The Law of Success: In Sixteen Lessons. A to Z Classics

Emerson: I desire to build in my own character those qualities of vision and the ability to interpret the laws of Nature as written in the rocks of prison walls and growing trees and flowing brooks and growing flowers and the faces of little children, which were your outstanding characteristics.

      Napoleon: I desire to build in my own character those qualities of self-reliance and the strategic ability to master obstacles and profit by mistakes and develop strength out of defeat, which were your outstanding characteristics.

      Mr. Hubbard: I desire to develop the ability to equal and even to excel the ability that you possessed with which to express yourself in clear, concise and forceful language.

      Night after night, for many months, this man saw these men seated around that imaginary council table until finally he had imprinted their outstanding characteristics upon his own subconscious mind so clearly that he began to develop a personality which was a composite of their personalities.

      The subconscious mind may be likened to a magnet, and when it has been vitalized and thoroughly saturated with any definite purpose it has a decided tendency to attract all that is necessary for the fulfillment of that purpose. Like attracts like, and you may see evidence of this law in every blade of grass and every growing tree. The acorn attracts from the soil and the air the necessary materials out of which to grow an oak tree. It never grows a tree that is part oak and part poplar. Every grain of wheat that is planted in the soil attracts the materials out of which to grow a stalk of wheat.

      It never makes a mistake and grows both oats and wheat on the same stalk.

      And men are subject, also, to this same Law of Attraction. Go into any cheap boarding house district in any city and there you will find people of the same general trend of mind associated together. On the other hand, go into any prosperous community and there you will find people of the same general tendencies associated together. Men who are successful always seek the company of others who are successful, while men who are on the ragged side of life always seek the company of those who are in similar circumstances. “Misery loves company.”

      Water seeks its level with no finer certainty than man seeks the company of those who occupy his own general status financially and mentally. A professor of Yale University and an illiterate hobo have nothing in common. They would be miserable if thrown together for any great length of time. Oil and water will mix as readily as will men who have nothing in common.

      All of which leads up to this statement:

      That you will attract to you people who harmonize with your own philosophy of life, whether you wish it or not. This being true, can you not see the importance of vitalizing your mind with a definite chief aim that will attract to you people who will be of help to you and not a hindrance? Suppose your definite chief aim is far above your present station in life. What of it? It is your privilege — nay, your DUTY, to aim high in life. You owe it to yourself and to the community in which you live to set a high standard for yourself.

      There is much evidence to justify the belief that nothing within reason is beyond the possibility of attainment by the man whose definite chief aim has been well developed. Some years ago Louis Victor Eytinge was given a life sentence in the Arizona penitentiary. At the time of his imprisonment he was an all-around “bad man,” according to his own admissions. In addition to this it was believed that he would die of tuberculosis within a year.

      Eytinge had reason to feel discouraged, if anyone ever had. Public feeling against him was intense and he did not have a single friend in the world who came forth and offered him encouragement or help. Then something happened in his own mind that gave him back his health, put the dreaded “white plague” to rout and finally unlocked the prison gates and gave him his freedom.

      What was that “something”?

      Just this: He made up his mind to whip the white plague and regain his health. That was a very definite chief aim. In less than a year from the time the decision was made he had won. Then he extended that definite chief aim by making up his mind to gain his freedom. Soon the prison walls melted from around him.

      No undesirable environment is strong enough to hold the man or woman who understands how to apply the principle of Auto-suggestion in the creation of a definite chief aim. Such a person can throw off the shackles of poverty; destroy the most deadly disease germs; rise from a lowly station in life to power and plenty.

      All great leaders base their leadership upon a definite chief aim. Followers are willing followers when they know that their leader is a person with a definite chief aim who has the courage to back up that purpose with action. Even a balky horse knows when a driver with a definite chief aim takes hold of the reins; and yields to that driver. When a man with a definite chief aim starts through a crowd everybody stands aside and makes a way for him, but let a man hesitate and show by his actions that he is not sure which way he wants to go and the crowd will step all over his toes and refuse to budge an inch out of his way.

      Nowhere is the lack of a definite chief aim more noticeable or more detrimental than it is in the relationship between parent and child. Children sense very quickly the wavering attitude of their parents and take advantage of that attitude quite freely. It is the same all through life — men with a definite chief aim command respect and attention at all times.

      So much for the psychological viewpoint of a definite purpose. Let us now turn to the economic side of the question.

      If a steamship lost its rudder, in mid-ocean, and began circling around, it would soon exhaust its fuel supply without reaching shore, despite the fact that it would use up enough energy to carry it to shore and back several times.

      The man who labors without a definite purpose that is backed up by a definite plan for its attainment, resembles the ship that has lost its rudder. Hard labor and good intentions are not sufficient to carry a man through to success, for how may a man be sure that he has attained success unless he has established in his mind some definite object that he wishes?

      Every well built house started in the form of a definite purpose plus a definite plan in the nature of a set of blueprints. Imagine what would happen if one tried to build a house by the haphazard method, without plans. Workmen would be in each other’s way, building material would be piled all over the lot before the foundation was completed, and everybody on the job would have a different notion as to how the house ought to be built. Result, chaos and misunderstandings and cost that would be prohibitive.

      Yet had you ever stopped to think that most people finish school, take up employment or enter a trade or profession without the slightest conception of anything that even remotely resembles a definite purpose or a definite plan? In view of the fact that science has provided reasonably accurate ways and means of analyzing character and determining the life-work for which people are best fitted, does it not seem a modern tragedy that ninety-five per cent of the adult population of the world is made up of men and women who are failures because they have not found their proper niches in the world’s work?

      If success depends upon power, and if power is organized effort, and if the first step in the direction of organization is a definite purpose, then one may easily see why such a purpose is essential.

      Until a man selects a definite purpose in life he dissipates his energies and spreads his thoughts over so many subjects and in so many different directions that they lead not to power, but to indecision and weakness.

      With the aid of a small reading glass you can teach yourself a great lesson on the value of organized effort. Through the use of such a glass you can focus the sun-rays on a definite spot so strongly that they will bum a hole through a plank. Remove the glass (which represents the definite purpose) and the same rays of sun may shine on that same plank for a million years without burning it.

      A thousand electric dry batteries, when properly organized and connected together with wires, will produce enough power to run a good sized piece of machinery for several hours, but take those same cells singly, disconnected, and not one of them would exert enough energy to turn the machinery over once. The faculties of your mind might properly be likened to those dry cells. When you organize your faculties,