast, in the very spot where she placed her hand when she complained of her fears!
The truth is that it is the subject’s own mind and not the mind of the operator or hypnotist that produces the phenomenon which we call hypnotism.
The human mind is an intricate affair. One of its characteristics is the fact that all impressions which reach the subconscious division are recorded in groups which harmonize and which are apparently closely related. When one of these impressions is called into the conscious mind, there is a tendency to recall all of the others with it. For example, one single act or word that causes a feeling of doubt to arise in a person’s mind is sufficient to call into his conscious mind all of his experiences which caused him to be doubtful. Through the law of association, all similar emotions, experiences, or sense impressions which reach the mind are recorded together, so that the recalling of one has a tendency to bring out the others.
This principle applies to and controls every emotion and every sense impression that is lodged in the human mind. Take the feeling of fear, for example; the moment we permit one single emotion that is related to fear to reach the conscious mind, it calls with it all of its unsavory relations. A feeling of courage cannot claim the attention of our conscious mind while a feeling of fear is there. One must supplant the other. They cannot become roommates, because they do not harmonize. Every thought held in the conscious mind has a tendency to draw to it every other harmonious or related thought. You see, therefore, that those feelings, thoughts, and emotions which claim the attention of the conscious mind are backed by a regular army of supporting soldiers who stand ready to aid them in their work.
Fortunate is the person who controls his egotism and his desire ‘ self-expression to the extent that he is willing to pass his own idea: to others without insisting on reminding them as to the source those ideas. The man who begins his statement with “As you course know, Mr. Smith,” instead of “Let me tell you something do not know, Mr. Smith,” is a salesman who knows how to make of the principle of suggestion.
The first thing, then, is to remember what pranks your imagination can play upon you, and be on your guard. Do not allow yourself to think that awful things are the matter with you or are going to be the matter with you. If you do, you will suffer.
The very best way ,o cure your imagination is at night, just as you go to bed. In the night season, the automatic (subconscious) mind has everything its own way, and the thoughts you give it before your day’s mind (conscious mind) goes to sleep will go on working it all through the night. This may seem a foolish statement, but prove it a true one by the following test. You want to get up at seven o’clock in the morning or, say, some other hour than your regular one for rising. Now say to yourself on going to bed, “I must rise at seven o’clock.” Turn that thought over to your automatic mind with absolute confidence, and you will waken at seven o’clock. This thing is done over and over again, and it is done because the subconscious self is awake all night, and when seven o’clock comes, it taps you on the shoulder, so to speak, and wakes you up. But you must trust it. If you have the least doubt that you will not wake up, it is likely to interfere with the whole process. Faith in your automatic mechanism causes it to operate just as you direct it before you fall asleep. Here is a great secret, and it will help you overcome many a fault and deplorable habit. Tell yourself that you are through worrying, through drinking, through stammering, or whatever else you wish to quit, and then leave the job to the subconscious mind at night. Do this night after night, and mark, you will win.
The mind will attract to it the object upon which it dwells most extensively
The mind must be neutralized before it can be influenced by suggestion
Before the mind is neutralized the state of credulousness greater than normal must exist. Confidence must be created in persons mind before that mind can be neutralized. Sympathy is a strong factor through which to build confidence, and that we can readily “neutralize†the mind of the person for whom we express full sympathy or love.
The human mind resembles mother earth in that it will reproduce, in kind, that which is planted in it through the five physical senses. The preponderance of tendency upon the part of the mind is to “retaliate in kind,” reciprocating all acts of kindness and resenting all acts of injustice and unkindness. Whether acting through the princiÂple of suggestion or auto-suggestion, the mind directs muscular action that harmonizes with the sensory impressions it receives; therefore, if you would have me “retaliate in kind,” you can do so by placing in my mind the sensory impressions or suggestions out of which you wish me to create the necessary appropriate muscular action. Injure or displease me, and like a flash, my mind will direct appropriate muscular action, “retaliating in kind.”
If I do you an injury, you retaliate at first opportunity. If I say unjust things about you, you will retaliate in kind, even in greater measure!
On the other hand, if I do you a favor, you will reciprocate even in greater measure if possible. Thus, we are following the impulse of our nature, through the “law of retaliation”! Through the proper use of this law, I can get you to do whatever I wish you to do. If I wish you to dislike me and to lend your influence toward damaging me, I can accomplish this result by inflicting upon you the sort of treatment that I want you to inflict upon me through retaliation.
If I wish your respect, your friendship, and your cooperation, I can get these by extending to you my friendship and cooperation. The first, and probably the most important, step to be taken in mastering this law is to cultivate complete self-control. You must learn to take all sorts of punishment and abuse without retaliating in kind. This self-control is a part of the price you must pay for mastery of the law of retaliation.
When an angry person starts in to vilify and abuse you, justly or /unjustly, just remember that if you retaliate in a like manner, you are being drawn down to that person’s mental level; therefore, that person is dominating you! On the other hand, if you refuse to become angry, if you retain your self-composure and remain calm and serene, you retain all your ordinary faculties through which to reason. You take the other fellow by surprise. You retaliate with a weapon with the use of which he is unfamiliar; consequently, you easily dominate him.
Why is it that when once a man begins to make money, the whole world seems to beat a pathway to his door? Take any person that you know who enjoys financial success, and he will tell you that he is being constantly sought, and that opportuÂnities to make money are constantly being urged upon him! “To him that hath shall be given, but to him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath” (Matthew 25:29). This quotation from the Bible used to seem ridiculous to me, yet how true it is when reduced to its concrete meaning. Yes, “to him that hath shall be given”!’If he “hath” failure, lack of self-confidence, hatred, or lack of self-control, to him shall these qualities be given in still greater abundance! But, if he “hath” success, self-confidence, self-control, patience, and persistence, to him shall these qualities be increased! Sometimes it may be necessary to meet force with force until we overpower our opponent or adversary, but while he is down is a splendid time to complete the “retaliation” by taking him by the hand I and showing him a better way to settle disputes.
“The Divine economy is automatic and very simple: we receive only that which we give.” How true it is that “we receive only that which we give”! It is not that which we wish for that comes back to us, but that which we give.
Our actions toward others, whether of kindness or unkindness, justice or injustice, come back to us in even larger measure^
An untrained mind worries.
A sick body stimulates worries.
The worrier is either physically disorganized, or he proves his lack of confidence in God by worrying.
Your future is not today, but today makes your future. If you want to be sick – want to devitalize and destroy your body – then fear and worry about things.
You should consider your mind sacred. If you desecrate it with jealousy, you are ugly, unstable mentally, and an undesirable method of society.
Good thoughts lead to good health, wealth and happiness. Bad thoughts lead to sickness, poverty and hell. Look in the mirror and smile at yourself.
The dominating qualities are largely determined by one’s environÂment, training, and associates, and particularly by one’s own thoughts! Any thought held constantly in the mind, or any thought dwelt upon through concentration and brought into the conscious mind often, attracts to it those qualities of the human mind which it most resembles.
A thought is like a seed planted in the ground in that it brings back a crop after its kind, multiplies, and grows; therefore, it is dangerous to allow the mind to hold any thought which is destructive. Such thoughts must sooner or later seek release through physical action.
Through the principle of auto-suggestion—that is, thoughts held in the mind and concentrated upon—any thought will soon begin to crystallize into action.
The only way to develop any quality of the mind is to concentrate upon it, think about it, and use it. Evil tendencies of the mind can be plotted out by starving them to death through disuse!
The time and energy which we spend in striking back at those who I anger us would make us independently wealthy if this great force were directed toward constructive effort—to building instead of tearing down!
Time spent in hatred not only is wasted, but it smothers the only / worthwhile emotions of the human heart, and renders a person useless for constructive work. Thoughts of hatred do not harm anyone except the person who indulges in them. Whiskey and morphine are no more deleterious to the human body than are thoughts of hatred and anger.
An attractive personality is something that is always found near a heart that beats with kindness and sympathy for struggling humanity.
Try as hard as you wish, and you cannot be happy unless you believe in yourself! Work with all the strength at your command, and you cannot accumulate more than barely enough to live on unless you believe in yourself! The one and only person in all this world through whose efforts you can be supremely happy under all circumstances, and through whose labor you can accumulate all the material wealth that you can use legitimately, is yourself.
In the development of self-confidence, one of the first steps you must take is to dispel forever the feeling that you cannot accomplish anything you undertake. Fear is the chief negative that stands between you and self-confidence, but we shall show you how to scientifically eliminate fear and develop courage in its place.
Eliminate from my mind fear by developing in its place courage.
When the picture becomes transferred permanently to the sensitive plates of your subconscious mind, you will notice that every act and every movement of your body will have a tendency toward transforming this picture into a physical reality. Your mind first draws a picture of that which it wants, and then it proceeds to direct your bodily activity toward acquiring it. Keep fear away from your conscious mind as you would keep poison out of your food, for it is the one barrier that will stand between you and self-confidence. After you have committed this self-confidence building chart to memory, make a habit of repeating it aloud at least twice a day. All of your thoughts have a tendency, within themselves, to produce approÂpriate or corresponding activities in your body, but thoughts which are followed by affirmation through spoken words will crystallize into reality in much less time than those which are not followed by expression in words. Going still further, thoughts which are followed by both spoken and written words will crystallize into physical reality in still less time than those which are inhibited and merely held in consciousness silently.
We recommend that you stand before a looking glass where you can see yourself as you repeat the words of the self-confidence building chart. Look yourself squarely in the eyes as though you were some other person, and talk with vehemence. If there is any feeling of lack of courage, shake your fist in the face of that person you see in the glass and arouse him to a feeling of reaction. Make him want to say something; make him want to do something. Soon you will actually see the lines on your face begin to change from an expression of weakness to one of strength. You will commence to see strength and beauty in that face which you never saw before, and this wonderful transformation will be quite as noticeable to others.
Leadership only comes through supreme belief in self. Remember this as my parting shot at you—that you can be anything that you deeply and emotionally desire to be. Find out what you desire most, and you have then and there laid the foundation for acquiring it.
Emotionalize or vitalize your whole being with any well-fixed, definite desire, and immediately your personality becomes a magnet that will attract to you the object of that desire.
None but the strongest minds will resist the tendency to absorb the surrounding environment.
Habit grows out of environment—out of doing the same thing in the same way repeatedly—out of thinking the same thoughts over and over—and when once formed, it resembles cement which has set in the molds and is hard to break.
The human mind draws the material out of which thought and / action are built from the surrounding environment, and habit crystallizes these into permanent fixtures of our personality and stores them away in our subconscious minds. Habit may be likened to the grooves on a phonograph record, while the human mind may be likened to the needle point that fits into that groove. When any habit has been well formed (by repetition of thought or action), the mind has a tendency to attach itself to and follow that habit as the phonograph needle follows the groove in the wax record.
Environment supplies the food and the material out of which we create thought, and habit crystallizes these materials into permanency.
A habit is a ‘mental patch’ over which our actions have traveled for some time, each passing making the path a little deeper and a little wider. If you have to work over a field or through a forest, you know how natural it is for you to choose the clearest path in preference to the less worn ones, and greatly in preference to stepping out across the field or through the woods and making a new path. And the line of mental action is precisely the same. It is movement along the lines of the least resistance— passage over the well-worn path.
“Habits are created by repetition and are formed in accordance to a natural law, observable in all animate things, and some would say in inanimate things as well. As an instance of the latter, it is pointed out that a piece of paper, once folded in a certain manner, will fold along the same lines the next time. And all users of sewing machines, or other delicate pieces of mechanism, know that as a machine or instrument is once ‘broken in,’ so will it tend to run thereafter. The same law is also observable in the case of musical instruments. Clothing or gloves form into creases according to the person using them, and these creases, once formed, will always be in effect, notwithstanding repeated pressings. Rivers and streams of water cut their courses through the land and, thereafter, flow along the habit-course. The law is in operation everywhere.
The best (and one might say the only) way in which old habits may be removed is to form new habits to counteract and replace the undesirable ones. Form new mental paths over which to travel, and the old ones will soon become less distinct and, in time, will practically fill up from disuse. Every time you travel over the path of the desirable mental habit, you make the path deeper and wider, and make it so much easier to travel it thereafter. This mental path-making is a very important thing, and I cannot urge upon you too strongly the injunction to start to work making the desirable mental paths over which you wish to travel. Practice, practice, practice—be a good path-maker.
1.    At the beginning of the formation of a new habit, put force into your expression of the action, thought, or characteristic. Remember that you are taking the first steps toward making the new mental path, and it is much harder at the first than it will be afterwards. Make the path as clear and deep as you can at the start, so that you can see it readily the next time you wish to travel it.
2.   Keep your attention firmly concentrated on the new path building, and keep your eyes and thoughts away from the old paths, lest you incline toward them. Forget all about the old paths, and concern yourself only with the new one that you are building.
3.   Travel over your newly made path as often as possible. Make opportunities for doing so, without waiting for them to arise. The oftener you go over the new path, the sooner will it become an old, well-worn, easily traveled one. Think out plans for passing over it and using it at the start.
4.   Resist the temptation to travel over the older, easier paths that you have been using in the past. Every time you resist a temptation, the stronger do you become, and the easier will it be for you to do so the next time. But every time you yield to the temptation, the easier does it become to yield again, and the more difficult does it become to resist the next time. You will have a fight on at the start, and this is the critical time. Prove your determination, persistency, and willpower now, right here at the start.
Be sure that you have mapped out the proper path—plan it out well, and see where it will lead you to—then go ahead without fear and without allowing yourself to doubt. ‘Place your hand upon the plow, and look not backward.’ Select your goal—then make a good, deep, wide mental path leading straight to it.”
There is a close resemblance between habit and auto-suggestion. Through habit, an act repeatedly performed in the same manner has a tendency to become permanent, and eventually we perform the act automatically and without much thought or concentration. An idea or desire, to be transformed into reality, must be held in the conscious mind faithfully and persistently until it begins to take permanent form. What is needed is a steady, determined, persistent application to the one object upon which you have set your mind. Having found the object of your desire and knowing how to concentrate upon it, you should then learn how to be persistent in your concentration, aim, and purpose.
There is nothing like sticking to a thing. Many men are brilliant, resourceful, and industrious, but they fail to reach the goal by reason of their lack of “stick-to-it-iveness.” One should acquire the tenacity of the bull dog, and refuse to be shaken off a thing once he has fixed his attention and desire upon it. You remember the old Western hunter who, when once he had gazed upon an animal and said, ‘You’re my meat,” would never leave the trail or pursuit of that animal if he had to track it for weeks, losing his meat in the meantime. Such a man would, in time, acquire such a faculty of persistence that the animals feel like Davy Crockett’s coon who cried out, “Don’t shoot, mister, I’ll come down without it.”
Not only today and tomorrow, but every day until the end.
The longer I live, the more certain I am that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy— invincible determination—a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory.
I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.
If you lack persistence, you should begin to train yourself in the direction of acquiring the habit of sticking to things. This practice will establish a new habit of the mind, and will also tend to cause the appropriate brain cells to develop and, thus, give to you as a permanent characteristic the desired quality that you are seeking to develop. Fix your mind upon your daily tasks, studies, occupation, or hobbies, and hold your attention firmly upon them by concentraÂtion, until you find yourself getting into the habit of resisting “sideÂtracking” or distracting influences. It is all a matter of practice and habit. Carry in your mind the idea of the chisel held firmly against the object it is shaping, as given in this lesson—it will help you so much. And read this over and over again, every day or so, until your mind will take up the idea and make it its own. By so doing, you will tend to arouse the desire for persistence, and the rest will follow naturally, as the fruit follows the budding and flowering of the tree. Persistence may be compared to the “drop of water which finally wears away the hardest stone.” When the final chapter of your life-work is written, you will find that your persistence, or lack of it, has played a mighty part for your success or failure.
In hundreds of thousands of cases, the talents of men could be matched, one against the other, with the result that there would be no noticeable difference in their ability to accomplish a desired end. One has as much education as the other. One has as much latent ability as the other. They go forth into the world with equal chances of winning the goal for which they aim, but one succeeds and the other fails! Accurate analysis will show that the one succeeded because of persistence, while the other failed because he lacked persistence!
Persistence, auto-suggestion, and habit are a trio of words, the meaning of which no one can afford to overlook. Persistence is the strong cord which binds auto-suggestion and habit together until they merge into one and become a permanent reality.
The Easy Road G.S.W.
How many seek the gladness,
That love and friendship lend, Forgetting to be friendly,
While asking for a friend. How many seek position
And highest tasks to do, And strive to rule the many
While faithless to the few.
How many fix their vision
On mountains lost in light, Yet scorn the weary climbing
That leads them to the height. And choosing false conditions,
How many then complain, Because life’s laws are changeless
And truth and justice reign. Because, as to Mohammed,
Life teaches to each one That all may seek the mountain,
That mountain comes to none.
To every sincere, inquiring mind, Nature declares, “Tell me what you want. I can get it for you.” But the majority do not know what they want; nor do they want the same thing twice in succession. That is why more dreams do not come true. Adopt a “chief aim” in life.
“I am fifty years old. For a decade, I have been a department manager in a large factory. At first, my duties were easy; then the firm had a rapid expansion of business which gave me added responsibilities. Several of the young men in my department developed unusual energy and ability—at least one of them had his eye on my job.
“I had reached the age in life when a man likes to be comfortable, and having been with the company a long time, I felt that I could safely settle back into an easy berth. The effect of this mental attitude was well-nigh disastrous to my position.
“About two years ago, I noticed that my power of concentration was weakening, and my duties were becoming irksome. I neglected my correspondence until I looked with dread upon the formidable pile of letters; reports accumulated, and subordinates were inconvenienced by the delay. I sat at the desk with my mind wandering elsewhere.
“Other circumstances showed plainly that my mind was not on my work; I forgot to attend an important meeting of the officers of the company. One of the clerks under me caught a bad mistake made in an estimate on a carload of goods and, of course, saw to it that the manager learned of the incident.
“I was thoroughly alarmed at the situation and asked for a week’s vacation to think things over. I was determined to resign, or find the trouble and remedy it. A few days of earnest introspection at an out-of-the-way mountain resort convinced me that I was suffering from a plain case of wandering mind. I was lacking in concentration; my physical and mental activities at the desk had become desultory. I was careless and shiftless and neglectful—all because my mind was not alertly on the job. When I had diagnosed my case with satisfaction to myself, I next sought the remedy. Evidently, I needed a complete new set of working habits, and I made a resolve to acquire them.
“With paper and pencil, I outlined a schedule to cover the working day: first, the morning mail, then the orders to be filled, dictation, conference with subordinates, and miscellaneous duties, ending with a clean desk before I left. ‘How is a habit formed?’ I asked myself mentally. ‘By repetition,’ came back the answer. ‘But I have been doing these things over and over thousands of times,’ the other fellow in me protested. ‘True, but not in orderly, concentrated fashion,’ replied the echo.”I returned to the office with mind in leash, but restless, and placed my new working schedule into force at once. I performed the same duties with the same zest and, as nearly as possible, at the same time every day. When my mind started to slip away, I quickly brought it back. “From a mental stimulus, created by will power, I progressed in habit building. Day after day, I practiced concentration of thought. When I found repetition becoming comfortable, then I knew that I had won.”
‘Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his writing, propounded the right idea. You must concentrate. You must not carry any useless mental baggage. You must concentrate on the things in which you are interested and expunge from your memory everything you are not interested in. There must be not only a spring cleaning, but a daily cleaning of your memory, so to speak, in order to make room for fresh stores of helpful information. ‘James J. Hill, who had perhaps one of the most remarkable memories of any man in the country, used to say that it is easy to remember things in which one is interested. Anyone wishing to acquire comprehensive knowledge of his business, or of any specific subject, must not try to store his mind with endless details about other things. For example, I have tried to learn all I could about the steel business in its mining, manufacturing, selling, and transportation branches, but to enable me to carry business information in my head, I have not attempted to retain in my mind minute detailed data about politics or baseball. ‘Absorb what to you is essential—that is, everything pertaining to your field of endeavor. Abolish from your mind nonessential, extraneous subjects. No human brain has cells enough to store up all the facts about all subjects under the sun. Don’t clog your brain cells with impedimenta. Feed them only with vital material, with things that will enhance your usefulness in your sphere of activity by increasing and improving your stock of needful information.’ ‘How can a young man start in to improve his memory?’ I asked.
“If you find it difficult to remember a fact or a name, do not waste your energies in ‘willing’ it to return. Try to recall some other fact or name associated with the first in time or place or otherwise, and lo! when you least expect it, it will pop into your thoughts.
“If your memory is good in most respects, but poor in a particular line, it is because you do not interest yourself in that line and, therefore, have no material for association. Blind Tom’s memory was a blank on most subjects, but he was a walking encyclopedia on music.
“To improve your memory, you must increase the number and variety of your mental associations.
“Many ingenious methods, scientifically correct, have been devised to aid in the remembering of particular facts. These methods are based wholly on the principle that that is most easily recalled which is associated in our mind with the most complex and elaborate groupings of related ideas.
“The same principle is at the basis of all efficient pedagogy. The competent teacher endeavors by some association of ideas to link every new fact with those facts which the pupil already has acquired.
Every morning, outline the general plan of your activities for the day. Select only the important things. Do not bother with the details. Determine upon the logical order for your day’s work. Think not so much of how you are to do things as of the things you are to do. Keep your mind on results. And having made your plan, stick to it. Be your own boss. Let nothing tempt you from your set purpose. Make this daily planning a habit and hold to it through life. It will give you a great lift toward whatever prize you seek.
The Instant You Recollect a Thing to Be Done Do it.
Every idea that memory thrusts into your consciousness carries with it the impulse to act upon it. If you fail to do so, the matter may not occur to you, or when it does, it may be too late. “Your mental mechanism will serve you faithfully only as long as you act upon its suggestions. This is as true of bodily habits as of business affairs. The time to act upon an important matter that just now comes to mind is not ‘tomorrow’ or ‘a little later,’ but now. “What you do from moment to moment tells the story of your career. Ideas that come to you should be compared as to their relative importance. But do this honestly. Do not be swayed by distracting impulses that inadvertently slip in. And having gauged their importance, give free rein at once to the impulse to do everything that should not make way for something more important. If, for any reason, action must be deferred, fix the matter in your mind to be called up at the proper time. Drive all other thoughts from your consciousness. Give your whole attention to one matter. Determine the exact moment at which you wish it to be recalled. Then put your whole self into the determination to remember it at precisely the right moment.
It is necessary to handle a thousand tons of clay and dross in order to obtain a milligram of radium! The process of separation is a long, tedious, and expensive one, but that is the only way to secure radium. That is one reason why radium is so expensive. To get at a seemingly simple truth, we must sometimes go through masses of evidence, sorting out the usable from the unusable, but it must be done if we want the “radium.”
You can do almost anything with a person when you learn how to influence his mind. The mind may be linked to a great field. It is a very fertile field which always produces a crop after the kind of seed which is sown in it. The problem, then, is to learn how to select the right sort of seed and how to sow that seed so that it takes root and grows quickly. We are sowing seed in our minds daily, hourly, nay, every second, but we are doing it promiscuously and more or less unconsciously. We must learn to do it after a carefully prepared plan, according to a well-laid-out design! Haphazardly sown seed in the human mind brings back a haphazard crop! There is no escape from this result.
In your search for ways and means of understanding and manipulating your own mind so you can persuade it to create that which desire in life, let us remind you that, without a single exception anything which irritates you and arouses you to anger, hatred, dislike or cynicism is destructive and very bad for you.
You can never get the maximum, or even a fair average of constructive action out of your mind until you have learned to control it and keep it from becoming stimulated through anger or fear!
These two negatives, anger and fear, are positively destructive to your mind, and as long as you allow them to remain, you can be sure of results which are unsatisfactory and way below what you are capable of producing.
In each human heart lies the power to visit upon the person, from within, joy or sorrow, according to the extent to which one’s efforts are made to conform to the law of compensation or permitted to run counter against it.
There never was any man-made law placed on the statute books, and there never will be any such law placed there, which cannot be broken and the consequences avoided now and then, by shrewd and cunning men, but no man has yet been smart enough to thwart the workings of the law of compensation. That law is man-proof. The more man tinkers with it, the less chance he stands of escaping its consequences, unless he earnestly studies it with the object of conforming to its principles!
As Mark Twain says, the only difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to stick to what seems possible. Truth doesn’t. Verily, we repeat, out of hardship and failure comes strength! This seems like unsound philosophy while we are experiencing the “hardship and failure,” but all who survive these cleansing experiences know differently.
“Every excess causes a defect, every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour, every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. For every grain of wit, there is a grain of folly. For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something. If riches increase, they are increased that use them. If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his treasure chest, swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level from their loftiest tossing, than the varieties of condition tend to equalize themselves. There is always bearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on the same ground with all others!”
In the light of every experience which I have cataloged, and in the light of every observation which I have made with relation to others, I am bound to say frankly and boldly that where principle stands in the way of pecuniary gain, there is only one thing to do and that is to support principle; where the cause of the individual is in conflict with the cause of humanity as a whole, support the cause of humanity! All who would thus boldly assert themselves must sacrifice, temporarily, but just as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, their just reward will come to them further along the line, when the law of compensation begins to get down to business.
If we could get people to do that which we want them to do! Seemingly, it has never occurred to most of us that there is an inflamable method through which we can get other people to do that which we want them to do. Seemingly, it has never occurred to us that we can get other people to act toward us as we wish them to by simply acting that way toward them first and keeping it up until they respond! Do you get the full significance of that which you have just read? If you do, you are to be congratulated, because you will never again complain that anyone failed to do that which you wanted him to do. You will know how to get that which you want by first giving the same thing to some other member or group of members of the human race. Furthermore, you will never again be guilty of putting into motion  a cause which will bring suffering and sorrow and hunger and deprivation to any member of the human race, because you will know beforehand that this same result will eventually come back to curse you. If you get the full significance of the foregoing, you will never again place another person in any situation wherein you, yourself, would not be delighted to take his place and let him take yours.
Remember this: There are only two kinds of forces in this universe. One attracts, and the other repels! You are a force, and you belong in one or the other of these classifications. You either attract people or repel them. And, remember this also, that all whom you attract are in harmony with your own attitude toward life. That is why you attract them. Like attracts like. Men of wealth and success are attracted to one another. Professional tramps and down-and-outers are attracted to one another. This principle applies to every atom, molecule, and electron throughout this universe.
To seek a day’s pay for half a day’s work is not observing the Golden Rule. To think of yourself and yours and forget your duty to your neighborhood, your fellow workers, or your associates is not observing the Golden Rule. To permit another person to render you service for which you do not give adequate pay is not observing the Golden Rule.
Check up on yourself and see if you are making any of these fundamental mistakes, and if you are, you will begin to find the reason for your unhappy, poverty-stricken condition in life. That is, you will discover the reason for your “unlucky” lot in life unless you are one of those peculiar human beings who absolutely refuse to face any condition that shows him his real self. You can change the attitude of others toward you by first changing your attitude toward others!
Please read the foregoing sentence again. It is worth it. This writer must make a confession before closing, and it is this: He knows this principle will work because he has tried it. You never will know whether it will work or not until you try it. This lesson might as well never have been written, as far as you are concerned, unless you experiment with the fundamental principle with which it deals. There might as well be no such law as that embodied in the Golden Rule, as far as you are concerned, unless you apply it in your relationships with your feloow sojourners here on earth.
Never mind what others are doing, or whether they are applying the Golden Rule or not. Never mind the injustices and wrongs of the world. Never mind .those who fail to apply the Golden Rule dealings with you.’ Your job is to master yourself and c efforts in the direction that you wish them to go. If others go on violating the Golden Rule, that is their misfortune, not excuse you if you do the same,,.
No human being or group of human beings can attain success that will be permanent unless that success is built upon sound fundamentals. temporary point of advantage may be attained unfair means, and without observing the Golden Rule, but always some leveling circumstance, some evening-up process which will cut the foundation from under all whom so attain temporary advantage.
“Every person has what we call “reputation.” It may be good, medium, or bad, but whatever it is, it represents the accumulated transactions which you have had with other people. One dishonest or shady transaction may make but slight difference in your life if it is followed by a long series of straightforward dealings. People come to know you by the preponderance of your tendency toward honesty or dishonesty.
When you deliberately establish a standard by which to govern yourself in all transactions with others, and that standard is the Golden Rule, you gradually build a reputation which gains you the confidence, good will, and active cooperation of all with whom you come in contact.
This is in compliance with the law of attraction, a law which you deliberately set into motion in your favor when you deal with people on the Golden Rule basis.
Reverse the principle and build your reputation out shady transactions, even though no single transaction be of importance, and by and by, the “accumulated experience†people who know you, which constitutes your reputation undermine their confidence in you and reduce you to sure failure. There is no escape from this law. Lastly, and perhaps of more importance than the other mentioned, if you understand the principle of auto-suggestion know the effect which every transaction has on your own mind. If you are filling your subconscious mind with the undeniable fact that you are dealing with other people always on the Golden Rule basis, you soon build such a healthy respect for yourself and build such powerful self-confidence that nothing on earth can stop attaining your desires in life.
A Golden Rule consciousness, well developed in your own will give you the power to attain the heights of achievement whatever life work you may have chosen, and no one will ever stop you.
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