First of all, the first premise is that the master-mind principle is the medium through which one may procure the full benefits of the experience, the training, the education, and the specialized knowledge and influence of others as completely as if their minds were in reality one's own.
Isn't that a marvelous thing to contemplate?That whatever it is that you lack, in education or in knowledge or in influence, you can always obtain it through somebody who has it.
The exchange of favors, the exchange of knowledge is one of the greatest exchanges in the world.
It's a very nice thing to engage in business where the exchange of money makes you a profit, but I would a whole lot rather exchange ideas with somebody, give a man an idea that he didn't have before and receive in return one that I didn't have and I would make an exchange of money.
You of course know that Thomas A. Edison was perhaps the greatest inventor the world has ever known.He was dealing all the time with many of the sciences and yet he knew nothing at all about any of the sciences.
You'd say it would be impossible for a man to succeed in any undertaking unless he were educated in that field.
I was astounded when I first talked to Andrew Carnegie to hear him say that he personally didn't know anything about the making or the marketing of steel.
And I was so astounded at that statement, I said, well, Mr. Carnegie, just what is your part in this job here?What part do you play?Well, he said, I'll tell you the part that I play.
My job is to keep the members of my mastermind alliance working in a state of perfect harmony. And I said, is that all you have to do?
He said, well, have you ever tried to get any two people to agree on anything for three minutes in succession in your life?I said, well, I don't know that I have.Well, you said, you try it someday and see just what kind of a job it is.
To get people to work together in a spirit of harmony is one of the greatest of human achievements.And then Mr. Carney went on to break down his mastermind group, to describe each one individually, to tell what part he played.
One was his metallurgist, one was his chief chemist, one was his plant works manager, and one was his legal advisor, one was the chief of his financial staff, and so on down the line.
There were over 20 of those men working together whose combined education, experience, and knowledge constituted all there was known about the making and the marketing of steel at that time.
And Mr. Carnegie said it wasn't necessary for him to know about it.He had men all around him who did understand the making and the marketing of steel.And that was his job, to keep them working in perfect harmony.
And the second premise, an active alliance of two or more minds in a spirit of perfect harmony for the attainment of a common objective, stimulates each individual mind to a higher degree of courage than that which is ordinarily experienced.
and prepares the way for that state of mind known as faith.You know, when driving an automobile, every so often the battery runs down, and you have to do something about it.You come out some morning, you step on the starter, nothing happens.
I know people who get out of bed in the morning and do the same thing.Nothing happens, except they feel badly, they don't want to put on their shoes, they don't want to get dressed, they don't even eat breakfast.Now, they need a... What do they need?
Need the batteries charged, of course, and they have to have a source for doing it.
It's a mighty fine thing if a man gets up in the morning feeling like that and if he can have a little talk with his wife, for instance, and she's a good coordinator and she helps to charge his batteries.
The chances are when he comes home that night, he will come home with all of the rabbit skins that he went out to get.The third premise, a mastermind alliance properly conducted stimulates each mind in the alliance to move with enthusiasm
personal initiative, imagination and courage to a degree far above that which the individual experiences when moving without such an alliance.In my own early beginning I had a mastermind alliance of three people.
I had an alliance with Mr. Carnegie and with my stepmother.And we three people nursed this philosophy through the stages when everybody else was laughing at me and making fun of me.
were undertaking to serve the richest man in the world for 20 years without any compensation.
And there was a whole lot of logic to what they were saying, because at that time I wasn't getting very much compensation out of it, in the way of money at least.There came a time, however, when the laughing was on the other side of the face.
But that took a long time, and there was plenty of blood and tears shed, I'll assure you, before I got to the point at which I could laugh back when the people laughed at me.
But the relationship between we three people, my stepmother and Mr. Carnegie and myself, enabled me to offset all of this fun-making that was thrown at me by my relatives and my friends and everybody who knew what I was engaged in.
Now, there are times, you know, when if you undertake anything above mediocrity, you're going to meet with opposition, you're going to meet with people who will chide you and poke fun at you, and most of them will be right close to you, some of them perhaps your own relatives.
You need some source to which you can turn when you're going to aim above mediocrity to get your batteries charged and to keep them charged so that you won't quit and the going is hard and so you won't pay any attention when somebody criticizes you.
You know, criticism falls off my back just like water off a duck's back, or more than that, like a bullet off a rhinoceros' hide.I'm absolutely immune, absolutely immune to all forms of criticism.
Whether it's friendly or unfriendly makes no difference to me whatsoever.I'm just immune to it, that's all.And I became immune because of my relationship with certain people through whom I built up an immunity under my mastermind alliance.
If it had not been for the relationship with my stepmother and Mr. Carnegie, I wouldn't be standing here talking to you folks tonight.
You wouldn't be here as students of this philosophy, and this philosophy would not be spread all over the world helping millions of people. Because I had a million opportunities to quit.At least a million opportunities.
And every one of them looked very alluring.And almost sometimes it seemed as if I were stupid if I didn't quit.But this marvelous relationship.I could always go back to Mr. Carnegie.
I could always run into my stepmother and we'd sit down and have a little chat and she'd say, stand by your guns.You'll come out on top.I know you will.
She once said, at a time when I didn't have two nickels to rub together, as my enemies were saying, she once said that you are going to be the richest member of the Heal family, far and away.I know it.I can see it in the future.
Well, if you would take all of my riches and put them together, I suspect that I have more riches than all of my relatives put together for three generations back, on both sides of the house.That's true. And my stepmother could see that.
She could see that what I was doing was bound to make me rich.I don't have reference alone to monetary riches.I have reference to those higher and broader riches that you find when you get to where you can render service to so many people.
And the fourth premise, to be effective, a mastermind alliance must be active.It must be active.You can't just form an alliance with somebody and say, now that's it, we've got it.
I'm lined up with this person, that person, the other person, we've got a mastermind alliance.It amounts to absolutely nothing until you become active.Every member of the alliance has got to step right in there and start pitching.
Mentally, spiritually, physically, financially, every way that is necessary. They must engage in the pursuit of a definite purpose and they must move with perfect harmony.Do you know the difference between perfect harmony and ordinary harmony?
Do you know what it is?How many of you know the difference between perfect harmony and ordinary harmony?How many of you have ever had a relationship of perfect harmony with anybody?I'll tell you the truth.
I suspect that I have had harmonious relationships with about as many people, maybe more people than any person living today, beyond any question of doubt.
But I want to tell you that perfect harmony in relationship is about the rarest thing in the world.And I think I could count on the fingers of my two hands all of the people that I now know with whom I have a relationship of perfect harmony.
I have a speaking acquaintance, a very nice, polite speaking acquaintance with a lot of people, but that's not perfect harmony.I have a working alliance with a lot of people, that's not harmony. Perfect Harmony.
Perfect Harmony consists only when your relationship to the other fellow is such that if he wanted everything you have, you would willingly turn it over to him.Now it takes a lot of unselfishness to put yourself in that frame of mind.
Mr. Carnegie stressed time and time again the importance of
this relationship of perfect harmony, because he said if you don't have perfect harmony in your master-mind alliance, it's not a master-mind alliance after all, it's just cooperation or coordination of effort.
Without this factor of harmony, the alliance may be nothing more than ordinary cooperation or friendly coordination of effort.The master-mind gives one full access to the spiritual powers of the other members of the alliance.
I want you to underscore that part in your notes. The mastermind gives one full access to the spiritual powers of the other members of his alliance.I'm not talking now about just the mental powers or the financial powers, but the spiritual powers.
The feeling that you have when you begin to establish permanency in your mastermind relationship is going to be one of the most outstanding and pleasant experiences of your entire life.
When you're engaged in a mastermind activity, I want to tell you that you have so much faith, you know that you can do anything that you start out to do.You have no doubts, you have no fears, you have no limitations.
And that's a marvelous frame of mind to be in.And the sixth premise... Yes, I just wanted to know if you were following me.
It is a matter of established record that all individual successes based upon any kind of achievement above mediocrity are attained through the mastermind principle and not by individual effort alone.
Just imagine how little you could accomplish if you didn't have the cooperation of other people.Suppose that you're in a profession.Suppose you're a dentist, or a lawyer, or a doctor, or an osteopath, or anybody in the profession.
And suppose that you didn't understand how to convert each one of your clients or patients into a salesman for yourself. Imagine how long would it take to build up a clientele or a following.
The outstanding professional men understand how to make a salesman out of every person that they serve.And they do it by indirection, they don't go about it directly.
They do it by going the extra mile, by going out of their way to be of unusual service, but they do make salesmen out of all of their clients.
Most successes are the result of personal power, and personal power of sufficient proportions to enable one to rise above mediocrity is not possible without the application of the mastermind principle.
Now, during the first term of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House, I had the privilege of working with him as a confidential advisor, and it was I who laid out the skeleton of the propaganda plan that took the words business depression off of the
out of the headlines of the papers and substituted in their stead, business recovery.
Those of you who remember what happened on that Black Sunday when we had a meeting down at the White House when the banks were closed the following Monday morning, remember how, what a stampede there was in this country.
People were lined up in front of the banks all over the country to draw out their deposits.They were scared to death.They had lost confidence in their country, in their banks, in themselves, and in everybody else.
I suppose they still had some confidence in God, but they didn't show much signs of it.It was a scary time, I'll tell you.
And we sat down there and worked out a skeleton of a plan of procedure that created one of the most outstanding applications of the mastermind that this nation has ever seen, and I doubt that any nation on earth has ever had the equal of.
Because it was only a matter of weeks until we had taken all that fear out of people.It was only a matter of days until salesmen on the road who had run out of funds, who couldn't get money, were laughing about it and not in any way scared about it.
My own funds were closed up.I had no money, none at all. Yes, I did.I must tell you, this is funny.I got very smart when I found out what was coming and I ran down to the bank and got a thousand dollar bill.
Well, I might just as well have had only ten cents.Nobody could change it.It wasn't worth a nickel.Not a nickel.But I wasn't scared because everybody else was the same boat that I was in.But something had to be done about him.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was a great leader.He had great imagination.He had great courage. And here is what we did.First of all, we got both houses of Congress working in harmony with the President.
The first time in the history of this nation that both houses of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, got behind the President and forgot about what their political faiths happened to be.
In other words, there were no Democrats, there were no Republicans, they were just Americans down there backing the President and everything that he needed in order to stop that stampede of fear.I have never seen anything to equal it in my life.
I never hope to see it again.I wish I could, but I don't hope to.Because there was a great emergency on then and something had to be done about it.
Second, the majority of the newspaper publishers of America, everything that we sent out, the newspapers published it.They gave it marvelous space. And then the radio station operators, they gave us marvelous help despite their political bleeps.
And the churches, all that was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in this country.Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles and all of the rest pulling together as Americans.I want to tell you it was a wonderful time.A wonderful time.
What a wonderful thing it was.They all got behind the President. Every one of them made some sort of a contribution toward reestablishing faith in the people of this country.
But during these hectic days, I want to tell you that there wasn't any doubt in the minds of the majority of the people.
I don't know, I didn't come in contact with anybody who didn't think that Mr. Roosevelt was the only man, the finest man that could possibly have handled that chaotic condition.
Don't get me wrong politically, I'm just talking about a great man who did a great job at a time when it needed to be done, and he did it because he had a mastermind alliance out there that was unbeatable.
Now let's take up the different kinds of mastermind alliances that you may have.First of all, there are alliances for purely social or personal reasons, consisting of one's relatives, friends, and religious advisors, where no material gain is sought.
The most important of this type is the master-mind alliance which may exist between a man and his wife.
I couldn't emphasize, if I were brilliant and if I had the great magnetic powers, I couldn't overemphasize the importance to you who are married of going to work immediately and rededicating that marriage to a master-mind alliance based upon this lesson tonight.
It'll bring joys into your life that you never dreamed of.It'll bring success into your life that you never dreamed of.It'll bring health into your life that you never dreamed of.
It's a perfectly marvelous thing when the real mastermind alliance exists between a man and his wife.I don't know of anything that equals it.
Then there are alliances for business or professional advancement consisting of individuals who have a personal motive of a material or a financial nature connected with the object of their alliances.
Now I imagine that the majority of you who are in this class now will be forming your first mastermind alliances for purely economic or financial advancement purposes.And that's perfectly legitimate.
That's one of the reasons why you're taking this course.You want to improve your economic and financial condition.And you should start in immediately now to form
a mastermind alliance for that purpose, and if you're only confined to begin with one person, that's all right, start out with one.And then look around until the two of you select another one.
Now you can't select another one, but the two of you, when you go to select the third party, be sure that the second one that you've already selected is in accord.You understand that?That's important.
And then when you go to select the fourth, the three of you then will pass on the fourth, and you'll go over the matter very carefully before you make him a member of the alliance.
And then when you go to select the fifth, the four of you will select the fifth.You see, in a mastermind alliance, there's no such thing as one person dominating, except in this respect that, generally speaking, one person is the leader.
He's the coordinator and the leader, but he in no way undertakes to dominate his associates. Because the very moment you start to dominate anybody, you find resistance and rebellion.Even though it's not open rebellion, it's rebellion nevertheless.
And in the master-mind alliance, it must be one continuous spirit of perfect harmony where you move and act as if you were only one mind. The American system of free enterprise is another example of efficiency through the mastermind principle.
This system is the envy of the world because it has raised the standard of living of the American people to an all-time high level.And that despite the fact that there is not perfect harmony.But there is motive.
There is motive in the American system of free enterprise to inspire every individual to do his best.There is a motive there.
And incidentally, more and more, industry and business is coming to understand that they can go a step further, and instead of just having cooperation or coordination of effort between management and the workers, that they can have the mastermind principle by sharing the management problems, by sharing the profits, by sharing everything.
And wherever I have been successful in influencing any business to adopt that policy, the business has made more money than it's ever made before, and the employees have received more wages, and everybody's happy.
General instructions for the forming and the maintenance of a mastermind alliance.
First, adopt a definite purpose as an objective to be attained by the alliance, choosing individual members whose education, experience, and influence are such as to make them of the greatest value in achieving the purpose.
A lot of times I'm asked by students, what is the most favorable number for a mastermind alliance?And how do you go about selecting the right sort of people for your mastermind alliance.
And the nearest answer that I can give you that is that the procedure is exactly the same as if you were starting into a business and you were choosing employees.What kind of an employee would you choose?Marvelous.I see the sparks flying.Wonderful.
Wonderful. Dependability at the top of the list.If a person is not dependable, I don't want any part of him in a business transaction.
No part of him, no matter how brilliant he may be, no matter how well educated he may be, the more educated he is, the more dangerous he may be if he's not dependable.And if he's not loyal, I would say the same thing.
If an individual is not loyal to those to whom he owes loyalty, then to me he has no character whatsoever and I want no part of him. Defendability and loyalty, and then after that comes what?Ability to do the job.Ability.
Notice where I place ability, down at third place.I'm not interested in a man's ability until I find out whether he's dependable and whether he is loyal.And then what would you say came after that in my category, my book of rules?
Number four, positive mental attitude, of course. What good is a negative wet blanket around you?Why, you could pay him to stay away and then be ahead of the game.And number five, what would that be?Going the extra mile.That is right.And number six?
What would you say that is?
Now let me tell you, when you find people that come up to all of those six traits, I want to tell you, you've really found somebody.You're in the presence of royalty.
Some businesses, if you're running a peanut stand or two, you maybe need only one person.But if you're running a chain of peanut stands, you might need a hundred persons.
And then as to the qualifications of a mastermind ally, first of all, take those six points that I gave you and there are the qualifications.There are the qualifications for your mastermind.There must be dependability.There must be loyalty.
Must be a positive mental attitude.Must be willing to go the extra mile.Applied faith.Now there you are.If you want to know what the qualifications of your mastermind allies are, there it is.And don't settle for anything less.
If you find a man that has five of those qualities and doesn't have all six of them, you better beware of him before you start.Because they're all essential in a mastermind relationship.You can check very carefully and see that that's true.
You couldn't have perfect harmony unless you were working with somebody who checked 100% on all of those six forms.You just couldn't have a mastermind alliance.
You might have a working arrangement, like so many people do, but it wouldn't embrace all of the potential values of the mastermind.Next, determine what appropriate benefit each member may receive in return for his cooperation in this alliance.
And remember, ladies and gentlemen, nobody ever does anything for nothing. No, they never do.You see, when you give love to somebody, you don't get anything out of that?You don't do that for nothing?Well, let me tell you something.
You get plenty out of that.Because to have had the privilege of loving is a great privilege.
And even though the love is not returned, you still have had the benefits of that state of mind known as love, and you've enjoyed the development and growth as a result of it. No, there's no such thing as something for nothing.
Nobody works without some sort of a compensation.There are very many different forms of compensation.
So don't expect that your mastermind allies are going to jump in and help you make a fortune or help you do anything unless they are equally participating in the benefits that come out of that mastermind alliance.
Now there's the criterion by which you go.They must approximately, each individual must approximately benefit equally with yourself, whether it's a monetary benefit or a
A happiness or peace of mind benefit, social benefit, or whatever it happens to be.Never ask anybody to do anything, if you want to be sure if he's doing it, unless you give him an adequate motive for doing it.
If I went down to the bank and wanted to borrow $10,000, what would be an adequate motive for the bank lending me that money?Two motives.All of them under the heading of a desirable financial gain.
Well, they'd want a bank to be delighted to loan me as much money as I could take away if I give them three-for-one security.Collateral.Collateral.They want collateral and they want to profit on that loan.That's what they're in business for.
Now, there are other transactions not based upon the monetary motive.For instance, when the man asks the girl of his choice to marry him, what's the motive there?
Sometimes.Theoretically, love, yes.
Well, isn't this interesting?I bet out of all the people sitting here, everyone would have a different idea or definition as to what the motive is when a man asks a girl of his choice to marry him and she accepts.Why is she accepting?
I want to tell you that when my father brought my stepmother home, He was just a farmer.He never had had on a white shirt or a tie.He was afraid of white shirts and ties.He wore blue cotton shirts.And my stepmother was a college woman.
She was well educated and they were as different as the North Pole and the South Pole.And I wondered all of my life until one day just how he happened to be able to sell himself to her.
Of course she cleaned him up and put a white shirt on him and made him look like somebody but nevertheless it took her quite a little while to do it.
And she finally got him into the money and he became an outstanding man and at that point I said to her, how in the world did my father, I remember what he looked like and what he talked like, he used the Queen's English, I seen him coming and done my duty and all that sort of thing.
I said, how in the world did he ever sell himself to you, what was the motive?She said, well I'll tell you. First of all, I recognize that he had good blood in his veins, and that he had possibilities, and I believe that I could bring them out.
And she did bring them out.
Mrs. Henry Ford and Mrs. Thomas Edison are two of the out... If you had a definite major purpose, knew exactly what you wanted to do, had a mastermind alliance of people that could help you do it, and then had the sufficient faith to keep you going while you did it, don't you see that would be about all you would need?
Why then do we need the fourteen additional principles, do you suppose?Well, I'll tell you why.We need fourteen additional principles to induce you to make use of these three.You need personal initiative, you need imagination, you need enthusiasm,
In other words, this philosophy is something like baking a cake.When you go to bake a cake, you don't put in just one ingredient.You put in a pinch of this, a pinch of that, a dash of the other thing, and then you put it in the stove and bake it.
And if you took out any one of those ingredients, you wouldn't have the same kind of a cake.And it's the same way with this philosophy.You can't leave out any one of these 17 principles.It'd be just like taking a link out of a chain.
You wouldn't have a chain anymore.You'd have two parts of a chain, but not a whole chain. And these other 14 principles, our supporting principles, are these three.
Faith is a state of mind that has been called the mainspring of the soul through which one's aims, desires, plans and purposes may be translated into their physical or financial equipment.And here are the fundamentals of faith.
Now, when you speak of applied faith, ladies and gentlemen, we're talking about something vastly different from just mere belief.Applied, the word applied means what? Action, that's the action part of faith.
And without action, faith is nothing but just daydreaming.And there are a lot of people, you know, who believe in things, but they don't do anything about them.They are engaging only in daydreaming.Applied faith is an active faith.
Now, the fundamentals of faith are, first of all, definiteness of purpose, supported by personal initiative and action.Action, action.The more action, the better.It means continuous action.
Not only on your part, but on the part of those that may be cooperating with you or may be mastermind allies of yours.Next, a positive mind, free from all negatives such as fear, envy, hatred, jealousy and greed, is essential.
Mental attitude determines the effectiveness of things.Mental attitude.Did you know that that is a fact? The frame of mind that you're in when you go to pray determines what happens as a result of that prayer.There's no two ways about that.
You can test it for your own selves and find out.I have no doubt you have.I have no doubt that you've had the experiences I've had of sending out prayers that didn't produce anything, but a negative result.You've had that experience, haven't you?
How many of you have had that experience?Oh, come on now, be modest. Do you suppose there ever was anybody that didn't have that experience at one time or another?
I will tell you that when you go to prayer, unless you have such absolute faith that whatever you are going after, that you're going to acquire, that you can see it in advance in your possession before you start asking for it, the chances are that the effect of your prayer is going to be negative.
And next, a mastermind alliance with one or more people who radiate courage based on faith and are suited mentally and spiritually to one's needs in carrying out a given purpose.
I'm talking to you now about the elements or the constituent parts or the premises that go into the business of applied faith.
And next, recognition of the fact that every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit and temporary defeat is not failure until it has been accepted as such.
Do you know where the majority of people fall down in connection with their application of their faith?It's when they're defeated and they accept that defeat as being something they can't do anything about.
Instead of beginning immediately to search for that seed of an equivalent benefit that's in every defeat, they become moody and broody, they become discouraged, they build up inferiority complexes.
instead of reversing that order and using that defeat as nothing more than temporary and making another effort.Next, the habit of affirming one's definite major purpose in the form of a prayer at least once daily.
Now, the subconscious mind only knows what you tell it or what you allow other people to tell it or what you allow the circumstances of life to tell it. And it doesn't know the difference between a lie and the truth.
It doesn't know the difference between a penny and a million dollars.It accepts the things that you send over.And if you send over predominating thoughts on poverty and ill health and failure, that's exactly what you'll get.
No matter how much faith that you may have later on, you find out that the subconscious responds to the mental attitude that you're maintaining during the day.
And it's necessary for you to affirm over and over again the objects that you are going to obtain in life. until you educate your subconscious mind to attract automatically to you the things that are related to what you're aiming to attain in life.
You'll find that your mind is like an electromagnet, and once you charge it with a clear picture of what you want, it'll attract to you from the highways and the byways the things that you need to carry out that purpose.
And next, recognition of the existence of infinite intelligence that gives originality to the entire universe. that the individual, you that is, is a minute expression of this intelligence and as such, you the individual.
Your mind has no limitations except those accepted or set up in your own mind.Your mind has no limitations whatsoever except those that you allow to be established there or that you deliberately set up in your own mind or accept.
Now that's a pretty broad statement, isn't it?But the achievements of men
like Mr. Edison and Mr. Ford and Mr. Carnegie and Napoleon Hill, if you please, certainly, definitely supports the idea that there is no limitation except that which you set up in your own mind.
And if I had ever wavered for one second from the time that I started with Mr. Carnegie up until the time I gave this philosophy to the world, if I had wavered one second in my belief that I would do it, I would never have done it.
How did I happen to do it? Do you have any idea what played the strongest part in what I've achieved?It wasn't my brilliancy, it wasn't my outstanding intelligence.
I have no more brilliancy than the average person, and no more intelligence than the average person.But there was something in there that was responsible for it.
In other words, I believed I could do it and I never stopped believing it.The harder the going was, the more I believed I would do it.
And I want to tell you that if you can take that attitude towards yourself, if you can throw yourself over on the side of yourself, so to speak, when you're overtaken by adversity, when people are against you, if you can do that, if you can stand by and not also go over against yourself, then you're using applied faith.
And you've got to do that.Do you know there are testing times for people?Have you ever thought of that?
Nobody is permitted to attain high state in life and stay there without being tested any more than anybody is allowed to go into a well-managed business and go up to a high position and stay there without even being tested with lower positions step by step until he earns the right to be up to the top.
I don't know how the Creator runs his business entirely but I can catch a pretty good idea of how he does it from observing that part which I can understand.Of course there's much more that I can't understand.
But I can see definitely that he allows nobody to attain to a higher state in life without giving him severe testings.
And one of the most astounding things that I found in my research was that the men of great achievement in all walks of life back down through the ages were great only in proportion as they had been defeated and as they had met with opposition.
Now that's an astounding thing.It couldn't have been a coincidence that every one of these outstanding men was great in proportion exactly as he had been small and as he had been opposed and as he had had to struggle.
I used to tell of my early struggles and tell of some of my defeats.My business management got asked me about it and said it wasn't a good idea.I still think it's a good idea.
I think it's a fine idea because if you only knew the amount of major defeats that I've met with and still kept my head above water and still lived to deliver this philosophy, you'd say that if a hill can do it, I can do it too.
And that was the only reason, of course, that I ever spoke of.The habit of affirming one's definite major purpose in the form of a prayer, at least daily, and the recognition of infinite intelligence.
I don't mind what terms you use, you can call that God, or you can call it Jehovah, or you can call it Buddha, or you can call it Mohammed, anything you want to.No matter what you call it, we're all talking about the first cause.
There isn't two first causes, there's only one.There couldn't be two.There's one first cause that's responsible for this great universe we're living in, for you and for me and for everything that's in the universe.
I call it infinite intelligence because I have students of all faiths and all religions all over the world as my students, and the infinite intelligence happens to be a sort of a neutral in-between term that nobody can object to.Nobody at all.
But unless you not only believe in that, unless you can prove to yourself, unless you can absolutely put down on paper evidence that there is a first cause that you can draw on, then you are not going to be able to make the fullest use of applied faith.
One of my students asked me one day about my concept of God, about my concept of intellect, and if I meant the same thing as God.I said, why yes I do.He said, can you prove the existence of your concept of God.
I said, why everything in the universe is the finest evidence of the existence of. the cause of the orderliness of the universe.
Everything's orderly, from the electrons and protons of the smallest part of a matter on up to the largest suns that float through the heavens.Everything's in orderliness, no chaos, no running together of the planets.
Why, there's more evidence of a first cause than there is of anything that I know of.
And if you don't believe that, if you don't accept it, if you don't see it, if you don't feel it, if you don't know that, then you won't know that you are a minute part of that infinite intelligence expressing through your brain.
And if you once recognize that, then you recognize the truth of what I said, that your only limitations are those which you set up in your own mind or permit somebody to set up there or circumstances to establish for you.
Next, careful inventory of your past defeats and adversities from which it becomes obvious that all such experiences do carry the seed of an equivalent benefit.Now, just to hear me say,
that every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit, that every defeat, every failure carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit, wouldn't mean a thing in the world to you, unless I made application of it and gave you illustration after illustration, unless you examined enough illustrations in your own experience to see that it always works out that way.
That's why I want you to examine these adversities that come to you.Do you know that oftentimes your adversities are your greatest blessings? Do you have any idea, do you have any idea, the greatest blessing that ever came into my life?
Those of you who know considerably about me, would you have any idea what it is?Of course, it was the loss of my mother.
And ordinarily you would say that would be the greatest catastrophe that could overtake a child, would be to lose his mother at the age of nine years. Why do I say that was the greatest blessing?
Because it brought me a new mother to take her place that's been responsible for everything that I've achieved, everything that I shall achieve.Very largely responsible, at least.
And without her influence, I'd still be up there fighting rattlesnakes, drinking mountain liquor, and fighting fugues.For my relatives still are doing that same thing.No reason to expect that I wouldn't be.I've had a lot of other adversities.
And I want to tell you that without some 20 major adversities I've gone through with, I would never have been able to approve the soundness of this philosophy, and that there is a seed of an equivalent benefit in every adversity.
Can you imagine any worse adversity coming to a man than to walk down to the hospital and to be informed that his son was born without any sign of ears, and that he would be in a deaf and dumb mood all of his life?
Can you imagine any worse adversity than that?
I will always be thankful that that happened, because by my contact with Infinite Intelligence, he was improvised with a hearing system of some sort that gave him 65% of his normal hearing, and with a hearing aid, 100%.
He's learned to live a normal life, and I got the greatest demonstration of my entire experience of the power of faith.I couldn't have gotten it any other way.I couldn't have gotten it second-hand.I had to get it first-hand.
I never accepted that fiction of that child, not even before I saw him, not even after I saw him.I never accepted it.His relatives accepted it.
They wanted to put him in the school of underprivileged where he learned the sign language, learned lip reading.I didn't want him to know there were such things.
And when he got up to where he was old enough to go to school, I had a fight with the school authorities every year, just as regular as the time came around.
They wanted to send him over to school for underprivileged children, where he'd mix with the other children and see that there were afflictions.I didn't want him to know there were such things.
And I told him from the very beginning that his not having any ears was a great blessing.And he believed it.And it turned out to be, because people took compassion on him.They did things for him they wouldn't have done otherwise.He got a job as a
a salesman for the Saturday Evening Post, and he led every salesman throughout the United States.Oftentimes he'd go out with $5 worth of merchandise and come back with $10 in cash.He did that many times.
People would look at him and say, well, that poor little fellow, no way he's out selling papers, I guess his parents are poor.Give him a dollar a bill, and instead of giving him back 95 cents, they'd say, oh, just, sonny, you just keep that.
And very often he'd get a dollar apiece for Saturday Evening Post.
not at all conscious today of any affliction, he's living a perfectly normal life, because I taught him that an affliction, any kind of an affliction, can be transmuted into a benefit.
Now that's an astounding thing, isn't it, to consider that that is true.But it is true.
Now, as I said, you're just hearing me say that won't mean a thing in the world unless you begin to look around in your own experiences, take inventory and watch what happens in the future.
There'll be things happen to you in the future that are unpleasant and maybe some to me too.But I tell you what I'm going to do when anything unpleasant happens to me, I'm going to immediately transmute it into something pleasant.Immediately.
And then, I'm still talking about the fundamentals of faith. Self-respect expressed through harmony with one's own conscience is certainly an important factor in applied faith.Self-respect expressed through harmony with one's own conscience.
Isn't it a marvelous thing that the Creator set up in everybody a judge advocate that tells you the right thing and the wrong thing?You don't have to ask anybody.Isn't that a marvelous thing?
You don't have to ask anybody what's right or wrong, your own conscience tells you. unless you convert it into a conspirator instead of a cooperator by choking it off and not responding to it as so many people do.
Your conscience can be not only a guide, but it can also be corrupted to where it's a conspirator.It'll help you cover up your meanness.And a lot of people use it for just that purpose, too.Believe me, they have it choked off.
If that weren't true, there couldn't be so many brutes loose in the world today, concocting plans for starting bigger and better wars. They have no conscience.They've killed off the conscience.That conscience is a marvelous thing.
And next, to create a mental attitude favorable for the expression of faith.Now here's what you do.First of all, know what you want and determine what you have to give in return for it.Know what you want in life.
And I mean not only in your major purpose, but in your minor purposes.What kind of a house you want to live in.What kind of a car you want to drive.What kind of a wardrobe you want.What kind of an education you want your children to have.
What kind of a present are you going to buy your wife for her birthday?And you better be sure to buy her one every time if you're going to keep on good terms with her.What kind of a cake are you going to bake for your husband on his birthday?
And you better make it a good one.
Did you know, ladies and gentlemen, married ladies and gentlemen in particular, did you know it's not the big things in the relationship between a man and his wife that count, it's the little niceties, the little things that count.
Well, it's the little niceties, the little things, the little things that my wife cooks up for me.Now, I don't mean in food, but the little parties, the little visits, the trips that she cooks up for me when I'm home.
They don't amount to so much in one way, and yet another way, they're very sentimental, and keeps that relationship alive that we had before we were married.We're still courting each other.
I think I do more of a courting job now than I did before, because after all, I've only got her, I have to keep her. Well, we have a lot of fun with these off-the-cuff remarks.You don't find any of that in the notes at all.
But I just know that these very super intimate things that make joy in my life would be just as acceptable in your life, too.I know it's the little things in your life that make the difference between happiness and unhappiness.And next.
When you affirm the object of your desires through prayer, let your imagination see yourself already in possession of the thing that you're going after.
Now that, you might say, that takes a lot of willpower, a lot of determination, but if you keep at it, you'll find that it's not so hard to do.
In the first place, it's easy for me to do that because I never go after anything that I haven't first sold myself thoroughly on the idea that I not only have the right to get it, but that I am going to earn that right by giving something in return.
And that's the best salesmanship in the world.
When you go out to sell a person an idea or a merchandise or a service, if you know positively that you're going to give him his money's worth and more too before you start, it does something to you that enables you to do something to him that enables him in return to do something for you.
It's the very acme of master salesmanship.You know, I've said this, ladies and gentlemen, several times and at the risk of being boresome to you, I'm going to repeat.
that if you want your prayers to be effective, don't wait until the time of need to utter them.Build up the habit of prayer when you don't need anything.And what do you pray for then?For what you already have.
You give gratitude for what you already have, don't you?
Wouldn't it be an interesting thing if I gave you a lesson assignment right now to write down before the night, before you go to bed tonight, everything that you have in this world to be thankful for?
And I'm giving you that assignment, every one of you, and I want you to carry it out.It's going to be one of the surprises of your lives. You may have a lot of things you don't want, but you have a lot of things you do want.
Write down a list of them and express gratitude that you have these things that you like.
And you certainly can start with the fact that you're associated here in a country where you have freedom of speech, freedom of action, freedom of thought and freedom of opportunity.Certainly that would hit the list.
There are other countries we don't have that much. And then you can come right on down from that and put down all the things that you have to be grateful for.And then start in expressing gratitude every night and every day.
Keep your mind open for guidance from within.Now what do I mean by that, you suppose?Yes, hunches.You'll get hunches.Don't be, what is the word I want to use?Disrespectful.Don't be disrespectful of hunches.Treat them with civility.Examine them.
And you may find that some of these very unusual hunches that you come are bringing you messages that you need to get you over the hump in whatever it is that you're doing.
And when you are inspired by hunches to move on some plan created by your imagination which leads in the direction of that which you desire, accept the plan and act upon it at once.
Remember always that there can be no such state of mind as faith without appropriate action.Faith without deeds is dead.
And when overtaken by defeat, as you may be many times, remember that man's faith is tested many times, and your defeat may be only one of your testing times.
Isn't that an astounding and encouraging thing to recognize, that when you're meeting with defeat, that probably in the eyes of your Creator, you're only being tested to see whether you're a man or a worm.
And believe you me, we all go through that testing time. And the ones that survive these tests and come out on top with an abiding faith are the ones that become truly great in life.
I don't think there's any doubt in the world but what is the part of the Creator's plan to see that everybody that amounts to anything above mediocrity must pay the price of undergoing test after test as to his faith.
I don't think there's any doubt about that.I see evidence everywhere that that's true. Any negative state of mind will destroy the power of faith and result in a negative climax.Your state of mind is everything.
Why do you suppose that, in my notes here, you notice that I have underscored, your state of mind is everything.I underscored for emphasis.Why do you suppose I wanted to emphasize that statement?
That's right, that's the only thing you have control over.
The only thing in this world that you have control over is your state of mind, and certainly that connotes the fact that the Creator intended that to be the most important asset that you have, and it is, because with the use of that mind you can project it into any objective or to the attainment of any end you choose.
Your education, your background, your nationality, your creed, has nothing whatsoever to do with your ability to achieve. It's the state of mind that you maintain.That's the thing that determines how and what and when you achieve.
To me that's the most profound thing in all of the knowledge of mankind.The most profound of all knowledge is the fact that the humblest person can take possession of his own mind.He can color it any way he chooses.
He can project it into high places or into the gutter. He can make it a success or he can make it a failure.Just the change of his mental attitude changes from success to failure almost instantly.
A burning desire is the sort of material of which faith is created.Do you know what a burning desire is?That's right, an obsessional desire.An obsessional desire means a desire that takes possession of you, that obsesses you.
There are a lot of desires in the world. but they're not burning desires, and they're not obsessional desires, and most people in their whole life never express or never experience an obsessional desire for anything.
We start out with hopes, not too definite, but faint hopes for things, and wishes.We wish for, everybody wishes for a lot of money without having to work for it.Well, maybe not everybody, but of course my students don't.
But a lot of people do, most people I'll say. wish for things, wish for a Cadillac when they're driving a Ford.
If you want a Cadillac car and you make up your mind to have it, get out and see that the men under you, or the job that you're holding, see that you put into it that which will entitle you to a Cadillac car.
But if you don't want a Cadillac car, chances are you'll drive a Ford or something else the rest of your life.You have to want things, you have to want them with a burning desire, and then you have to do something about that burning desire.
What is it? Action!You've got to start in right where you stand, showing that you do have faith in your ability.Start right where you stand with action.Now here's a lot of examples of men of achievement.
I'm not going to go over them, you know them, but there is one down here that I particularly want to call your attention to, that of Miss Helen Keller, who believed that she would learn to talk despite the fact that she had lost the use of her speech, her sight, and her hearing.
Can you imagine that?Lost the use, early life, of her speech, her sight, and her hearing.She couldn't hear, she couldn't see, and she couldn't speak.
And yet, did you know, of course you do know, that Miss Helen Keller became one of the best educated women in the world.
She's in contact with more public affairs and civic affairs and conditions all over the world than the nine-tenths of the women who have all of their senses. is an astounding thing and all she has to go by is vibration.
If you speak to her she puts her fingers up to her lips and she can tell what you're saying by her fingertips.Entirely by vibration.
Think of a woman with a handicap of that kind all the way through life, getting joy out of life, rendering useful service, making speeches, she's learned after a fashion to talk.
doing a great work where the majority of people would have settled for a tin cup and a bunch of lead pencils on a street corner with any one of those afflictions.
While I was on the staff of Franklin D. Roosevelt, I passed at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue on the street running by the White House, every day I passed a man sitting there with a tin cup and some pencils I became acquainted with that man.
He had lost the use of his legs.He had the same affliction as Franklin D. Roosevelt, exactly.And it happened at about the same time.And I found out that he had even a better education than Franklin D. Roosevelt had.
But there he was, out there with a tin cup and pencils, trying to eke out a living by begging.Just a block away, there was a man with the most important and responsible position in the whole world, running a great nation.
who also had lost the use of his legs, but he hadn't lost the use of his brain, he hadn't lost confidence in himself.These afflictions that come along, sometimes they turn out to be a great blessing.
They teach us that, very often they teach us that we can get along without an eye, or without both eyes, or without legs, or without hands.We can get along without a lot of things, if we have the right mental attitude toward what's left of us.
That's important. If you would have faith, keep your mind on that which you want and not on that which you do not want.Now how do you go about that?How does one go about keeping his mind off of the things he doesn't want?
Look up that word transmute and see what it means.Look it up in a dictionary.You know in a general way, but look it up just because it will be more impressive in your subconscious mind.
The way you keep your mind off of things you don't want is to transfer your mind over to things you do want and start talking about them.Start giving thanks for already possessing them.
It sounds perfectly silly to anybody who doesn't know what you're doing.It won't sound silly to you because you know what you're doing.You're talking to your subconscious mind.You're re-educating yourself.
You're keeping your mind fixed on things you want and off of the things you don't want.And in order to do that, you have to keep talking.You have to keep thinking.You can't talk without thinking. Well, some people can, but most of them can't.
Keep on talking about things you want.And if you ever feel blue or discouraged or lacking in courage, I'll tell you a good remedy for it.May I?Sit down and take a tablet and start numbering, number one, the thing that you want most in life.
Number two, the thing that you want next most.Number three, the thing you want next most.
And when it gets down to the kind of a house you live, describe the lot that you want it on, whether you want it on a lot of acreage, on top of the hill, or down below the road, or above the road, how many rooms you want that house to have, how you want each room furnished.
Why, you'll have a grand time furnishing those rooms.Why, it'll be one of the most, well, it'll be better than window shopping.Because you can go the limit in your own mind in window shopping, you only have two legs, you can only walk so far.
Do a little mental winter shopping.
And believe you me, you'll get your mind off of that moodiness, you'll get it on to something that's constructive, and you'll be educating your subconscious mind to keep on the right side of the street and away from the other side of the railroad tracks.
The assignment I'm giving you now is not foolish, it's not facetious, it's a real assignment and you'll get real joy out of doing it.Start right in doing something physically, writing down the things that you want when anything bothers you.
I don't know why it is that when a person makes up his mind what he wants and becomes determined to get it that the whole powers of the universe seem to come to his aid to see that he gets it.I don't know why that is.
But I'll tell you one thing, I know that it is.And that's enough for me.There are a lot of things in this world that I can see and a lot of advantages I can use that I don't understand. But I don't need to understand them.
I know which button to press to get the result I want, and I don't need to know what happens between the pressing of that button and the result that happens.
I know that if you follow the instructions in this philosophy, I know that you'll be able to take possession of your own mind, you'll be able to get the things out of life that you want, you'll be able to make life pay off on your own terms.
I know that. How would I know, do you suppose, that any person can actually make life pay off point by point on his own terms instead of accepting the circumstances?How would I know that?
There is only one way in this world that I could possibly know that, and that's by my own experiences.
I can tell you as sincerely as I'm standing here on this platform talking to you tonight, there isn't a blessed thing in this world that I want that I don't have or can't get easily.Not anything. What an astounding statement that is.
If you go back just a few years ago, what an astounding statement it is because it's so broadly in contrast to what I might have said a few years back before I'd learned the secret of getting everything that I want.
And do you know there was a time when I was carrying around in my own pocket the matches with which I was setting my house of opportunity afire and didn't know it. And I finally got rid of those matches.I began to build that house of opportunity.
And I came to find out that the house resembled the picture of it that I built in my mind, right down to the finest detail.There is no such thing as a blanket faith.
You must have a definite objective, a purpose, a goal before you can have faith in anything.
Faith is a mental attitude wherein the mind is cleared of all fears and doubts and directed toward the attainment of something definite through the inspiration of infinite intelligence.Faith is guidance.It is nothing more.
Had you ever thought about that?Faith is guidance.It's nothing more than that.
Faith's not going to go out and get you that Cadillac or that Minko or that new house that you want or that better job or that better business or all those clients that you need if you're a professional.Faith's not going to do that.
But faith will guide you as to how you can do it, and you'll find that there is always a part that you must play.The Creator has wisely arranged it so that we can produce our food from the soil of the earth.
Everything that we eat, use, or wear comes from the earth.Everything.And infinite intelligence has very wisely provided a system whereby you can be sure of getting your food out of the soil of the earth. by complying with the laws of nature.
You go out there and you plant the seed.You plant it in soil that you have examined to make sure it has the elements in there that you want into the plant.You plant it at the right season.You plant it at the right depth in the ground.
All of those things you do in way of going the extra mile.You do them in advance.And then what do you do?You go back the next day and start harvesting, do you? No, you time it properly.
You find out what nature requires in order to produce, to convert or transmute a seed of wheat into a stalk of wheat with five hundred or a thousand grains on it.And you comply with nature's laws.That's what you do.
And it's the same thing identically in connection with this subject of faith in anything else.You expect guidance.You do your part.You have to do your part.
You always will find that there's a part that you must do in connection with any example of a demonstration of faith. Faith will do nothing for you if you expect everything to be done for you outside of yourself.It's guidance.
If you expect to get the answer, there you'll have it.Faith probably, now notice that word probably down there.Why do you think I say faith probably works through the subconscious section of the mind?
I'll tell you why I put it there, because nobody knows definitely whether it does or not.It's a theory, and for want of a better theory, I'm using it.
It appears to work through the subconscious section of the mind, the subconscious acting as the gateway between the conscious section of the mind and infinite intelligence.
My picture, my mental picture of what happens when you pray properly is that you first condition your mind, you know what it is you want, And then you transfer over to your subconscious mind a clear picture.
That subconscious is the intermediary or the gatekeeper between you and infinite intelligence.It's the only one that can turn on the power of infinite intelligence for you.It's the only way you can reach infinite intelligence in my book of rules.
And if that isn't correct, as far as I'm concerned, it might as well be correct because that's the way I get it to work. Now, the definite essential steps in the development of self-reliance based on faith.
If there's anything that people need more than anything else, it's self-reliance, belief in yourself.Here are the steps.I'm not going to go over all of them, but I'm going to call your attention to the most important ones.
First of all, adopt a major purpose and begin at once to attain it.That's the first step in building self-confidence.You know, when you know what you want and you start in getting it, You have a measure of self-reliance.
You're demonstrating a measure of self-reliance because if you didn't believe in yourself, you wouldn't even begin, would you?
The very fact that you start, even though you're a long way from attaining the thing you're going after, shows that you have a measure or a degree of self-reliance.And the more you pursue that idea, the stronger that belief will be.
And next, associate as many as possible of the nine basic motives with the object of the definite major purpose.In other words, have yourself inspired by as many as possible of those nine basic motives when you go after anything.
You know, you've had this experience that you wanted something very badly and in order to get to something that you wanted very badly, a material something, it meant extra money that you couldn't lay your hands on.
You didn't have it in the bank, you weren't earning it.What do you do in a case like that?Borrow?Well, a lot of people do.There's always something else too that you can do that's more important than borrowing.
Why, you begin to connive and work out some sort of a scheme to earn some more money, don't you?That's what you do.My little son Blair, when he's about six or seven years old, wanted a nice, an electrical train.It cost $50.
And it was more than we felt we could give him at that time because we'd had to give the other two children $50 gifts too. And I told Blair that.He said, oh, I didn't ask you to buy me anything.I said, well, that's different.Fine.
He said, I just want your approval to buy the train.And he made out the order.Lionel train, $50.And there came a snow, a big snow the next day, and he borrowed a shovel from the janitor, and he went down the street cleaning off sidewalks.
He didn't ask anybody if he could do it.He just started cleaning off the sidewalks.And they'd all come out and get into a conversation with him and say, oh, I thought it would be a nice thing to just clean off your sidewalks.
I see you haven't started doing it yet.I thought it would be nice if you'd appreciate it.Invariably they'd give him a quarter, a half dollar, sometimes a dollar.One man gave him five dollars.
And before the end of the month, long before the end of the month, he had his fifty dollars and ten dollars more that he'd earned himself.His mother thought that he ought not to be permitted to do that.
It kind of disgraced us to let him go down the street cleaning off sidewalks.I say, disgrace my eye. They ought to find out who we are, that we can raise a child like this.How we do it.Motive.
Write out a list of all the advantages of your definite major purpose and call these into your mind many times daily, thereby making your mind success conscious.Did you know that in order to be healthy, you have to be health conscious?
Did you know that?No matter what other precautions you take, if your mental attitude is not health conscious,
If you're not thinking in terms of health, you're not expecting that you're going to be healthy, you're not going to be, no matter what else you do.And it's the same thing with reference to success.
If you accept any kind of a fear complex or an inferiority complex, if you don't expect success of yourself and develop a success expectation or consciousness, you're not going to be a success.You just have to do that.
If your major purpose is to achieve some material thing or money, see yourself already in possession of it. when you call it into your consciousness.This is of vital importance, because there, again, is coming into play your power of faith.
And if your faith isn't great enough, if you can see the thing already in your possession even before you start to get it, then you are not making use of applied faith.
and associate with people who are in sympathy with you and your major purpose and lead them to encourage you in every way possible.This has reference only to close friends or members of your mastermind alliance.
Don't disclose your aims and purposes to people who are not absolutely dependable, loyal and close to you.Especially loyal.
It's surprising how sometimes people to whom you disclose your ideas, if they're good ideas, they go around the corner and beat you to the draw and they're using your ideas before you use them. or they're saying something to discourage you.
And let not a single day pass without making at least one definite move toward the attainment of your major purpose.Faith is a positive mental attitude in action.
And your mental attitude is reflected in every word you speak, and it speaks louder than your words.Your mental attitude is the sum total of your thoughts at a given time. A positive mental attitude has its roots in the spiritual wells of one's soul.
How true that is, and what a wonderful statement that is.A positive mental attitude has its roots in the spiritual wells of one's soul.Mental attitude is the medium by which adversity may be transmuted into benefits.And so the list goes.
Now, you'll find some of those that appeal to you more than others, print them out in card or in some form where you can put them up where you can see them each day.Make them your own.Surround yourself with suggestions.
Everywhere you look, you'll see something that suggests a positive mental attitude.
You'll notice when you go into the office of a successful person or into the home of a successful person, if you can find his den, the place where he himself withdraws unto himself, you'll find that oftentimes he has himself surrounded with pictures of those whom he considers great.
Oftentimes he'll have mottos on the walls.I've seen hundreds of them.I walked into Ed Barnes's office one time and I found out that he had over 500 mottos that were done up in beautiful cards, hand-lettered, every one of them.
It must have cost him a small fortune.
I walked into my friend Jennings Randolph's office when he was in Congress in Washington, and I found he had all of the walls of his congressional office covered with the pictures of men whom he considered great.
He did that to live in the environment of the great, in the environment of things that kept his mind positive. Start in where you are, in your home, in your business, in your office, wherever you stay the most.
Maybe it's in your bedroom, you certainly sleep every night.Start in there to put up something that will give you a positive thought just before you go to bed.And it will remind you every time you go in there.
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